Gurdaspur, May 18
The police has given the clean chit to a village Sarpanch after a local court declared him and six others proclaimed offenders (PO).

In June last year, Vijay Kumar, a youth of Chaura Kalan village falling under Kalanaur police station, 20 km from here, eloped with Baljinder Kaur of the same village. Baljinder’s family was enraged over the fact that a Scheduled Caste boy had eloped with a Jat Sikh girl.

Village Sarpanch Shamsher Singh, accompanied by Baljinder Kaur’s family members, attacked the house of Vijay and after ransacking it the house was set on fire. Vijay Kumar’s sister-in-law Rajni was allegedly beaten up and tortured by the Sarpanch and his accomplices.

On the basis of a complained filed by Rajni, the Kalanaur police registered an FIR against Shamsher Singh and nine others under various sections of the IPC, including the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities Act).

Subsequently, the Kalanaur police arrested three of the accused, Balraj Singh, Rachpal Singh and Jatinder Pal Singh, while Shamsher Singh and six others evaded arrest. They were declared POs by a local court in September last year.

Vijay Kumar’s father Ram Parkash claimed that he had sent various petitions to the Panchayat Minister and Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) Jaswinder Singh Ramdass urging them to suspend the Sarpanch since the court had declared him a PO. However, he claimed, the Sarpanch till yet had not be placed under suspension and was roaming freely. He claimed that Shamsher Singh was a regular visitor to the office of the ADC (Development) but the police was not interested in arresting him.

SSP Lok Nath Angra said, “ I know that the court has declared Shamsher Singh and six others proclaimed offenders but we have inquired into the matter and have found the Sarpanch and his accomplices to be innocent. Subsequently we have filed our reply with the court stating that Shamsher Singh and his colleagues were not guilty. The inquiry has been conducted by DSP (Headquarters) Gurmej Singh.”

The ADC (Development) claimed that he had no powers to suspend the Sarpanch and only the Rural Development Department could order his suspension. The SSP denied that the police was under any sort of political pressure to let Shamsher Singh off the hook. Ram Parkash claimed that he had also written to the Inspector-General (Border Range) claiming that the Gurdaspur police was working under political pressure and that was the reason why the cops were now giving the Sarpanch the clean chit.

Nawanshahr, May 18
A scam of paddy, stored by Punsup at Majhoor Rice Mills in the district for milling, going missing came to light here when Inspector Ram Kumar Sharma found the stock to be of less than the required quantity on Saturday.

Sharma reported the matter to District Manager Jasvir Singh who, in turn, reported the matter to the head office. The Punsup MD today sent a team led by a senior official, Inderjit Singh, to conduct physical verification and found as many as 2100 MT of paddy worth more than Rs 2 crore missing from the stock.

Jasvir Singh, while giving details to The Tribune, said Punsup had stored 85 wagons at Majhoor Rice Mills under an agreement for milling. So far, he had returned 26 wagons of milled rice to Punsup.

After receiving the report of missing paddy from the inspector, physical verification was conducted and paddy worth Rs 2 crore was found missing.

A complaint duly accompanied with the physical verification report of a high-level team had been lodged with the SSP, he added.

DSP Satpal Singh Bhangu said the police had started investigating into the matter.

Shanker Duggal, secretary, District Rice Millers Association, attributed the scam to the scarcity of adequate space for storage of paddy at the FCI as well as an acute shortage of staff.

Sharma, who is the whistle blower of the scam, said on March 31, the stock was found fine during physical verification conducted by him. But he had been overburdened with work load by assigning him duty of wheat procurement at the Balachaur, Bakapur, Sahiba, Nanowal and Kathgarh mandis. Moreover, he was also assigned the duty of the main store. Besides, he had also been performing the duty of supervisor for the revision of poll rolls. Due to it, he could not conduct physical verifications regularly.

Jalandhar, May 18
A day after a robbery at a house adjacent to Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia’s residence in Central Town after posing themselves as census enumerators, the administration urged the citizens to be extra cautious and ask the census staff to show their identification.

