Cops accused of misbehaving with man on wheelchair at fair

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, September 22

Accusing some police personnel of ill-treatment to a differently abled person at Baba Farid Mela, members of various social and voluntary organisations staged a protest outside the city police station on Sunday.

Sandeep Arora, differently abled, said he was made to stand on his feet for security check-up despite denying and stating his inability. He said the police personnel on the security duty at the fair misbehaved with him and threatened to put him in the lockup.

Sandeep said, “This was the most horrible and terrorising experience in my life while dealing with police officials. Despite being on the wheelchair, the policemen on security duty were completely insensitive. Despite seeing me and my wife on the wheelchair, the police did not allow us to enter fair premises. They repeatedly asked me to stand up and walk to the premises.”

Sandeep and his wife, who is also differently-abled, had gone to the fair with their child.

Besides being a government teacher, Sandeep is a founding member of SEER, an NGO. It has a network of over 100 members in the town. The NGO is known for not only planting but nurturing and growing thousands of trees in almost all parts of Faridkot town.

Once SEER members and other voluntary organisations came to know the incident, they gathered in front of the police station to lodge their protest against the “erring” cops. They also flayed the police for not making any arrangement for the differently abled at the fair.

The Faridkot DSP reached the protest site and immediately responded to the protesters. Tendering unconditional apology for the incident, he also provided a wheelchair and got other arrangements made for the differently abled at the fair.

Volunteers of SEER are known for lifting this plastic scrap left during the fair in tractor-trailers and transport it to garbage dumps.

“Our protest was not only for Sandeep Arora, it was for other differently-abled so that they can get mandatory facilities and police behave with them respectfully,” said Kewal Krishan Kataria, president of SEER.