Bathinda, May 14
To upgrade and strengthen the link road network further in rural areas of the state, the Punjab government, after preparing Rs 219-crore link road project, has now sent it for sanction to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

Talking to TNS today, Punjab PWD B&R minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said the government was committed to provide good quality link roads in all parts of the rural Punjab for creating basic and necessary infrastructure to hasten the overall development of villages.

The minister further said the government had prepared the project to strengthen and upgrade more than 400-km-long link roads almost in all districts of the state, including Bathinda, Mansa, Ferozepur, Barnala, Sangrur, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur and Ludhiana. He said the government had recently sent the project to the NABARD authorities at Mumbai, seeking its sanction.

Dhindsa said the NABARD would provide 80 per cent of the total project cost as loan while 20 per cent would be contributed by the state government. He said after the sanction and release of the loan by the NBARD, the state government would start work on the project. Under the project, not only link roads are to be upgraded and strengthened, but the bridges falling on these roads would also be rebuilt, he added.

The minister also said the government had also prepared a proposal to construct some new roads and upgrade the old ones throughout the state. Regarding imposition of toll taxes, he said the SAD-BJP government had not imposed toll tax on any road during its regime so far.

Dhindsa said the PWD would also prepare some new projects to provide a strengthened road network to the people of the state during the next two years.

Faridkot, May 14
The district and sessions judge of Faridkot, Fateh Deep Singh, has awarded death penalty to a 50 years old man, who was found guilty in a triple murder case over illicit relations here, today.

The district attorney Balbir Singh Latala said that death sentence has been awarded to Joginder Singh, who is a resident of Kotkapura on having found guilty of murdering a woman, her husband and her teenaged son.

As per the case file, on July 2, 2008 one Chhinda Singh, a resident of Kotkapura lodged a complaint before the local police stating that he had gone to visit his sister Darshan Kaur on that day at about 8.30 pm.

On reaching there, he found the main door of the house open and blood splattered on the floor with a foul smell coming out of the house.

He found the bedroom of the couple locked from outside and when he looked inside the room through the window, he found that his 45-year old sister Darshan Kaur, her husband Vassan Singh (53) and their 17-year-old son Harpreet Singh alias Happy lying in a pool of blood on the bed.

A case of murder was registered against unknown persons on his statement by the local police.

During the investigation, the police found an identity card, a bottle of whisky and an empty glass in the room. As per the postmortem report, the murder was committed 4-5 days before the postmortem examination.

The finger prints on this glass matched with one Joginder Singh, who is also a resident of the same town. He was arrested by the police on circumstantial evidences and during the interrogations, he confessed to have committed the crime.

Although, the exact reason of the crime has not been mentioned in the case file but it has been learnt that Joginder murdered Darshan Kaur with whom he had illicit relations.

After having found guilty of the crime, Joginder requested for mercy from the court on the plea that he was the father of six children and the only breadwinner in the family but his plea was turned down by the sessions judge keeping in view the gravity of the dreadful incident. The prosecution produced as many as 17 witnesses in this case to prove the crime.

Joginder, a poor person, could not even hire an advocate for his defence. He was provided free legal aid by the legal services authority of the state government to fight his case. 

Ferozepur, May 14
Hopes for families of 17 Indians, sentenced to death by the United Arab Emirates (UAE-based) court for killing a Pakistani after a dispute involving illegal trade in alcohol a few months ago, have again become alive. A Dubai-based journalist visited them and assured them all type of help including finance to save the lives of their kin.

Sonia Kirplani, Dubai-based journalist, who has been contributing to various international newspapers and making a documentary of migration of Indian to foreign lands in search of green pastures, met the family members of the convicted Indians in the house of the Congress MLA Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi here.

She said that she would also explore to find out those things, which could put light on their court case and help them come out of this mess without any harm.

“What is the situation of families of these Indians, under what circumstances they went to Dubai and how they got trapped into this mess, would be explored by me,” she pointed out adding that she would also write in different newspapers about their plight.

“I would extend them financial help through my Sporket Science, which is handling the documentary productions,” she said adding that these guys had already got one of the best lawyers namely Bindu Chettur to defend their case in the court. She said she would meet these Indian on May 19-20 and take their interview.

Meanwhile, Sodhi said he had urged the ministry of external affairs to issue passports to the kin of the 17 Indians soon and extend the financial help. “I am going to meet the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh within a few days requesting him to appoint a nodal official in the Indian consulate in Dubai, who could monitor the court trial proceedings and inform the India authorities accordingly.” “It would help the Indian government use its diplomatic channels to save the lives of the innocent Indian,” he added.

Jalalabad (Ferozepur), May 14
The local police today arrested two residents of this town for their alleged involvement in preparing fake identity cards of the Border Security Force (BSF) voter identity cards of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other documents by using computer technology.

Paramjit Singh, DSP, said that a number of fake BSF identity cards, which allowed the people to go beyond fencing wire erected near the Indo-Pak border to till their agriculture land, voter identity cards, registration certificate (RC) copies of the vehicles, permanent account number (PAN) cards and copies of the domestic gas connections had been recovered from the accused.

He added that the two accused identified as Satish Gagneja and Dalip Singh had been arrested while one accused identified as Rajneesh was yet to be arrested. Besides, the police team also recovered more than Rs 86,000 in cash from the accused, which had been minted by them by selling fake identity cards.

He said on the information received from the SSP, Ferozepur, SPS Parmar, a decoy customer was sent to the shop. The decoy customer managed to get a fake identity card prepared from the accused and immediately they were caught red-handed. He said that a case under the National Security Act and under sections of 467, 471 and 420 of the IPC would be registered at the local police station against the accused.