J A L A N D H A R    E D I T I O N

Swine Flu
Wakened pvt hospitals can solve half the problem
Jalandhar, December 8
Could the lives of those who died of swine flu be saved? A careful study of the case history of all the patients who died in the district after contracting the disease would make one to answer in the affirmative. All the patients who died after contracting swine flu had tried to get treated at different private hospitals in the district at the initial stages of the disease.

Blind Murder
‘Godman’ kills woman who knew his secrets
Nawanshahr, December 8
The police today claimed to have solved the mystery behind the blind murder of Kavita Rani, resident of Mohalla Shiv Nagar, Railway Road, by arresting a self-styled godman, Satinder Kumar, alias Swami Sachidanand. Kavita (40) was found murdered in her house about a week ago.

Police-controlled Pollution

Is India talking of self control cuts in carbon emission? It doesn’t seem so looking at this polluting police vehicle in Amritsar.  Photo: Vishal Kumar

327 trees face axe to make NH accident-free
Tarn Taran, December 8
The district administration has decided to expedite the procedure to axe 327 trees on National Highway-15 from Gohalwar to Harike to make it an accident-free traffic stretch.

Man killed in mishap
Phagwara, December 8
One person was killed and two sustained injuries in two different road mishaps in and around Phagwara on Tuesday.The deceased has been identified as Manjit Singh (52), while the injured have been identified as Balwinder Singh and his wife Meena. The injured couple was admitted to the Civil Hospital. The body of Manjit Singh has been kept in the hospital mortuary for post-mortem examination, the police said.

Swine Flu
Wakened pvt hospitals can solve half the problem
Amaninder Pal
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 8
Could the lives of those who died of swine flu be saved? A careful study of the case history of all the patients who died in the district after contracting the disease would make one to answer in the affirmative.

All the patients who died after contracting swine flu had tried to get treated at different private hospitals in the district at the initial stages of the disease.

However, they were shifted to big institutions like Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) or the PGI, Chandigarh, only after the professionals in these private hospitals failed to provide the best expertise.

All the three deaths which took place in the last few days were reported either at the PGI or the DMCH.

According to sources in the Health Department, Harbhajan Singh, who died at the PGI yesterday, was shifted there only after being treated at three different hospitals in the city and one at Ludhiana for a couple of days. Similarly, Anju Bala, who hailed from Shahkot and died at the PGI, also got treatment from two different hospitals in the district nearly for a week.

Another patient, who died at the DMCH, was admitted to one of the reputed hospitals of the city before being referred to the DMCH where he died on November 22.

Similarly, two other patients, who later died, first reported at private hospitals. Ironically, managements and professionals of private hospitals where all these patients got initial treatment, never bothered to intimate the health officials of the district during the early stages.

Rather health officials got intimation from the PGI after the death or just one day before the death of these patients.

“Except proper isolation of suspected cases, the administration of medicine and testing is not necessary for patients with mild symptoms like cough, fever, sore throat and sneezing. We need to start treating with medicines only when a patient comes with all these symptoms in the more severe form. The problem arises when the patients suffering from severe symptoms fail to report to us as the medicine for swine flu is provided only by the government health officials,” said District Health Official Dr Roop Lal.

“The death rate can be contained if there is timely intimation about suspected cases by all private hospitals,” he added.

Blind Murder
‘Godman’ kills woman who knew his secrets
Parmod Bharti

Nawanshahr, December 8
The police today claimed to have solved the mystery behind the blind murder of Kavita Rani, resident of Mohalla Shiv Nagar, Railway Road, by arresting a self-styled godman, Satinder Kumar, alias Swami Sachidanand. Kavita (40) was found murdered in her house about a week ago.

The SSP, Rakesh Aggarwal, while addressing mediapersons here today, said, “Satinder Kumar, who is presently residing at Bakkerkhana Road here, originally belongs to Qadian in Gurdaspur district and interestingly is a proclaimed offender and wanted by the Qadian police in a number of cases of fraud.” The SSP said the Swami had been delivering religious discourses on Aastha TV Channel. He had been committing fraud with people under the guise of his spiritual appearance and command over the holy books like the Gita and Ramayana.

Giving details of the Kavita murder case, the SSP said the police had registered a case under section 302 of the IPC on the statement of Som Nath, brother of the victim and constituted a special team, comprising Kuldip Singh, SP (Detective), Satpal Singh Bhangu, DSP, and Raj Kumar, SHO (City), to investigate the case. During investigation, it came to light that the Swami had taken Rs 4 lakh from Kavita by arousing her religious sentiments during the past six months and about one and a half months back Kavita had come to know about the real face of the Swami, so she had started demanding her money back from him on the pretext that she was in need of the money for the marriage ceremony of her son.

Besides, she had also started threatening him of disclosing his identity to the police if he did not return her money soon. Fearing discloser of his identity, Swami Sachidanand allegedlly planned to eliminate her and as per his plan, he reached her residence at about 11.30 pm on November 28. He tried to persuade Kavita not to insist on returning money or disclosing his past criminal record to the police.

Later, he hit her and dragged her by holding her scarf, following which she fell on the bed. Then, he killed her by strangulating her neck with the help of her scarf. After murdering Kavita, he covered her body in a bed sheet and scattered the household articles lying in the almirah and in the room to create a scene of burgalary, said the SSP, adding that the Swami even tried to destroy the proof by destroying the mobile phones of Kavita, so that he could not be traced with the help of mobile phones.

After committing the crime, Swami, accompanied by his followers, went to Kurukshetra at about 6 am to give an impression that he was not in the town on that day.

327 trees face axe to make NH accident-free

Tarn Taran, December 8
The district administration has decided to expedite the procedure to axe 327 trees on National Highway-15 from Gohalwar to Harike to make it an accident-free traffic stretch. The administration issued instructions in this regards to the Forest Range Officer today in the meeting of the District Road Safety Committee convened under the chairmanship of Khushi Ram, Deputy Commissioner-cum-Chairman of the committee. The Committee members said these trees along the 
road had been behind accidents, causing great loss of lives.

As many as six transformers too are to be shifted from the roadside in the move to make the high way accident free. The administration has not decided to plant trees in place of the ones to be axed. — OC