Special Investigation Team to probe scuffle and stopping of Governor’s vehicles

Shimla: Claiming suspension arbitrary and partial, suspended five congress MLAs sit on Dharma outside the Assembly House on Monday and protested against their suspension and the registration of an FIR against them.

Mukesh Agnihotri accused Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur of whatever happened on Friday. He blamed the ruling party for manhandling Congress MLAs and demanded action against Deputy speaker Hans Raj and the Ministers involved in it.

On the opening day of the Budget session, ruling and opposition members scuffled while Governor was leaving the house after finishing his address abruptly. Opposition members after disrupting the Governor address in the house also tried to stop Governor while he was leaving the house and also stopped his vehicle. BJP members, including Deputy Speaker Hans Raj, allegedly pushed opposition members and cleared the way for Governor’s car. Perturbed over the opposition members’ action, speaker Vipin Parmar suspended Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri and legislators Harsh Vardhan Chauhan, Satpal Raizada, Sunder Singh and Vinay Kumar from the Assembly on the same day.

After suspending the opposition members, the Vidhan Sabha speaker had submitted a formal complaint to DGP Sanjay Kundu for registering the FIR.

The police have registered a case under sections 323, 341, 353, 504, 34 and 124 of IPC against five opposition members.

Meanwhile, the police have constituted a four-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by an Additional SP rank officer to probe the incidents.

The SIT is scanning the evidence like CCTV footage and videos of the incident besides recording statements of staff of the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat and concerned officials of the Governor’s house and other eye-witnesses.