Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today submitted a cyber-crime complaint against Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for uploading several morphed and defamatory videos from his official social media handle and demanded immediate action against him.
The complaint report was submitted by the SAD chief to Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sandeep Garg after registering a protest against the wrongful case registered against party general secretary Parambans Singh Romana under the Cyber Act.
Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was accompanied by senior leaders including Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra, Virsa Singh Valtoha and Dr Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi, said the video on the basis of which a case had been registered against Parambans Romana had been in circulation since 2016 and many political leaders had uploaded it on their pages. “Action should be taken against the person who has morphed the video and not Mr Romana”, he added.
Asserting that the Punjab Police was acting like a stooge of the chief minister, Badal said, “the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its top leadership regularly upload morphed videos as well as defamatory content on social media against us. The police should register cases against them, including chief minister Bhagwant Mann, as per our complaint”.
Badal also questioned the functioning of the Punjab Police. He said the police had been swift to register a case and arrest Romana in an alleged cyber-crime case without verifying the facts but had refused to register a case against education minister Harjot Bains despite the dying declaration of a teacher who had accused the minister of being responsible for her death.
“This shows how politicised the police has become and how it is becoming a tool in the hands of the chief minister who is indulging in vendetta against his political opponents,” said Badal.
The SAD president said the chief minister was doing all this to deflect attention from his failures. “The Aam Aadmi Party has betrayed each and every section of society. Now when it has failed on all fronts it is resorting to a vendetta exercise to intimidate the SAD. I want to tell the chief minister that the SAD will not be intimidated by such cowardly acts. The party extends wholehearted support to Mr Romana and will ensure the AAP anarchy fails and justice is done in the case,” said Badal.
(With inputs from ANI)
