Bathinda, April 23
Malkiat Kaur (35), a resident of local Mehna Basti, who has been observing hunger strike for an indefinite period, was today referred to the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College, Faridkot, by the local Civil Hospital authorities as her condition was deteriorating. Her strike entered its 24th day today. She was admitted to the hospital by the police on April 13 after forcibly removing her from local Ambedkar Park outside the Mini-secretariat where she had sat on an indefinite hunger strike on March 31.

The hospital authorities referred her to the Faridkot Medical College this afternoon as she was adamant not to eat till the demands of the residents of local Mehna Basti and Amarpura Basti were accepted.

Malkiat Kaur’s condition deteriorated in the morning when she fell in the bathroom at the hospital. After that, she was shifted from the prisoner ward to an emergency ward. As she has not been eating anything, the hospital authorities had been administering her glucose since April 13. After her condition became serious today, the doctor on duty started administering her oxygen.

Earlier on Thursday, Bathinda civil surgeon Dr ID Goyal had constituted a three-member medical board, comprising Dr Ramesh Maheshwari, Dr Parminder Bansal and Dr Pawan Mittal, to check Malkiat Kaur. The board examined her yesterday and submitted its report to the civil surgeon today. In the report, medical board advised to shift the patient to the Faridkot’s Medical College at the earliest.

Dr Ramesh Maheshwari told TNS that Malkiat Kaur was now suffering from metabolic acidosis due to hunger. He said she had also been facing problems in breathing. She was also lethargic and drowsy, he added.

Suresh Goyal, founder of General Samaj Party, under whose leadership the agitation is being run, told TNS over the phone this evening that they had to face problems in getting Malkiat admitted to the medical college.

Fazilka, April 23
Residents of Fazilka have a typical characteristic: stained teeth, discoloured due to high content of fluorine in drinking water. Besides, a majority of middle-aged residents limp due to the high incidence of arthritis in this sub-divisional town. Many of the residents also suffer from abdominal disorders.

The residents are exposed to major health risks due to lack of potable water despite over six decades after independence with every government claiming to have provided the basic amenities. The residents lament that the water supply is inadequate. The problem of negative pressure exists in most outer areas of the town, including Radha Swami Colony, Madhav Nagri, Jattian Mohalla, Anni Delhi locality, Badal Colony etc. The low level taps are installed in the streets.

President of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Sabha Committee, Madhav Nagri, Gurdev Singh said his locality was not getting proper supply of drinking water for the past three months. Showing empty utensils, residents of the locality staged a demonstration near Banke Bihari Mandir. They rued that earlier also, contaminated water emanating foul smell, was being supplied to the locality. They raised slogans against the Municipal Council authorities for not supplying adequate drinking water.

A majority of the affluent and middle class residents have installed motors to draw water from the main lines, which results in negative pressure. “We have to fit plugs in low-level water pipes as there is less pressure in taps. We are left with no other alternative,” said Baljit Singh of Badal Colony. Notably, most are kept open resulting in negative pressure and contamination.

The MC authorities and officials, however, deny these facts saying 12 deep-bore tubewells and three overhead tanks cater to the drinking water needs and combat negative pressure.

Senior medical officer Dr YK Gupta has directed the municipal authorities to take mandatory five samples of drinking water from different locations of the town every month. The samples are sent to the Department of Microbiology, GGS Medical College, Faridkot. Interestingly, the report of samples mentions the water as “excellent”.

Sources, on the condition of anonymity, disclosed that the reason for the excellent report was that the water samples submitted for test were chlorinated whereas in routine, chlorination is seldom done.

While the plight of “aam aadmi” goes unheard, the affluent and middle class residents have installed reverse osmosis (RO) systems in their houses. According to an estimate, 2700 RO systems have been installed in the town. There is yet another section of the town that purchases “purified” water supplied by private concerns in 20-litre water cans. The cost of water in each can is about Rs 15. Nearly 2,200 cans are sold daily in the town during summer.

