Jalandhar, February 6
With the arrest of three persons for their involvement in immoral trafficking from a house in Gopal Nagar, the city police claims to have busted a flesh trade racket here today.

The trade had allegedly been run by a woman, Kiran Mehta, and her son Sunny for a long time from their house under the garb of a boutique. While the kingpin of the gang, Kiran Mehta, has been arrested, her son Sunny managed to give the police a slip.

Acting on a complaint of area residents, the police conducted a surprise raid at Mehta’s house and found a boy and a girl in a compromising position in a room. The police rounded up Mehta, Gagan Kamboj, a resident of Shiv Nagar, and a teenaged girl of Sultanpur Ladhi.

Station House Officer, Division No-1 police station, Balbir Singh revealed that the mother-son duo were arranging girls for their customers and even providing space for the couples on hourly rent basis. They were charging Rs 500 from couples for an hour, the SHO added.

A case under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act was registered against the four at the Division No-1 police station and a hunt to nab Sunny was on.

Scores of area residents gathered outside the house during the police raid and alleged that the woman had been indulging in the trade for the last many years. She had been providing space and girls to the customers and used to lock the doors of her house from outside.

In the last 20 days, this is the second raid by the police to tighten noose around those indulging in flesh trade in the city.

Earlier on January 13, the city police had cracked a flesh trade racket in Urban Estate, Phase-I, and arrested six persons - three Army jawans and three women.

Acting on a tip-off, the police sent a decoy customer to a residential flat and nabbed three Army jawans - Ashwani Kumar, Sohan Prasad and Surjit Kumar - along with Kamlesh, Sonia and Amandeep Kaur.

In this case a woman, Kamlesh, was also arrested. She had been running the trade from a flat for the past couple of years. She had been supplying girls to customers for Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 per night, the area SHO Som Nath had said.

Jalandhar, February 6
The city police today brought two vehicle thieves on a production warrant from the Ferozepur police for their alleged involvement in the thefts of vehicles in the city.

The accused thieves, Om Parkash Raju of Ghorewala village in Talwara and Jaspal Singh of Ferozepur, were earlier arrested by the Ferozepur police in a case registered against them under the provisions of the NDPS Act.

The city police got their police custody after they, during interrogation by the Ferozepur police, admitted to have stolen 23 motorcycles from different places and five of them from Jalandhar alone. The duo had also admitted to have sold the bikes to customers in nearby towns.

Station House Officer (SHO), Division No 7 police station, Som Nath revealed that a police party would be sent to Ferozepur to recover the stolen motorcycles.

He said the motorcycles stolen from different parts of the state were taken to first Jalalabad, from where the vehicles were sold at throwaway prices to the auto dealers. Jaspal Singh himself had a shop in Jalalabad dealing in the sale purchase of two-wheelers, the SHO added.

Jalandhar, February 6
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed the store manager of Big Bazaar to replace a washing machine delivered to a customer with scratches on it or refund the price in addition to paying a compensation of Rs 1,000.

In his complaint, Gurdeep Singh Thind, a resident of Maqsudan, said he had purchased Koryo washing machine from Big Bazaar on August 14, 2012, for Rs 4,299 and at the time of the purchase the salesman promised to deliver the washing machine the next day, but after many calls the machine was delivered on August 18 evening.

To his utter surprise when the man came to deliver the washing machine, the product was found with scratches on it. He said when he expressed his reluctance to take the delivery of the machine, he was told that there was no other machine of the same model in the store and the defective machine would be replaced within two-three days. He called Sumit Dhiman, Manager of Big Bazaar, and explained the whole matter to him, who promised to change the product within a day or two. He also contacted the service centre of Koryo and lodged a complaint on August 18, 2012, but till date nothing was done.

The opposite parties had not replaced the machine and the complainant had demanded its replacement, compensation and litigation expenses.

Upon notice, the representatives of Big Bazaar, Jalandhar and Mumbai, appeared and filed a written reply pleading that they had already agreed to redress the alleged grievance of the complainant by replacing the washing machine or refunding the sale consideration to the complainant. The complainant had wasted the precious time of the district consumer forum and also harassed the answering opposite parties. The complaint was squarely hit by the provision of Section 26 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, and the complainant was liable to be burdened with special and compensatory costs of Rs 10,000 payable to them for dragging them into litigation.

The forum observed that the complaint was filed on September 14, 2012, and before the filing of the complaint, the opposite parties vide email dated August 30, 2012, had informed the complainant that they are ready to provide him replacement/return or cash refund for the washing machine. So before filing the present complaint, the Big Bazaar authorities had agreed to replace the machine or to refund its price. So the complainant could not have any grievance on this score.

It, however, observed that the product supplied to the complainant was defective as it was having scratches. The fact that the company was ready to replace the machine or to refund its price to the complainant, also tended to prove that the machine was defective and due to this reason, they agreed to replace the machine or to refund its price. So the complainant was entitled to compensation on this score, the members decided.

Jalandhar, February 6
Even as the district police and administration has been directing banks, shopping mall owners and the representatives of religious places to install CCTV cameras in and outside their premises as a deterrent to anti-social elements, it has itself failed to ensure the working of such cameras in the District Administrative Complex (DAC).

This despite that there have been frequent incidents of theft in the complex. Interestingly, there are nearly 20 cameras installed in the complex ever since A. Venu Prasad was posted as Deputy Commissioner here about 12 years ago, but most of these cameras have been lying defunct and there is no video footage being recorded with any of these cameras.

A city-based resident Vikrant lost his Samsung Galaxy Note phone yesterday while he was standing in a queue to apply for an international driving licence. Vikrant said he was to leave the country by this weekend and had important digitised documents, details of his air tickets and contacts saved in his phone. He even asked DTO Dalwinderjit Singh to help him identifying the culprits through a video footage that he thought would have been recorded using the cameras, but to no avail. He was aghast to know that the cameras were non-functional and the DTO could only express his helplessness on the matter.

This is not the lone incident. There have been at least two incidents of the sort in the same office. There have been incidents of thefts of parked vehicles, batteries of generators and other items in the recent past.

The fact that there are thousands of visitors coming to the complex for various works and that cash worth several lakhs of rupees is collected in the tehsils, DTO office and other departments has also failed to bother the officials concerned.

Deputy Commissioner Shruti Singh, when contacted, said the matter had come to her notice and she had found that only a few cameras were working at the entrance point to her office. “I will get the remaining cameras operative on priority basis and have directed my GA to do the needful at the earliest. My priority areas would be tehsils and DTO office,” she said.