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High drama in courts complex
Panchkula, October 25 As the men, including her husband and brother-in-law, brandishing double-barrel guns, tried to kidnap her, Kalawanti managed to break free from them and ran for cover inside the district courts. The armed men, too, followed her inside the complex, but as shocked lawyers and litigants, as well as Kalawanti’s companions gathered courage to act, they fled away. Interestingly, as Kalawanti approached the Sector 6 police post to lodge a complaint against her husband Mahinder Singh and brother-in-law Ranbir Singh, she found that they were already at the police post. The duo were giving an application to the police that they apprehended that they would be framed in a kidnapping case. Later, under pressure from the woman and her accomplices, the police arrested the duo under Sections 364, 506 and 511 of IPC, and under Sections 25, 54 and 59 of Arms Act. The Superintendent of Police, Mr Balbir Singh, said that investigation was on. Kalawanti, who has been fighting a long legal battle against her husband, had a court date regarding a case of theft registered against her by her husband. She said she had been married for 15 years, and had two children out of this wedlock. “However, my husband would mistreat me. He tried to induce his friends into developing relations with me. When I protested, he threw me out of the house. Since then, I have been homeless and taking shelter in gurdwaras, and recently converted to Sikhism”, she said. Her husband has accused her of taking away goods from their house when she left him, almost two years ago. He has also filed a case of polyandry against her, and the divorce proceedings are on in the District Courts. While there was an attempt to kidnap her here, lawyers from the Lawyers for Human Rights, had appealed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court for quashing the proceedings in the theft case. When Mr Arvind Thakur, her lawyer, got information about the attempt to kidnapping, he brought the facts before the high court. The court, while staying the proceedings, asked the Panchkula police to provide security to the woman and register an FIR against those accused of trying to kidnap her. Meanwhile, Kalawanti alleged that this was not the first time that her husband Mahinder Singh and his associates had tried to kidnap her. “Last year in January, Mahinder Singh and his elder brother Ranbir Singh kidnapped me from outside the BEL factory in Sector 16. They kept me tied in open fields at Pilu Khera village in Jind district, and my husband raped me. He even induced his accomplices to molest me. They, too, tried to molest me. It was after two days that the warrant officer of the high court found me in the fields, and brought me back,” she alleged.
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Body of Chandigarh Club employee found in Sukhna
Chandigarh, October 25 The reason behind the alleged suicide is not known so far. However, the family of the victim denied any foul play behind the death. There were no injury marks found on the body, the police said. According to the eyewitnesses, the body was spotted near the regulatory end at 7 am by sportspersons who came for rowing practice at the lake. The police was informed about the incident and they pulled the body out of the murky waters and shifted it to the Sector 16 General Hospital. The sources at the Sukhna Lake police post said the victim, Dharminder Thakur, belonged to Mandi district in Himachal Pradesh, was living in Khudda Ali Sher village with his colleague. He had reportedly gone missing since October 22 and his colleague, Mr Pitambar, had reported the matter at the Sector 11 police station. A daily diary report (DDR) had been lodged in this regard. Quoting Mr Pitambar, the police said on October 21 Thakur returned from his job at around 12 midnight. They had a chat after taking their meals. Mr Pitambar told the police that on that fateful night, Thakur looked somewhat upset and restless as he kept on changing his clothes repeatedly. Thakur was wearing his uniform when he came from his job. He changed his dress and put on a lower. But after sometime, he wore his jeans and then changed it with his trousers. Pitambar said he asked Thakur about the reason behind his restlessness. However, he replied ‘nothing’ and went to his bed at around 2 am. Next morning, Pitambar woke up at around 6 and found Thakur missing. He thought that Thakur might have gone to fetch milk. When Thakur did not return later in the day, Pitambar lodged a complaint at the Sector 11 police station on October 22 and also informed the family of Thakur in Mandi. The father and brother-in-law of Thakur had been in the city in order to search him. They also informed the Sukhna Lake police post about the description of Thakur. His father told the police that Thakur was married and is survived by his wife and a child. He got a job in Chandigarh Club and had done his postgraduation in English literature. The body was handed over to the family after the post-mortem.
