Student creates ruckus at DAV College
Amritsar, August 20
Studies were hit for a few hours at DAV College here today as a section of its students came out of class rooms to protest against admission being denied to former student of the college, Kanwarpreet Singh. Kanwarpreet was seeking re-admission to BA part I of the college in which had failed during the last session. 

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ITL inks MoU with Central bank
Amritsar, August 20
International Tractors Limited, an Rs 5,000-crore Sonalika Group, today inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Central Bank of India in Amritsar, Punjab, to provide tractors to farmers on easy installments.

Haryana youth repatriated from Pakistan
Amritsar, August 20
Gulab Singh (20) had never dreamt of languishing in Pakistan jails. The lure of green pastures took him to Iran on a work permit in September last year. However, he could not find any work after spending a few days there.

Amritsar, August 20
Six armed robbers barged into a house located in posh Green Field Avenue on the Majitha Road today, assaulted Kamlawati Dhawan and her daughter-in-law Jyoti Dhawan and decamped with gold jewellery worth more than Rs 9 lakh.

Senior police officials led by SP (City-II), Naresh Kumar, reached the house, which is located a few meters away from the residence of Karamjit Singh Rintu, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee delegate from the North constituency, to record the victims’ statement.

The armed robbers managed to enter the house as the maid, who had gone to the market for purchasing the curd, had left open its main gate open. Kamlawati opened the door of a lobby after the accused knocked at it.

“They forcibly entered the lobby, put a long sharp-edged weapon on my neck and even beat me up,” Kamlawati added. Jyoti Dhawan, daughter-in-law, was also slapped and brutally beaten up by the thieves.

Four robbers had barged into the house while two others were standing outside. “One of the accused put a gun on my forehead while another pressed my neck. I told them to take whatever they want but leave my mother-in-law. They also threatened to kill my two-year-old daughter Janya,” Jyoti added.

“They snatched the keys from me and opened wardrobes. As keys of a locker were not with her, they broke open the locker and took out all jewellery and cash,” Jyoti added.

Monica, another daughter-in-law of Kamlawati, was on the first floor of the house when this incident took place. She raised an alarm. When the accused tried to go upstairs she threw an earthen flower pot on them.

“I asked the accused, who were threatening to kill family members, to leave them and take whatever they wanted,” she added.

Sohan Singh, SHO, Sadar police station, said the family members had claimed that the accused decamped with 300 to 350 grams gold jewellery worth more than Rs 9 lakh, Rs 20,000 in cash besides a mobile phone. A case has been registered in this regard. 

Amritsar, August 20
The residents of the holy city have a reason to rejoice as the Railways have finally decided to start the much-awaited Duronto train between Amritsar and Chandigarh from August 24. This would be the first direct train connecting the holy city with the state capital.

The train was announced in Railway Budget 2009-10 by the then Union Railway Minister Mamata Bannerjee. However, it took almost two and a half years to see the light of the day. The railway authorities said the delay as they were waiting clearance from the Chief Commissioner Safety. But, some outfits, including the Left parties which staged a chain fast for about 45 days seeking early launch of the train, blamed the transport lobby for causing the delay.

DRM Ferozepur, Vishvesh Chaube, could not be contacted. Local MP Navjot Sidhu, in a press conference, held a few days back, had disclosed that the train would start from Amritsar at 5.30 am and reach Chandigarh at 9.30 am while during return journey it will chug out of Chandigarh at 7 pm and arrive here at 11.15 pm. It would have 17 coaches, including 12 non-AC and three AC coaches.

The train would facilitate an affordable and comfortable mode of transportation to the city residents between Amritsar and Chandigarh. At present, private bus operators, who are plying luxury buses on the route, are charging anywhere between Rs 275 to Rs 350. Apart from it, there are road transport buses, both AC and non-AC, which offer an alternate mode of transportation to the residents.

Amritsar, August 20
A spurt in robberies and snatching incidents have been giving sleepless nights to the residents of the city. Today’s incident of daylight robbery by armed youths in the city has highlighted the fact the city police is ill-equipped to nail such criminals. The snatchings and robberies were fast becoming an order the day.

This is not the only case. Recently, unidentified youths robbed jewellery and cash worth Rs 45 lakh from a jeweller in Dayanand Nagar area on the posh Lawrence Road on July 30 evening, while he was on his way home. Naresh Mehta runs a jewellery shop on Lawrence Road itself.

Earlier, in March month some armed persons had barged into the house of a jeweller in the posh Rose Avenue area. Though they could not manage to carry along the bag containing Rs 4 lakh cash robbed with them, they vanished from the scene with some jewellery lying in the house.

In February, two unidentified men looted gold jewellery at gunpoint from a couple again in the posh area of Basant Avenue. The robbers barged into the house and took out gold rings and ear-rings from a woman and when her husband came out of the toilet, they also snatched his gold ring and three mobiles phones from the house before fleeing the spot.

Jewellers and security vans carrying cash to feed the ATM machines are becoming an easy target for these criminal elements.

