Amritsar, February 19
Amit Chauhan (29), a businessman dealing in artificial jewellery, was allegedly abducted from Delhi where he had gone for some business earlier this month. However, the victim’s family reported the matter to the police today. The police has registered a case under Section 364-A (kidnapping for ransom) of the IPC and further investigations are on.

Kanwal Chauhan, victim’s father, told the police that his son Amit Chauhan, who used to trade in artificial jewellery, had gone to Delhi on February 3. In the evening that day he called his family that he had reached Delhi. Thereafter, his mobile phone has been switched off.

On February 11, the family received a call from “kidnappers” who demanded Rs 25 lakh as ransom saying that they had abducted Amit Chauhan and that they would give details of the place where the money was to be delivered later.

As the family pleaded that they don’t have the money, the kidnappers called up again and demanded Rs 3 lakh. They said they will tell the family the place where the money was to be delivered. However, they did not call up again. Kanwal alleged that on February 15 the accused said they had thrown his son’s body after killing him at a bus stand.

Harjinder Singh, SHO, D-division police station, they were investigating into the case. Amit used to go to Nepal for business, he said. As the body has not been recovered yet, therefore no murder charges have been added. He said the family still receives calls from the alleged abductors regarding the ransom. “We are investigating the matter from various angles and no stone will be left unturned to recover the youth,” he said.

Amritsar, February 19
To strengthen security at Sri Guru Ramdas Ji International Airport, categorised as hyper-sensitive, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) have decided to deploy four canines as part of the dog squad.

DIG Northern region Airports KN Tripathy, who is looking after the security of Amritsar Airport apart from 13 other airports of the northern part of the country, said a dog squad comprising four canines will be deployed here within the first quarter of the next fiscal year.

He said these dogs are currently undergoing training at Bhanu near Panchkula. He said the dogs will also be trained in detecting explosives. He said the sniffer dogs will be deployed by June end.

He said besides, electronic bollards will be installed at the main entrance of the airport.

Airport director Sunil Dutt said after conducting a fresh survey and to tighten the surveillance, position of 85 CCTV cameras, operational in the airport has also been changed.

A public grievance centre has also been activated with signs informing the passengers regarding the service installed at all counters of the airlines operating from the airport, he said. He said to offer quality services to the passengers, seven Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems with water softener have been installed to supply potable water. He said potable water under 1 to 150 pints of the Total Dissolved Suspended Particles (TDS) is considered fit for human consumption and is being maintained below 100 points. He said gadgets to verify purity level were available at the Airport to carry out daily purity checks. Besides, signage has been installed to guide passengers to different facilities and their qualities, he added. 

Amritsar, February 19
Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal and his wife Ritu Aggarwal inaugurated the polio immunisation drive from Baba Deep Singh Charitable Hospital today. He administered polio drops to infants to launch the drive. On the first day of the drive, 1, 87, 864 children were immunised.

Civil Surgeon, Amritsar, Dr Manjit Singh Randhawa, and various other senior health officials were also present on the occasion. Aggarwal also issued instructions to the health officials to keep a strict vigil on the teams entrusted with the duty of administering anti-polio drops.

The district health officials also gifted toys to small children coming to the booths, said Dr Randhawa. In the door-to-door campaign over the next two days, every household will be covered, he said. He said 3,000 teams of the health staff and volunteers will be involved in the door-to-door campaign. Deputy Commissioner also thanked the representatives of NGOs and other organisations for their support to the polio immunisation drive.

Amritsar, February 19
Musician and Hindustani classical maestro Salil Bhatt is the new face of Indian classical music. Hailed as a global Indian, Salil has done it all, from solo concerts at the most sought after venues like Smithsonian, Iceland and German Parliaments and Epcor Centre in Calgary, international collaborations and nominations to exotic jugalbandis. He likes living life out of the suitcase. “I will call my life a classical chaos. With so much travel and neck deep in work, I forget if I am sleeping empty stomach or performing at 2 am in the morning,” says the artiste who is in Amritsar to perform at the annual music festival organised by Swar Sangam.

Having already made his mark by creating Satvik Veena, a hybrid of Mohan Veena, Salil tasted international success and global recognition with his collaborations with various artistes. The most recent one, Slide to Freedom-2 with Canadian blues legend Doug Cox earning him a Juno Nomination. “The life of an artiste changes after such an important international achievement. I have been loaded with international offers after that and have been experimenting with genres like jazz, gospel, blues, country rock.”

