Arrest warrant against Lohaghat MLA

ALMORA: An arrest warrant has been issued against MLA Puran Singh Fartyal of Lohaghat on charges of vandalizing the district magistrate’s office and organizing mass protests on the national highway in August 2014.
Forty-eight others have also been issued arrest warrants on the same charges, among them Champawat district president of the BJP, Subhas Bagoli.Two others have already been in jail in this case for a fortnight.
All of them were summoned to the court on July 24, when the case was being heard. They were all absent, and the CJM of Champawat Manmohan Singh has now issued arrest warrants. All these people have been asked to present themselves in court on August 7.
During the district panchayat elections last August, there was a tight contest between BJP candidate Sushma Fartyal, wife of the MLA, and Kushal Singh Adhikari of the Congress. A panchayat member, Meena Devi, an independent candidate whose vote would have been a decider, suddenly went missing.
BJP leaders accused the Congress of kidnapping her and started an agitation. On August 1 last year, Fartyal and Bagoli led a group of supporters to the office of the district magistrate in Champawat, and allegedly vandalised the office and organised protest demonstrations on the national highway.
Kushal Singh Adhikari won the district panchayat election.
Police later filed two separate cases against 51 people, under different sections of the IPC.
Fartyal, who maintained that what occurred last August was a peaceful protest, said the Congress government was using the police forces and administrative machinery to charge people falsely.