A couple of days after a 25-year-old Danish woman, a research scholar, was molested in Amritsar, tourists from Uttarakhand were beaten up when they were returning after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple. Three persons, including a woman, sustained injuries in the incident, which took place at 6:30am on Tuesday. The woman sustained a grievous injury in the eye. The incident has again raised questions about the security of the tourists and devotees coming to the city.
Both the incidents in question were reported in the area falling under the purview of Civil Lines police station. The Amritsar city police have arrested four persons in this regard and have registered a case against them under sections 323, 341, 506, 148, 149 of the IPC. The accused have been identified as Mani Arora, Rajat Arora, Puneet Dhawan and Sunny, all residents of Bambe Wala Khuh.
Two of the three injured have been identified as Rupinder Kaur, Kuldeep Singh, both residents of Uttarakhand, and an elderly person identified as father-in-law of Rupinder Kaur. Sources said that Rupinder Kaur had come from Udham Singh Nagar, Uttrakhand, with her family and relatives to see off a relative, who was on his way to Canada, at the Sri Guru Ramdas International Airport at 4am, and was putting up with her relatives in the city.
The family was returning after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple when they were brutally beaten up by the accused, who were on three motorcycles. The accused thought that the tourists had banged their vehicle into one of their motorcycles.
A relative of the victims, with whom they were staying in the city, alleged that though no such thing had happened, the accused bashed them up causing severe injuries in the left eye to Rupinder Kaur, who had to be operated upon in a local hospital here. They were later caught by the public and handed over to the police.
There were talks that the police were considering registration of a case against the tourists as well at the instance of a minister, but dropped the idea when a hue and cry was raised about the matter and due to the intervention of Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee president Avtar Singh Makkar, in the matter.
Police commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh termed the attack as different from all others reported previously. “We have nabbed the accused and registered a case against them,” he said. Responding to a query about the police being under pressure to register a case against the tourists, he termed this as a rumour. “This is a rumour. I cannot say where it started from. There is no pressure on the police to book the tourists,” he said.
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Source: HT