People participate in a candle light vigil for a 14-year-old girl who died after being pushed out of moving bus, in Amritsar.
Agencies/Chandigarh
The father of a schoolgirl who died after being pushed from a bus while resisting an alleged sex attack yesterday refused to release her body for postmortem until a powerful politician is arrested for her death.
The 14-year-old, who was travelling with her mother in a bus owned by Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal›s transport company, died on Wednesday while resisting an alleged assault before being thrown out of the moving bus.
“Until police book Sukhbir Badal for my daughter’s death, we will not allow her postmortem or cremate her,” Sukhdev Singh, the girl’s father, said.
Singh alleged he is being pressured to accept a compensation of Rs2mn as his wife, who was seriously injured in the attack, is recuperating at a hospital in Moga district.
Police said though the chartered bus belongs to Sukhbir Badal’s company they do not have any legal grounds to file a case against him.
“We are investigating the case. There has to be some legal grounds to charge a person for a crime,” Moga police chief Jatinder Singh Khehra said.
The police chief said a postmortem was critical in criminal cases and the refusal to allow one could jeopardise the case in a court of law.
Police have arrested four suspects over the attack, including the bus conductor and a cleaner.
The attack has sparked heavy criticism from opposition parties on the state government, which is headed by Sukhbir’s father Prakash Singh Badal.
The Sukhbir Badal has rejected the allegations and vowed to punish the guilty.
“It is absurd even to think that the company’s ownership will allow such brutality and brazenness to go unpunished,” he told reporters.
But ass protests mounted, state Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa said the Badals lacked the moral courage to even go and meet the victim’s family.
Bajwa demanded the resignation of the chief minister “for lacking courage to go personally to express condolence to the poor and hapless family who belong to the area that once used to be the Badal family’s home turf.”
“It is the constitutional duty of the chief minister to provide a sense of security to every citizen,” Bajwa said in a statement here.
“You (chief minister) have failed to provide that and the horrendous, horrifying and ghastly killing of a young girl belonging to a poor Dalit family in broad daylight is a shocking example of how law and order situation has crumbled and the ordinary people are too scared to speak against the goonda (rogue) elements who have political patronage,” he said.
“Your son Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal is the deputy chief minister and your daughter-in-law Mrs Harsimrat Kaur Badal is a union minister. None of you have the guts to meet the family and assure justice. Your moral weakness flows from the fact that your family business and vested interests dominate your politics and governance and are in clash with each other,” Bajwa said.
Sukhbir orders Orbit buses off the roads
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal yesterday ordered all buses of the Orbit Aviation Company to be taken off roads in the state. The directive came after Badal drew flak for three days over the death of a girl who was pushed out of a moving bus owned by his transport company by her molesters. Badal also asked the company officials to send all bus staff on an orientation course, a spokesman of the Punjab government said. He added that the Orbit buses will remain off the roads till the completion of the orientation course.
