Former Haryana minister Nirmal Singh has been arrested along with some of his supporters allegedly for opening fire during an altercation with a mining contractor and screening plant workers over the right to passage to a mining zone here, the police said today.
The police said Singh, a senior Congress leader, and some of his associates were arrested after lodging of an FIR at Khizrabad police station yesterday under various provisions of different penal laws.
Singh was arrested last night while his associates were rounded up a little earlier, they said.
Singh and his associates had allegedly opened fire during the altercation, with some the bullets hitting an earthmover and the others shot in air.
The earthmover driver had a narrow escape in the incident, the police said.
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Elaborating upon the cause of altercation, the police said Singh reportedly owned a farmhouse in Belgarh village of Yamunanagar with the village falling in a mining zone and the vehicles accessing the mine through his farming fields.
Singh had allegedly objected to the vehicles passing through the fields, claiming the land belonged to him while the complainant and mining contractors claimed it was the common land of the village.
The mining contractors had on Tuesday night begun filling the trenches, allegedly dug up by Singh's men to bloc vehicular traffic through his land. This prompted the former minister and his associates to reach the spot and pick up the fight which resulted in firing, the police said.
Singh's daughter Chitra, meanwhile dubbed the penal charges against his father as "politically motivated."
"My father was called by the police for talks, but they arrested him," she said.
The minister had earlier said there is illegal mining going on in Belgarh. Before his arrest, he too had rubbished the penal charges against him, saying they were politically motivated.
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