Official ‘forced’ to burn paddy stubble in Bathinda, nine booked on CM’s orders

Official ‘forced’ to burn paddy stubble in Bathinda, nine booked on CM’s orders
Bathinda: Taking cognisance of a viral video in which a government official was allegedly forced to burn paddy straw by a mob, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Saturday ordered the registration of an FIR against the perpetrators of this heinous crime.

SDO Harpreet Sagar at a field in Burj Mehma village in Bathinda. The Chief Minister condemned the incident terming it inhuman crime against the people of the state
He said such incidents won’t be tolerated and strict action would be taken as per the law of the land
Farmers of Nehianwala village in Bathinda had stopped a flying squad and forced the nodal officer to set the paddy stubble on fire in their fields.

The incident took place in the bordering fields of Mahima Sarja and Nehianwala villages in Bathinda around 3.45 pm on Friday.

In a statement, the Chief Minister condemned the incident terming it inhuman crime against the people of the state.

Quoting the Gurbani, Mann said the verse, “Pawan Guru, Paani Pitaah, Mata Dharat Mahat”, explained how our great Gurus had equated air (pawan) with teacher, water (paani) with father and land (dharat) with mother. Unfortunately, this incident had reflected that the words of the great Gurus were not been honoured by the people of the state, the Chief Minister said.

He said the state government could not be a mute spectator to this heinous incident and allow anarchy to prevail.

He said the government official had gone to the fields for disseminating the message of not burning paddy straw, but the mobsters forced him to lit the stubble with a matchstick, “which is intolerable”.

The Chief Minister said such people were ruining the lives of their own children by this dastardly act as the smoke from these fields would be suffocating.

After the CM’s orders, Bathinda Deputy Commissioner Shaukat Ahmed Parray visited various villages, including the fields where the incident took place and urged farmers not to burn crop residue.

On the orders of Senior Superintendent of Police Gulneet Singh Khurana, teams of the Nehianwala and Nathana police have started a raid to arrest the farmers. The SSP added that the police had registered a case against nine persons in this connection.

Meanwhile, a delegation of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), Sidhupur, under the leadership of district president Baldev Singh Sandoha and Kulwant Singh Nehianwala, met the Deputy Commissioner and apologised regarding the farmers’ misbehaviour.

The farmer leaders said there was a shortage of balers in the village to manage paddy stubble in the fields and urged theDeputy Commissioner to look into the matter.