R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

PUNJAB

Amloh
SCHOOL FUNCTION: Sant Farid Public Model Senior Secondary School organised the annual day function of juniors in the school on Saturday. A cultural programme was presented by the students. Prabhjot Kaur and Shamsher Singh got the first and second prizes, respectively, in the fancy dress competition.

Amritsar
OBSERVED: The Punjab Pradesh Youth Congress (SC/ST Cell) observed anti-terrorist day at Jallianwala Bagh here on Friday. Mr Narinder Kumar Teenu, secretary and in charge of the cell, while commemorating former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for his supreme sacrifice for the country, said Rajiv Gandhi was a role model for the youth. Mr Kirandeep Singh Bhullar, Deputy Commissioner, paid tributes to Rajiv Gandhi at the Circuit House.

RALLY: A rally on solid waste management was organised at the local Police DAV Public School in collaboration with Param Vaibhav, an NGO, and the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology. Students of the school held a march. Mr K.S. Kang, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, apprised the students of management of solid waste.

DISTRIBUTED: The Chairperson of Punjab State Social Welfare Board, Ms Ratna, had distributed pension cheques for more than Rs 26 lakh in various border villages and blocks of the district during the past one week. Ms Ratna said here on Friday that the Punjab Government had earmarked Rs 450 crore for pension schemes.

PROJECTS: The University Grants Commission has assigned two research projects in sciences, humanities, social sciences and languages to Dr J.S. Gandhi, Dr M.S. Batra, and Prof Ishpinder Kaur of Department of Chemistry, of local Khalsa College. Dr Daljit Singh, Principal of the college, in a press note issued here on Thursday, informed that the projects were assigned under UGC Scheme of Financial Assistance to teachers working in colleges.

Hoshiarpur
2 DROWN: The body of a youth was found hanging from tree at Sarhala Kalan village in this district on Thursday. According to the police, an identity card was found from the clothes of the youth. However, Kuldip Hussian only was visible on the card. In another case Ajay Kumar, alias Bunti, son of Roshan lal, and Vicky, son of Ashwani Kumar, both of Ahiyapur, were drowned in Kandi canal, near Sahora Kandi village, near Hajipur. They had gone there to take a bath. Meanwhile Jasbir Kaur, wife of Gurmail Singh of Bathula village died after she fell off the scooter at Adda Dosarka on Thursday.

CALLED OFF: Mr Harbhajan Singh and Mr Om Parkash, president and secretary, respectively, of Ministerial Services Union, PSEB, stated here on Friday that the proposed two days strike of PSEB employees scheduled for May 31 had been called off. A meeting of the National Coordination Committee, Employees and Engineers, was held with Union Power Minister.

RESENTMENT: Resentment, prevails among the students of 10+2 seeking admission in B.Sc Agriculture (Hons) in Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, and those seeking admission to B.Sc. Nursing course in PGIMER, Chandigarh over the clash of dates fixed for entrance test by both institutions. Local students told this correspondent here on Thursday that both institutions had fixed June 23 as the date for entrance test for the abovesaid courses.

Jalandhar
BODY FOUND: The body of a newborn girl child was found in a river at Lesriwal village, near Adampur, on Thursday.

Nawanshahr
SCHEME: Mr Lal Singh, Rural Development, Power and Irrigation Minister, inaugurated two development projects — Rural Water Supply Scheme at a cost of Rs 1650 lakh and a community centre constructed at a cost of Rs 22.50 lakh at Gadani village in the district on Thursday.

Phagwara
DRUGGED: Lucky of Mehligate here was on Thursday drugged and robbed of his taxi and cellphone near Bugga village, about 20 km from Khanna. Two persons, staying in a local hotel, had hired his taxi for Ludhiana on Wednesday. They had made their entries in hotel register as Tejbir Singh and Jeet Singh of Bammi village in Karnal district of Haryana. They served Lucky with tea laced with drug and dumped him near the village.

2 HELD: Sukhwinder Singh Bittu and Balwinder Singh have been arrested on charges of illegal confinement, theft, damage to property, criminal intimidation and armed rioting. Narinder Singh complained that when he was going in his car with Resham Narinder Singh, it was damaged by the accused and Rs 10,000 were snatched from him.

SEIZED: Five kilo grams of poppy husk was seized from a migrant labourer of Bihar near an octroi post on the Hoshiarpur road. He was identified as Jawahar Lal, alias Bhairon, of the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar locality.

CHANDIGARH

MOHALI
SCHOOL ELECTIONS: Elections for head boy, head girl, house captains and councillors were held at Ajit Karam Singh International Public School in Phase XI here on Thursday. Students of classes III to VI prepared their manifestoes and filed their nomination papers. They campaigned using drums, banners, slogans, etc for three days. Voting was done in a secret manner. After the declaration of the results, a swearing — in ceremony will be held on Friday, which will be attended even by parents.

