Congress Legislature Party chief in Punjab Charanjit Singh Channi today demanded that Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal be dropped from the cabinet while accusing him of "patronising mafias".
Channi said his party will move for special discussion on the "deteriorating" law-and-order situation in the forthcoming session of the legislative assembly for which Sukhbir was "directly responsible" in his capacity as the Home Minister.
"Going by the crime scenario during the last nine years, Sukhbir had no moral right to continue. His removal is virtually a precondition so that fear psychosis is not created during that period," he said.
Quoting from an RTI reply, Channi claimed "every type of crime had multiplied including rapes and crime against women" despite claims made by the Deputy Chief Minister about Punjab being "the most peaceful state".
"A total of 59,336 cases under various criminal categories have been registered in 15 districts. Punjab witnessed on an average two murder cases every day with a figure of 4,460 in 15 districts," he claimed.
He also hit out at the government for the "increasing crime against women".
"In all, 4,111 cases of rape were registered in 15 districts. The highest of 873 cases were registered in Jalandhar followed by 652 in Jalandhar and 353 in Hoshiarpur," he said.
"Besides the rape cases, 15,181 cases were registered under crime against women over the period with 4,022 in Ludhiana, 2,560 in Jalandhar and 1508 in Amritsar," he added.
Channi also questioned the government's claims about improvement in infrastructure including better roads, saying the road accident figures claim otherwise.
"Punjab witnessed registration of an average 11 road accidents cases with aggregate figure being 27,149 cases in 15 districts," he said.
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