(Says cabinet minister Gurmeet Khuddian had shielded a drug trafficker and let loose the police against the complainants)
(Leads Insaaf Marches in Lambi and Gidderbaha after addressing massive rallies at both places)
Muktsar, September 23 – Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was following a policy of shielding drug traffickers and torturing those who exposed the latter as was proved by the conduct of cabinet minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian who shielded a party leader selling drugs in his consistency and misused the police to commit atrocities against those who made the issue public.
The Bathinda MP addressed massive ‘Maawan – Dheeyan Insaaf’ rallies at Lambi and Gidderbaha and led marches to submit memorandums for the State Governor to executive magistrates. She asserted that Gurmeet Khuddian, who also represented Lambi in the State assembly, had openly supported a Panchayat member’s son in Khuddian Labh Singh Wala village who was selling drugs in the constituency solely because he was an AAP leader. “The minister did not listen to the people of the area and even elderly women who went up to him to complain against the drug trafficker”. She said Khuddian’s loyalty to the trafficker could be seen from the fact that when the trafficker was exposed by an independent journalist and the issue became viral, the police was let loose on the complainants who were tortured and a case was registered against the journalist.
Asserting that the suffering of the women who had lost their sons to the scourge of drugs was immeasurable, Mrs Harsimrat Badal said “it is painful that chief minister Bhagwant Mann continues to indulge in propaganda even as youth are dying every day to drug overdoses”. She said it was shameful that the chief minister was trying to shift the blame for his failure to control the drug menace on the SAD which left governance ten years back. “The chief minister has no answer as to why he cannot control the open sale of drugs in streets of the State when he professes to know where they are manufactured and how they are sold. Why are AAP leaders who are patronizing this menace not being proceeded against and why has this menace increased ten times under his watch?”
Asserting that the Congress party had used the gun to finish an entire generation of youth earlier, Mrs Badal “the AAP government is endangering this generation by failing to fulfill its promise to end the drug menace within four months of assuming power in the State.
Mrs Badal also described how women were being dishonoured in the AAP regime. She said even though wronged women had approached the chief minister and two of them had filed rape charges against a media influencer the government did not do anything to help the women. “Instead the chief minister’s wife – Gurpreet Kaur negotiated a Rs five crore deal with rapist – Guri Chahal’s aide and ensured the latter was freed from prison and escaped to the United States. “We demand justice for the rape victims and an independent probe into the bribery assertions made against Gurpreet Kaur”, she asserted.
The memorandum also demanded that the AAP government honour its commitment to give Rs 60,000 to all women of the State. “Our women folk cannot be bought by being given Rs 3,000”, Mrs Badal said adding “it is our right to claim Rs 60,000 for each and every woman of the State”.
Mrs Badal also appealed to the women to support the SAD in the forthcoming assembly elections, asserted the SAD alone had introduced the unique social welfare benefits like ‘aata –daal’, ‘shagun’ and old age pension which they enjoyed even today, although the benefits had been curtailed severely by the AAP government. “We will not only restore the names of all beneficiaries which have been deleted during the previous Congress and present AAP regime but also increase the benefits due to you”, she added.
