Amid lax crackdown on fires, FIRS name 'unknown people'

Punjab Police has so far filed at least 350 first information reports (FIRS) against farmers for setting their paddy stubble on fire in contravention of the Supreme Court's orders. 

- Ravinder Vasudeva

However, most of these FIRS are identical and have been registered against unknown people, found a preliminary analysis by HT as farm fires continued to rage across the agrarian state.

HT analysed 30 FIRS registered at police stations across the state's 23 districts, and found all of them were filed with just one charge-Section 188 (disobeying an order promulgated by a servant) of the Indian Penal Code.

Similar strands ran through the 30 FIRS they only mentioned the locations of where the fire was spotted, with the same appendage that "there is a ban on burning stubble, but the aforesaid farmer violated the norms by disobeying the official orders".

When contacted, several officers in the Punjab Police force involved in stamping out stubble fires said most of the 350 registered cases were identical and named nobody, underscoring the state's inability to penalise violators, consequently exacerbating the annual pollution crisis in the national capital.