Chandigarh, March 6 – Even as the Punjab Vidhan Sabha's Budget session is underway and the government is emphasizing its claims of maintaining a "stable" law and order situation while highlighting policing initiatives, a village sarpanch was shot dead in broad daylight in the Moga district on Friday.
Harvinder Singh Happy, the sarpanch of Patto village, was killed in the Baghapurana area of Moga.
According to initial reports, armed assailants arrived in a vehicle, surrounded the sarpanch, and opened fire. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died during treatment.
Reacting to the incident, Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia alleged that the killing exposed the gap between the government's claims and the reality on the ground.
Citing sources, he said there had been intelligence inputs regarding threats to the sarpanch, but no preventive action was taken.
Majithia said this reminded many of the alleged intelligence failure in the killing of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala in 2022 and accused the state machinery of failing to protect elected representatives.
Following the incident, Majithia stated that while the government was patting itself on the back over the law and order situation during the first day of the Budget session, a sarpanch had been murdered in broad daylight in Moga.
He alleged that the name of AAP MLA Amritpal Singh Sukhanand had surfaced in connection with the killing and demanded that the case be investigated by an independent agency.
The Akali leader further stated that earlier, a sarpanch had also been killed in Tarn Taran near the residences of the Deputy Commissioner and the Senior Superintendent of Police.
Majithia claimed that central agencies had shared intelligence inputs regarding threats to the Moga sarpanch, but that the information was allegedly not taken seriously by the state police, drawing parallels with what he described as the intelligence failure in the killing of Sidhu Moosewala.
