Days after Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira accused a minister in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of “sexual misconduct”, a Congress MLA sought protection for life and liberty from the Punjab Police on Friday.

The three-time legislator from Bholath, who had made the allegation against the minister on the basis of “video clips”, complained that the state police was working overtime on the directions of the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to implicate him in multiple false cases.

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In a representation addressed to the Chief Justice of India as well as the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, All India Kisan Congress chairman Khaira said he is being victimised for raising issues of public importance.

“… I am writing this to seek protection of life and liberty at the hands of a vindictive state government,” he said.

The Congress leader said recently he brought into the open a conduct of a sitting minster in the state who had appointed his own son as telephone attendant in his office and had further appointed son of his real sister-in-law as assistant besides appointing his personal political companion as a cook in his house just to get money in his pocket.

“Another very damaging video of highly-objectionable nature where the same minister was sexually abusing a young boy by alluring him with a job offer which was sent to me. Instead of bringing it in the public domain, I, as a responsible citizen, handed it to the governor of Punjab with a request to get it verified first by forensic examination and then to take appropriate action on it if it was found to be genuine, authentic and not tampered with in any manner,” Khaira said.

The Congress leader said he did not disclose the name of the minister to anyone. “It (the video) has now come out into the public domain that the video has been found to be authentic and not tampered with in any manner. The Punjab governor has now written to the government of Punjab to take action on the same in accordance with law. The victim of the sexual abuse has approached the Scheduled Caste Commission for taking action and for protecting his life which is under threat,” he added.

The Congress leader said instead of taking action against the culprit minister, the state government has initiated vindictive and mala fide action against him by registering false frivolous and motivated cases.

Khaira said a false first information report (FIR) was registered against him on 27 April when he sat on protest at SDM office for not taking timely action to disburse compensation for the crop loss suffered by farmers due to untimely rain in the state.

“All the false offences mentioned in the FIR were bailable offences. Now a non bailable offense under section 353 IPC has been added in this FIR after this episode to illegally arrest me,” he added.

The Congress leader said he apprehends that the police and to an extent court is being put under pressure as his bail pleas are not being considered in a fair manner while ignoring the recent binding directions issued by the Supreme Court.

“I have now learnt that a few more cases are going to be foisted on me to take spite and to take away my liberty. I am left with hardly any option but to approach you, being protector of the liberty of citizens as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India, to save me from the tyranny of the government in power which is hell bent to violate the law to have a go at me,” he added.