Bathinda, December 11
Terror gripped the city today after a 23-year-old boy fired three bullets at a girl (also in her early twenties) and after confirming that she had died, committed suicide by pumping three bullets into himself, two in the chest and one at the temple.

The dramatic but tragic incident took place at the Mall road, the heart of the city, in the afternoon but till the filing of the report (late in the evening), investigations were still on to ascertain the cause of the incident as well as the relations between the two.

The deceased boy was identified as Prabhjot Singh of Mullanpur Dakha town in Ludhiana and the girl was Jagdeep Kaur of Khive Kalan village in Mansa district.

According to information available, the girl's marriage was scheduled to take place on December 26 with a boy from Faridkot. She was a student of B.Sc. (Biotech) at the Guru Nanak College, Ludhiana. Prabhjot also had reportedly done a diploma from the same college and was now working as a welder.

Sources near the market, where the incident took place, informed that the girl along with her mother had come for shopping, after which, they went to their kin's house located opposite the Pizzano restaurant on the Mall road.

The boy Prabhjot Singh entered their house and opened three rounds of fire at the girl, which reportedly killed her on the spot. The boy initially attempted to flee from the house but after reaching the main gate, he pumped two bullets in his chest and one in his temple. Before the crowd, hearing the noise of the firing, could assemble at the spot, he had died.

Receiving the information, police and activists of an NGO, Noujwan Welfare Society, reached the spot and took the bodies to the Civil Hospital, where doctors confirmed them as brought dead.

To investigate the matter, cops questioned the mother of the deceased girl but she feigned ignorance about having any information about the cause of the incident. Meanwhile, she denied any love affair between the boy and the girl.

Meanwhile, police located the address of the boy's family and informed them about the incident.

Confirming the facts, SHO Kotwali police station, Ranbir Singh said, "We have been investigating the matter but till now, neither the cause of the incident nor the relations between the two deceased could be confirmed."

"We are waiting for the boy's kin to arrive from Mullanpur, after which we hope the real facts would be ascertained and a case would be registered as per their statements," the SHO added.

Fazilka, December 11
Former finance minister Manpreet Badal has advocated formation of an all party common minimum economic agenda for Punjab so that menace of indebtedness of the state could be tackled and a check could be put on the wasteful expenditure to ensure better future of the people.

To accomplish the task, all party meeting must be held and all the issues connected with finance including subsidies and wasteful expenditure must be trashed out to evolve a common minimum economic agenda for Punjab.

The state government must take initiative for the task, he added.

Badal, along with his father Gurdas Badal, former MP, toured Arniwala, Habun villages and the border town in connection with his Jago Punjab Yatra programme. He addressed rallies at Arniwala, Habun and Fazilka today. He also addressed the members of the local Bar Association.

Talking to the media, he said an era of populist slogans was not conducive for Punjab, which was under debt of about Rs 70,000 crores. The situation had reached a point where if corrective measures were not taken, the state would fail to make repayment of debt.

Showering praise on Mahatma Gandhi for leading the nation without indulging in any kind of wasteful expenditure, he demanded that a white paper must be issued by the Punjab government in which detailed account of expenditure incurred on him as finance minister and expenditure incurred on other ministers including Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal must be mentioned so that people could know the truth.

“I know news in connection with expenditure incurred on my security is being planted in the media. Whatever has been spent by the state government is spent on the security of government bungalow, which I used as finance minister,” he clarified.

He added that he had taken subsidy on the transportation and packaging of kinnow as incentive subsidy, which was justified.

To another question, he said no false criminal case was registered during the past four years against anyone in the Gidderbaha assembly segment.

He denied the allegations levelled by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal that false cases were registered in the Gidderbaha constituency.

“Had I indulged in political vendetta, how could I have won four assembly elections back to back,” he questioned? He further added that he was open to any debate on any issue with anyone.

He pointed out that instead of answering to the allegations being levelled against him, he would prefer to awaken people to bring the state out of social menaces such as corruption, unemployment, poverty, drug addiction and debt.

