The Punjab government has set up a three-member Special Investigation Team headed by the Superintendent of Police, Mohali, to investigate the alleged assault of actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut by a Central Industrial Security Force constable last week, reported PTI on Sunday.
On Thursday, Ranaut – who won the Lok Sabha elections from Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket – alleged that she was assaulted by constable Kulwinder Kaur at the Chandigarh airport in retaliation for her disparaging remarks about the 2020-’21 farmers’ protest.
On June 7, the Punjab Police booked Kaur for causing hurt under section 323 of the Indian Penal Code, and wrongful restraint under Section 341 of the Indian Penal Code, on a complaint by the Central Industrial Security Force.
“There will be an impartial probe into the matter and the report will be submitted to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Mohali,” Superintendent of Police Harbir Singh Atwal said, adding that a woman officer would also be inducted into the investigating team.
Kaur has been suspended from duty and a departmental inquiry has been initiated against her.
In a video that has been widely shared on social media since Thursday, Kaur can be seen recounting Ranaut’s comments about the farmers’ protest in 2020.
During the protest against the now-repealed farm laws, Ranaut had misidentified a woman farmer and claimed that she was Bilkis Bano, a woman who was at the forefront of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh neighbourhood.
Referring to Bano, Ranaut had alleged in a now-deleted social media post that the “same Dadi [grandmother]” who had also featured in Time magazine was now “available in Rs 100”, according to The Indian Express.
Several farmers’ organisations, including the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, held a march in Mohali in support of Kaur. They submitted a memorandum to Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police Sandeep Garg, seeking an impartial investigation into the incident.
Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said that the investigation should determine the sequence of events leading up to the incident and demanded that no injustice be done to the woman constable.
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