Amritsar, March 20
The District Education Office found a clerk at Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Rajasansi, Rajwinder Kaur, guilty of forging the signatures of the principal for fraudulently withdrawing a hefty amount from the GPF of two teachers.

District Education Officer (Secondary) Manjit Kaur Sidhu said two separate departmental inquiries, in complaints against the same person, found her guilty. She said that the report of the inquiries had been forwarded to the Director General School Education (DGSE) for taking action.

The forgery came to light when drawing teacher Parsini and gardener Bhupinder Kumar applied to the principal for withdrawing Rs 2.85 and Rs 1.40 lakh, respectively, from their GPF accounts on January 15.

Principal Suman Lata was surprised to find that Rajwinder had managed to withdraw and pay Rs 4.25 lakh on the same day and sought the signature of the principal on the cash book.

The principal surreptitiously cross-checked all transactions of the school and found that an equal amount (Rs 4.25 lakh) had been withdrawn from the GPF accounts of social study teachers Harbhajan Kaur and Kanwaljit Kaur on January 6.

On being questioning Harbhajan and Kanwaljit, the principal came to know that both the teachers had not applied for the withdrawal of funds from their GPF accounts.

Office superintendent (accounts) in the District Education Office Baldev Singh Virk carried out the inquiry and found that the clerk had forged the signatures of the principal.

Section officer in the District Education Office Anil Kumar Bakshi indicted her as guilty of fraudulently applying for withdrawal of Rs 1.85 lakh from the GPF account of a colleague Parveen Kumari on her own.

However, the State Bank of India’s Ajnala branch detected the anomaly in the signature. The bank sent the reply, enclosed with the cheque 891802 for Rs 1.85 lakh to the principal that it was unable to obtain payment for finding the payee’s endorsement irregular.

Jalandhar, March 20
Appearing in the annual examination turned out to be an ordeal for the students of Government Primary School, Chugavan, here today. As many as 92 children came to the school for the annual examination only to find the school doors locked and teachers missing.

Their long wait ended only after the authorities from the District Education Office came to conduct the examination in the village gurdwara. The experience was harrowing specially for the 26 students of class V.

As per sources, the Deputy Commissioner, DEO (Primary) Kamal Kanta and Director General of School Education Krishna Kumar were informed a day in advance about the possible closure of the school by the teachers. The school teachers, allegedly faced with a threat from villagers, had demanded police protection, failing which they refused to enter the school. “We learnt on March 18 that some villagers were planning an attack. We sent a letter to the authorities demanding police protection. Some anti-social elements were involved in this politically motivated incident,” said Amarjeet (41), one of the teachers.

On February 27, people from Sammipur, Gakhala, Gillah and Kartarpur villages had gathered at the school to protest against Amarjeet Singh, charging him with beating up students. Policemen from Lambra police station had come to take control of the situation and filed an FIR against four persons.

On March 3, these persons held a dharna in front of the DC’s office.

Amarjeet claims that none of them had his ward studying in the school and the move was politically motivated as he was close to Chief Parliamentary Secretary Avinash Chander.

On March 19, acting head teacher of the school Kamlesh Kumari was charged with punishing Yuvraj Singh (8), son of Tarsem Lal. She had allegedly made him stand in the sun while he was suffering from fever, and wanted leave.

Deputy DEO Parminder Singh looked into the matter. While the inquiry was on, Tarsem Singh went to the school and abused teachers, following which Parminder filed a complaint against him at Lambra police station.

Meanwhile, Tarsem Singh blames Amarjeet and Kamlesh Kumari for being brutal to kids. My boy was born premature and didn’t keep well. He was made to stand in the sun for three hours. He was later admitted to the Civil Hospital. I got upset, went to school and in a rage rebuked the teachers.”

Expressing concern over the turn of events, the Deputy DEO said: “I have been to the school twice to conduct a check but haven’t found anything out of place there. Even children were not against the teacher. The SSA committee members were all praise for them. The authorities are looking into the matter.”

Tarn Taran, March 20
The Punjab State Electricity Board has decided to install pillar boxes in the local Police Colony to check power theft and convert power lines into cable lines.

This was stated by PSEB Deputy Chief Engineer S.S. Sarna of the local circle in a press statement issued here in a clarification of a news item published in The Tribune yesterday. Sarna said this would help in checking power theft in Police Colony. Meters had been installed in all the houses in Power Colony, he added.

The official, however, did not specify the amount of power theft in Police Colony. He only said that installation of pillar boxes would be helpful in checking power theft. — OC