On Friday, Shaurya Chakra awardee, comrade Balwinder Singh Bhikhiwind was shot dead by two unidentified men at his residence of border village Bhikhiwind of district Tarn Taran. After the news of his death broke out, it erupted row as the deceased family was seeking security cover after Balwinder Singh continued to receive certain threats to his life.
Notably, in 2019, the administration decided to withdraw the security given to him.
Although, it has been alleged by his wife Jagdish Kaur Sandhu that they repeatedly asked for his security from the police as some people were threatening to kill him. Now, his family has refused to cremate the body unless assailants are arrested.
While talking to media, Jagdish said, "Family would not cremate the body unless killers of Comrade Balwinder Singh arrested, besides deployment of security to the family."
"All the family members I, my late husband, his brother Ranjit Singh Sandhu and his wife Balraj Kaur Sandhu are Sharuya Chakra awardee and this award was given by the Central Government to save the union and integrity of the nation to fight against the militancy," she further added.
"It was security as well as intelligence failure. It was also the duty of central intelligence agencies with regard to our safety. Both State and Central Governments are grossly accountable for intelligence failure that resulted in the killing of my husband at the hands of terrorists," she quipped.
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She reinstated, "I fought earlier, will fight again. Assailants of Balwinder Singh Bhikhiwind will certainly get punished."
Jagdish has also added that if the State government would be unable to provide security cover to the family then the Centre govt will have to do the needful for us.
"Family has always fought against terrorists. As many as 62 attempts were made on the family by a group of terrorists and all the 62 incidents were registered with the Police. We have made numerous requests to State officials to return our security cover besides personal meetings with some concerned authorities but nothing concrete has yet been done."