SAD women’s wing protests, demands FIR against CM’s wife

Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal held a protest on Saturday here against Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s wife, Gurpreet Kaur, over allegations that she sought Rs 5 crore to suppress a rape case, demanding the registration of an FIR against her.

Kaur rejected the charges, terming them “baseless”. Several women Akali leaders, including SAD MP and former union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Akali MLA Ganieve Kaur Majithia, were detained when they tried to breach barricades to proceed towards the Punjab chief minister’s residence to ‘gherao’ it.

A heavy police force was deployed, and the area was barricaded to prevent the Akali protesters from proceeding towards the chief minister’s residence.

The Shiromani Akali Dal women’s wing, Instri Akali Dal, had planned the gherao. When the women protesters led by Harsimrat Kaur Badal attempted to move towards the chief minister’s residence while forcing their way through barricades, Chandigarh police detained them and took them to a police station, the party said.

Carrying Akali Dal flags and placards, the women protesters even sat on the road near the Akali Dal office in Sector 28 and raised slogans against the Punjab government.

Earlier, addressing a gathering of women protesters, Harsimrat attacked Mann’s wife and alleged that she took Rs 5 crore to suppress a rape case. She demanded that police register a case against Mann’s wife. After she was detained, Akali MLA Ganieve Kaur Majithia said they cannot be stopped from speaking the truth. “We cannot be stopped from fighting for truth,” said Majithia, wife of former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia.

On September 3, a delegation of the SAD met Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria, seeking his intervention for an independent probe into the allegations that Mann’s wife sought Rs 5 crore to suppress a rape case.

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The Hans India