PANCHKULA
Rejected: The Additional District and Sessions Judge, Ms Sneh Prashar, on Thursday rejected the bail application of Sub Inspector Verender Kumar and ASI Ashwani Kumar Sharma. The duo had moved the court on Wednesday, seeking anticipatory bail in a case of extortion. They were accused of demanding Rs 1. 50 lakh from a businessman as bribe, while they were posted at Panchkula.

Elected: Mr Amarnath Vashishth has been elected as president and Mrs Rama Jain as vice-president of the Hill View Rail Vihar Welfare Association, Phase II. The other office-bearers are as follows: Mr Sumanta Ghosh, general secretary; Mr K.M. Dubey, assistant secretary; and Mrs Seema Aggarwal, cashier.

Summer camp: Sukriti camp—the summer camp of DAV Senior Public School, Surajpur, was inaugrated on Thursday. The camp will offer activities like computer education, personality development, art and craft, music, sports, yoga etc.

Fire: A minor fire broke out in the house of Mr Sham Lal Jain in Sector 10 on Thursday. The fire was caused by short-circuiting. Two fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire was controlled within ten minutes.

Prayer meeting: A prayer meeting was organised here today to commemorate the death anniversary of former Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi. The ceremony was held at the residence of local Congress leader, Mr Krishan Nanha. The Congressmen observed a two-minute silence, and later spoke about the vision and achievements of Mr Gandhi.

WORKSHOP: The Gurukul, Sector 20, will hold its annual three-week Summer Camp- ‘Summer Cool’, from May 24 onwards. A press release said that the workshop aimed not only at helping parents to keep the children positively occupied but also at providing fun- filled atmosphere conducive to the creative growth of the young campers.

HARYANA

Hisar
Panchayat member killed: Pradeep Yadav, a panchayat member of Satrod village, was killed in a dispute on Thursday. The dispute related to a family matter of Ramdhari, a neighbour of Yadav. Ramdhari had some differences with his brother, due to which a quarrel broke out between them.

Rapist sentenced: Anil of the Tibba Danasher locality here has been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for raping a minor girl. The court of Dr Amarnath, Additional District and Sessions Judge, also imposed a fine of Rs 2,500 on Anil on Thursday.

Excellent result: Saint Kabir’s School here has achieved 100 per cent result in Classes X and XII. The school is the only institution affiliated to the ICSE/ ISC in the city. The Principal, Mr Ujjwal Singh, said the students of Class X secured 35 distinctions and 171 merit positions in various subjects.

Kaithal
Fraud arrested: The crime branch of the district police has arrested one more accused in the case of misappropriation of Rs 20 lakh of old-age pension a few years ago. Giving this information to mediapersons here on Thursday, Mr Mahender Singh Sheoran, S.P. said the accused Balwan Singh, a resident of Kalwa, was one of the four accused who was booked by the police on January 2004 following a complaint lodged by the Social Welfare Department Haryana.

workers’ demands: The sanitary conditions in Kalayat town, 25 km from here, continue to worsen as the strike by safai karamcharis there has entered the 38th day on Thursday. The employees had been pressing the municipal authorities for the payment of outstanding arrears of their salaries for the past four months and depositing of EPF and payment of other allowances.

Shopkeepers’ protest: As the news regarding the construction of an over-bridge at the Kaithal-Jind railway crossing here started pouring in, shopkeepers likely to be affected by the construction have started lobbying against it.

Sonepat
Murder accused held: After a month-long man-hunt, a special staff team of the Sonepat police succeeded in nabbing the third accused identified as Satish, alias Mintu of Jakholi village, in the murder of two police Havildars of Baroda police station on April 20 late night. According to the police, he was arrested on late Thursday night from the diversion drain number-8 between Mandora and Kawali village.

LIFE IMPRISONMENT: The Additional Sessions Judge, Mr J.S. Jangra, on Thursday sentanced Shabeel, alias Chairman, a member of the “kachha banyan” gang to life imprisonment and a fine for murdering Ashok Chitkara, a resident of Model Town, on March 16, 2000.

Yamunanagar
BURGLED: Thieves broke into a house in Kalindi Colony here and decamped with cash, goods and jewellery worth over Rs 3 lakh on Friday. Mr Jatinder Kumar Dixit, who had gone along with his wife and child to a doctor, returned home to find it ransacked. The thieves took away Rs 30,000, jewellery worth about Rs 2 lakh and other goods, including TV and VCD.

BLAST AT HOUSE: Two adjoining houses in Shivpuri Colony (B) here collapsed after a blast on Thursday night. Mr Deepak Kumar, an occupant of the house in which the blast took place, said he heard a loud noise at around 1.30 a.m. Later, he saw fire at the site. He doused the fire and informed the police.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

Kangra
Protest: The local Bar Association on Wednesday decided gherao the Himachal Pradesh Secretariat in Shimla to protest against the imposition of the professional tax and manifold increase in the court fee. some members were on a day-long chain hunger Strike in the Kangra court complex on Wednesday.

Shimla
Constituted: The government has constituted the state health committee which will monitor the implementation of programmes under the National Rural Health Mission. It is headed by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.