AMRITSAR: The government will in the next Punjab Assembly session introduce a legislation enabling it to confiscate the properties the militants have purchased with all gotten money mainly from extortions.
The Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh announced this here on Nov.12 at a district level training camp for farmers from the districts of Gurdaspur and Amritsar. The chief minister said that the recently killed militants left behind movable as well as immovable properties which were scaled or in the possession of the police. The enactment of such a law was necessary to grant legal support to sell them after confiscating these properties. He cited many examples where the militants purchased trucks cars and urban as well as agriculture land. The camp was organized by the Punjab Agriculture Department.
Beant Singh said that the government was studying a proposal aimed at preventing the rural unemployed youth from joining the militants. Unemployment in the villages had increased enormously because with the advancement of agriculture technology a considerable section of village population have become surplus. A considerable section of the village population states of the depending on agriculture at least 20% have to be given employment in sectors especially industrial he said.
The chief minister said that the government was considering some new schemes under which the surplus manpower from agriculture would be absorbed in agro based industries. Until this was done Beant Singh said it was not possible to fully control militancy.
Singh exhorted the farmers to channelize their youth in the new industrial ventures. No innocent person is being killed by the police. “In case any innocent person is arrested please let me know I shall immediately take action” he said.
“Beant Singh said the Punjab Problem is basically a law and order problem with a slight political dimension also.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 27, 1992
