Police register 8 FIRs in farm fire cases

With no let-up in the number of farm fire instances in Punjab, especially Amritsar which is on top of the list, the Amritsar rural police have started registering FIRs in the connection.

A majority of cases were being registered against unknown land owners where the raiding police and administrative officials found stubble burning.

In the past two days, the police have registered eight FIRs and seven of them were against unknown persons. Only the Jandiala police have booked a farmer, Sandeep Singh, of Makhanwindi village.

Besides Jandiala, cases were registered at Rajasansi, Bhindi Saida, Kamboh, Ramdass, Mattewal and Lopoke.

Till now, Amritsar has recorded the highest number (269) of instances of farm fires followed by Tarn Taran with 132.

Earlier, the police were laid stress on imposing fines on the erring farmers, besides issuing a warning to them to desist from putting paddy residue on fire. As a significant rise was seen in farm fire cases, the state government asked the police to take strict action and register FIRs against the offenders.