CHANDIGARH: He is a crusader against bribe takers and now he has reasons to battle against them with double vigour with veteran social activist Anna Hazare having ignited the country against corruption.
Influenced by thoughts and philosophy of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, resident of Deobath village in Tarn Taran district, Rattan Singh Randhawa leads a group in the region to force corrupt government babus to desist from demanding bribe and has also made them return the bribe money at times. He has vowed to go along with Hazare in his fight against corruption.
And Randhawa started early, from his college days, after completing MA in political science and sociology and then equipping himself with a law degree Randhawa to meet his goal of eradicating corruption.
He said that he had spearheaded a movement with like-minded students of Khalsa College in 1978 and forced the then college management to return the excess charges taken from students.
What really got him going was the rampant corruption and misery of rural folks and he joined Border Area Sangharsh Committee, in which he is vice-president, to take on erring and corrupt government machinery.
People from Tarn Taran and Amritsar district often seek his support for whenever government employees demand bribe for installation of transformers, transfer of properties, filing of FIRs, getting benefits of government schemes and other issues.
The modus operandi of Randhawa is simple. 'When some government clerk or official demands bribe I approach him and ask him not to take bribe. If he refuses to bend then I, along with my group, stage demonstration in front of his office and force the babu to do work without any bribe money', he said, adding that it works.
And it sure does as Kashmir Singh, a resident of Khankot village, confirmed. 'It was due to efforts of Randhawa's group that a tehsildar had to return Rs 3 lakh bribe taken from him for preparing documents of transfer of his property', said Kashmir.
A resident of Daoke village, Sukhwinder Singh, said that all the 15 tubewell connections in his village were taken without paying a single penny in bribe. 'Fifteen tubewell connections would have meant paying a bribe of anything between Rs 2 and Rs 3 lakh', he said.
'I think till now I have made corrupt officials return as much as Rs 10 lakh bribe and we have prevented babus taking bribe of more than Rs 1.5 crore', claimed Randhawa.
