Chandigarh: The Haryana police on Saturday said that they have found no proof to support the allegations that there was a conspiracy to disrupt the January 26 tractor parade of agitating farmers and target their leaders.
Addressing a press conference late on Saturday evening at Sonipat, Superintendent of Police, Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said the youth, who was paraded by farmer leaders before reporters on Friday night and later handed over the police, had made the allegations under fear after some volunteers at the Singhu protest site caught him and accused him of eve-teasing.
The youth, whom the SP identified as 21-year-old Yogesh Rawat from Sonipat, was unemployed. During preliminary investigations none of the claims made by the youth were found to be true, he said.
Randhawa said that during the press conference of the farmer leaders on Friday, various allegations included that the youth had supplied arms and weapons in this stir and someone had put him on the task to disrupt the agitation.
A special team was constituted under DSP Vipin Kadyan to probe the matter, he said.
We carried in-depth investigations of who all he came into contact with during the past four months, but so far we did not get any proof to back any allegation which has been made (in the press conference), he said.
Earlier in the day, a video purportedly of Yogesh had surfaced, in which he is heard saying that he had made various allegations during the Friday's press conference after being caught and "cooked up" the statements because he was badly thrashed.
He said he wanted to narrate the story to the police so that he could be free.
However, Randhawa said that the video was not made by the police. To another question, he said that Yogesh was currently being questioned.
"We have not arrested him, we are only questioning him and he is cooperating... as allegations are from both the sides, we are investigating the matter deeply," he said.
Asked about the allegation of farmer leaders, he said, Since they had levelled some allegation on police as well, we have written to Deputy Commissioner and asked for a probe by SDM as well.
"When the probe is completed, whosoever is found guilty will be dealt as per law.
At the Singhu border press conference late on Friday night, the farmer leaders presented the youth who claimed that his accomplices were asked to pose as policemen and baton-charge the crowd during the proposed tractor parade in the national capital on Republic Day.
Farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu alleged that attempts are being made to disrupt the ongoing agitation against three farm laws.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several border points of Delhi since November 28 last year, demanding a repeal of the three farm laws and a legal guarantee to the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.
Enacted in September last year, the three laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.
However, the protesting farmers have expressed their apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of MSP and do away with the "mandi" (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.
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New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Friday said it has received fresh notices from the income-tax department, asking it to pay Rs 1,823.08 crore, and alleged that the BJP is in "serious violation" of income-tax laws for which authorities should raise a demand of more than Rs 4,600 crore from the saffron party.
The Congress also accused the ruling BJP of indulging in "tax terrorism" to financially cripple the opposition party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here along with Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, party treasurer Ajay Maken alleged that the BJP is in serious violation of income-tax laws and said the I-T department should raise a demand of Rs 4,617.58 crore from the saffron party for such violations.
Maken said political parties have to fill up a proforma of Form 24A, in which two basic and important pieces of information have to be furnished -- the names and addresses of their donors.
"We have analysed all the submissions of the BJP to the Election Commission (EC). The party has faltered every year," Maken claimed.
Ramesh alleged that through the "electoral bonds scam", the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has collected Rs 8,200 crore and used the route of "pre-paid, post-paid, post-raid bribes and shell companies".
On the other hand, the BJP is engaged in "tax terrorism", he alleged.
"Efforts are being made to financially cripple the Congress, but we are not going to be cowed down," Ramesh said.
He asserted that the Congress's campaign for the upcoming parliamentary polls will continue and the party will take its guarantees to the people of the country.
"We will not be scared of these notices. We will be more aggressive and fight these polls," the former Union minister said.
Maken alleged that the Congress and other like-minded opposition parties are being selectively targeted by the I-T department, which he described as the BJP's "frontal organisation".
He said the Supreme Court will soon hear the Congress's plea on the I-T department's demands from it.
"An illegal attempt to freeze the bank accounts of the principal opposition party in February has gone on for more than a month on the eve of the general election," Maken said.
Before the dust could settle on that unprecedented "vindictive" action, in a patently "illegal and undemocratic" move, the "frontal organisation of the BJP" has launched its next "premeditated" and "diabolical" campaign against the Congress, he added.
The income-tax returns filed by the Congress for eight years have been reopened on "baseless and manufactured" grounds to levy illegal I-T demand orders totalling thousands of crores of rupees, Maken said.
The timing of the I-T department's action -- in February and March, days before and even days after the Lok Sabha polls were announced on March 16 -- speaks for itself about the mala-fide nature of these actions, the Congress leader said.
Maken alleged that the "BJP-ruled I-T department" has so far forcibly taken out Rs 135 crore from the Congress's bank accounts due to an alleged Rs 14 lakh non-compliance demand against the party.
"This amount was recovered by freezing more than Rs 270 crore of the Congress's bank balance across several accounts," he said.
During this period of several weeks, the bank accounts of the Congress were effectively "frozen" in an illegal attempt to paralyse the party's functioning during the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Maken alleged.
"This action was designed to choke the Congress financially and prevent, stop, delay and disable any election-related expenditure by the party on advertisements, travel, salaries, agencies etc.
"It is indeed appalling that the financial years assessed go back to 1993-94, when the late Sitaram Kesri was the party's treasurer. Out of the eight years, the I-T demand orders for four years have been issued by the BJP's frontal organisation even without assessment orders. This is unprecedented in the history of taxation in India," he said.
"These orders are based on manufactured and planted diaries and so-called raids by the BJP's frontal organisation on third parties. Several of these raided third parties enjoy stay orders from courts based on vitiated search procedures by the I-T department," Maken claimed, adding that the same interim relief is not being granted to the Congress.
In the history of India, why is the Congress, a tax-exempt political party like others, being "forced" to pay income tax during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he asked.
"Why have the BJP or its alliance partners not been dealt with similarly? Why has the I-T department not taken cognisance of the Yediyurappa diaries, Jain diaries, Sahara diaries, Birla diaries, Bangaru Lakshman convictions and penalised the BJP?" he asked.
"Why is the EC -- the guarantor of free-and-fair elections -- a mute spectator? Is this not an obvious, brazen, blatant and shameful attempt by the BJP to illegally financially cripple the opposition? Where is the level-playing field in Indian elections? Can 2024 be called a free-and-fair election anymore?" Maken asked.