Tribune News Service

Muktsar, February 16

Congress MLA from Gidderbaha Amrinder Singh Raja Warring has courted a controversy as his alleged audio clip of abusing and threatening a Muktsar-based tailor has gone viral on the social media.

Hits out at Sukhbir

I paid the tailor Rs27,000 last month. I have the bills. But I am surprised how this audio clip went viral now. Like always, Sukhbir Badal is behind this controversy — Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Gidderbaha MLA

Manpreet Singh, a leading tailor of Muktsar town, said: “I stitched some clothes for Warring in the past two-three years. When I asked for the charges of Rs 27,000 from his personal assistant and refused to stitch more clothes, Warring abused me over the phone. Though he threatened me, he made the payment by sending his gunmen. The matter is resolved now. I don’t know how the audio clip went viral.”

Speaking over the phone, Warring said: “I paid him Rs 27,000 last month. I have the bills. But I am surprised how this audio clip went viral now. Like always, Sukhbir Singh Badal is behind this controversy. The tailor did not even demand money when I last visited his showroom along with a relative. Later, he returned some unstitched clothes. Thereafter, he made the audio viral.”

He added, “When he insulted me, I too used some harsh words. I am a human first and an MLA later. We know each other for the past around 20 years. Now, I publicly say that if I am yet to pay money to anyone, he/she can come to my office with the proof. I don’t want any controversy.”

Famous for special fitting of “Muktsati kurta pyjama”, the tailor’s list of customers includes Capt Amarinder Singh, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Sukhbir Badal, Atul Nanda, Rana Gurjit Singh besides some actors and singers.

Sambhal, February 17

The Bharatiya Kisan Union is fighting for farmers’ rights, and they will not return home from Delhi’s borders till the new agri laws are repealed, the farm organisation’s Haryana president Gurnam Singh Chaduni said on Wednesday.

He also said the union will hold programmes, such as panchayats and mahapanchayats, to make the country aware that the government at the Centre is “not for the people but of corporates”.

Farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at Delhi’s borders against the legislations since November 28 last year and demanding these be repealed.

“We are fighting for the rights of farmers, and they will not return home till they win, and time does not matter in this struggle,” Chaduni, who was on his way to Moradabad for a mahapanchayat, told reporters in Uttar Pradesh’s Gelua village.

“This government is not for the people but of corporates and only people can fight with it. We will hold panchayats in the entire country and make people aware and associate them with us,” he said, a day ahead of a “rail roko” announced by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer unions which is spearheading the protest.

Chaduni alleged that the entire agri business was being given to corporates and said the farmers’ movement was for their “survival”.

“Agriculture is our livelihood and not our business. The food grains of the country will go into godowns of corporates and they will indulge in black marketing. This is an ‘andolan’ (movement) not only of farmers but of all,” he said.

Farmers are protesting against the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

The three farm laws, enacted in September last year, have been projected by the government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country.

However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of Minimum Support Price and do away with the mandis, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates. The Centre has repeatedly asserted that these mechanisms will remain. — PTI  

New Delhi, February 17

Farmers sitting on protest against the Government’s new farms laws have started preparing to face the scorching summer heat at Singhu village.

They are planning to install fans, coolers, generators at the protest site.

There are two stages set up at the Singhu protest site—one stage facing toward Delhi where the protesting farmers can be seen sitting at an open space, while the second stage is near Kundli village (border area of Delhi and Haryana), which is fully covered with tarpaulin.

The farmers leaders told IANS that various social organisations have come forward to provide fans and coolers to the protesting farmers.

“We are preparing to replace these tarpaulin-made tents under which farmers have been sitting for over 80 days braving chilly winds so far. With the summer having started and with every passing day becoming hotter, we are planning to install fans and coolers and if need be, air conditioners will also be provided. The changes would happen in the next couple of days,” said Kulveer Singh, a resident of Hoshiarpur district in Punjab, who is also a member of the Krantikari Kisan Union.

He said that volunteers have started preparing for initiating the changes at the protest sites.