R P Mittal and Kanwaldeep Singh, Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of police, respectively, could not be contacted even after repeated attempts. 

Amritsar, August 20
Studies were hit for a few hours at DAV College here today as a section of its students came out of class rooms to protest against admission being denied to former student of the college, Kanwarpreet Singh. Kanwarpreet was seeking re-admission to BA part I of the college in which had failed during the last session. 

He claimed that his attendance was 75 per cent and he also did not commit any offence or indulged in any unlawful activity. He claimed that he was eligible for re-admission. The Principal of the College Dr KN Kaul said that the situation was immediately brought under control by the police. He said that the admission committee had denied admission to the student following reports of misconduct by lady staff and students. PPP (youth) district president Karambir Singh Pannu alleged that Kanwarpreet was denied admission as he was a member of the PPP. 

Amritsar, August 20
The standoff between the Congress activists and Mayor Shwet Malik, representing the BJP, over the utilisation of developments funds was not an instant outcome but traces back to its origin when the Congress councillors had repeatedly questioned the accountability of disbursement of 526 crore over various development projects, in the House meetings.

While the Congress activists maintained that they had demonstrated their protest against the Mayor in a peaceful manner at Katra Singh Ahluwalia area yesterday, yet on the instance of Mayor, the police booked at least 10 Congress men including former District Youth President Dinesh Bassi, under Section 307, 353, 186, 342, 148, 149 of the IPC.

This morning, when the Congress activists were being taken to Civil Hospital for medical checkup before producing them in court, Dinesh Bassi said they have been booked under frivolous complaints. “It is nothing but the murder of democracy. We have asked to provide us the authenticity of the claims made by Mayor that Rs 526 crore had been spent on the development works in the city. Being citizens of this city, we have all rights to know where the public funds are being spent. But, instead of coming out clean over these issues they used their influence to put us behind bars and registered fake cases against us”, he said.

Defying all allegations, the Mayor said Congress mob attacked him yesterday at Katra Ahluwalia when he went there to redress the grievance of the traders. “The honour showered on me by the market association had not gone down well with these Congress activists who were also present there. They physically assaulted my gunman and tore their uniforms. Was it an act of democracy?”, he asked while justifying the section under which the Congress activists had been booked.

About the allegations over fake disbursement of development funds worth Rs 526 crore, the Mayor maintained that if the Congress workers give an account of development money spent during their own regime, he would gladly give them details of each and every penny spent on development projects.

On the other hand, questioned is being raised over adding sections of the Arms Act against former Youth Congress chief and his supporters.

Commissioner of Police, RP Mittal said fair and impartial enquiry would be conducted in the case. He said that no body from the Congress side had approached him alleging partiality and police atrocities. Legal experts however said that the registering a case of attempt to murder was little harsh. They pointed out that registering a case under Section 307 IPC requires doctor’s report whether the injuries sustained by the victim were really grievous in nature or could be life threatening such as bullet and sharp edged injuries.

Amritsar, August 20
Padam Shri Dr Vijay P Bhatkar, architect of PARAM series of supercomputers, believes that Information Technology and the telecommunication sectors are likely to continue contributing nearly 10 per cent annual growth to the national economy.

Participating in an interactive lecture, organised by the Post Graduate Department of Computer Science and IT of DAV College, Amritsar, in collaboration with Vigyan Bharti, he said the teaching community must work to spread computer literacy even among the semi-educated and people with little understanding of English.

He said the common held belief that English was mandatory to learn computer was passé. He said understanding of technical aspects of computers was necessary to learn its working.

Dr Bhatkar recalled that he got a very encouraging response when he came up with PARAM. He said he had been associated with the study and research of the supercomputer during his days in the IIT. With the US denying India technology transfer for the supercomputer, it was a mammoth challenge for Indian scientists, which they were successful in meeting, he added.

College Principal Dr KN Kaul welcomed the guests on the occasion. Among others Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Technical University, Dr Rajneesh Arora, Dr Adarsh Pal Vig of Guru Nanak Dev University, Head of the Department of Computer Science Prof Amardeep Gupta were also present.

Amritsar, August 20
Following the repeated incidents of telephone network disruptions in many parts of the city, the BSNL has appealed to the general public to help them catch the troublemakers.

Recently, the BSNL discovered damaged and stolen cables from the underground ducts at Putlighar, Mall Mandi area and overhead network at Amritsar city, Majitha, Ajnala, Ptti, Rayya, Goindwal Sahib and various parts of Tarn Taran.

BSNL is a public telecom utility and is providing a variety of telecom services to the general public especially to the rural and far flung areas.

The department appealed to the general public to ask for the identity card of any suspicious person if found to be causing damage to the cables. Besides this, the police control room on 100 or BSNL control room at 12626 or 2224808 can be contacted to register a complaint in this direction.

General Manager Telecom, BSNL, Amritsar, Labh Singh said such incidents not only caused inconvenienced to the public but a loss of valuable national property. — TNS