Jalandhar, January 21
In a move to provide a major relief to the traders and residents, the Union Defence Ministry has given a nod to the proposal to abolish octroi imposed on the Jalandhar Cantonment area.

Although the octroi was abolished in the state in 2006, the levy of octroi continued in Jalandhar and Ferozepur cantonments as both the areas fell under the jurisdiction of the central government.

Jagbir Singh Brar, MLA, Jalandhar Cantonment, said in a fax message sent by the Director General of Defence Estates to the Jalandhar Cantonment Board, the ministry had given a green signal to scrap the octroi imposed in the area.

He, however, revealed that there was no move to scrap octroi in the Ferozepur Cantonment area.

Brar said octroi would be scrapped provided the state government deposits a compensation of Rs 2 crore to the Defence Ministry.

He said the decision would come into effect after an agreement is signed between the Punjab Government and Defence Ministry and the payment of Rs 2 crore, as compensation, is a pre-requisite for it.

“Now we demand that the state government should not delay in paying the compensation amount and should sign the agreement at the earliest,” said Brar, who led the campaign to persuade the central government to fulfil the long-pending demand.

Meanwhile, board CEO Rakesh Mittal said though his office had received the fax in this regard, he hadn’t seen the actual content in it.

The move was welcomed by the traders and residents of the area as they had to spend more on buying goods in the cantonment board area while the prices of commodities in nearby cities and townships were less.

Meanwhile, while refuting allegations of his relative’s involvement in the sand-mining mafia, Jagbir Singh Brar demanded that CBI inquiry should be done which will bring the actual men involved in the illegal trade on records.

Jagbir Singh Brar also demanded a CBI inquiry against the cable network mafia that had allegedly not been telecasting the news and other political activities of Manpreet Badal.

Jalandhar, January 21
State convener of the BJP Yuva Morcha Rakesh Sharma said today that the party members would try to break all barriers put up by the Jammu and Kashmir Government to go to Srinagar to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk on the Republic Day function.

He, however, said only a peaceful attempt would be made in this regard and that no one would indulge in violence of any sort.

Declaring the programme, he said the National Ekta Yatra would reach Punjab via Mohali tomorrow morning. “It will stay in Punjab for three days. From Mohali, it will head for Ropar with a night stay at Hoshiarpur. On Sunday, the rally will be at Jalandhar with a night stay at Amritsar. Next morning, the yatra would move towards Madhopur for a major rally,” he outlined.

Sharma said the biggest rally was being organised at Jammu, where over 50,000 workers were expected to turn up. “That is the point from where we will try to move ahead for the Republic Day function at Lal Chowk,” he said.

Meanwhile, coming down heavily on the BJP for planning to hoist the Tricolour at Lal Chowk, the secretary for political affairs of the Dal Khalsa, Kanwar Pal Singh, alleged that the Hindutva force was smouldering the communal sentiment under the garb of patriotism. He called the yatra an attempt to float sensational ideas. 

Jalandhar, January 21
The Congress today said the state government was mortgaging municipal and other government properties in the urban areas to raise loan to execute “the so-called development projects” in the cities and towns under the banner of the Municipal Infrastructure Development Board (MIDB).

Tejinder Singh Bittu, a member of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), today said the state government had prepared documents to mortgage local Company Bagh, Corporation Office and Mayor’s house. Likewise, resolutions had been passed to mortgage important properties such as corporation buildings and important parks in Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala and other major cities. He said it had been done to raise a loan of Rs 1,150 crore from various banks to start the so-call development process in urban areas.

He said Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia was the brain behind mortgaging the properties. “Punjab was already reeling under the burden of heavy debt. As the state was caught in debt trap, it has to take loan to pay interest. Not bothered about the precarious situation in which Punjab is caught in because of the SAD-BJP’s bad governance, Kalia was ought to put a more financial burden by way of raising loan on the state to bankrupt it,” said Tejinder Singh adding that the previous Amarinder Singh government had initiated the definite development process of urban areas by first mobilising fiscal resources at the state government-level and not mortgaging the state properties.

He said for the past four years, most of the SAD-BJP ministers remained busy in “self development” and destroyed the state in the process. “However, in the last year of its term, all of a sudden the SAD-BJP government now started talking about the development projects and raising the loans etc. Had the state government sincere to develop the urban areas properly, it would have started the development process four years ago and not now, when it was on the way out,” said Tejinder Singh.

He said the state government should make it public that how many properties it had sold during the last four years under the optimum utilisation scheme, brainchild of the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB). He said facing the fiscal crisis, the state government had been running the show by selling valuable properties worth several hundred crores in various towns and cities.

Phagwara, January 21
Ranmeet Kaur (31), mother of two children, was allegedly shot dead by her husband Jaskaranjit Singh at the Onkar Nagar locality here late last night.

Doubts of infidelity about each other was said to be the cause of the murder, the police said.

The SP, Kamaljit Singh Dhillon, said here today that the police had registered a case under Section 302 of the IPC and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act against Jaskaranjit Singh, who managed to escape.

Ranjit Singh, brother of the deceased, told the police that he along with his uncle Mahinder Singh came to Phagwara to solve the ongoing quarrel between the couple, which was increasing day by day. He alleged that Jaskaranjit Singh fired at his wife after a long altercation and then asked them to go to the other room at gun point and locked the room from outside and escaped.They could come out of the room after finding a duplicate key and saw Ranmeet Kaur lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The bullet had hit her in the chest.

The SP said the accused was married to the deceased in 2001 and migrated to Phagwara one and half years ago after selling their land in Uttar Pardesh. The accused purchased 8 acres of land near Mukandpur and a residential flat in Phagwara. Their two kids, daughter Kiranjit (9) and son Aman(7), were studying in SD Junior Model School here.

The SP said a country-made .315-bore pistol was used by the accused to kill his wife.

The body of Ranmeet Kaur was handed over to her family members after postmortem.