Chandigarh:
Former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday sought a judicial probe into the violence sparked by killing of a Dera Sachkhand leader in Vienna, alleging the state government had abdicated its authority and stood as a mute spectator.
In a statement issued he said it was important to have an impartial probe into the whole issue as it "threatens" to break the social fabric of the state.
At least three persons have so far lost their lives in clashes since Sunday night as followers of the Sikh sect, a majority of them Dalits, took to the streets to lodge protest against the Vienna incident.
"We need to learn lessons from past experiences when similar controversies have spiralled out into major problems," the Congress leader said.
Terming the incidents in Vienna as quite unfortunate, he added, "what happened subsequently in Punjab only proves the utter and apparently deliberate failure of state government and its law and order machinery to protect life and property of the people."
Amarinder alleged the SAD-BJP government had abdicated its authority and left people at the mercy of mobs.
"The way Railways and other public property was attacked without any resistance from the law enforcing agencies made the government connivance seem too obvious," he said.
Referring to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's statement that police had been asked not to take strong action against protesters, Amarinder said, "this is a classic case of voluntary abdication of authority by head of the government."
"While peaceful protests are understandable, violence is certainly unacceptable and Badal needs to understand that," the former chief minister said.