Chandigarh, Oct 18 (PTI) Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Monday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, seeking a CBI probe into the broad daylight murder of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota in Mansa.
The Bathinda MP also called for a comprehensive investigation into the alleged politicians-police drug trade nexus in Punjab.
In a letter to the home minister, Harsimrat highlighted how the slain anti-drug activist’s father Bhim Singh had given a statement to the police which was “not being acted upon” and demanded that all facets of the bereaved father’s statement be probed by the CBI.
She said Jhota’s father Bhim Singh had claimed that his son had fallen victim to the alleged politicians-police nexus behind the drug trade in Punjab and how this nexus was receiving political patronage.
“Bhim Singh also mentioned that his son had informed the Mansa DSP before proceeding to the medical store of Ashwani Kumar, who shot him in cold blood. This, coupled with the fact that Ashwani talked at length with someone before shooting Jhota, pointed to a wider conspiracy behind this gruesome act,” she claimed.
The MP said Bhim Singh had recounted the entire journey of his son starting from how he exposed the drug trade being done from medical stores in Mansa and how he was arrested and jailed for the same after being implicated in false cases.
The Bathinda MP also told the home minister that civil society was not only disturbed by the gruesome murder but also by the fact that it could have been executed under a “well-laid-out plan”.
Besides calling for a CBI probe to unmask all the perpetrators behind the murder, she also demanded a comprehensive probe into the alleged politicians-police drug trade nexus in Punjab.
Known for raising his voice against the illegal sale of addictive substances at chemist shops, Jhota was shot in broad daylight inside a medical store at a busy marketplace in Mansa on October 13.
Ashwani Kumar, the store owner who allegedly opened fire on Jhota after he questioned him for selling addictive drugs to an elderly man, was taken into custody from Rajasthan’s Salasar.
The incident, which took place while Jhota was hosting a Facebook Live, triggered a political slugfest in Punjab, which goes to polls early next year. PTI CHS MNK
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