Officials made us wait to meet CM: Sarabha's kin

Barnala: A distant relative of Ghadar Party founder and martyr Kartar Singh Sarabha has claimed that she was made to wait for more than an hour to meet Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal during his sangat darshan programme in Bhadaur assembly constituency of Barnala district on Wednesday. Sukhdev Kaur, granddaughter of Sarabha's sister Dhann Kaur, had come to Kaleke village in Bhadaur to meet Badal and complain to him against some Akali Dal workers who had allegedly usurped a piece of land belonging to her family in a village of Ludhiana district.She was allowed to meet Badal for only a minute when he was leaving the venue.
She alleged that the CM did not listen to her and gave no assurance to provide justice to her. Sukhdev said, "If justice is not provided to us, we will sit on a hunger strike outside the Chandigarh residence of Badal on Independence Day."
Sukhdev, who was accompanied by her nephew Dev Sarabha, said about half an acre of their land at Timberwal village near Khanna had been illegally occupied by some Akali workers. "We want to get the land vacated, but some senior Akali leaders are supporting the accused. We have written to senior police officers of Khanna and wanted to meet Badal at Sarabha village on November 16, 2015, on the martyrdom centenary of Kartar Singh Sarabha. We could not meet the CM then due to bureaucratic wrangling. Today, we came to Badal's sangat darshan but security officials did not allow us to go near him for over an hour. We were allowed to meet the CM when he was leaving. Badal only asked us why we had not met him at Sarabha and left without saying much."
Barnala SSP Gurpreet Singh said, "I personally took the martyr's relative Sukhdev Kaur to the chief minister and made her to talk to him. The CM has directed me to take up the matter with Khanna SSP and get the issue resolved."