Jalandhar : The stage is set for the second NRI Sangat Darshan at Jalandhar tomorrow, but NRIs seem apprehensive about its success. They want a separate NRI legislation enacted in the state.

Satnam Singh Chahal, executive director, North American Punjabi Association, said the state government had not been able to establish even a single exclusive NRI fast-track court in the state so far.

“The lone NRI court at Jalandhar continues to hear hundreds of cases pending with it before it was converted into an exclusive NRI court. Around 220 cases are heard in the court every day. How would the government ensure speedy justice to NRIs in this scenario?” he said.

Avtar Singh, a Phagwara-based NRI, said DSP, Baba Bakala, Sohan Singh summoned him to the police station a day before his flight to England on September 6 last year and interrogated him for his alleged role in a human-trafficking racket. “They summoned me on the basis of a complaint they had received by post. I was summoned to the police station nine times, but they did not register any of my visits in the official record,” he alleged.

“It was only after I approached Border Zone IG Ishwar Chander that I was given a clean chit by the police a few days ago,” he added.

Accepting the lapse, DSP Sohan Singh said the complaint was found to be fake. However, no case had been registered against unidentified complainant till date, he added. The Punjab Government boasts of being the first state to have launched an exclusive NRI police wing for helping out NRIs, but the NRI Affairs Department continues to be flooded with complaints against the police wing.

According to a complaint sent by Amrik Singh, a US-based NRI, to IG Gurpreet Deo, his paralytic father residing in India was killed and cremated by his uncle’s family in 2005. While the Health Department said he died due to brain haemorrhage, the record maintained at the cremation ground said the death was due to cancer. Even after so many years, the NRI police wing had failed to come out with the facts in the case.

The Tribune (tribuneindia.com, Jan 16, 2015)