Police form SIT to probe ‘seed scam’

LUDHIANA:PUNJAB Police on Tuesday constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the alleged seed scam, a day after the SAD claimed that farmers were likely to have suffered a loss of Rs 4,000 crore because of the supply of spurious paddy seeds.

The SIT constituted by Punjab director general of police Dinkar Gupta will be headed by additional DGP, Punjab Bureau of Investigation (PBI), and State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB) Naresh Arora. The team will take over the Ludhiana SIT investigations conducted so far and will also look into any other existing/ future complaints regarding sale of spurious/unauthorised seeds.

The SIT has been tasked with expeditious completion of the probe to ensure that all culprits are identified and arrested at the earliest, the DGP said in an official release here. Other members of the SIT are IGP (crime) Nageshwar Rao, Ludhiana police commissioner Rakesh Agrawal, joint director, agriculture, Sukhdev Singh and Ludhiana DCP (law and order) Ashwani Kapoor.

JAGRAON FARMER HELD FOR MASS PRODUCTION OF PAU PADDY SEED

A Jagraon-based farmer, one of the key members of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Kisan Club, has been arrested in connection with the paddy seed scam. The accused, Baljinder Singh Bhundri, was provided the newly developed PR 128 and PR 129 varieties of paddy seeds last year by PAU to assess the results as part of a trial. However, he used the resultant crop to mass produce more seeds and sold them to Brar Seeds Store in Ludhiana without authorisation.

The accused is a member of the farmers association formed by PAU .

Narinder Singh Benipal, chief agriculture officer, Ludhiana, said the accused multiplied Truthfully Labelled (TL) seeds by cultivating the crop in South India and then supplied the seeds to Brar Seed Store owner Harwinder Singh, alias Kaka Brar, 56, for ₹80 per kg. He also sold the seeds to Karnal Agri Seeds.