Panipat :
The police have booked 15 persons, including two sons of the district president, Nagar Palika Karamchari Sangh, for allegedly thrashing employees of a private company for lifting garbage here.

In a complaint to the Commissioner, Municipal Corporation (MC), Shiv and Rakesh, both employees of JBM Enviro, a private company, stated that they reached Jain Mohalla to lift heaps of garbage from near the Jain temple on Saturday.

“As we started lifting garbage, Govinda, Rakesh Kumar, Naveen, Rahul, Ajay, Jaiveer and nearly 10 other persons reached there,” they said. The youths, carrying hockey sticks and lathis, started thrashing them and tried to prevent them from lifting the garbage, they alleged. The accused stated that they had come to stop them at the behest of Subhash Chandalia, president of the sangh. They also alleged that the accused also poured some suspicious substance into the engines of their tractors.

Meanwhile, Shiv Prasad Sharma, Commissioner, MC, forwarded their complaint to the police.

Deepak Kumar, SHO, City police station, said that a case had been registered against 15 persons, including Govinda, Rakesh, Naveen, Rahul and Ajay on the complaint forwarded by the MC Commissioner.

He said two PCR vans had been provided to the MC to give security to the teams engaged in lifting of the garbage. “We have also installed cameras on the PCR vans to record any untoward situation during garbage collection,” he said.

Refuting the allegations, Chandalia said it was a conspiracy hatched by the private company and the MC authorities against him and the striking employees to mount pressure on him to end the strike. The case lodged against his sons was totally false, he said.

Meanwhile, members of the sangh staged a dharna near Palika Market here.