Govt ready to consider withdrawal of 99% stir-related cases: Abhimanyu

ASKED IF HE WILL TAKE BACK CASES RELATED TO DAMAGE TO HIS PROPERTY, MINISTER REFUSED TO DO SO

ROHTAK: Haryana finance minister Captain Abhimanyu on Friday ruled out taking back cases related to loot and arson at his properties during the Jat agitation in February last year. However, he said the state government is ready to consider withdrawing 99% of the total cases. The minister was addressing the media at his residence in Sector 14 here.

Attacking former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the INLD, Abhimanyu said the opposition parties are “sabotaging dialogue” between the government and protesters. “Almost all demands of the (Jat) community can be met. We are ready to consider withdrawal of 99% cases in proper legal manner. But the opposition parties have misguided (the) protesters, due to which, they are not coming up for talks anymore,” he said.

When asked if he will also take back cases related to causing damage to his property, an issue on which the Jat community has been slamming him at their dharnas, Abhimanyu refused to do so.

“Had it been limited just to me, I wouldn’t have taken a minute in withdrawing the cases. But it is in public good to find out who were the conspirators behind the large-scale violence. I had come out in support of Jat quota from the beginning. Still, my houses were targeted and women and children were attempted to be killed,” he said.

Residential properties, school and a printing press of the finance minister were vandalised and set ablaze several times by mobs during last year’s violence. Though the cases have now been transferred to the CBI, the state police has been accused of making active arrests only in the cases related to damaging the minister’s properties, and not those where properies of others were vandalised and burnt.

It is apparently for this reason that Captain Abhimanyu invites the ire of the Jat community. On several occasions the community has asked him to withdraw his cases so that those locked in jail can be set free.

The BJP leader also called Jat leader Yashpal Malik a “well wisher” of the society, and said dialogue was the only solution to end the agitation.