The only silver lining for uninterrupted canal-based water supply is a canal-based water project that was initiated in 2001. However, it proved to be a half measure as area around the canal-based water tank (spread on 10 acres) became unhygienic in the absence of a fence. Moreover, the project was attached to a canal which remains filled from May to October only. Hence, about 8,000 residents get tubewell water supply for most part of the year.

Now, it has been proposed that the canal-based water project is linked to the perennial Gang Canal at a distance of 16 km from Fazilka on the Abohar road.

According to local MLA Surjit Kumar Jyani and Municipal Council president Anil Sethi, the approval for drawing seven cusecs of water daily had been secured from the Rajasthan government. Rs 10 crore has been sanctioned for laying water mains along the 16-km stretch to connect the canal-based project to the Gang Canal for an uninterrupted water supply.

When would the project take a practical shape? It is anybody’s guess. (To be continued)

Mansa, April 23
Cracking the mystery shrouding the four-year-old blind murder case of an octogenarian farmer of village Akalia, the Joga police today arrested a Congress-affiliated former chairperson of the Zila Parishad along with her son for the alleged killing and then burying the body to destroy evidence.

According to the police, Baru Singh of village Akalia, an elderly farmer, had illicit relations with a 50-year-old, former chairperson of Zila Parishad, Bhagwant Kaur of the same village.

One the day of the murder (April 1, 2006), Bhagwant Kaur's son Gurmeet Singh found both of them in a compromising position at his (Gurmeet's) house and in a fit of rage, he dealt several blows to Baru Singh due to which he died. To evade police action, both (the woman and her son) wrapped the body in a jute bag and buried it in a vacant plot. To make the crime fool-proof by destroying the evidence, they started piling up garbage on the spot.

On the other hand, the kin of Baru Singh lodged a complaint that he had gone missing at the Joga police station on April 2, 2006. Despite their best efforts, neither the kin nor the police could locate Baru Singh for two years.

Meanwhile, Baru Singh's family members started lamenting that they were fed up with the futile exercise of searching for him. The irked family members also spread a message in the village that if somebody gets information about his death, they should pass it on and they would perform his last rituals. Assuming the statement to as an indication of the situation having turned favourable for them, the accused mother-son duo unearthed the carcass and placed it in the cremation ground.

On April, 3, 2008, somebody informed the villagers about the carcass and after the investigation, police identified it the body as that of Baru Singh. Terming it a blind murder, police lodged a case under section 302 of the IPC and started working on different strategies to crack the murder mystery.

It took about two years for the police to nab the accused and during the process¸ various police officials joined the investigation but left the matter unresolved. Finally, a team lead by the SHO Joga police station, Gurdarshan Singh, arrested the accused woman and her son, today.

The SHO said Baru Singh and the accused Bhagwant Kaur were immoral in their character. He disclosed that Baru Singh (81) had been enjoying sexual relations with various women of the village and Bhagwant Kaur was one of them.

Confirming the facts, Mansa SSP HS Mann said, “We have arrested the mother-son duo under sections 302, 201 and 34 of the IPC but they will be produced before the magistrate on Saturday.”

Meanwhile, sources in the village said the incident had created a flutter in all those families whose women came under the police scanner for having illicit relations with the deceased.

Abohar, April 23
The Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board (PWSSB) has been asked to develop a huge tank to increase the storage capacity of drinking water by 9 lakh gallons, said Deputy Commissioner (DC) Kamal Kishore Yadav here today.

Visiting the old and new waterworks here, the DC discussed with the officials concerned, including Municipal Council president Shiv Raj Goyal, EO Davinder Kumar Goyal and PWSSB engineers, almost each point that The Tribune had raised about the drinking water system in Abohar under its “Water Woes” series.

He directed that special pipe- lines be laid to make water available in each corner of the sub-divisional town. It will cost Rs 2.5 crore. The PWSSB has been asked to send the proposal to Chandigarh within a week. “I will take it up at the top level,” the DC assured.

