Akali leader, 2 more held

A day after a police official was shot dead for resisting harassment of his daughter here, local SAD leader Ranjit Singh Rana and his two accomplices were on Thursday arrested while an SHO was dismissed for his alleged failure to act on the girl’s eve teasing complaint. “Key accused Ranjit Singh Rana, Dharmpal Singh and Prabhjit Singh have been arrested while two are still at large and have been identified as Sandeep Sunny and Gurbeer Beera,” DGP Sumedh Saini said. Talking to reporters, he said that if the SHO had initiated action against the accused well in time the crime would have been prevented. “After the suspension of SHO Ashwani Kumar, proceedings were initiated for his dismissal from the police services, since police department don’t need such inefficient officers in the state,” he said. Giving details of the arrests, the DGP said, “SSPs of five districts including Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Kapurthala, Gurdaspur and commissioner Amritsar along with the force of 1,000 policemen, 60 SHOs, 30 DSPs carried out massive search and raids and finally nabbed the accused from Rajokey village of Tarn Taran district.” Besides arms, the SUV car used in the crime was also recovered as the entire search operation was led by the ADGP Hardip Singh Dhillon, he said. The policeman Ravinderpal Singh was on Wednesday killed after he asked the youths, including the SAD activist, who used to allegedly tease his daughter, to stop harassing her. “We have lost of our colleague and we will definitely take care of the family even I personally along with the Punjab Cabinet minister Bikram Majithia visited to family and assured them all possible help and needful,” the DGP said. Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said here that “nobody will be allowed to take law in his own hands, whosoever high or influential he may be”.