Rajya Sabha member Harbhajan Singh moved the High Court after the security cordon was withdrawn.

Chandigarh. Rajya Sabha member Harbhajan Singh, who recently left the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has appealed to the Punjab and Haryana High Court to direct the Punjab government to restore his security. Former cricketer Singh, along with six AAP Rajya Sabha members including Raghav Chadha, had joined the BJP on April 24, after which the Punjab Police withdrew their security cover.

After the Punjab Police security was withdrawn, the Central Government deployed the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) outside Singh’s residence in Jalandhar. AAP workers had protested outside the houses of Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta and Ashok Mittal, who had left the party, and wrote ‘traitor’ with spray paint on the walls of their houses in Jalandhar and Ludhiana.

Harbhajan has said in his petition that the Additional Director General of Police (Security) withdrew his security cover in a ‘very arbitrary manner’ without giving him any fresh assessment of the threat and without giving him any notice or opportunity of being heard. The petition has sought direction to the official respondents to restore the security cordon.

It mentions that his house was attacked by a violent mob on April 25 and 26, soon after the Punjab Police withdrew his security cover, and the local police was present during this period, but did not take any action.

According to the petition, “Interestingly, on the morning of April 25, all the policemen deployed at the petitioner’s residence left and the Deputy Commissioner of Jalandhar gave permission to the Aam Aadmi Party members to hold a protest at the petitioner’s residence. At about 2:30 pm, a mob reached the petitioner’s residence and wrote ‘traitor’ on the outer walls of the house.”

The petition states that Singh was in Mumbai at that time for some personal function and one of his relatives informed him over phone about the mob attack at his house. The petitioner said that while issuing the order to withdraw the security cordon, the ADGP had directed the Jalandhar Police Commissioner to make necessary security arrangements, but no such arrangements were made.