Farmers Movement Archive

SSP linked to PM Punjab row, 6 other IPS officers shunted

BATHINDA: Ferozepur SSP Harmandeep Singh Hans, one of the dramatis personae in the row over "security lapses" during PM Narendra Modi's January 5 visit to the Punjab district, was among seven IPS officers transferred by the Channi government on Saturday, hours before the model code of conduct for assembly elections kicked in. Hans will swap places with fellow IPS officer Narinder Bhargav, commandant of the 3 India Reserve Battalion based in Ludhiana. The SSP and 13 other officers, including the DGP, had been summoned on Friday by an MHA team that visited the flyover where the PM's cavalcade was stranded for around 20 minutes en route to Ferozepur because of a farmers' blockade. Barring the DGP, the summoned officials officials met the central team at the Ferozepur BSF sector headquarters. Parallel inquiries were instituted last Thursday into the alleged security breach that led to Modi skipping his scheduled BJP rally in Ferozepur - one by a three-member panel set up by the MHA and the other by a state government-appointed committee headed by a retired acting chief justice of the HC. The Supreme Court has since directed the registrar of the Punjab and Haryana HC to procure all relevant records of the PM's visit, and asked the state and central committees not to proceed with their inquiries till then. BKU (Krantikari) chief Surjit Singh Phool claimed the now-transferred Ferozepur SSP had asked the protesting farmers to clear the road, citing Modi's approaching convoy. "We thought it was a bluff just to get the road vacated," he said. Besides Hans, the officers transferred in the run-up to the poll schedule being declared on Saturday include Naunihal Singh, who has been appointed police commissioner of Jalandhar. AK Mittal has been posted as IGP, Roopnagar, while Sukhchain Singh has been named the new Amritsar police commissioner.

The Times of India

2022-01-09

India