Meanwhile, he advised the officials to improve water purification system and ensure clean environment around the waterworks.

Yadav was informed that the new waterworks had a tank with a storage capacity of of 9 lakh gallons while the town, with about 1.50 lakh permanent population, required 30 lakh gallons of potable water. The underground pipes in most of the localities had eroded and need immediate replacement. The officials told him that the old waterworks may become non-functional in the next few years as the floor beds of its tanks had choked.

The MC had resolved to purchase 24 acres of land to expand the new waterworks but shortage of funds and complicated procedure had held up the project. The DC assured to take it up later, sources said.

Abohar, April 23
Deputy Commissioner (DC), Ferozepur, KK Yadav, has issued a warning to a section of labour and transport contractors that strict action would be taken against them, if they did not expedite the lifting and transportation of wheat, lying in various grain markets and purchase centres dotting this region.

Yadav, who visited the grain markets of Abohar, Kundal and Fazilka along with a number of purchase centres, said that Abohar region had been facing the problem of lifting and transportation of wheat and hence he had asked the contactor concerned to expedite the same.

He said that commission agents had also been asked to make their own arrangements of lifting and transportation of wheat so that this problem could be solved at the earliest.

He added that if the contactor concerned would not speed up their lifting and transportation operations, appropriate action would be taken against them.

He said that he had asked the railway authorities not to unload the rake of fertiliser at Abohar station for a few days as it could adversely affect the lifting and transportation of wheat in this area. He added that procurement operations were going on smoothly in the whole district.

Already, contacts of a section of lifting and labour contractors in the Ferozepur district had been cancelled and tenders had been floated to invite fresh bids from other contractors for the same job.

Pirmal Kalani, president, Arhtiya Association, Abohar, said that due to slow lifting, the grain markets and purchase centres of this region were flooded with the bags loaded with procured wheat. He added that Yadav had assured them that if the contractor concerned would not expedite their operations, he would take necessary action.

Raj Sadosh adds: The Deputy Commissioner informed that so far arrival of wheat in Ferozepur district had been recorded as 9.76 lakh tonnes, of which 9.74 lakh tonnes has been purchased and 5.74 lakh tonnes lifted. About 40 lakh bags were yet to be lifted.

While authorising the commission agents to make own arrangements for packing of wheat as well as lifting, the DC made it clear that unloading of wheat bags at the plinths/godowns will be exclusively made by the contractors. 

Abohar, April 23
Farmers mobbed a seed selling shop as a team of officials of the agriculture department led by the District Agriculture Officer (DAO) Baksheesh Singh and Agriculture Development Officer (ADO) Sukhdev Singh Brar carried out a raid here following complaints from some farmers alleging that he was overcharging for the Bt cotton seed.

As per the information, complaints were forwarded by the Bhartiya Kisan Union and a farmer Bal Ram of village Amarpura had filed an affidavit 
also alleging that the dealer was charging Rs 900 against MRP of Rs 750 for each pack of a particular brand of the Bt cotton seed. However, billing was done at the MRP. The DAO advised the farmers not to purchase seed in black.

Punjab needs 12.50 lakh packets whereas the leading companies had promised to supply 24 lakh packets of the Bt cotton seed to the state during the ensuing season, he asserted. 

Abohar, April 23
“Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet 
preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time zones, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord,” said environmentalist Dr Rakesh Sehgal.

Speaking at a function at the Government High School here, he added that the day was devoted to the preservation of harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.

Gurmail Singh, principal of the Government Senior Secondary School, presided over the function that was organised by the Kalpana Chawla Science Club.

NSS volunteers led by Navjot Singh planted 55 saplings in Abohar Polytechnic College and followed principal Subhash Ahuja in taking pledge to plant one sapling each month to protect environment. 

Fazilka, April 23
Nearly three dozen rickshaw pullers blocked traffic at the thickly populated Bansi Pakorawala Chowk for about two hours on Friday and held a demonstration causing great inconvenience to the residents.

