In its report, the inquiry committee formed by the Supreme Court to look into the security lapses of Prime Minister Narnedra Modi, held the then Chief Secretary of Punjab Anirudh Tiwari and DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyay responsible.
The security lapses took place when the Prime Minister visited Ferozepur before the 2022 assembly elections.
The committee had submitted this report eight months ago in August 2022 to the Apex Court and the state government. Commenting on this, BJP National General Secretary Tarun Chugh said that the AAP government is sitting on the report. A letter was written by the Centre to the Punjab government in September 2022. The Centre has asked the state government to take action against the erring officials, but no action has been taken in the matter even after six months have passed.
The Supreme Court constituted a five-member committee under the chairmanship of former Justice Indu Malhotra to investigate the matter. This committee investigated the entire incident. The then ADGP (Law and Order) Naresh Arora, ADGP (Cybercrime) G Nageshwar Rao, DIG Faridcourt Surjit Singh (now retired), SSP Moga Charanjit Singh, IG (Counter Intelligence) Rakesh Agarwal , DIG Firozpur Range Inderbir Singh and SSP Firozpur Harmandeep Hans were on duty during the visit of Prime Minister. Earlier, SSP Harmandeep Hans was believed to be responsible for this whole incident, but in the report of the committee, the negligence of the then Chief Secretary and DGP has come to the fore.
The report said that IG (SPG) R.R. Bhagat had provided timely inputs to the police officers regarding the situation. Despite this, timely action was not taken. It was even conveyed that an alternate route should be used for the Prime Minister to reach the venue of the rally. “Concrete arrangements were not made regarding the security,” the report said.
The incident created a furore while the Prime Minister had said, “say thank you to your CM, I am going back alive.”
Notably, the Prime Minister had come to Hussainiwala on 5 January 2022 to address a public meeting. Some protesters blocked the way. During this, he was stuck there for about 20 minutes.
Punjab had a Congress government then with Charanjit Singh Channi as the Chief Minister.
The BJP Tarun Chugh lashed out at the AAP government for sleeping over the report although it was submitted by a committee appointed by the apex court.