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Sector 53 to have govt hospital
Chandigarh, October 25 Reliable sources said at least 10 acres of land has been identified for the project and there is a leverage of additional two acres in the project layout. The proposed 100-bedded hospital is seen as a very important development for handling the patient rush, particularly from the southern sectors. The city currently has a Government Hospital in Sector 16 and another one in Sector 32. The site at Sector 53 was cleared with near unanimity because the density of population in the southern sectors is the highest in the city and there has been a persistent demand for a new hospital. The existing facilities were already witnessing a very big rush. A senior officer of the administration said special care would be taken in planning out the layout of the hospital, particularly with regard to inter-linking of the facilities inside the hospital compound. Tertiary medical facilities will also be made available within the compound. Besides care on the internal layout and patient care, the hospital will take extra care of chalking out procedural and professional details in the pre-entry and the check-out stages of the patients. It was also pointed out that details regarding the ground implementation of the project would be worked out later. The hospital will employ state-of-the art gadgets in handling the patient details. Besides a back-up of the computer data for the patient records, the hospital also plans to employ medical equipment helping in cross reference with experts specialising in the problems concerned elsewhere. Mr Desh Raj Tandon, a retired government official residing in Sector 48, said, “The existing government hospitals in the city were overburdened with the city population which had crossed the mark of 11 lakh. Old people like me, residing in the entire belt of southern sectors, will be greatly benefited because of the hospital coming nearer home and saving us trouble of travelling far and also from the rush”. Mr Deepak Kumar, a resident of Sector 35, said the city hospitals were witnessing a lot of rush from the outside states because of the high quality of health care here. “There are reports of patients travelling down from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, besides the adjoining states to the PGI and a large number also to government hospitals. Government hospitals never refuse care to anyone”.
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Cops, PCA lock horns
Mohali, October 25 While the Punjab Police has, in a letter written to the PCA, put forward a claim of Rs 65 lakh as the amount the PCA owes to them, Mr Bindra said the PCA did not owe the Punjab Police anything. “We never asked for any security here. So why should we pay for it? ” he said. On the other hand, the SSP clearly said the PCA had asked for the security cover of the stadium. “We have asked the PCA to pay Rs 47 lakh for the five-day India-Pakistan match held in March this year and another Rs 18 lakh for the Challenger series matches held early this month. For this match we have asked for another Rs 8.5 lakh,” he said.
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Cricket fans upbeat after India’s win
Mohali, October 25 Splendid knock of 93 by Sachin Tendulkar was another mark which not only boosted the expectations of the cricket lovers, but also increased the rates of the tickets in black market of the second one dayer at PCA
stadium here. Cricket enthusiasts, who probably wanted to wait for the performance of the Indian team as well as Sachin in the first match of the series, were unable to resist the temptation to see their cricket stars live in action. Having finally made up their minds, they queued here to buy the tickets. “We are over excited with the marvelous show put up by the Indian team, particularly the Sachin. Now we don’t mind to dish out extra bucks to see the second match here”, said Deepak Kalsi and Sanjay, who were looking for the tickets. Another factor to look forward would be the 80 per cent winning record of the Indian team at Mohali in all matches played here till date. The Indian team has played five matches here so far, of which it won four and lost just one match. Interestingly, India batted first in the four matches and won three out of those. It only lost to Pakistan by seven wickets while batting first in 1999. The last match was against Zimbabwe played in 2002 which India won by 64 runs. Whereas Sri Lanka played only one match here against Pakistan and won it by 115 runs. Meanwhile, the cricket fans celebrated India’s victory by bursting crackers and dancing on ‘dhol’ beats at various places
in the city.
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What is the focus of the Aerens group? The focus of the Delhi-based group is now on speciality malls, particularly the Wedding and Gold Souks which house retailers of wedding accessories and jewellery under one roof. We have plans to foray into other theme malls like building material, automobiles, health and beauty in Punjab and the surrounding areas. How is a speciality mall different from a general mall? Unlike the normal malls, specialist malls focus on a specialised product category. In a real estate mall, for instance you could walk in and out with keys to your dream house and in an auto mall, you could shop around for the latest car of all possible brands under one roof. The economics of these malls is also different from the retail malls. Why have the malls not been a success in Gurgaon? It has largely been due to an imbalance between the demand and the existing capacity. No proper survey had been done to identify the demand and the number of expected footfalls . However, as the NCR region is expanding it is getting better and the buying power of the people has also gone up. — Poonam Batth
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Residents not to pay hiked bills
Mohali, October 25 Condemning the hike at a rally organised outside the office of the Municipal Council here protesters said the revised rates should be withdrawn immediately. They threatened that if the revised charges were not withdrawn by November 23, a relay fast would be started by residents under the leadership of Opposition councillors. Representatives of welfare bodies from Phase I, II, III A, IIIB 1, VI, VII and IX to XI took part in the rally, apart from both industrial welfare associations and a number of women. The protesters later moved to the office of the SDM, Mr M.L. Sharma, and presented a memorandum, addressed to the Punjab Chief Minister, to him. In the memorandum they demanded that the charges that had been revised from August 1 should be withdrawn. There was resentment among residents as the Minister for Local Government, Ch Jagjit Singh, had failed to take any action even when three memorandums were sent to him by the residents. The Kharar MLA, Mr Bir Devinder Singh, who had come to the SDM office to attend the meeting of the Delimitation Board, also supported the protest of the residents.
