A day after Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar defended police action on agitating farmers and even blamed them for blocking the highway and pelting stones on cops, his deputy Dushyant Chautala called for action against Karnal sub-divisional magistrate Ayush Sinha for directing policemen to beat up the protesters.
“Action will be taken against the IAS officer. I am hurt by his conduct. This is not expected from an officer. It does not match the standards of conduct of an officer of his calibre. An IAS officer, who is a duty magistrate, must act cautiously. We shall certainly ask for action after a probe,” Dushyant, whose Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) is part of the coalition government in Haryana, said during a media interaction.
JJP’s impressive performance in the last assembly elections was largely due to his support base among the farmers in the state. During the farmers’ protest at the Bastara toll plaza in Karnal, Sinha, a 2018-batch IAS officer, was caught on camera instructing policemen to hit farmers and smash their heads in case they breached the security cordon. Dushyant said the officer later clarified that he hadn’t slept for two nights. “But he should know that farmers too don’t sleep 200 days out of 365 days in a year,” the Haryana deputy CM added.
Meanwhile, Ambala police booked Bharatiya Kisan Union-Charuni national president Gurnam Singh Charuni in two cases. The cases - one for unlawful assembly and voluntarily causing hurt and the second for blocking highways - have been registered against Charuni and 14 workers of his union by name and hundreds of unknown persons at Shahzadpur police station.
