Locking of Ludhiana MC office gate: MP Ravneet Bittu, former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, other Congress leaders get bail

Legal Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 6

The Court of Judicial Magistrate Tanishtha Goyal today granted bail to Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, former Congress minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, former senior deputy mayor Sham Sunder Malhotra and District Congress Committee (Urban) president Sanjay Talwar in a case related to locking of the gate of a local office of the Municipal Corporation.

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee legal cell president Dharamjit Singh Khera apprised that the court had ordered that everyone to be released on bail on furnishing surety bonds to the tune of Rs 50,000 each. Thereafter, the Congress leaders furnished bail bonds through their respective lawyers and the court ordered the jail authorities to release them.

The arrest was made by the police yesterday after the Congress leaders and workers staged a protest outside the Mini-Secretariat. They were trying to enter the complex to court arrest. While the police did not allow them to enter, the agitators were detained and the Congress leaders were arrested. They were produced in the court which ordered to send them to judicial custody.

The Division number 1 police had registered a case against Bittu, Ashu, Talwar and Malhotra besides, 60 others under Sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) and 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) of the IPC on the statement of Amit Kumar, gateman at th MC’s Zone A office. The complainant had stated to the police that he was on duty at the main gate of the MC’s office when the protesters pushed him and barged into the office. He said they locked the office and did not allow officials and the public to enter it.