Challan at last against former agri director

BATHINDA: The long-delayed challan (charge sheet) in the pesticidescam case against former agriculture director Mangal Singh Sandhu was filed here on Monday.

Filed in the court of additional sessions judge Parminder Pal Singh, the challan paves way for starting the trial. Bathinda senior superintendent of police (SSP) Swapan Sharma confirmed it. When challan against accused Vijay Kumar, Shubham Goyal, and Ankush was filed in May, police were waiting for the Punjab government to allow them to lay charges against Sandhu. Last week, the SSP said the permission had come.

The FIR filed at Rama on September 2, 2015, mentioned that police had seized spurious pesticides from Vijay and Shubham, partners in fertiliser company Coromandel Crop Sciences. Later, they arrested Ankush as supplier. Vijay alleged he paid Sandhu `8 lakh as bribe to ply his trade, after which the-then agriculture director’s name was added to the FIR.

In SAS Nagar, Sandhu was named in a case of Oberonpesticide deal. Last October 4, Bathinda police arrested from Chandigarh in the Rama case. After the Punjab and Haryana high court granted Sandhu bail, he came out of jail in December 2015. Last year in Punjab, spurious pesticides allowed whitefly to ravage cotton crop over twothird of the total 4.5-lakh hectares. The total loss was `4,000 crore, which triggered farmers’ suicides in the cotton belt. This year, fearing another pest attack, farmers planted cotton over just 2.56 lakh hectares. 3 AGRI OFFICERS SENT TO JUDICIAL CUSTODY

A local court sent three agriculture department officers held with `4.50 lakh on July 22 to judicial custody on Monday.

Joint director Sarabjit Singh Kandhari and two agriculture development officers — Vivek Shankar and Gurdyal Kumar were nabbed from a hotel here.