Chandigarh Tribune: Kotkapura: Friday,
May 06, 2016.
A police
investigation into a criminal case registered against a local RTI activist has
found the Kotkapura Municipal Committee (MC) authorities guilty of a frame-up.
In the
inquiry report submitted to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Faridkot
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) has claimed that the MC got a false case
registered against RTI activist Krishan Singla in July 2015 as he had used the
Right to Information Act to expose wrongdoings in the civic body.
On July 4,
2015, on the complaint of the SDM-cum-administrator of the MC, the Kotkapura
police had booked Singla on the charge of damaging public property.
Singla
approached the NHRC, seeking the cancellation of the FIR and the suspension of
erring police and MC officials. Later, the Commission directed the police to
conduct an inquiry into the allegations in the FIR.
The SSP said
in the report that Singla was not present in Kotkapura when a dharna was
organised on July 3, 2015, in protest against the encroachment on a drain.
In its
complaint to the police, the MC authorities had alleged that after being
provoked by Singla, the protesters demolished the encroachment with a JCB
machine to clear accumulated sewage and rainwater from a residential area.
The police
checked Singla’s mobile phone call record to trace his location at the time of
the dharna and the removal of the encroachment. He was found to be in Faridkot
during the demolition.
The police
have started the process to cancel the FIR, the SSP reported to the NHRC.
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