Arrested Punjab ex-DGP Saini to be produced in court
Darpan News Desk IANS, 19 Aug, 2021 11:01 AM
Chandigarh, Aug 19 (IANS) The Punjab Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau has arrested former state Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini in a fraud case pertaining to the sale of land in 2020 and is likely to be produced in a court on Thursday.
Saini, who is a Z-plus category protectee, reached the vigilance bureau office in Mohali, near here, on Wednesday evening to join the investigation in another case where he was formally arrested in the fraud case.
Interestingly, Saini, who was considered a blue-eyed boy of militancy-era police chief K.P.S. Gill and was credited with eliminating militancy in the state, had got an interim anticipatory bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court in a disproportionate assets case and was asked to join the investigation within a week.
A 1982-batch IPS officer, Saini, has been facing multiple cases, including murder, abduction, corruption and human rights violations. Once he was heading the vigilance bureau too.
Officials told IANS that Saini has been kept in a barrack of the vigilance bureau since his arrest. He's likely to be produced in a Mohali court on Thursday.
Saini, who was removed from the top post by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in 2015 following incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and subsequent violence in the state in which the police force was accused of excesses that left two people dead, has not been sharing cordial relations with current Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
In fact, Saini had challenged the vigilance bureau's closure report in the multi-crore Ludhiana City Centre scam involving Amarinder Singh.
For quite some time, Amarinder Singh had been seeking a probe into the fake gun battles and extra-judicial killings alleged to have taken place during militancy in Punjab.
Taking cognizance of the revelations made by a former Punjab Police constable, Gurmeet Singh, alias Pinky, wherein he had alleged in 2015 that a number of people were killed without trial during militancy in Punjab, Amarinder Singh had demanded the dismissal of DGP Saini and registration of a case against him.
Calling the reports of alleged snooping on prominent citizens using Israeli Pegasus spyware as "baseless", the ruling BJP on Monday said there is not a single shred of evidence so far that links either the central government or the party to this controversy.
Congress MPs from both Houses had met on Sunday afternoon at Rajya Sabha member Pratap Singh Bajwa's residence to discuss the issues related to Punjab and sought an appointment with Gandhi.
Apart from reviewing the security arrangements in the national capital, the Delhi Police have also strengthened the security in and around the Red Fort ahead of the Independence Day.
Police said acting on a specific information, Budgam Police along with the Army's 53 RR and 43 BN of the CRPF arrested one local terrorist linked with proscribed terror outfit LeT and recovered incriminating materials, arms and ammunition including one Chinese pistol, one magazine, eight live pistol rounds from his possession.
As the Pegasus spyware scandal unravelled within and outside Parliament, he termed it a "shocking assault" on India's democratic polity by the Union government, which had compromised the national security with "this blatantly disgraceful act".
The shocking incident happened on Sunday when the lawyer, Satyadev Joshi and his associate Ankit Tandon had gone to survey a land for a client in Dahisar suburb.
