Amritsar, January 20
An inebriated man stabbed his wife Neha Gomes (30) to death and critically injured her brother Ashu (20), who was rushed to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital.

John Gomes (40), a resident of Tung Bala locality, had some dispute with his wife Neha Gomes about two days ago. Neha left her husband’s house and came to her parents’ house in the Bhivani Nagar area.

This evening, John came to the house carrying sharp-edged weapon in a drunken state. In a fit of anger, during a heated argument he stabbed her several times and profusely bleeding Neha succumbed to her injuries before medical aid could be given to her.

Ashu, her brother who tried to save his sister, was also wounded by John.

John fled after committing the crime. The police has registered a case under sections 302 and 307 of the IPC at Civil Lines police station here.

Ashok Kumar, father of the deceased, in his complaint stated that John had been married to Neha for the past seven years and had been living in the USA for the past five years.

He had returned only two months back.

He said the dispute occurred due to Gomes insistence that the house constructed in Tung Bala for which he had been sending the funds should be transferred in his names. This led to serious difference between the couple and further to the tragedy. 

Nawanshahr, January 20
With a view to regulating traffic on the Jalandhar-Nawanshahr-Chandigarh road here, the district administration has initiated efforts to redesign the traffic lights intersection and construct slip ways for ensuring smooth flow of traffic at Chandigarh Chowk.

These initiatives are being implemented as per the advice of Naresh Mehta, a traffic engineer associated with an NGO SAATH (Society for Accident Aid and Traffic Help).

A traffic light has been installed near Gurdwara Singh Sabha for the convenience of the vehicle owners coming on Chandigarh Road.

Earlier, the vehicles used to come ahead, thus hindering the smooth flow of traffic from Old Court Road towards Chandigarh Road.

Besides, with a view to widening Chandigarh Chowk as well as to ensure smooth flow of traffic coming from Chandigarh Road towards Old Court Road and from Old Court Road towards Ambedkar Chowk, the construction work of slip ways near Kumar Bakery and Girdhari Dhaba has been started. The steps would help in curbing the traffic chaos at Chandigarh Chowk.

While the construction work of the slip way near Kumar Bakery is going on smoothly, the demolition work of the alleged encroachments near Girdhari Dhaba is yet to be completed allegedly due to pressure from some influential persons.

Shopkeepers at Chandigarh Chowk, while accusing the administration of discrimination during anti-encroachment drives, rued that the permanent encroachments and violations of instructions regarding parking vehicles by the influential businessmen on a stretch of the Jalandhar-Nawanshahr-Chandigarh road had always been overlooked by the administration. Only the small establishments were being made a scapegoat of the anti-encroachment drives, they added.

Hoshiarpur, January 20
To cover all poor families under the Atta-Dal scheme and to strike off the names of ineligible families which are presently getting benefit of the scheme, a new survey for preparing the blue cards has been started in Punjab.

Disclosing this here today, Punjab chief parliamentary secretary (food and civil supply) Arunesh Shakar said more than 13 lakh poor families were being covered under the Atta-Dal scheme in the state and with the resurvey the number of such families would further be increased. None of the eligible families would be left for getting the benefit under the scheme.

Referring to the ongoing shortage of cooking gas, Shakar said the civil supplies department had recently convened a meeting of all LPG agency holders for the first time in the state to know their difficulties and to find out ways to overcome the problem of shortage of domestic cooking gas.

Majority of the agency holders complained that they were not getting regular supply of filled LGP cylinders according to the requirement from the bottling plants of their respective gas companies and it had led to the shortage of cooking gas in their area, said Shakar, adding that the state government was approaching LPG companies to make the supply of cylinders as per the requirement of their agency holders.

Replying to a question, Shakar said to stop the adulteration of kerosene in petrol and diesel and its selling in the black market by various ration depot holders, the state government was formulating a new policy very shortly.

To check the corruption in the civil supply department, a lot of effective steps had recently been taken. This would certainly weed out corruption in the department in near future, claimed Arunesh Shakar.

Hoshiarpur, January 20
The SSP (vigilance bureau), Jalandhar range, Surinderjit Singh Mand, in a press note here today said an case under sections 7 and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act had been registered against a clerk, Manohar Lal, posted at SDM office, Dasuya, and sections 332, 353, 224, 186, 148 and 149 of the IPC had been added to it against the clerk and other officials and employees of the SDM office, viz Surinder Kumar Gupta, Anju Bala, Tarsem Singh, Tarsem Lal and at least 15 more persons last evening.

The SSP said all accused assaulted the raiding party of the department, led by DSP Daljeet Singh, when it caught clerk Manohar Lal accepting a bribe of Rs 2,000 from Harpreet Masih of Ghogra for allotting him a registration number of his choice for his new motorcycle yesterday.

With the help of all accused, clerk Manohar Lal escaped with the 
bribe money.

In the assault constable Gurjit Singh was wounded.

Today, members of the Ministerial Services Staff Union started pen-down strike in protest against the vigilance department for “falsely implicating” clerk Manohar Lal in a bribe case.

They demanded cancellation of the case.

The joint meeting of the district units of the Bharti Kisan Union, Punjab, and International Club Association, Punjab, held under the presidentship of Avtar Singh Singapuri supported and appreciated the action of the vigilance department for weeding out corruption from the government machinery.

They condemned all those persons who were agitating in favour of corrupt employees. They warned them not to protect the corrupt employees failing which they would start agitation against them. 

Jalandhar, January 20
Members of the Government School Lecturers Union, Punjab, have decided to conduct a state-level march at Bathinda on January 25 to protest against the failure of the authorities concerned in promoting lecturers as principals in the state.

Union president Hakam Singh said as many as 1,300 posts of principal were lying vacant in the state. Out of these, only 160 posts had been filled and that too of vocation masters (headmasters) who did not deserve this promotion.

“The government, instead of promoting lecturers to the post of principal, is appointing vocation masters as principals. This has lead to a great resentment among the lecturers,” he said.

The last time when lecturers were promoted to the post of principal was in 2001. “In case the government fails to meet our demands, the union would be forced to boycott the upcoming annual examinations in government schools,” he added. 

Batala, January 20
Gurmeet Singh, father of Sandeep Kaur, yesterday lodged a complaint with the Director-General of Police, Punjab, SSP Dr Naresh Arora and the Punjab Human Rights Commission alleging torture of his daughter by her husband. Gurmeet Singh said that Sandeep Kaur’s husband Raj Kumar was arrested earlier in a dowry case by the Batala police but was freed on bail after he compromised in the court.

Gurmeet Singh further alleged that after coming out of the jail, Raj Kumar had flouted the orders of court and went to Canada without fulfilling his promise of accepting his wife with dignity. In the complaint Gurmeet Singh requested the authorities to intervene in the matter so that his daughter got justice as per the compromise reached in the court.