The arrest of a 30-year-old dairy farmer for allegedly tearing posters of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann during a statewide shutdown has triggered a protest outside Nabha Sadar police station, with villagers and anti-drug campaigners alleging arbitrary victimisation of grassroots activists.
Karamvir Singh, a resident of Lubana village in Nabha, Patiala, was arrested on Saturday in connection with the incident during the October 15 shutdown. Police produced him before a local judicial magistrate within three hours of the arrest, after which he was remanded in judicial custody. Around 20 unidentified people were also booked in connection with the incident, according to the report.
The arrest led villagers, anti-drug campaigners and Waris Punjab De activists to gather outside the Nabha Sadar police station on Saturday evening. Protesters alleged that the police action targeted grassroots workers involved in campaigns against narcotics. The report did not include a police response to these allegations or details of the specific charges invoked against Singh.
Singh’s family described him as a reformed former drug user who had become involved in anti-drug campaigning in rural Patiala. His father, Maha Singh, said Singh had stopped using drugs after joining a de-addiction campaign led by Waris Punjab De chief Amritpal Singh. He said Singh had earlier been known as Happy Khan, later took Amrit at Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib in Anandpur Sahib and adopted the name Karamvir Singh.
According to his father, Singh subsequently formed a village-level Nasha Roko Committee and repeatedly alerted local police about alleged drug peddlers operating in the area. Singh runs a dairy farm, supports two sons and has a wife who was nine months pregnant at the time of the arrest, his father said.
Maha Singh questioned the urgency of the action against his son while alleging that drug syndicates continued to operate in the area. Those claims have not been independently established in the supplied report. The immediate legal process now rests with the court, while the police case against Singh and the unidentified people remains the focus of the ongoing proceedings.
