Extra wheat in sacks: Commission agent booked for duping farmers in Kurukshetra

Days after a team of chief minister’s flying squad raided a grain market in Kurukshetra, the cops on Friday said that they have registered a case against a commission agent under charges of cheating and others for alleged embezzlement of wheat worth ₹4 lakh.

The case was lodged against Pawan Kumar, a local commission agent under Sections 318 (4), 316 (5) and 316 (2) of the BNS at Krishna Gate police station.

In his complaint, Harjeet Singh, secretary and executive officer of new grain market said that as the rabi procurement season is underway a team from Ambala unit of CM squad on Wednesday raided the mandi on a secret information and found 326 unstitched sacks of weight, of which 10 were checked on a weighing scale.

“It was found that additional weight of total 82.400 kg wheat filled in the sacks that makes on an average, 8.240 kg extra wheat in each bag. On checking all 326 sacks, 26.86 quintals of extra wheat were found to be filled in the sacks,” he added.

As per the government norms, not more than 50 kg 600 grams of wheat can be filled in the sacks.

This comes in the wake of similar allegations by farmer unions like Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU)’s Tikait and Shaheed Bhagat Singh factions.

A team from Tikait faction of Karnal unit had inspected two purchase centers in Karnal following similar complaints from farmers and during a meeting on Thursday, DC Uttam Singh was informed about the matter.

On Friday, the raids were carried out by the squad in Karnal too and similar disparities were found.

Bahadur Mehla, spokesperson of the Shaheed Bhagat Singh faction said that licence of a commission agent at a purchase center under Kunjpura grain market was suspended and a fine of ₹10,000 was imposed.

“Farmer ripens his crop with full hard work and honesty and comes to the market to sell it. The MSP of wheat is already very low and now they have found a new way of looting the farmers. This is sheer injustice,” he added.