Nagar council president's son arrested

FARIDKOT: The president of Faridkot nagar council, Gurcharan Singh, who is already embroiled in a controversy over the cancellation of tenders of developmental works last week, is in the thick of another storm after his son was arrested by the district police for being the kingpin of a gang of robbers allegedly involved in a number of incidents of robberies and snatching in Punjab and Rajasthan.
Though the police had said that they had busted the gang on Sunday, sources claimed that some members of the gang, including Sarbpal Singh alias Babu, son of the municipal president, were in the custody of Sadiq police for the last about one week.
It is alleged that some political persons were using their influence to pressurise the police to drop Sarbpal''s name from the FIR.
So when the district police last week released a press note stating that some members of a robbers'' gang had been arrested, it intentionally withheld Sarbpal''s name, claimed sources.
Though police declined of Sarbpal being in its custody last week, sources said the decision to include Sarbpal''s name in the FIR was taken after a number of political twists and turns in the case.
Gurcharan Singh, when contacted, said that his son was being victimised by the police. He said that the only fault of his son was that he was involved in a minor scuffle following an accident between a car and a motorcycle.
He said he approached a number of political leaders of the area to get justice but all turned their backs.
District police chief Harinder Chahal, in a press release on Sunday, claimed that three members of the gang, including Sarbpal Singh, were arrested from a cremation ground at Faridkot with arms. The other four members of the gang managed to escape.
The accused have reportedly confessed of snatching Rs 5,000 from a salesman of a petrol pump situated at Ferozepur road here and robbing a shopkeeper at Faridkot of Rs 21,000 after blinding him by throwing chilly powder into his eyes when the latter was riding his scooter.
They also made an abortive bid of robbing a trader in Srigangangar. There were a number of other crimes in which the police was probing their roles.
All the accused were sent to two days police remand on Monday by a judicial magistrate at Faridkot.