JAGRAON MAN STRIPPED, THRASHED

A group of 19 people stripped an elderly man, dragged him by his hair and thrashed him with slippers on the Kacha Malak road in Jagraon on Tuesday following a land dispute. The accused also videotaped the incident in their mobile phone and posted it on social networking sites.

CHANDIGARH: Leader of opposition Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Tuesday accused Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh of fudging data on farmer suicides in the past six months to mislead the people of the state.

Challenging the chief minister to a public debate with him on this burning issue, Khaira said Amarinder used to accuse the previous Badal government of misleading people by “fudging figures”, but had done the same now to downplay the farmer suicides that had taken place during the first six months of his government.In a hard-hitting statement, the AAP leader accused the CM of playing with the sentiments of struggling peasantry in the state. As per CM’ s statement, only 131 farmers committed suicides from March to September 2017, showing a decline as compared to the period of 2016, during the Badal regime.

Khaira said that as per data collected from July 1 to September18, 118 farmers and labourers had committed suicide. “If 118 farmers committed suicide in just 79 days, one can imagine how many farmers would have committed suicide in the period from March 16 to July 1,” he said, repeating the figure of suicides by 250 farmers during the first six months of present regime.