By IANS,
Chandigarh: Congress legislators clashed with security personnel and staff in the Punjab assembly complex as a woman who was beaten by Punjab Police personnel Wednesday tried to barge into the assembly.
The commotion started when the victim, accompanied by Congress legislators, was taken to the Congress Legislature Party office in the assembly complex. The security and assembly staff reached the office to take her away as she had entered without valid entry pass.
Congress legislators objected, which resulted in a clash between them and security personnel.
Some Congress legislators in the assembly shouted slogans against the government and staged a walkout.
Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal had to adjourn the house till afternoon.
The woman could not reach the assembly hall. Leader of the opposition and Congress leader Sunil Jakhar was with the 21-year-old woman when she tried to enter the assembly.
The woman, accompanied by her father, said she had come to the assembly to demand justice. Punjab Police Monday arrested two policemen who had beaten and abused her.
“She did not have an entry pass. We stopped her for security reasons,” a security official told IANS.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said that the Congress had “disgraced Indian democracy through their shocking and deplorable conduct in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha today”.
“They have made it a day of national disgrace and the darkest hour for parliamentary democracy in the country. They acted as a leaderless mob out on a rampage for arson, looting and street violence, breaking all norms of civilised conduct,” Badal said.
He said that the Congress leadership had indulged in a breach of security by allowing unauthorised entry into the high security complex.
“I am shocked that the attack on officials of the watch and ward staff happened under the leadership of senior Congressmen, including the leader of opposition,” Badal said.
The assembly complex is a high-security zone manned by para-military forces and security personnel from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.
The woman was slapped, pushed, abused and hit with a baton by uniformed policemen in Punjab’s frontier district of Tarn Taran March 3.
Four to five police personnel were caught on camera assaulting her and her father after she reportedly complained against some taxi and truck drivers harassing her near a marriage hall.
Badal had last week ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.