Bagga arrest: Stopping Punjab cops in Haryana 'illegal detention', Mohali SSP tells Kurukshetra SP

The Mohali senior superintendent of police on Friday said the Haryana Police stopping Punjab cops returning from Delhi with arrested BJP leader Tajinder Bagga was tantamount to "illegal detention".

In a letter to the Kurukshetra superintendent of police, he also termed it an interference in the administration of the criminal justice system.

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Vehicles bringing Bagga, who has been highly vocal against Arvind Kejriwal on social media, from Delhi to Mohali got held up in Haryana's Kurukshetra. Sources said the vehicles have been taken to a police station in Kurukshetra's Pipli.

Asked why the Punjab Police team has been stopped, a Haryana police official said there was information that Bagga was "forcibly" picked up from his residence. "We have to verify and crosscheck these things," he said.

Senior Haryana police officials were present at the spot. There were also reports of some BJP workers reaching the Pipli police station to protest Bagga's arrest.

Mohali SSP Vivek Sheel Soni, in his letter, referred to the FIR registered against Bagga last month and that five notices were served to him to join the probe. "But he did not appear before the investigating team".

"That in accordance with the law, a police party was sent to arrest the accused Bagga. The said police party arrested the accused from his Delhi residence in the morning... it has come to my notice that the police party has been stopped by the Haryana Police on the Karnal-Kurukshetra highway.

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"This tantamount to illegal detention and interference in the administration of the criminal justice system," the Mohali SSP said in the letter.

Soni said, "The police party along with the arrested accused be released so that Bagga may be produced before the court in Mohali within time as per law."

Last month, the Punjab Police booked Bagga on charges of making provocative statements, promoting enmity and criminal intimidation. The case was registered on a complaint of AAP leader Sunny Ahluwalia, a resident of Mohali.

The FIR registered on April 1 referred to Bagga's remarks on March 30, when he was part of a BJP youth wing protest outside the Delhi chief minister's residence.

According to a statement by the Punjab Police, the FIR was based on a complaint about "instigation/incitement/criminal intimidation to cause violence, use of force, imminent hurt in a predesigned and orchestrated manner by making/publishing provocative, false and communal inflammatory statements through his interview given to the media and through his Twitter posts".