Former mayor booked for assault on Jalandhar Municipal Corporation inspector

JALANDHAR

: Former

mayor

Suresh Sehgal was booked for assaulting a building branch inspector of the Jalndhar Municipal Corporation (

JMC

) on Sunday. The incident was caught on camera and video clip surfaced on Monday.

BJP leader, Sehgal, was mayor of Jalandhar from 1997 to 2002. He has been booked for voluntarily causing hurt, obstructing and assaulting a public servant to deter him from discharge of his duty and criminal intimidation on the complaint of building inspector Dinesh Joshi.

One Sulakshan Sharma, who was carrying out some construction at his house and in whose support Sehgal came to the spot, was also booked.

Sehgal alleged that the building inspector was demanding Rs 10,000 from the house owner Sharma's wife.

MC officials said that Joshi had gone to Sulakshan's house as he was encroaching a part of the street and was carrying out construction of second floor without due permission from JMC. They said that a notice was served on Sulakshan but still he was continuing with the construction due to which Joshi went to the spot to stop it.

Even as Joshi had lodged FIR at Police Station Division No. 3, building branch officials signed a memorandum to municipal commissioner Diparv Lakra, asking him to lodge a complaint with the police commissioner.

Later, Sulakshan and his wife Rajni held a press conference and alleged that Joshi had already taken Rs 5,000 from them. On Sunday, he came again and demanded Rs 10,000 from Rajni and also threatened the labour, they alleged. Sulakshan said that his wife refused to give money after which she was pushed and in the meantime, he returned and objected to Joshi's behaviour.

Joshi has denied that he demanded money from the couple.

Sulakshan said that the inspector was harassing them at the behest of area councillor Reeta Sharma as he had complained against three shops constructed on MC land in the same street and one shop belonged to a relative of the councillor. He said that he then requested Sehgal for help, as Joshi was continuing to hurl abuses at them.

The councillor too denied the allegations and said that Sulakshan's neighbour had lodged a complaint against the ongoing construction.