“We lack the respect for our own culture. A civilization with over 25,000-year-old culture of arts and music, we totally lack self-belief.” The reason: “It took a Grammy win for people to start take notice of my father’s music and 18 years after, we are still at the same point. There is always a foreign stamp of approval or recognition for out culture required to make Indians like it,” he says.

“The level of work being done by Indian artistes and talent we have in classical music is huge. Earlier generations didn’t commercialise it and so today people don’t find its worth, until some foreign label comes attached to it,” he feels.

His own career path took a turn after his international projects. “I have students from Germany, Fiji, UK, Canada and Japan. Foreign artistes find Indian classical music as global as can get.” He has also released his album ‘Be comfortable’, in continuance with his series of natural and comfort music. “The ragas and compositions in the album are soothing, relaxing and spiritually calming. Raag Jogeshwari, Raag Bhairavi have a soft approach to them and comfort music is the next big thing to happen internationally.” Treating music as a therapy, he has high hopes with the albums.

Enjoying the chaos in his life, Salil plans to travel a lot this year as well, performing in London and other parts of the world. Trying to popularise and giving a facelift to his kind of music, Salil hopes to make a change. “We have to stop treating our own music and reinforce the fact that classical music is the basis of all forms of music.”

Salil Bhatt is the face of eternal hope for Indian classical music for sure.

Amritsar, February 19
The police department has decided to set up nakas to check smuggling in arms. DIG border range Ram Singh has directed all the police border districts under the range to check illegal weapons in their respective police districts.

Ram Singh said all the police districts falling in the range, including Amritsar rural, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Ferozepur, have been directed to set up nakas regularly to arrest the persons who were in possession of illegal fire arms.

“All the district police chiefs, SPs, DSPs and SHOs have been instructed to expand their information network and keep an eye on the smuggling of illegal firearms in their respective areas,” he said.

Easy availability of illegal firearms has pushed the crime rate in the region up and the police authorities as well as the residents have expressed their deep concern over this, he said. Snatchings have become order of the day while daylight robberies by assailants armed with country-made weapons have also become a major threat.

“The firing incident in the school premises by a student is an eye opener which clearly indicates towards the easy accessibility of illegal country-made weapons to the people especially the anti-social elements,” said the DIG.

He said there is need to break the nexus of the persons involved in the smuggling of illegal weapons from states such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan known for manufacturing of country-made arms.

Meanwhile, SPS Parmar, district police chief, Amritsar rural police, today claimed to have achieved significant breakthrough in the firing incident.

“The police has achieved a breakthrough in the incident and the students involved in the incident will be nabbed by tomorrow,” he claimed.

Vehicles move at a snail’s pace on the road.

Amritsar, February 19
The private contractor, who got the multi-storied parking lot in Nehru shopping complex on the Lawrence Road on a lease, ran away just two months after getting the contract. These two months made him learn that managing this parking lot is not a profitable business.

The famous hangout place - Lawrence Road - is a place where just chaos prevails. With residents developing a habit of not using spacious parking lots, the roadsides turn into parking spaces till the shops remain open at night.

The four-storied parking remains nearly empty. Vehicles parked on the roadsides become a reason for traffic blockade on the entire stretch of Lawrence Road and even beyond.

In most of the market blocks of the newer and posh Ranjit Avenue, spacious parking areas are available. But residents it seems do mind parking their vehicles on designated spots.

Yogita Khanna, a student said, “Most residents park their cars anywhere they like. It is because nobody ever questions them. It hampers traffic movement.”

The Mall Road where there are showrooms of the elite brands too is not free from this chaos. Though few of the shopping complexes have underground parking areas, visitors are fond of the roadsides when parking their vehicles is concerned.

Sankit Malhotra, a commuter said, “People can buy Rs 15 lakh car, but they do not want to spend Rs 20-30 on parking tickets.”

Residents said the traffic police should see that people don’t park anywhere and everywhere.

The problem of roadside parking is more severe in areas along the GT Road.

A senior citizen, Gurdial Singh, commented, “The situation will not change, until and unless traffic police issues challans for wrong parking.” To add to the problem of parking, hundreds of auto-rickshaws in the city also do not have designated places for pick and drop passengers.

ACP (traffic) Karanjit Singh said two policemen are deputed on the Lawrence Road to regulate traffic. The traffic pollice also challans violators.

Amritsar, February 19
As many as 52 students of Guru Nanak Dev University and other institutes were awarded scholarships by the Nishkam Sikh Welfare Council of the Guru Nanak Dev University Branch in association with Sikh Human Development Foundation, US.