Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday extended a helping hand to a man in distress, who reached him a little too close for the comfort of security personnel, prompting them to pounce upon him to whisk him away.
The incident, seen as a breach of security of the chief minister, occurred during an interactive session of the investors meet in Mohali, when a youth suddenly approached near the stage to apprise him of his problem, prompting security personnel to pounce upon him and nab him.
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But the chief minister asked security personnel to let the youth wait and took a sheaf of paper from his hand as the youth waived it in an apparent bid to attract the chief minister’s attention.
After the interactive question-answer session with the chief minister got over following its eventual resumption, Mr Singh met the youth, identified as Amandeep Singh of Derabassi, to know his problem.
Amandeep subsequently told the chief minister about a local property dealer alleged bid to evict him from his shop, and said his shop has been seized and locked by the dealer despite a case of dispute over it pending in the court.
Amarinder Singh promptly ordered Mohali’s senior superintendent of police and deputy commissioner to probe the matter and take suitable action.
He asked Kuldeep Chahal and Girish Dayalan to restore the shop, reportedly belonging to the Waqf Board, to Amandeep after verifying the facts, an official statement said.
Even as a humane chief minister stepped forward to help out the man in distress, the security personnel considered the incident a breach of the chief minister’s security and ordered a probe into it.
“In view of the apparent breach of security involved, the Chief Minister”s Principal Secretary Suresh Kumar, who was also present at the session venue, has sought a detailed report into the incident to identify the security lapse, if any, and take suitable action,” the statement further said.
The incident occurred during a Progressive Punjab Investors’ Summit, in the presence of country’s leading corporate honchos including Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Enterprise, Uday Kotak, Executive Vice Chairman & MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Sanjiv Puri, Chairman, ITC Group.
The two-day summit, which began on Thursday, saw the participation from the micro, small and medium enterprises Punjab, apart from the leading industrialists, new-age entrepreneurs, foreign missions and other dignitaries.