The North News
Chandigarh, March 23
Former Punjab minister Laljit Singh Bhullar has been booked by police in connection with the alleged suicide of a senior official of the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation, officials said on Sunday. Gagandeep Singh Randhawa, district manager of the corporation in Amritsar, is alleged to have taken his own life by consuming a poisonous substance on Saturday. Police have also named Bhullar’s father, Sukhdev Singh Bhullar, and his personal assistant, Dilbag Singh, in the case.
An FIR was registered at Ranjit Avenue police station in Amritsar on Saturday night under sections 108 (abetment of suicide), 351(3) (criminal intimidation) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, based on a complaint filed by Randhawa’s wife, Upinder Kaur. The development came hours after Bhullar resigned from the Punjab cabinet on Saturday after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann asked him to step down amid allegations linked to the official’s death. Earlier in the day, a video circulated on social media in which Randhawa was purportedly heard saying he had consumed Celphos and blaming Bhullar for harassment.
In the clip, Randhawa said he had taken the poison “out of fear” of the minister and did not expect to survive. Bhullar, who is the MLA from Patti in Tarn Taran district, has denied the allegations and described them as baseless.
In her complaint, Kaur alleged that her husband had been under sustained pressure to award a warehouse construction tender to Bhullar’s father. She claimed he was repeatedly threatened and told to cancel an existing tender and reissue it in Sukhdev Singh Bhullar’s name. According to the FIR, the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation had invited bids in October last year for the construction of new warehouses in several districts.
Kaur said Bhullar’s father was among those who applied for tenders related to warehouse construction in Patti and Bhikhiwind in Tarn Taran. She alleged that after the contract was awarded to another party, pressure on her husband intensified. She further alleged that Bhullar used WhatsApp calls to threaten Randhawa with violence and that on 13 March, he summoned him to his residence in Patti, where he was humiliated and assaulted.
Kaur also claimed her husband was held at gunpoint and forced to admit that he had accepted Rs 10 lakh to award the tender to another bidder. She told police that the alleged harassment left him deeply distressed and that he consumed poison at about 5:50am on Saturday, recording a video before his death.
Responding to the controversy, Chief Minister Mann said he had ordered the chief secretary to conduct an impartial inquiry and insisted that no negligence would be tolerated. He said Bhullar had been asked to resign to ensure a fair investigation, adding that the transport and prison portfolios would be reassigned to another minister.
The case has triggered a political storm in Punjab, with opposition leaders attacking the AAP government after the video surfaced online and demanding strict action against Bhullar.
With PTI inputs
