Poverty forces them to go to quacks
From Our Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, June 12 — Life of hundreds of residents in the periphery is under constant threat from the unchecked growth of quacks.

A visit to the ''clinics'' shows patients lying in unhygienic conditions, filthy surroundings and crowded conditions.

Dr G.S. Sohi, a former ITBP medical officer has been practising at Mullanpur-Garibdass village for the past 17 years. He said that he had witnessed a number of persons suffer at the hands of unqualified medical practitioners.

Dr Sohi said that once he referred a 10-year-old boy brought to his clinic to General Hospital, Chandigarh. Later it was found that the patient had hepatitis-B.

The cause of the deadly disease was suspected to the possible treatment the patient got at a clinic run by a quack.

These clinics remain heavily crowded and tools used are allegedly infected. Disposable syringes and needles are seldom used. The quacks prefer to use the boiled tools and because of heavy rush, residents say, it is doubted that the tools are well sterilised.

Such conditions are always prone to the spread of hepatitis, AIDS and other deadly diseases. No work has been done to check such condition.

When this correspondent talked to a cross section in several villages, including Sohana, Mauli Baidwan, Mullanpur-Garibdass, residents said that they were aware of the risk they run by getting treated by the quacks, but they went to them because of difference in the fees.

The main reason, they said, was their poor economic condition which did not allow them to go for a better treatment.

Most of the quacks work in the interiors of villages to avoid being easily detected.

A doctor working at one of the rural dispensaries said that the non-availability of proper medical facilities at the government dispensary had encouraged the growth of quacks. He admitted that in several cases it was found that the doctors did not go to the rural dispensaries.

Cricket fans sad, blame Azhar
From A Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, June 12 — With a 148 run win over Zimbabwe, Pakistan have not only secured their berth in the semifinals but also dashed India’s hopes of reaching the semifinals.

As India is out of the race for the World Cup without even playing its last match, a million hearts felt sad for the team at England. The only touch of consolation in this poor picture is that the Indian team beat their arch rival, Pakistan.

Mr S.K. Sharma, who claims to be a great fan of the little master Sachin Tendulkar, said that he had watched every match of the series in the hope that India would bring home the cup. He said although he felt very bad about India being out of the tournament, yet he was proud of Sachin playing well even after losing his father. He blamed the Indian captain for the team’s performance and hoped for a change of face.

Neeru, a winner of a state level woman cricket tournament, criticised the Indian captaincy. She said that the team needed a better leader to take right decisions. She also recalled that the team had to pay a heavy price for their defeat to Zimbabwe in the league match. She felt sad for the team and hoped for a better performance next time.

Mr Maninderjeet Singh, a businessman, said that he was hardly interested in the game earlier but due to the huge publicity and advertisements, he watched the team play throughout. Laughing he said that it was natural for a team to lose which gave a poor performance.

Mr Michaelangelo Francis, a great admirer of the game, felt very bad for the country. Mr Francis said the team was unfortunate. He said the Zimbabwe-New Zeland tie rained off and helped them secure an extra point. Criticising the decision to hold the tournament during the monsoons, he said that it was a stupid decision and only Asian countries were best for the play. He did not deny the possiblility of match fixing.

Ms Malika Sodhi, a student and great fan of Saurav Ganguly, was angry with the team’s performance. Ms sodhi recalled that she even participated in a number of contests that might win her a ticket to the finals, but like the Indian cricketers, she was also unlucky. Her hopes were dashed yesterday as Zimbabwe lost to Pakistan. She recommended a special training for the team. Mr Joginder Singh Slatch, an industrialist in SAS Nagar, was shocked with the Indian team been thrown out of the series. He had planned to cheer the team play in the final. He advised replacement of Azhar as captain. Mr Slatch also recommended an entrance test to such prestigious events and inquiry into the working of the selection board.

They have a ‘mindset against India’
By Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 12 — "What message they wanted to convey to us by sending us highly mutiliated bodies of six of our soldiers more than a month after they disappeared ? There cannot be any other explanation than conveying the message that " this is how we treat your people."

"Unfortunately, Pakistanis have been the victims of their own propaganda of hatred. Even after 50 years of their independence, they still unfortunately consider and treat themselves as minority community of India," says Major-Gen Gandharav Singh Nagra, who engineered the surrender of more than 90,000 soldiers at Dacca during the 1971 war.

For General Nagra this was the most memorable moment, though the total surrender ceremony was overseen by Lieut-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora. "But this was not the first surrender or capture of prisoners of war for me. For me, the first opportunity to have POWs came in 1948 when I was commanding a battalion in the Poonch area. It was Poonch link up operation as my battalion was leading the brigade for Rajouri to Poonch link up. We had four brigade attacks and captured a lot of POWs, including JCOs and men.

"Though we interrogated them but we seldom maltreated or tortured them. We evacuated them to our medical chambers, looked after them well.

"The second opportunity came for me when we had 320 POWs after the Jamalpur battle, the most bloodiest of all operations during the 1971 war in the eastern sector. In this battle, 300 soldiers of 31 Baluch were killed and we had two officers, nine JCOs and 309 other ranks captured as POWs. These included 39 wounded soldiers who were evacuated in our helicopter to our base hospital at Guwahati. Since we were busy in our operations and our march towards Dacca, these POWs collected the dead and buried them as per their normal rites. Since we were in the midst of our operations, we did not have any facilities to look after or make arrangements for the POWs.

"In fact, we did not know what to do with 90,000 POWs we had on December 16 after capturing Dacca. As a measure of security to these captured Pakistani soldiers, we allowed them to keep their weapons for four days as there were apprehensions of attacks on them by infuriated Bangladeshis. It was only on December 19 that these POWs were disarmed.

"Immediately after signing the surrender, it was me who shoved General Niazi into my Jonga and my staff officer drove the vehicle through an overflowing maidan where the surrender ceremony had taken place. Before taking General Niazi away, I had whispered into the ears of Lieut-Gen J.S. Aurora that General Niazi would not be safe and I am driving him away for his safety. I did all this at my personal expense. Subsequent to the ceremony, I could not see off my superiors which perhaps they may not have liked. But for me the safety of these POWs was important.

"Throughout, we in India have been following the International Law, the set conventions and treating our POWs very well. Since we had no arrangements in Dacca for such a large number of POWs, we asked them to continue with their existing facilities, including health care and ration. We supplemented these faclities until we shipped them to various camps in India, including one at Meerut.

"But on the other hand, Pakistanis have always been treating our men shabbily and with a lot of contempt and hatred," adds General Nagra.

"This," he says," is primarily because of the failure of Pakistanis as a nation to come out of the complex of 'minority of India'. This is based on my experience as I worked in Pakistan as Military Adviser in Indian Embassy there. We used to get all newspapers. Sixty per cent of the news contents used to be anti-India stories. Another 20 per cent used to be about news from around the world and the remaining 10 per cent to 15 per cent used to be of national and local news. This has been registered with them. they have a mindset against India."