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Saturday, July 13, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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2 accomplices of Sidhu surrender
Our Correspondent

Kharar, July 12
Two alleged accomplices of Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu, former Chairman of the Punjab Public Service Commission, Shamsher Singh and Gurdeep Singh Manchanda, surrendered before Mr Roshan Lal Chouhan, Judicial Magistrate, Kharar, today.

The court remanded them in judicial custody till tomorrow. The court has also issued a notice to the state through Mr Jatinderjit Singh Punn, Public Prosecutor.

Earlier, the court had issued arrest warrants against the two, but they could not be arrested by the Vigilance Department.

The court ordered that both accused should be produced before it at 2 pm tomorrow.

Shamsher Singh was allegedly the main tout of Ravi Sidhu and used to collect bribe money from candidates.

Similarly, Gurdeep Singh Manchanda allegedly used to send the bribe money collected by Ravi Sidhu to foreign countries through hawala transactions.

Meanwhile, the Judicial Magistrate, Kharar, today extended the police remand of Kulbir Singh Randhawa, a former member of the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board (PSSSB), till July 17. The accused was arrested by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau on July 8 and was remanded in police custody by same court till July 12.

Mr Jatinderjit Singh Punn, Public Prosecutor, sought a further police remand of 10 days for the accused and said he was a member of the PSSSB from 1997 to February, 2002, and during this period he amassed wealth worth crores, disproportionate to his known sources of income. He said during his tenure he was behind the selection of 12 multi-purpose health workers, two fisheries officers, four or five junior draughtsmen, 30 or 35 clerks in different departments, four staff nurses, a JE, a tutor nurse, an Assistant Medical Officer, a forest guard and clerks in the Education Department. He allegedly charged Rs 50,000 to Rs 3 lakh from each of them. He said information was yet to be collected from him as to where he had kept this money and what were the properties made by him using this money. He said they had information that the accused had two lockers in Punjab National Bank, Batala.