Chandigarh, March 7 (IANS) The parents of singer Sidhu Moosewala, who was shot dead last year, on Tuesday staged a sit-in protest in front of the Punjab assembly complex in Chandigarh, seeking justice for their son.
Carrying placards, father Balkaur Singh and mother Charan Kaur told the media it has been almost a year of the crime occurrence and the main culprits have not been arrested.
They demanded that the case should be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as crucial witnesses "are being eliminated and nothing is going in their favour."
"Enough time has been given to the police and the administration to act. But the reality is the case is being suppressed. We are forced to sit outside the Vidhan Sabha," the singer's father said.
"Till the state assembly is in session, we will sit outside in protest," he added.
The elderly couple were accompanied by Congress leaders, including Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa and state unit chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring.
Later the couple ended the sit-in protest on the assurance of Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal who assured them at the spot that the Aam Aadmi Party government was with them.
"It is your own government, you do not need to sit on dharna. All culprits, including the masterminds, will be arrested. Your meeting will be fixed with the chief minister after March 20," he said.
Dhaliwal told the media that 29 people have been arrested in the case, while two of the accused were killed in an encounter and five are to be brought from outside India for which the state is in touch with the Centre and other agencies.
Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, popularly known as Sidhu Moosewala, was shot dead by gangsters in Mansa district on May 29, 2022.
Further, police teams have been sent to Tosh in Himachal Pradesh after it was revealed that he, along with his live-in partner, had stayed there for quite a long time. Aftab had strangled his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar on May 18 and then chopped her body into many pieces.
Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said the government has approved the OPS for its employees currently covered under New Pension Scheme (NPS), fulfilling a long-pending demand of employees of the state.
The affected girl students of Kasturba Gandhi College in West Maredpally, Secunderabad were hospitalised with complaints of breathlessness and dizziness. The college authorities denied that there was any gas leak from college lab. They said foul smell from garbage dump on the college boundary wall led to students falling ill.
Punjab has only two per cent of India's population, while it has nearly 10 per cent of the total licensed weapons which stand at nearly 4 lakh, or 13 gun licenses for every 1,000 persons in the state.
The Shiromani Akali Dal on Friday asked the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab to list development works initiated by it as well as disclose capital assets created to justify the "unprecedented" borrowing of Rs 39,200 crore for nine months of the current fiscal with Rs 14,700 crore being borrowed for the third quarter.
Shraddha, who was beaten up and strangled to death and then chopped into 35 pieces by Aftab, had conversations with her friends and a co-worker either on WhatsApp or Instagram. She had told them that she has been physically assaulted by Aftab since the beginning of their relationship.
