294 farm fire FIRs registered in Amritsar, Tarn Taran in a day
PK Jaiswar & Gurbaxpuri
The Punjab Police, along with the district authorities, have been on an FIR registering spree against farmers resorting to stubble burning in Amritsar and Tarn Taran. The move comes two days ahead of the appearance of the Punjab and Haryana chief secretaries in the Supreme Court in connection with unabated instances of farm fires. Massive air pollution in the northern part of the country, especially Delhi, is being attributed to farm fire incidents in the two states.
874 FIRs registered across state this season
- The state police have registered 874 FIRs in connection with 1,393 farm fires detected via satellites till Sunday night
- Special DGP Arpit Shukla, nodal officer for monitoring such incidents, said besides FIRs, 471 daily diary reports (DDR) were recorded at various place stations regarding 471 cases
- He said Rs 10.55 lakh penalty was imposed in 397 cases and red entries made in the revenue records of 394 farmers
As many as 195 FIRs in Amritsar and 99 in Tarn Taran were registered in connection with crop residue burning in a single day (Sunday). Till Saturday, 64 FIRs had been registered in Amritsar since the start of the paddy season, while the number stood at 31 in Tarn Taran.
Unidentified farmers have been booked in 71 cases in Tarn Taran, while the number of such cases was 41 in Amritsar. The district administration authorities also imposed penalty on the offenders. The Amritsar authorities realised Rs 3.82 lakh environmental compensation in 151 cases, while Rs 1.27 lakh was recovered by the Tarn Taran authorities in 50 cases.
Red entries were made in the land records of 151 and 55 farmers in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts, respectively.
SSP (Amritsar Rural) Charanjit Singh said the compensation was realised as per the landholding that witnessed farm fires. The police along with the district administration and members of the pollution control committee conducted joint operations to check farm fires, he added.
The police have registered FIRs under Section 223 of the BNS (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant). The SSP said the police might add stringent sections of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, besides the Environment (Protection) Act against habitual offenders. On FIRs against unidentified farmers, he said sometimes the cases were registered on the basis of satellite images. In such cases, names were added later on after verification.
Five days ago, the Supreme Court had pulled up the governments of Punjab and Haryana for not initiating criminal prosecution against the erring farmers.