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Noble act in hour of tragedy
A matter of life and death
As many as 600 persons are waiting for a corneal transplant at the PGI, said Dr Amit Gupta from the Department of Ophthalmology. Dr Minz of the Organ Transplant Department said at any given moment, at least 15 kidney patients were on dialysis and in dire need of a kidney. He added, “On an average we perform three to four kidney transplants a week and most of these are after kidney donations by family members.
Chandigarh, October 25 His eyes will restore
the sight of two corneal transplant patients admitted to PGI’s eye ward. His kidneys will bring smiles to the faces of children, whose mothers have been battling death following complete renal failure. The PGI has concealed names of recipients for ethical
reasons. In any case, families of patients are rushing to bless Mrs Swaran Kanta Jain and Ms Shelly Jain, the mother and wife, respectively, of the accident victim whose story was highlighted in these columns. Their act was heroic indeed — not only because they donated their beloved’s organs, but because they donated “in time” — i.e. when Sunil Jain was declared brain dead and his body was still on ventilator. The medical significance of this decision is immense because organs can only be harvested from the body of patients in whom brain death has occurred while they are still on ventilators. Organs cannot be harvested in case of home deaths because the slightest gap between the ceasing of circulation and the organ removal can turn the organ useless. Dr Sanjay Jain of the Internal Medicine Department, PGI, clarified, “Brain death occurs when all indicators of brain functioning cease permanently. Families find it hard to accept this condition as death because the body is warm and the patient is still breathing. But this is the best time when organ donation can help. Declaration of brain death is, therefore, a technical process. It involves screening at two levels by an expert committee.” The situation is very tough — both for doctors and families. No wonder in the past 10 years, the PGI has been successful only in five cases where families have consented to organ donation of wards. The last case, Dr M. Minz, Head, Organ Transplant, PGI, said, was in 2001. Given the rarity of cadaver donations against donations by living family members, Sunil Jain’s case becomes very important. Lauding the family’s courage, Prof K.K. Talwar, Director, PGI, said the Organ Transplant Act came into force in 1994 but the community needed to be educated so that it came forward to
donate organs. “So many people die in road accidents. Many lives can be saved if
families of such victims donate organs. It is also important to save time in such cases. The SSP, Ropar, helped us tide over the medico-legal aspect of this case very fast. We saved time and lives,” said
Prof Talwar. He also lauded the effort of Mr Arvind Jain, a relative of the accident victim who convinced Sunil’s family to perform the noble act. Mr Jain said, “Sunil’s family is very poor but they agreed to donate their son’s organs to further a cause.” Back in Nawanshahr, Mr Jain raised a few lakhs from the Jain community to secure the future of Sunil Jain’s children. The deceased’s “chowtha” was also heavily attended.
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MC fails to make headway on delimitation of wards
Mohali, October 25 No final decision was taken at the meeting even when four members of the board were satisfied with the draft proposal prepared to delimit wards and only two members, including the Kharar MLA, had opposed the draft. Only seven members, out of 12, have the voting right. It is learnt that the MLA was not satisfied with the draft as it had been presented in black and white. He demanded that the plan of the earlier wards and the proposed wards should be presented in coloured form. And this material should be provided to all members along with the invitation letters so that they could come prepared to raise objections if they desired so. The earlier meeting of the board held on October 10, too failed to reach any conclusion.
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PSIEC staff seek probe into land transfer to builder
Chandigarh, October 25 Hundreds of employees of the corporation staged a protest outside the Udyog Bhavan in Sector 17 this afternoon alleging that the Punjab Government had under immense pressure from the “land mafia” caused revenue losses to the
PSIEC. Addressing the employees, Chander Shekhar, general secretary, CTU, Punjab, Bhag Mal Rana, general secretary, Federation of UT Employees, Balbir Singh, convener,
JPMO, Chandigarh, and Gurdip Singh, general secretary, Maha Sangh, said the Punjab Government had handed over 180 acres in sectors 82 and 83 that had been alloted to the PSIEC for the development of infrastructure under land mixed use policy. The leaders said: “We condemn this action of the Punjab Government. It seems the government has buckled under pressure of the land mafia. Moreover, benefits like
HRA, conveyance, staff welfare funds and regularisation of 600 workers who have rendered 15 years of service are pending due to the acute financial crunch being faced by the corporation,” they said.
