Incidents of shoplifting mar Bharat bandh in Jalandhar

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 27

A few incidents of shoplifting and gheraoing of owners of showrooms in the city marred the nation-wide bandh today. The incident occurred at Emmson Bakery on Circular Road today afternoon. The video of the incident went viral. In the video, it was seen that some anti-social elements within the farmers’ group had tried to lift certain items from the bakery, including cold drink bottles from its refrigerator while going inside its premises to close it forcibly.

Around 10 youths went inside the shop and tried to create the ruckus. The entire episode was captured on CCTV of the shop as well as by those making video from outside. The shutter of the shop was closed, but not locked from outside. The farm activists had gone inside after lifting up the shutter.

As farm leaders who were on the road got to know about the incident, immediately directed the youngsters to either return the items or pay for them. “The image of our protest will get maligned by your actions. I direct all the volunteers to go inside the shop with folded hands and request employees to leave. The owners too must be politely told to shut down the shops,” the farm leaders can be heard saying it in the video.

In another incident, activists entered Lovely Autos to get it closed. They raised slogans and got the showroom at Nakodar Road forcibly closed. They then went to Lovely Sweet shop where they gheraoed owner Ramesh Mittal and argued with him for keeping the shop open.

Police personnel were present at almost all the spots where farmers went to get the shops and commercial centres closed, but they remained mute spectators only allowing the volunteers to act in a harsh manner.

Meanwhile, all schools and colleges remained shut today. The staff of the government schools came to the campus, but since there were no students they did their own work and left later in the day.