“Two such setups have already come up behind both the stages. We are not only planning to beat the summer heat, but we will also ensure that farmers get chilled potable water in the coming days.”

Apart from tarpaulin shades or plastic tents, most of the farmers stay in their tractor-trolleys they have brought from their villages. All the tractor-trolleys parked across the road or outside (Delhi-Chandigarh highway) could be seen covered with tarpaulin.

Many tractor-trolleys that have carried farmers from different villages and districts from Haryana and Punjab are fitted with fans to provide cool air to the farmers. — IANS

Puducherry, February 17

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the killing of his father Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 brought him tremendous pain but he nursed no anger or hatred towards those responsible for it.

During an interaction the Congress MP had with students of a state-run women’s college here, a pupil posed, “Your father was killed by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) what are your feelings about these people?” and he answered by saying violence cannot take away anything.

“I don’t have anger or hatred towards anybody. Of course, I lost my father and for me it was a very difficult time,” he said, adding, it was similar to having one’s heart severed.

“I felt tremendous pain, but I don’t feel anger, I don’t feel any hatred or any anger. I forgive,” he said to rounds of applause.

To the next question, he said “violence cannot take away anything from you… my father is alive in me…my father is talking through me.”

Gandhi interacted with students of Bharathidasan Government College for Women following a dialogue with people from the fishermen community.

Though most parties supported the release of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) had opposed it.

Rajiv Gandhi was killed on May 21, 1991 by a woman suicide bomber at Sriperumbudur near Chennai in a poll rally.

TNCC chief K S Alagiri had said a few months ago that if the Rajiv case convicts were to be set free, a demand would arise for the release of all “murder convicts” who had spent over 25 years in prison.

“If the court announces the release of seven Rajiv case convicts, we will accept it. However, political parties rooting for their release is unacceptable,” Alagiri had said.

The Tamil Nadu government had in 2018 recommended to Governor Banwarilal Purohit to release them. PTI

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 17

A 30-year-old man who was allegedly swinging swords that “instigated the protesters” at the Red Fort during the violence in Delhi on Republic Day has been arrested, police said on Wednesday.

Maninder, who is a car mechanic, was seen in a video swinging two swords at the Red Fort on January 26 with “the intent to energise brutal and violent assault against the Police persons on duty”.

As per the police, Maninder, who runs a sword training school in his neighbourhood, was radicalized by watching provoking videos on Facebook.

The 30-year-old was picked up last evening from a bus stop near CD block in Pitampura.Subsequently two swords (khandas) used by the accused in Red Fort has been recovered from his house in Swaroop Nagar,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (special cell) Pramod Kumar Kushwaha said.

“A long video of him swinging swords at Red Fort has been found from his mobile phone. Further interrogation of the accused is in process,” he added.

Police have further disclosed that Maninder had motivated six other persons from his neighbourhood to join the tractor rally on January 26.

“Maninder’s sword dancing had motivated violent protestors to cause more mayhem at the Red Fort by indulging in violence against the public servants including the policemen and causing damage to historic Red Fort,” Kushwaha explained.

New Delhi, February 16

A Delhi court has said the law of sedition cannot be invoked to quieten the disquiet under the pretence of muzzling miscreants.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana made the observation while granting bail to two persons—Devi Lal Burdak and Swaroop Ram—arrested by Delhi police earlier this month for allegedly committing sedition and spreading rumours by posting fake video on Facebook during ongoing farmers’ protest.

The court said that the law of sedition was a powerful tool in the hands of the state to maintain peace and order in society.

“However, it cannot be invoked to quiet the disquiet under the pretence of muzzling the miscreants. Evidently, law proscribes any act which has a tendency to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence,” the judge said in an order passed on February 15 .

“In the absence of any exhortation, call, incitement or instigation to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence or any allusion or oblique remark or even any hint towards this objective, attributable to the accused, I suspect that Section 124 A (sedition) IPC can be validly invoked against the applicant,” the order said.  — PTI