Gul Panag's father teaches cops Army lessons

CHANDIGARH: While AAP candidate Gul Panag was busy campaigning on Sunday, her father Lt Gen H S Panag (retd) also attracted quite a few onlookers near Sector 35 roundabout when he gave a lecture on military rules and regulations after election team officials in plainclothes stopped his car for a routine check.

The officials were members of a team of Election Commission tasked with checking the movement of unauthorized cash but Panag would not believe them till he was shown the identity cards plus authorization papers. Minutes before the arrival of Panag's car, a sum of Rs 7 lakh was seized from a vehicle at the same point around 4pm.

Panag finally allowed duty magistrate Praveen Mittal to search his car but only after showing them some military rules on how to intercept a car.

The situation was tense till the intervention of local area SHO, inspector Bhupinder Singh, but he too found himself in a tough situation when Panag told him how armymen behaved. The car was being driven by a close relative of Panag, who was sitting on the front seat, and his wife on the rear seat.

Talking to TOI, Panag said, "I have no objection on them searching my car but at least the man in plain clothes first should reveal his identity."

Before driving away, Panag demonstrated the difference between an Army and a police salute, targeting the Chandigarh policemen, "When an armyman salutes, his stomach touches his back." Indeed, the potbellies of the policemen were visible to everyone present at the naka.