Chandigarh, July 2 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal on Wednesday courted arrest along with Akali workers to protest the registration of a case against senior party leader Bikram Singh Majithia.

The SAD President was stopped by police squads from visiting gurdwara Sri Amb Sahib to pay obeisance, after which he was scheduled to lead Akali workers to the Vigilance Bureau office to protest against political vendetta against Majithia.

A large number of Akali workers were forcibly taken away by heavy police contingents deployed to prevent them from paying obeisance and assembling inside the sacred precincts of the Gurdwara Sahib.

“AAP has become so afraid of the Shiromani Akali Dal that it conducted a state-level crackdown on Akali workers and detained hundreds of senior leaders and workers at their residences besides undertaking preventive arrests,” Badal told the media at the protest site.

“Everything in Punjab is being directed and run by the communal non-Punjabi Arvind Kejriwal. Police cases are just a façade. We will not allow Punjab to be ruled by communal elements from Delhi,” said Badal, while speaking to the media from a police van. Badal further said Kejriwal had fallen back on repression as his last desperate measure to divert people’s attention from the “loot that his gang was currently carrying out in Punjab”. Repression and political vendetta, he said, are the last resort taken by all unpopular and rootless leaders.

Describing the crackdown on peaceful Akalis as worse than the one during Emergency or even during the Jaitu Da Morcha, he said not even during those days were Sikhs stopped from going to their sacred shrines as Akali workers were stopped on Wednesday from peacefully visiting Gurdham Gurdwara Amb Sahib in Mohali.

Badal said, “I don’t care about this repression against me personally, as defiance against repression runs in my blood. But I warn the government against repression against our peaceful Akali workers.” He described Wednesday’s developments as “broad daylight murder of democracy, civil liberties and human rights. Where are the champions of human rights today?”

–IANS

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