The Politicization of Moga Incident in Punjab

By Deepak Parvatiyar

May 7, 2015

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There is a marked similarity between Salman Khan and Parkash Singh Badal. Both are significant names and wield considerable clout. While one is a superstar, the other is a political heavyweight.  Of late, both have been in news because of their involvement, directly or indirectly, in highway crime.

While Salman got sentenced on 6 May 2015 for an almost 12-year old hit-and-run case, where he was found indulged in drunk driving, the name of Badal family is being dragged for the molestation and death of a 14-year girl who, along with her mother, was pushed off on 29 April 2015 from a running bus that is owned by the Punjab Chief Minister’s family-owned transport company in Moga.

There is much commonality in these high profile cases than what meets the eye although, on surface, it seems that there is nothing more to link these two separate cases other than the fact that both had occurred on the road and involved big names.

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Before dwelling on the parities, let’s first examine the Moga incident.

Unlike the incident involving Salman where the superstar was behind the wheels, none of the Badal family members were in the bus at the time of the incident and the four accused – the driver, the bus conductor, a cleaner and their friend – have already been apprehended by the police.

But can this absolve the owners of the bus from all the blame? The case has taken a political dimension too and the opposition has already raised the issue in the Parliament, forcing its repeated adjournments on the grounds that it was a very serious issue because those “who are ruling the state are the owners of the bus”.

The accused were allegedly arrested only after 15 hours as the police was not ready to register FIR in the case. Media reports suggest that the FIR was registered after 12 hours when pressure was mounted by local political leaders. The opposition now rues that the police action was only against those involved in the molestation and the owners of the bus have been left out.

The opposition wants Centre’s rule in Punjab as it claims that the crime in the chief minister’s bus amply demonstrated the deteriorating law and order situation in the state. Parkash’s son and Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab Sukhbir Singh Badal cries foul:  “Let us be fair. If your driver is responsible for an accident, should you be arrested?”

However, can the Badals escape scrutiny on how they could employ such criminals in the very first place? Already a senior lawyer of Punjab and Haryana High Court, H.C. Arora, has served a demand notice to the Punjab Government for the scrutiny of antecedents of all the drivers and conductors employed by the private transport companies in Punjab and for conducting their drug-tests.

Badal’s transport company in question, Orbit Aviation Pvt. Ltd., faces a number of cases and a number of FIRs have been registered against the hooligan drivers of the company as suggested by a Zee News report. Unverified media reports further claim that the Badal-owned bus had dark windows and curtains, which was a violation of rules.

Prominent Congress MP and former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amrinder Singh further claimed that the Badals had “grabbed” about 250 route permits but were actually plying about 500 buses on all the profit-making routes.

All these are serious charges. Consider that after the infamous Nirbhaya case of 16 December 2012, where a paramedic student was gang-raped and thrown out of a moving bus, apart from the arrest of the perpetrators of the crime including the driver and the conductor, the fast-track court in Delhi had summoned the owner of the bus, in which Nirbhaya was raped to testify whom he had handed over the bus to that night.  The police had then stated that the bus owner, although he was not present at the time of the crime, would be acting as a prosecution witness. The bus owner then was issued a production warrant by the Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna and the owner was put in Tihar Jail after there were evidence proved of his cheating and procuring bus licenses. Subsequently, the court framed charges of cheating against the bus owner who had allegedly submitted false information to the State Transport Department to get the registration certificate and the permit for the bus.

Even in the case of the rape of a 26-year-od woman by a driver in a Uber cab in the capital on 5 December 2015, the Delhi police, apart from arresting the driver, had sent a notice to the regional head of Uber cab (Uber Delhi) for interrogation as there was no GPS system- a mandatory requirement– in the cab and no background check had been done on the driver. Apart from that, the victim even sued Uber- the American car-hailing service company – prompting Uber to approach the US court with a plea to dismiss on the grounds that a US-based company cannot be sued in a “dispute involving an alleged wrong committed by one Indian citizen against another Indian citizen in India”.
In such a light, can the Badals escape the judicial scrutiny?

It is in this light that the Salman Khan case offers a sneak peek into the Pandora’s Box of elitist worms! Salman, in the hit-and-run case of 28 September 2002 in which one footpath dweller was killed and four others injured, had conveniently shifted the blame on his driver claiming that it was the latter who was behind the wheels at the time of the accident.  The judge who sentenced him for five years on 6 May this year nailed his lies saying it was the tinsel town megastar himself who had hit the poor victims with his Land Cruiser while driving in an inebriated state that night and that too without a license.

The Salman Khan episode reflected on how the high and mighty make a scapegoat of willing conduits in exchange of certain pecuniary benefits so as to escape the dragnet of law. Khan’s driver, Ashok Singh, who might now face perjury charges, had taken the blame on himself in his testimony before the session’s court in Mumbai on 31 March this year.

Can the Badals, with the vast political clout under their command and a business empire worth crore, avoid their ordeal? The political ramifications of the crime in their bus have snowballed into a major controversy.  But what could be the legal ramifications of the case is yet to be seen. But as in case of Salman, there is no doubt that justice will prevail
!