Bathinda, December 11
A major fire broke out in a transformer factory, located at the industrial area on Dabwali road, here today.

The fire was so devastating that eight fire tenders, who had to repeat refilled tanks, took about seven hours to control the leaping flames that turned almost the whole factory to ashes.

Though the total loss is yet to be calculated, the owner of the factory, named as the Star Industries, reported to the police and the fire brigade officials that the loss could be worth crores.

According to information available, the fire broke out at about 3:30 in the morning. Witnessing the flames, the watchman of the factory informed its owner who further called up the police and fire brigade officials.

Seeing that the fire was too big to be controlled by two fire tenders, officials of the Municipal Corporation fire brigade service sought help from the Guru Nanak Dev thermal plant and the National Fertilizers Limited (NFL). Within minutes, eight fire tenders reached the spot and launched an operation to douse the flames.

Meanwhile, volunteers of the Green-S brigade of the Dera Sacha Sauda also received information and some odd-100 of them rushed to the spot and started helping the fire brigade officials. The fire-fighters also had to take the help of a JCB machine to make way to enter into a huge store, where the fire had erupted initially.

It took about seven hours to douse the flames but before that hundreds of transformers, thousands of liters of transformer oil, a number of machines and the test laboratory had been gutted in the tragedy.

The cause of the tragedy was reported as short-circuit in the electric wires.

Staff of the Municipal Corporation fire brigade service and the Vardhman police station informed that the owner of factory informed that the total loss would be in crores but it would take a couple of days to prepare the estimate.

The owner of the factory could not be contacted and the questions whether the factory was insured or not, remained unanswered.

Bathinda, December 11
Bathinda district unit of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) will be the first unit of the party in the state which will have its own office building in near future. For constructing the office building, the “Bhoomi Pujan” ceremony was held at a plot, situated near Mittal’s City Mall, here today. This building will be constructed in memory of a senior BJP leader late Babu Hit Abhilashi who had been killed by the militants during militancy era in Punjab.

The Punjab Local Government Minister Manoranjan Kalia and state president of the BJP Ashwani Sharma today laid the foundation stone of Amar Shaheed Babu Hit Abhilashi Bhawan (District office of the Bharatiya Janta Party, Bathinda) while the ‘Bhoomi Pujan’ ceremony was performed by state general secretary (organisation) of the BJP Ajay Jambal.

Chairman of the Improvement Trust, Bathinda, Ashok Bharti handed over the allotment letter of the plot to the state BJP president Ashwani Sharma. Bharti said the measurement of the plot is 698 square yards. He said the construction of the building would start after the completion of some formalities, including map of the building, by the party unit.

A leader of the BJP said though the BJP had offices at several places in Punjab, but these were running from rented buildings while the Bathinda district’s BJP unit would be the first one that would have its own building in near future.

The minister Kalia urged the BJP workers and leaders to extend their cooperation in the construction of the office building, not only monetary but also from the core of their heart. He also remembered Babu Hit Abhilashi for his services, rendered towards the party, before his martyrdom. State president Ashwani Sharma also sought cooperation of the workers in this task.

Among others who were present on the occasion included district president of the BJP (Urban) Sham Lal Bansal, district president (Rural) Dayal Dass Sodhi, district in charge of the BJP Neeraj Tayal and senior deputy Mayor of the Municipal Corporation, Bathinda, Tarsem Goyal.

Bathinda, December 11
District president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Sikander Singh Maluka said today that the party’s youth wing would play a vital role in the ensuing SGPC and Assembly elections. He said in these elections, the party would give tickets to diligent young workers.

Maluka was addressing a meeting of the youth Akali workers here today. The meeting was convened to prepare for a district-level meeting of the SAD’s youth wing that would be held on December 17 at Gurdwara Haji Rattan Sahib here.

He also said the entire body of the youth wing would be announced by the party president Sukhbir Singh Badal by January 31.

District president of the SAD’s youth wing Balkar Singh Brar asked youths to make the meeting programme a big success.

The patron of youth wing of the SAD Bikram Singh Majithia would also take part in the meeting.