Bathinda, January 25
The Bathinda police today claimed to have cracked the mystery shrouding the kidnapping of the four-year-old son of a migrant family with the arrest of the accused from Jalandhar.

According to police officials, the accused, identified as Anil Kumar of Madhopur (Bihar), recently settled in Bathinda, was a close friend of the boy’s father and wanted to develop illicit relations with his wife and attempted to use the boy as a tool for blackmailing.

The woman in question, Lalita, approached the police on Sunday late in the evening and alleged that her son Ashish had been kidnapped from a local playway school on Saturday and despite all efforts, she had failed to find the boy.

Presenting the recovered boy and his family in front of the media, Bathinda SSP Ashish Chaudhary said immediately after the woman lodged a complaint with the police, a criminal case under section 364 of the IPC was lodged at the Kotwali police station and a special team, comprising the staff of Kotwali police, anti-narcotics cell and the detective wing, was constituted to conduct the operation.

“Meanwhile, the woman received a call from the accused kidnapper on her mobile phone asking her to meet him in Jalandhar, if she wanted to see her son alive. Tracing the call, the police identified his location. We trained the woman to tackle the calls of the kidnapper and as per the plan, she fixed up a meeting with the accused for this morning at the kidnapper’s friend’s house at Basti Bawa Ke in Jalandhar,” said the SSP.

The police team took the woman to Jalandhar at night and nabbed the accused and recovered the boy from his possession.

Father of the kidnapped boy Manoj Kumar, said, “He was my close friend and used to come to my place frequently. We could not even imagine that he had such wicked intentions.”

Police officials said the accused would now be presented in the court. 

Bathinda, January 25
The volunteers of an NGO —the Sahara Jan Seva — found a foetus lying in an open sewerage channel at Janata Nagar locality, here this morning.

Though the medical report was yet to come, police officials registered a case against unidentified persons and said it was a male foetus of about three-four month.

According to information available, some children of Janata Nagar were playing in the streets, when they found a foetus lying in an open drain. They informed their elders, who in turn called the NGO volunteers.

The NGO volunteers informed the police, who after recording the statements of the eye-witnesses took it to Civil Hospital and got the postmortem conducted, there and again handed it over to the Sahara volunteers.

When contacted, investigation officer Bant Singh said, “We have been probing the matter to identify the parents. As of now, a case under section 318 of the IPC (concealment of birth by secret disposal of dead body) has been registered against unidentified persons.”

The recovery of the foetus has come as a jolt to the Panghura (cradle) scheme of the district administration. To check the practice of abandoning and killing unwanted babies, the district Red Cross Society had under the scheme, installed a cradle on the Bathinda-Goniana road. It was also promised that people, who would leave their baby there, would be asked nothing about their whereabouts.

Bathinda, January 25
The Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bathinda, is celebrating Security Awareness Week from January 25 to January 31. The programme was inaugurated by chief manager SP Singh at the circle office in Kikar Bazaar, Bathinda today.

The convener of the programme was assistant commandant Prem Sagar Bhardwaj, manager (Security).

The PNB is the first bank in the entire banking industry that has started celebrating security awareness in the month of January for 
its staff and customers, as banks these days have become soft targets for looting public money.

Bathinda, January 25
Five labourers sustained injuries—two of them seriously— as the lintel of an under construction shop collapsed in Vishavkarma market, here today.The incident occurred at about 1.30 pm and the injured were pulled out within a few minutes but the rescue operation with a number of JCB machines and cranes was carried out for a couple of hours to rule out the possibility of any more labourer being buried under the debris.

According to details available, one Sikander Singh was getting the second floor of his shop constructed on a contract basis. In an alleged hurry to complete the work, ignoring the strength of the recently laid base, the contractor started work of lintel for the second floor of the shop. As a result, the base and walls did not bear the weight and collapsed, when the job of second lintel was about to be completed.

According to eye-witnesses, when the lintel collapsed, about 11 labourers, including machine workers and masons, were at work. It fell with a thud and the sound erupted the whole market in commotion. Some of the labourers, who escaped unhurt, claimed that many of them were buried under the collapsed structure.

Receiving the information, volunteers of Naujwan Welfare Society and Sahara Jan Seva rushed to the spot and launched the rescue operation. A team from the Bathinda Municipal Corporation (BMC) along with the fire brigade and JCB machines also reached the spot. Some operators voluntarily came forward with their cranes to help in the rescue operation.

