Police raid eating joint to arrest owner in assault case

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 13

The police have conducted a raid on Shree Shyam Vaishnu Dhaba to arrest its owner and three persons. However, the police failed to find them.

Notably, the dhaba owner, along with three other persons, was booked for thrashing a social activist, Gurvinder Sharma, and his associates on October 4. The police said despite telling on numerous occasions, the suspects did not come to the police station for investigation.

The police had also conducted a raid on the dhaba owner’s house on Saturday, but to no avail.

Policemen from the Kotwali police station said since the suspects had been absconding and did not cooperate in the investigation, they now had to explore different alternatives to proceed with investigation. Later, after the raid, the dhaba was closed.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Gurjit Singh Romana said, “Raids were conducted on the premises of Shree Shyam Vaishnu Dhaba and on the dhaba owner’s house, but nobody could be arrested so far as the latter was not present there.” Romana said the police had not sealed the dhaba.

A case was registered against Rattan Singla on the statement of Himani Pandhi, wife of activist Manish Pandhi. In her statement, she said around 9.30 pm on October 3, they had gone to the dhaba for getting their dinner packed, when Singla, owner of the dhaba, told her husband that his friend Gurvinder Sharma had uploaded a photo of a notice pasted at the dhaba on social media to malign its image and the latter had to pay a price for it.

She also stated in the complaint that the dhaba owner and his sons had attacked Gurvinder. She added that they even held her hands with bad intention and also pushed her. When her husband Manish came to rescue her, he was also assaulted by them.

According to information, a notice had been pasted at his dhaba stating that “drivers will not be served food on the table and they can have food in their vehicles only”. Irked over the same, many social activists, including Gurvinder, had opened a front against the dhaba on the social media.