Chandigarh, March 23 – Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia demanded on Monday that the post-mortem of Warehousing Corporation officer Gagandeep Singh Randhawa be conducted either at the PGIMER here or by a panel of AIIMS doctors to ensure complete fairness, even as he demanded the arrest of former Transport Minister Laljit Bhullar’s father and personal assistant.
Addressing the media here, Majithia thanked all opposition leaders, as well as Kisan organisations and the Warehousing Corporation Union, for putting up a united front, which he said finally led to the arrest of Minister Bhullar.
He also praised the Randhawa family’s strong will in resisting the intense pressure from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in its pursuit of justice for Randhawa.
Asserting that the case was not only about forcing Randhawa to commit suicide after stripping and beating him, Majithia said, "there is also a larger case of rampant corruption committed by Laljit Bhullar and AAP functionaries."
He also called for an investigation into the role of Amritsar Deputy Commissioner Dalwinderjit Singh, as well as Warehousing Corporation Managing Director Gautam Jain and Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, who had ignored the repeated pleas of the officers.
"This is why a CBI investigation is essential," Majithia also criticized Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for making cheap and shameless remarks that his government did not believe in "cash or favour" in response to the arrest of Bhullar.
He said that the combined pressure from the opposition, the unions, the Randhawa family, and the Union Home Minister's statement that the Centre was open to ordering a CBI investigation into the case forced the AAP government's hand.
"The government has been protecting Bhullar since March 21. First, the FIR in the case was not registered for 24 hours. After this, the government did not move to either arrest the minister or forward his resignation to the Governor. Only after being cornered on all fronts did it decide to arrest the minister today," he added.
Majithia said that if the Chief Minister truly regarded the entire state and the bereaved family as part of his larger family, he should not have any qualms about agreeing to a CBI investigation into the case.
"All the MPs of Punjab except the AAP MPs are writing to the Home Minister to demand a CBI investigation. The very fact that the AAP MPs are not making this demand makes it clear that they are in agreement with the AAP government in resisting a fair and impartial inquiry into the case," the former Cabinet minister added.
