Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 3: Police today arrested Assistant Road Transport Officer Bandipora on charges of assaulting local Congress legislator of the Bandipora constituency.
The ARTO Bandipora, Tariq Ahmad Bhat, of Tangmarg was arrested by police today after Congress MLA; Usman Majid moved a complaint before the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Bandipora, Shah Faisal alleging that the Transport Officer last week misbehaved with him and tried to assault him physically.
The Transport Officer was lodged at the police station Bandipora. A case (FIR No 30/2015 under Sections 341, 353, 506, RPC) has been registered against him. He was, however, released tonight as the offense under which he was arrested are bailable.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) North, Gareeb Dass told Excelsior that the ARTO was arrested on the formal complaint lodged by the Congress MLA before Deputy Commissioner who forwarded it to the Superintendent of Police Bandipora. He said that they acted on the complaint.
Sources said that Bhat had streamlined the functioning of the ARTO office in Bandipora and had kept touts away from facilitating the driving licenses in the district. “As the touts’ business suffered due to ARTO’s strictness in adhering to law in the issuance of driving license, they used political pressure against him but the ARTO refused to give up”, they said.
Sources said that in order to resolve the issue, the Deputy Commissioner Bandipora called a meeting of the MLA and ARTO in his office last week where ARTO refused to allow the role of touts in issuance of driving license. “He assaulted the MLA after hot exchange of words between the officer and law maker”, they said.
The MLA lodged a written complaint with the DC against the officer. The DC had later issued a show cause notice to the ARTO to which the later failed to respond. He finally forwarded the letter of assault on MLA to SP Bandipora for lodging an FIR.
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