Jalandhar, April 18
A 55-year-old woman was murdered by unidentified assailants in broad daylight here today. Lajwanti, who was living with her husband, a factory owner, was found murdered at her home in the busy Mandi Road locality, near Jalandhar railway station, this morning.

Lajwanti was murdered within 45 minutes after his husband Joginder Pal left for his factory.

The police said Joginder Pal, along with his two sons, ran a small pickle factory. Both of his sons were living separately with their families.

In a complaint lodged with the police, Lajwanti’s son Surinder Kumar, resident of Gopal Nagar, said he went to his parent’s house around 9.45 am today and found his mother strangled with a piece of cloth and her arms and legs tied with a rope.

He stated that the assailants decamped with Rs 75,000, kept at his parents’ house.

Surinder Pal, SHO, Division No III police station, said the complainant suspected the involvement of two of their former factory employees, Dinesh and Deepak, who were expelled from the factory after their alleged involvement in a fraud.

A case has been registered under Sections 302 and 392 of the IPC against one of them. The police conducted raids on their residences and hideouts. However, no person was arrested so far, said the SHO.

The sources revealed that the police was also questioning a few relatives of the victim. However, when asked, Dr S.K. Kalia, ADCP, and Balkar Singh, ACP, said investigation were on and no person was rounded up yet.

Jalandhar, April 18
With the arrest of Toshi and her sons Balvinder Kumar and Luv Kumar, the police has arrested all the four accused wanted in the murder case of 45-year-old woman Raj Rani and her five-year-old domestic help Khushboo, the bodies of whom were later found buried in Raj Rani’s house in Shiv Nagar locality here on April 7.

Acting on the complaint of Chandan Kumar, son of Raj Rani, the police, on April 13 arrested the prime accused in the case, Ashok Kumar, who later on identified the places where the bodies of Raj Rani and Khushboo were buried after the murder.

Other accused in the case Toshi and Luv Kumar were arrested by the police, today from a lime kiln at a nearby village.

Nirmal Singh, SHO, Division No I police station, said after getting a tip-off, the police raided the kiln and arrested both the accused. He said another accused Balvinder Kumar was arrested last night, when he was about to make a phone call from an STD/PCO booth near BSF Chowk.

Nawanshahr, April 18
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal heard the problems of 71 panhayats of Saroya block at the sangat darshan programme organised at Jawahar Navodaya Vidhayala, Pojewal, and distributed cheques for Rs 4 crore to the panchayats for carrying out development works here in the district today.

Later, talking to mediapersons, the Chief Minister said Punjab was the only state in the country where block-level sangat darshan programmes were being organised to have interaction with the village panchayats at their doorsteps for getting familiar with their problems as well as development requirements and on-the-spot release of funds.

Badal exhorted the farmers of the Kandi area to adopt diversification in agriculture and keeping in view the problem of scarcity of irrigation water in the Kandi area they should cultivate the crops for which less water was required.

While enumerating the unprecedented development works done by the SAD-BJP government during the past four years, the Chief Minister criticised the Central Government for not releasing funds in proportion to the collection of taxes from the state. “The Centre takes away major share of the taxes but the state government has to face the public criticism for lack of facilities,” lamented Badal, adding that the prices of the crops were fixed by the Centre, but nothing was being done by the Centre to solve the problem of the storage of food grains. The Centre should provide financial assistance to the state for constructing warehouses to solve the problem.

Badal promised to look into the issue of charging of commercial rates from the farmers of the Kandi area for using wate for irrigation for horticulture.

Hoshiarpur, April 18
Activists of the Youth Akali Dal, led by their district president Jatinder Singh Lali Bajwa, today burnt an effigy of senior Congress leader H.S. Hanspal in front of the mini-secretariat here and staged a rally there for his alleged act of offering a bribe to a witness of 1984 riots, Nirampreet Kaur, for saving Congress leaders.

Addressing the rally, Bajwa condemned Hanspal for his alleged act of offering a bribe. He demanded immediate removal of Hanspal from the membership of the Minority Commission.

Satwainder Pal Singh Dhat said the alleged offering of bribe to Nirampreet Kaur by Hanspal for saving Congress MP Sajan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, had exposed the so-called secular image of the Congress. The Congress was trying to influence witnesses of the case to save its leaders. Many other local leaders also addressed on the occasion.

Later, they presented a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner in this connection.

Phillaur, April 18
The decomposed body of an unidentified woman was found under mysterious circumstances from a well in the fields of nearby Puadhrra village in the subdivision last evening.

The police has sent the body to the Civil Hospital for postmortem.

Meanwhile, a labourer, Jagmohan, of Hardoi village, was run over and killed by a train near Phillaur Railway Station last night. He was returning to his village from his job and was crossing the railway lines, but did not notice the coming train.

The GRP has registered a case and sent the body for postmortem to the Civil Hospital.