As a result of this, the vehicles were trapped in traffic jam on the Court Road, Clock Tower Crossing, Cycle Bazaar and Gaushalla Road.

The rickshaw pullers demanded that the civil administration and Municipal Council authorities demolish the shop constructed by allegedly encroaching upon four feet piece of land at the rickshaw stand at the Bansi Pakorawala crossing which is a traffic bottleneck.

The shopkeeper concerned maintained that the shop had been running for the last more than 60 years here and the chowk was named after his forefather Bansi Lal. Hence, he did not encroached upon the land. 

Hanumangarh/Abohar, April 23
A school-going minor boy has been rounded up for allegedly sexually exploiting a minor girl, also a close relative. The girl was later strangled her to death and her body dumped in village Ajitpura of Hanumangarh district, police sources said on Friday evening.

As per details the victim, identified as Shazida, studying in class II. She had been reported missing. The bizarre crime came to light today when the body started stinking. The suspect dragged it out and was found sitting near the body by two youths.

They informed the police. Bhirani SHO Inder Kumar and DSP Nevil Clark rushed to the village immediately upon receiving the information. The suspect broke down within a few minutes. He was actually trying to shift the stinking body to some other place.

SHO Inder Kumar said he convened a meeting yesterday and decided to launch a combing operation after distributing leaflets that carried the girl’s photo.

DSP Nevil Clark indicated that the minor girl went to suspect’s shop on Sunday to purchase confectionery. The postmortem would be conducted by a medical board. After that, further legal proceedings are likely to be initiated. 

Moga, April 23
Night shootout at Dhaudhar village in the Moga district on Thursday has claimed one more life on Friday.

A seriously injured person Jeet Singh, a private gunman, has succumbed to the injuries while undergoing treatment at a hospital at Ludhiana while the village sarpanch Rashpal Singh had died on the way to the hospital minutes after the incident.

One more person was injured in the shootout who was admitted to a hospital at Ludhiana where his condition was stated to be stable and out of danger.

Police have registered a criminal case under sections 302, 307, 147 and 148 of the IPC against the persons who were at the loggerheads with the sarpanch over the property dispute and begun investigation into the incident.

However, no one was arrested in this case at the time of writing the news report.

The SSP of Moga Snehdeep Sharma while talking to The Tribune said that the matter was still under investigation and he could not say anything concrete on the role of contract killers untill the investigation was over. “We are looking into every aspect of the crime,” he said.

Sources in the police revealed that a youth earlier involved in a couple of incidents of contract killings is also suspected to have his involvement. 

Abohar, April 23
Three youths aged between 15-25 years were killed in mishaps here today. An unidentified youth was run over by a Rewari-bound train during the wee hours near Model Town. Meanwhile, the GRP has shifted the body to the civil hospital.

One Sanjeev Kumar was drowned in a sub-canal near the Block Development and Panchayat Office on the Hindumalkot road. In another mishap, a teenager identified as Sandeep Kumar fell unconscious after consuming some tablets while working in the fields in village Dangarkhera today in the afternoon. He was rushed to the civil hospital here but died. — OC

Sriganganagar/Abohar, April 23
A high profile cricket betting was smashed today by the Sriganganagar police Friday afternoon in 
ward number 4 of Padampur town.

SP Rupinder Singh sent ASP Dr Ravi with search warrants following a tip-off. The ASP assisted by local SHO Balraj Singh Mann raided the office of a finance company at about 1.30 pm and seized Rs 5 lakh 66 thousand inIndian currency, a complete account of cricket betting on the semi-final match of the IPL along with a computer, TV and mobile phones.

The police reportedly took Gopal Dass and his four assistants identified as Amit Arora, Mohinder Aggarwal, Ashok Kumar Sindhi and Ashok Goyal into custody. During the search, some stamp papers and blank cheques were also recovered, sources said.