Phagwara, June 5
Five roofs and two walls of different houses collapsed in Phagwara due to a thunderstorm followed by rain which lashed the region on Friday night. Five persons, including three women, sustained serious injuries. Raj Kumar and his wife Rajni of Chack Hakim village were injured when the roof of their room caved in after a wall of their neighbours fell upon it.

In second incident, the roof of the house of Balbir Singh in local Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar collapsed leaving his wife Harbans Kaur and two daughters Monica and Rajni Bala injured.

All the injured were admitted to the local Civil Hospital. Senior Medical Officer Rajiv Gupta said the injured were out of danger.

Phagwara SDM Amarjit Paul visited the civil hospital to enquire the health of the injured.

He assured free medical treatment.

Two more walls of two houses of Kashmiri Lal and Hardyal Chand collapsed near Guru Ravi Dass Mandir in Tibbi locality last night.

Hundreds of trees were uprooted due to thunderstorm in the area. Power supply in several places remained badly affected for several hours which was restored today.

Hoshiarpur: Hoshiarpur and its surrounding areas experienced a squall, followed by rain for hours together, throwing normal life out of gear last night.

Dozens of trees and electric poles were uprooted resulting in damage to electric wires due to which the entire area, including Hoshiarpur city, plunged into darkness. The mango crop was also damaged badly. Roofs of galvanised sheets of many houses and sheds were blown away and signboards of many establishments were damaged.

Superintending Engineer, Jagmohan Singh, of Powercom, Circle Hoshiarpur, said at least 150 electric poles and 10 transformers were damaged and caused interruptions in the normal power supply. The repair of damaged wires was being done. However power supply had been restored in most of the areas.

Nakodar, June 5
MGNREGA cardholders, mainly women, in Chainia village near here today protested against the district administration for allegedly bringing an earthmover and other machinery for digging soil from a village pond.

The protesters alleged that the officials had sent an earthmover and two tractor-trailers to dig the bed of the village pond after the MGNREGA job cardholders suspended work on June 2.

They complained that 22 job cardholders had suspended work after the local administration failed to pay their dues of the last two-and-a-half months.

The job cardholders, a majority of them women, today took the machinery in their possession when the BDPO, Nakodar, and his subordinates sent them to the site to get the job done, eyewitnesses said.

Up in arms, the affected workers assembled and forced the machinery operators to flee from the site.

Tarsem Peter, President of Pendu Mazdoor Union, Punjab, said the BDPO Nakodar had been trying to violate the norms of the MGNREGA scheme by using machinery instead of getting the job done manually.

Efforts to contact the Nakodar BDPO proved futile.

Nawanshahr, June 5
Baba Gurmit Singh - the controversial sevadar of the cremation ground situated here at Pandora Mohalla, whose activities came into public purview when a few days ago he allegedly changed the body of an old lady from the mortuary box and removed her gold capped teeth - today fled away along with valuable articles as well as record related to the mortuary and the mortuary van, from the dera situated at the cremation ground.

The office bearers of the Shamshan Bhoomi Sudhar Committee and prominent citizens gathered here after getting information about it and informed the police. Surinder Pal Singh, city SHO along with a police party visited the dera site and found almirahs open and valuable articles and records missing.

The office bearers of the Shamshan Bhoomi Sudhar Committee and prominent citizens - Hari Mitter, Lalit Mohan Pathak, alias, Ballu, former MC chief, Dr Kamal, former councillor, Murai Lal Chopra, Raman Kumar Ummat, Sunil Kotwal, Bittu Walia, among others, submitted a written complaint to the police demanding immediate action against the Baba.

“Due to the recent controversial activities of the Baba, residents have been raising a demand for the immediate removal of the Baba to ensure maintenance of the sanctity of the dead bodies kept in the mortuary and the committe has been striving hard to make alternative arrangements for it,” said the complaint, adding that perhaps the Baba was apprehensive that he could be in deep trouble, so he fled away with the records.

Even now, as many as three bodies are lying in the mortuary and concerned families could face inconvenience to get the bodies in the absence of recorda, further said prominent citizens, adding that they had been trying to make emergency arrangments to ensure smooth functioning of the mortuary.

Gurdaspur, June 5
A five-member high level Indian Railway delegation from New Delhi visited Beas and Qadian towns to monitor the progress on the Beas-Qadian rail-link, which was given a green signal during the last railway budget presented by Union minister for railways Mamta Banerjee.

The delegation was led by Colonel Buta Singh, Chief Commercial Manager; RK Sarkar, Chief Engineer (survey); YS Chowdhury, Chief Engineer (survey) along with Arun Kumar and Ashok Kumar, both Chief Technical Inspectors.

The delegation, which arrived at Beas in the morning from Delhi, also held confabulations with Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa, on whose initiative the rail link is being revived.

The team members disclosed that to complete the 40 km stretch from Beas to Qadian, nearly 150 hectares of land will have to be acquired in both Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts. “The process of land acquisition has already been initiated and the rail link, which was already in place in 1928 before it was put in a state of disuse due to partition, will surely be revived this year,” remarked a team member. 

Phagwara, June 5
The nagar councils in Phagwara, Nakodar, Phillaur, it seems, have adopted a pick and choose policy as far as removing encroachments are concerned.

In Phagwara, the authorities during anti-encroachment drive, undertaken in the markets on the Railway Road, Sarai Road and Banga Road, left many illegal structures untouched which either belonged to people with “money power or political connection”.

Small shop owners, who had no political say or had little money to bribe the officials, were the only ones whose illegal structures were demolished.

Though it’s a timely move by the authorities to remove encroachments, which have become a reason for chaos on a regular basis, leaving many such structures created doubt about the purpose and integrity of the NC staff.

Phagwara SDM Amarjit Paul assured to take stern action against encroachers, building bylaws violators and even those officers sheltering the guilty. The SDM said he would soon call a joint meeting of the police officials and Nagar Council authorities to on the situation.

Meanwhile, same partial attitude of the authorities have been witnessed in Nakodar and Phillaur, where encroachments are on the rise as shopkeepers enjoy political patronage. The Hospital Road in Nakodar and Kila Road, Railway Road and Old Bazars in Phillaur were becoming centres.

Hoshiarpur, June 5
Deputy Commissioner, Hoshiarpur, Megh Raj has given cheques worth Rs 37,000 to eight poor patients at the civil hospital today for their medical treatment from the Swami Sarvanand Giri Poor Patient Medical Treatment Fund - established by NRI Lajpat Rai - to cover all the patients who can not afford costly medicines and are not covered under the blue card holder scheme of the state.

The DC was accompnaied by Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Harminder Singh and Civil Surgeon Dr Ravi Dogra. Talking to this correspondent, Megh Raj said he had already provided Rs 20,000 to a patient of the civil hospital Garhshankar and Rs 35,000 to six patients of Dasuya for their medical treatment from the above said fund.

Ninety two-year-old NRI Lajpat Rai had set up above said fund by contributing Rs 6 lakh for the benefit of poor patients and students.

The DC also lauded the role of Lajpat Rai, who had donated a big complex of Rs 21 crore at Bajwara on the Hoshiarpur-Una road, to the Punjab University, Chandigarh, for the setting up of its Information and Technology Institute to provide education to the poor students of the area.

The DC said he had also established a district relief fund for the poor and destitute, for which all state governemnt employees were contributing their one-day-salary annually, to raise the fund. Employees had already contributed more than Rs 15 lakh for the fund. He had recently provided monetary relief to two families for their medical treatment out of it. — OC