Five labourers, later identified as Amit Kumar, Satish Kumar, Rajesh Kumar, Parmod Kumar, Pawan Kumar, were pulled out and rushed to the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital, Bathinda.

To rule out the possibility of other labourers buried under the debris, the rescue operation was carried on for a couple of hours but nobody was found.

Mayor Baljeet Singh Birbehman along with other officials of the BMC visited the spot and asked for launching a probe into the matter.

In-charge of the Civil Lines police post Sanjeev Kumar recorded the statements of labourers and eye-witnesses. He assured of taking action against the shop owner as well as the contractor as per the provisions of the law. 

Bathinda, January 25
With the arrest of six persons, the Bathinda police today claimed to have traced 10 snatching and theft cases lodged at different times in the Kotwali police station.

The police, in a press release issued here, said Gobind Ram of Partap Nagar, Gagandeep Kumar of Awa Basti, Tejinder Singh of Ganga Ram Wali Gali, Gurpreet Singh of Gurunanak Pura Mohalla, Balraj Singh of Hazi Rattan and Harpreet Singh of Ganesha Basti were arrested on the basis of suspicion.

The police also recovered various weapons like a .315 bore pistol along with live cartridges and four knives from their possession. Besides, seven gold chains were also recovered.

All the accused have been booked under sections 399, 402 and 411 of the IPC and 25 of the Arms Act.

Confirming the facts, senior police officials stated that the accused were in police custody and were being interrogated to ascertain their role in other crimes.

Sources in the police department informed that some of these arrested culprits had patronage of political leaders, who today visited the senior police officials and accused SHO CIA Staff Rajinder Kumar for falsely implicating them in a case. However, before the senior cops took decision, the leaders indulged in personal dual and left the office.

Ferozepur, January 25
The Border Security Force (BSF) authorities have made an increase of more than 20 per cent in the strength of troops for guarding the Indo-Pak border falling in Punjab to meet any challenge following the incident connected with firing of rockets in Indian soil in Amritsar area from across the border, which took place a few days back.

Official sources said preparations made by the BSF authorities after firing of rockets from across the border occured were not less than the preparations, which were usually made during the war time.

Sources added that the BSF authorities had also deployed support arms including mortar, medium machine guns (MMG), light machine guns (LMG), rocket launcher and automatic grenade launchers to give befitting reply to those, who would indulge in any kind of mischief from across the border. About six companies of the BSF had been deployed in addition to the companies, which had already been manning the Indo-Pak border in Punjab.

Himmat Singh, IG, BSF, Punjab, while talking to The Tribune on Monday evening said, “The BSF guarding the Indo-Pak border in Punjab frontier is well-equipped to meet any kind of challenge.”

“Additional troops have been deployed on the Indo-Pak border by withdrawing the man force from the BSF headquarter, Jalandhar, DIG office head quarters and battalion office headquarters to make the presence effective,” he said.

While claiming that no mischief had been done from Pakistan’s side in connection with the cutting of cobra fence, he said force was alerted to defeat all the designs of the anti-national elements. He said some smugglers had tried to push narcotics towards the Indian side in the past few weeks, which had been seized by the alerted BSF Jawans.

Information gathered by TNS revealed that the BSF authorities had taken additional steps than their routine exercise to defeat the misadventure of anti-national elements on the border by taking advantage of the fog.

Information revealed that three layers security system including foot, mounted and vehicular patrolling in the area falling between cobra fencing and zero line, patrolling along the cobra fencing and patrolling in the area falling between cobra fencing and Indian side had been intensified. Special check points were being set up across the fencing and before the fencing wire daily.

The jawans had been provided with the latest surveillance equipments to trap those, who could make attempt to push men and narcotics during the intense fog.

Malout, January 25
Just after three months, the huge beam forming part of the Bathinda-Sriganganagar railway overbridge (ROB) again collapsed on the rail track, when it was being installed with the help of two huge cranes, here on Monday morning.

No casualty was reported. However, the accident disrupted the rail traffic for some time.

The incident took place at about 9.30 am, when the lifting iron-rope of one of the two cranes, which were raising the multi-tonnes heavy beam to its fixing point, broke midway and the other one also lost its balance.

Receiving the information, railway authorities and officials from civil and police administration rushed to the spot and took an account of the situation. Talking to media, railway authorities denied any damage to the beam and assured of lifting it with heavy cranes. In a late report, sources informed that the beam was installed at its pointed location. — TNS