Talking to The Tribune, Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti said yesterday the citizens should not hesitate in asking the census enumerators to show their identification in case of any suspicion.

However to a query, he said census enumerators had not been issued any separate identity cards for the work. At the same time, he said all the enumerators were government employees and were working for one or the other government department and they got identity cards issued by their departments.

Bharti said while he had already issued instructions to all the enumerators to carry their identity cards with them, fresh directions in this regard were issued again today after the yesterday’s incident of robbery.

Meanwhile, the district police found today the robbed Zen car which had been abandoned near Madan Flour Mill less than half a kilometre away from the house where the robbers had struck.

Division 4 police station SHO Sakattar Singh said the police was working on different theories to crack this daylight robbery.

He denied the possibility of connivance of actual enumerators of the area with the robbers as the census staff had already visited the house a few days ago.

Posing themselves as census enumerators, four looters had robbed retired LIC officer Rajinder Pal Bhardwaj and his family of a car, Rs 1 lakh, jewellery and other valuables on Sunday morning.

Batala, May 18
Madu Bedi, widow of Paramjit Bedi, while talking to mediapersons here on Tuesday, criticised the inaction and apathy on the part of the police in resolving the death of her husband.

Madhu Bedi alleged that her husband was having a property dispute with his brothers and he had been attacked 11 times previously regarding which complaints were given to the police but the culprits had been manipulating their escape.

On March 31, he, along with his wife, family members and the driver, was returning home when near the bus stand at Sarwali village a Balero car dashed against his car killing him on the spot and injuring the other occupants. The occupants of the Balero car had escaped.

The police neither registered a case of murder nor found any clue so far as to who was driving the offending vehicle.

Immediately after the accident the shop of the deceased was ransacked and many important documents and a hand-written diary of the deceased were stolen. The victim used to note down all particulars and happenings in his diary which may include evidence against the culprits who got him eliminated.

The police said an inquiry was still pending in the case and it was delayed because of the transfer of the certain police officials.

Nawanshahr, May 18
District Bar Association President, Mehnga Singh Banwait, had claimed that the strike had been called off as the row between Balachaur SDM and Bar Association had been resolved following the intervention of the Deputy Commissioner, yesterday.

But, interestingly, the issue took a new turn today as the Balachaur Bar Association, while passing a resolution condemning the behaviour of the DC, decided to continue the strike till the tendering of an apology by the SDM, Balachaur.

The resolution passed by Balachaur Bar Association states that on Monday, a meeting was held at the retiring room of District Sessions Judge, GS Sran, where the Deputy Commissioner had apologised in the presence of officials of the Bar Association and promised that the SDM, Pardeep Aggarwal would apologise at her office on Tuesday. But, when, today, the officials of the Bar Association went to the DC office, the behaviour of the DC was altogether changed.

Now, she promised that the SDM would come on Wednesday.

Shruti Singh, Deputy Commissioner, when contacted on phone, claimed that the issue would amicably be resolved tomorrow. When asked about the resolution passed by the Balachaur Bar Association, indicating their adamant attitude on tendering of apology by the SDM, the DC said the apology was not an issue. Rather the unfortunate row would be resolved amicably at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

Nawanshahr, May 18
The Banga police has nabbed two persons - Kulwant Singh and Gurpreet Singh - for allegedly opening fire at the police naka at Moranwali - Ladhana Jhikka Road when the police tried to intercept their car.

The police has recovered 4 bags of poppy husk and a country made pistol and fake number plates from their possession.

As per available information, when the police party at the naka tried to intercept a car coming from Garhshankar, the driver tried to flee by accelerating the speed. When the police party tried to stop it, a person sitting in the car opened fire at the police party.

However, the police succeeded in nabbing two persons. Their accomplice, Lekh Raj, however, succeeded in absconding. The police has registered a case and started further investigations.