Punjab Opposition allege press clampdown as police checks disrupt newspaper delivery

Newspaper distribution across Punjab was disrupted on Sunday (November 2) morning after police conducted extensive checks on commercial vehicles during the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.

While the state police explained that the monitoring of vehicles carrying various items was undertaken following specific intelligence inputs, it was not late before the matter received political colours as the Opposition slammed Punjab’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, accusing it of targeting the freedom of the press.

Opposition parties slam AAP govt

Senior Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa claimed on X that the “raids on newspaper delivery vans across Punjab are a chilling attack on press freedom”.

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He also alleged that the AAP was after the media, which helped in its rise and said top AAP leaders, such as Arvind Kejriwal, its national convener and former Delhi chief minister, and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, were taking the same route as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, he accused, of targeting voices that question him.

Ashwani Sharma, working president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Punjab chapter, termed it an “undeclared Emergency by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in Punjab”, claiming that panicked by the 'Sheesh Mahal 2.0' news, the AAP government attacked the media.

'Sheesh Mahal 2.0' row

On Friday (October 31), the BJP alleged that Kejriwal is being offered a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ (palace) with seven-star facility in Chandigarh under CM Mann's quota, despite not being either an elected MLA or part of the state administration.

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Mann on Saturday responded, saying the house, which the BJP is calling “Sheesh Mahal”, is a government accommodation and his camp office and accused the saffron party of playing “dirty propaganda”.

The Sheesh Mahal 2.0 allegation comes over an earlier allegation of extravagant renovations at Kejriwal's official residence as the chief minister of Delhi in the national capital.

Shiromani Akali Dal president and former Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal claimed the government targeted vehicles carrying newspapers “because they do not want anyone writing against them”.

What cops said

A Punjab police statement, quoting a police spokesperson, said the vehicle checks were conducted under the supervision of gazetted officers at selected points in a streamlined and orderly manner without causing any inconvenience to the public.

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The spokesperson said that Punjab, a sensitive border state, has been “facing the brunt of the designs of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence to bleed India by waging a proxy war” through smuggling of contraband, arms and explosives from across the international border using rogue drones and further transporting them using various types of vehicles.

Press bodies flay action

The press fraternity was also critical of the move. The Chandigarh Press Club said in a statement that it strongly condemns “the police action of stopping vehicles carrying newspapers in various districts of Punjab”.

"Reports have been received from districts including Gurdaspur, Patiala, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, and others, where newspaper distribution was either delayed or completely halted." The club urged the Mann government to intervene immediately.

(With agency inputs)