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FIR not lodged, alleges resident
Mohali, October 25 Mr Jatinder Singh told the Chandigarh Tribune here today that members of his family had gone out of station yesterday. Only his sister-in-law was at home. Three persons entered the house and forcibly took away the jewellery after overpowering his sister-in-law. A complaint was made to the police, but no case had so far been registered.
OC
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Discussion on Lions Club service projects
Chandigarh, October 25
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Two snatching incidents in city
Chandigarh, October 25 Giving details of the case, sources in the local police said Poonam Jain of Sector 35 was caught unawares as two persons on a motorcycle snatched her gold chain with a pendent and fled. The incident occurred so fast near her house that she could not even jot down the vehicle’s number. Taking up her complaint, a senior officer said a case of theft under Sections 379 and 356 of the IPC had been registered. In another incident Ajay Rana of Nangal informed the police that one Harinder of Patiala district and Karan of Kapurthala district snatched his mobile phone near the Sectors 29-30 traffic lights. The duo were on a motorcycle. The sources added that the two were detained at a barrier near the Sector 15 market by a police control room Gypsy. The duo were, subsequently, booked by the police for theft and other offences under Sections 379 and 356 of the IPC.
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Flesh trade under garb of modelling
Chandigarh, October 25 The police said the real name of the 25-year-old ‘pimp’ was Sudhanshu, not Sourav Mittal as he had earlier told the police during preliminary interrogation. He was known by many names and was known as Sarad in Delhi. On the Internet he identified himself as Mr Cash. The in charge of the Crime Branch, Inspector Jagbir Singh, said the girls in touch with him knew about his activities and they acted in coordination to run their illegal activities under the garb of modelling. The accused had also displayed a ‘musical group’ plate on the front door of his residence to conceal his real activities. He was known as Sarad to various photographers in Delhi, from where he used to get the photographs of the girls clicked. He had reportedly told them that he was into the profession of making profiles of girls aspiring to become models. The police during the raids seized his computer, a score of CDs, photographs of girls involved in flesh trade. It said he had a computer full of photographs of girls and information about his clientele. Records and details of the emails he had sent and received were also seized. Sources in the Crime Branch said more arrests were likely on the basis of information retrieved from his computer. Meanwhile, the Crime Branch today managed to get his police remand extended by one day. The sources further added that the police also seized various photographs of the alleged call girl arrested along with him on October 21. The officials further claimed that their investigation in this case is nearly complete. Sudhanshu, alias ‘Mr Cash’, was trapped on October 21 along with an alleged call girl at the Sector 17 Plaza. The crime branch officials had made a deal with him after getting his mobile phone number from a website. He had reportedly asked the decoy customer sent by the Crime Branch to meet him in Sector 17 and allegedly demanded Rs 5,000 in advance. He was caught red handed while accepting money along with the call girl. The sources said Sudhanshu was living alone in an apartment in Chitranjan Park at New Delhi. An MBA, Sudhanshu hails from Mount Abu in Rajasthan and had been living a very ‘low-profile life’ in Delhi, said the police. His father is a government employee and his mother a teacher. The sources said Sudhanshu had launched the website this year in June and the website was hosted in the UK. He had launched a similar website about a year-and-half ago, but it was discontinued as such websites were banned in India, they added.
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Labourer falls in treatment plant, dies
Chandigarh, October 25 Giving details of the fatal mishap, sources in the local police said the victim was rushed to hospital after being pulled out by fellow workers. The doctors on duty, however, could not save him and he died on Monday night. The sources added that a case of causing death due to rash and negligent act under Section 304-A of the IPC had been registered against the contractor. Regarding the theft, the sources said Ms Kamla Amit Gera of Mohali reported to the police that a bag containing diamond and gold rings, besides documents and cash, was stolen from her car parked in Panjab University.
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Scooter set on fire in Sector 11
Panchkula, October 25 He said he was inspecting the construction work, when he saw three youths on motor cycle come near his house. They dabbed a cloth with petrol and sprinkled it on his scooter. Before he could react, they had set his scooter on fire and fled. Sandeep said he had informed the police. Raid: The Kalka police on Tuesday raided four shops selling fire crackers in the Broad Gauge Colony. These shops were reportedly selling unauthorised fire crackers. The police seized some of the crackers from these shops. Traffic jam: Traffic on the Kalka-Shimla national highway was disrupted for almost four hours on Tuesday, when two vehicles developed a snag and remained parked there. Traffic moved at a snails pace and serpentine queues till the Parwanoo barrier on one side and main bazaar were seen. It was only around noon when the two vehicles were taken away then the normal traffic flow was restored.
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