SAD trying to silence NRIs' voice on FB: AAP

CHANDIGARH: Political activism of Punjabi NRIs on social media has become the new battleground for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ahead of the 2017 assembly elections in Punjab.
AAP on Saturday accused SAD of stifling freedom of expression on social media by surreptitiously targeting NRIs who were putting up posts against the drug mafia and attacking the Badal family.It accused Punjab Police of filing fake cases against relatives of NRIs living in Punjab to silence them on Facebook and other social media sites.
SAD, however, denied all allegations and insisted that it was never the policy of their government to frame innocent people for the sake of politics. "How can the police arrest anyone if they don't have evidence?" asked SAD spokesman Daljit Cheema, who is also Punjab education minister.
AAP's Punjab legal cell chief Himmat Singh Shergill said on Saturday that they may soon approach the high court to stop police from "framing" family members of the NRIs. He gave a number of instances of NRIs allegedly being harassed, including that of Canada-based NRI from Ludhiana Raghubir Singh Bharowal's son-in-law Jagdeep Singh being arrested for criminal intimidation and for abusing a police officer. Raghubir Singh has 93,000 likes on his Facebook page and his posts often go viral.
However, police said that Jagdeep Singh was arrested on Thursday for obscene acts and threatening sub-inspector Ashwani Kumar but was soon released on bail. He was again arrested on Friday night as a preventive measure and sent to judicial custody.
NRIs have become increasingly important for Punjab politics ever since they funded AAP's 2014 Lok Sabha campaign and played a key role in the nascent party winning four seats here in the midst of a Modi wave. All parties, including Congress and SAD, have tried to woo them in the past year.
Shergill, who recently toured the US and Canada to campaign for AAP, alleged that AAP volunteers among NRIs informed them that their families were being threatened in Punjab. "About a week back, a police team had told Bharowal's relatives to tell him to stop his activities on social media. Finally, Bharowal's relatives were booked after two days of illegal detention," alleged Shergill.
"Bharowal's father Pritam Singh and Jagdeep were stopping people and making provocative speeches against the government. When they were told to stop misleading people, they began abusing the sub-inspector and threatened him," said Surinder Chopra, SHO of Punjab Agriculture University police station at Ludhiana.
Shergill also said that California-based NRI and an AAP supporter Jodhbir Singh Jodha told them that his family in Punjab was also being threatened indirectly. Shergill also demanded a judicial probe into the arrest of radio and social media commentator Baltej Pannu who has been recently booked for rape. Pannu, reportedly a vocal critic of the SAD-BJP government, had recently posted on social media that he was threatened by an Akali minister's gunman for his anti-government comments.