Chandigarh, August 29
Faced with a crisis, all due to questionable activities of a Punjab Police team that picked up a journalist from his Panchkula residence yesterday night, the Punjab Government today finally swung into action for some damage control.
Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh conferred with his top officials to find a way out of the mess. The Chief Minister also met his top law officer-Advocate General Rajinder Singh Cheema - to consider legal options in the case.
Finally, it was decided that the Punjab Government would go all out to ensure that the journalist, Gautam Dheer, was not kept in jail indefinitely.
In this regard, the Chief Minister also summoned Senior Superintendent of Police, Ropar, to take first-hand information about the case.
On the suggestion of Mr Cheema, the government is also contemplating filing an application in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which ordered the constitution of a special investigative team (SIT) headed by IGP Sumedh Singh Saini to investigate the over three-year-old Naya Gaon rape case.
The application would request the High Court to hand over investigation of the case against Dheer to any other officer of the court’s choice, except Mr Saini as there are strong indications that yesterday’s action against the journalist could be the result of mala fide.
“The Chief Minister has strongly felt that this we need to do to ensure impartiality in the matter. He already asked Home Secretary A.K. Dubey to hold an inquiry into the allegations of high-handedness against the police team that arrested the journalist,” Mr Cheema told The Tribune.
During a meeting with a group of media representatives today morning, Capt Amarinder remarked that “some police officers are still living in the days of terrorism”.
Incidentally, there were rumours throughout the day that the High Court had taken suo-motu notice of media reports in Dheer’s arrest case. However, inquiries revealed that no such thing had happened.
