Punjab CM orders withdrawal of section 307 on cow dung dumping incident, transfers SHO

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday ordered the withdrawal of Section 307 against Farm Laws protestors who dumped cow dung outside a BJP leader's house.

The chief minister, who also holds the Home portfolio, has also given orders for the transfer of the Station House Officer (SHO) who had registered an 'attempt to murder' case against the protestors who unloaded a trolley full of cow dung in front of the BJP leader Tikshan Sud’s residence. The incident is now been investigated by a Special Investigative Team (SIT).

According to Captain Amarinder, the SHO had gone overboard in registering a case under Section 307 of the IPC i.e. of an attempt to murder in the Hoshiarpur incident of cow dung dumping, adding that "there was no attempt to murder".

Also, with respect to the arrest of Punjabi singer Shree Brar for promoting gun culture in a music video, the Chief Minister has termed his arrest as correct and justified. 

"Promoting gangsterism and gun culture in this manner was absolutely wrong", he said, adding that the case had been registered correctly in the matter which related to an old song of the singer. 

Captain Amarinder also said that the arrest had no connection with the singer’s video in support of the protesting farmers, adding that it "in fact was appreciable". However, his good work now could not condone the negative impact of his old song encouraging youth to pick up guns, the chief minister said.

Noting that Punjab was a border state facing ongoing threats from across the border, the Chief Minister said the government will not allow the state’s peace to be disturbed in any manner, which such acts had the potential to do.

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Farmers to carry out tractor march on Jan 7

Meanwhile, Protesting farmer unions Tuesday deferred their proposed tractor march from January 6 to January 7 due to a bad weather forecast, even as they asserted they will intensify their stir in the coming days. Addressing a press conference at Singhu Border, farm unions' leaders said thousands of farmers will take out the tractor march from all protest sites to the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) on January 7.

Moreover, Punjab BJP leaders Surjit Kumar Jyani and Harjit Singh Grewal met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday at his residence amid protests by farmers at Delhi's borders for nearly six weeks. After meeting the PM Modi, the BJP leaders said that the protests against the new agricultural laws and the issue will get resolved soon.

"The prime minister understands Punjab very well, all issues related to Punjab were discussed in the meeting", Jyani said while underlining that "PM Modi is concerned about farmers and said the government is always ready to do something in the interest of farmers, but "Maoists have entered the (farmers') movement and are not letting this issue (on farm laws) get resolved"

"PM Modi knows a lot... all will be resolved and something good will happen. I cannot disclose what transpired in the meeting but something good will happen... when something is being conceived there are fears that it might get miscarriage," Grewal said.

(With PTI inputs)

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