A team of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) arrived in Punjab on Friday to investigate the breach of the Prime Minister’s security and fix up the responsibility for the lapses due to which the PM’s cavalcade remained stuck up at a flyover for about 20 minutes.
The team, set up by the Centre to investigate the entire episode on Wednesday when PM Narendra Modi had come to Punjab to attend a Bharatiya Janata Party rally and inaugurate several development projects but could not reach the venue as he remained stranded on a road overbridge near Piareana village in Ferozepur district.
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The MHA team along with the senior officers went to the flyover where the PM’s cavalcade remained halted for almost 20 minutes and asked questions to the officials concerned.
The team spent around 40 minutes at the flyover.
The MHA team is headed by Sudhir Kumar Saxena, Secretary (Security) in the Cabinet Secretariat and includes Intelligence Bureau Joint Director Balbir Singh and SPG IG S Suresh as its members.
Sources said the MHA team has summoned several senior police and civil officials, including Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Siddharth Chattopadhyay, additional DGP Nageshwar Rao besides 13 other senior officers who were deployed for the PM’s security during his visit to Ferozepur to appear in person before them on Friday.
The other officials who have been summoned include ADGP Jitendra Jain, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Patiala, Mukhwinder Singh Chinna, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Ferozepur Inderbir Singh, Faridkot DIG Surjeet Singh, Ferozepur Deputy Commissioner (DC) Davinder Singh, Ferozepur Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Harmandeep Hans, Moga SSP Charanjit Singh Sohal, Kotkapura duty magistrate Varinder Singh, Ludhiana joint commissioner Ankur Mahendru, Bathinda DC APS Sandhu, Bathinda SSP Ajay Maluja and the Ferozepur VVIP control room in-charge.
Meanwhile, the Ferozepur police have registered a case against unidentified persons for blocking the Ferozepur-Moga national highway during the PM’s visit on Wednesday.
Kulgarhi station house officer Birbal Singh said an FIR was registered against more than 100 people. Even as the police registered a case against unknown persons, activists of the Bharti Kisan Union (Krantikari) on Wednesday evening claimed responsibility for stalling the movement of the PM’s convoy.
BKU (Krantikari) general secretary Baldev Singh Zira first owned the responsibility of leading the dharna at Piareana village on the Moga-Ferozepur highway that blocked the PM’s convoy.
In a video posted on social media on Thursday, the ultra-Left farmer union chief, Surjit Singh Phul, claimed that there were about 1,000 activists at the dharna. He admitted that the protesters did not allow BJP supporters’ buses to pass by to reach the rally that Modi was to address in Ferozepur.