India News | PB ARREST SEED 

Chandigarh, May 31 (PTI) Amid mounting criticism by opposition SAD over the alleged supply of "spurious" and uncertified paddy seeds, the Punjab Police Sunday said it has busted an alleged seed scam and arrested the owner of a Ludhiana-based store.

Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta said that Harwinder Singh alias Kaka Brar, the owner of Brar Seeds, has been arrested by a Special Investigation Team of the Ludhiana Police.

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The store's licence has been cancelled and the premises sealed, the DGP said in a statement here.

Kaka Brar is being questioned and investigations are expected to lead to more arrests in the case, he said.

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The arrest came days after Opposition Shiromani Akali Dal raised a hue and cry over the alleged seed scam and demanded a CBI probe.

A case was registered on May 11 after Ludhiana Chief Agriculture Officer Narinder Singh Benipal had inspected the Brar Seeds store and found reasons to suspect "misdeeds", said an official release here.

Ludhiana Commissioner of Police Rakesh Aggarwal said the Special Investigation Team was formed under a senior officer of the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police to investigate the case.

The Chief Agriculture Officer was included in the team as a technical expert.

During extensive raids carried out by the SIT, a huge stock of seeds was seized from the Brar Seed Store and samples were sent to the agriculture department laboratory for analysis.

The analysis revealed some of the seeds to be spurious, said Aggarwal.

Initial investigations showed that Brar was using the names (PR 128 and PR 129) of the new paddy varieties developed by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) to "cheat" farmers by allegedly selling spurious seeds branded as such.

The PAU is yet to commercially produce the seeds and they have not been supplied to any private company.

The district police has also issued helpline numbers for farmers to complain about any over-charging by seed shops, and any suspicion regarding the quality of seeds and fertilisers.

The SAD had alleged inaction in the matter despite registration of FIR.

Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal had taken up the issue with Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, urging him to depute a Central team to Punjab to conduct an impartial probe.

The SAD had claimed that a Gurdaspur-based close associate of a cabinet minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was allegedly involved in supplying "spurious" paddy seeds which were not approved for sale by the PAU.

However, Randhawa had denied the charge and had accused Akalis of dragging his name to “gain cheap political mileage”.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)