Over 7,000 POs on run, govt not bothered: AAP

Sanjeev Singh Bariana
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 20

Not satisfied with the answer to the query on action being taken by the government to arrest proclaimed offenders (POs) in Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators staged a walkout during the question hour of the Assembly session here today.

Supplementing the question raised by Nazar Singh Manshahia on the action being taken, AAP MLA Budhram quoted the example of a halqa incharge of the Congress, from his constituency (Budhlada), who was moving about freely despite figuring among POs. He spoke on certain more Congress leaders, including MLAs, involved with POs openly.

The official reply said there were a total of 7,357 POs in the state. Manshahia said he was highlighting the issue for only seeking more action from the police on making faces of POs more public.

As many as nine out of 20 legislators, who had posed queries on important issues pertaining to their respective constituencies, were not present in the House when their questions came up for answering. These were not replied to by the ministers concerned in the House.

Replying to a question by MLAs Hardyal Singh Kamboj and Rana Gurjit Singh on the government action on constructing the Dasmesh canal for the Mohali, Zirakpur, Banur, Dera Bassi and Lalru areas, Minister for Water Supply Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria agreed to constitute a committee to look into the matter.

He, however, gave a clear rider, “The issue pertained to the Central Water Commission and Haryana is not going to let it happen easily.” The canal was originally supposed to come up with the SYLcanal, however, the project has been scrapped and the government had allocated the land to different agencies, Sarkaria said.