The Himachal Pradesh police booked Satish Kumar, pradhan of Denkwa panchayat; Beaso Devi and Baryam Singh, panches; Pratap Singh and Ranjeet Singh, panchayat secretaries; and Gurjeet Singh and Naresh Kumar, junior engineers of the Indora development block in this sub-division, for embezzlement of panchayat development funds.
Sampooran Singh, after procuring documentary evidence under the Right to Information Act, had submitted his complaint to the Rural And Panchayati Raj Department and the police, but no action was initiated. Later, he moved a petition in the local judicial court.
It was alleged that the accused had misused and embezzled government funds allocated for undertaking development works in the Denkwa panchayat. A sum of Rs 3 lakh was allocated for the construction of a road and a protection wall in the Dalit hamlet but the accused allegedly conspired to divert this fund by constructing a retaining wall of a private house of a villager, Vidhya Devi.
Another Rs 1.5 lakh sanctioned for the construction of a check dam and a protection wall was spent on the construction of a cowshed of Lakhvir Singh and Rs 3 lakh sanctioned for a village road and a protection wall in ward No. 5 of the panchayat was also utilised for the construction of retaining walls of fields of four villagers. DSP Rajinder Jaswal said a case had been registered and action would be taken after thorough investigation.
