J A L A N D H A R

Migrants from West Punjab await promised land
Kapurthala, May 7
Even as the people who had migrated to this side of Punjab from West Punjab at the time of the Partition run from pillar to post for the last 58 years to resettle their land claims, the Punjab government has decided to extend ownership rights of government lands to those farmers who had been tilling these for decades.

Fake marriage bureaus mushrooming: LBP
Jalandhar, May 7
Claiming that thousands of innocent people from Punjab were being duped by the mushrooming fake marriage bureaus, placement agencies and “Jyotish Kendras”, the Lok Bhalai Party today accused the police of doing “nothing to contain the activities of such unscrupulous elements”.

Roads of Punjab less lethal: Study
Phagwara, May 7
On an average, seven persons were killed daily in road accidents in Punjab during the past couple of years.

Technical snag delays trains
Phagwara, May 7
Rail traffic was disrupted due to an electricity snag at Chaheru railway station near here this morning. More than a dozen trains were delayed.

Students get patent on drill machine
Jalandhar, May 7
The students of the mechanical engineering department of the Lovely Institute of Technology here have secured a patent for a Square Hole Drilling Machine indigenously devised by them.

120 kg of poppy husk recovered
Kapurthala, May 7
The Subhanpur police on Sunday claimed to have recovered over one quintal of poppy husk from the possession of a woman and her son at Boot village here.

Migrants from West Punjab await promised land
Arun Sharma
Tribune News Service

Kapurthala, May 7
Even as the people who had migrated to this side of Punjab from West Punjab at the time of the Partition run from pillar to post for the last 58 years to resettle their land claims, the Punjab government has decided to extend ownership rights of government lands to those farmers who had been tilling these for decades. More than 30,000 acres of agricultural land is reportedly under illegal possession of farmers for decades in the state.

The Financial Commissioner, Revenue, Mr K.K. Bhatnagar, disclosed this here recently. He said a policy to give ownership rights to these farmers would be announced soon.

Meanwhile, the legal and policy branch of the Department of Revenue and Rehabilitation, Punjab, has asked all the authorities concerned in the state to stop working on cases covered under the Acts enacted to rehabilitate persons displaced from the erstwhile West Pakistan.

A letter from the branch dated December 1, 2005, sent to all the authorities concerned in the state, had stated that no fresh cases were to be entertained and no action on the cases pending before them under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1954, and the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950, be taken.

The Displaced Persons Claims and Other Laws Repeal Act, 2005, was cited as the reason for the action in the letter.

Interestingly, the state governments of Punjab and Haryana had themselves categorically suggested in the past for the repeal of the five Acts enacted after Independence to rehabilitate persons displaced from erstwhile West Pakistan to India at the time of the Partition.

The state governments had asked that the Acts be repealed since a number of bogus claimants posing as legal heirs of displaced persons were presenting demands for land.

Mr Shingara Singh, who, with 15 other family members, had migrated to India in August 1947 from Mange village in Sialkot district of Pakistan, said the governments were being unjust to honest claimants.

“After reaching India, my family was allotted a land in Lakhan Kalan village after a 65 per cent cut,” the octogenarian told The Tribune at Lakhan Kalan village.

“Even after the cut, I was deprived of land measuring seven standard acres and 13 units for which I’m still doing rounds of the district revenue offices,” he rued. “If the government had found fake claimants, it should have had punished them.”

Mr Ranjit Singh and five others from Maqsudpur in Bholath tehsil and many more from other parts of the district and state have a similar tale to narrate.

A cut in the allotment of lands to displaced persons that time was suggested by Sardar Tarlok Singh, Director General, Resettlement, in the Land Resettlement Manual since the land abandoned by the Muslims in the east was lesser than the land abandoned by Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab. The graded cut imposed on the lands varied from 25 per cent to 95 per cent. It was resolved in the Land Resettlement Manual that the claims regarding the cuts in the land would be reconsidered in the second phase.

“We were not allotted land even after the cuts we were entitled to. What can we talk of allotments in the second phase?” Mr Jagir Singh, heir of a claimant from Lamme village, asked.

Mr Shingara Singh alleged that the government was allotting lands to “encroachers” and those who did not have any legal rights on these lands. “But we who chose this country to live after leaving huge properties behind are running after revenue officials for decades in vain.” He said one of his brothers chose to stay back in Pakistan after converting to Islam.

Mr Jagtar Singh Multani, a former minister and an advocate, claimed that the state government could not deny the claims of the displaced.

“Section 6 of the General Clauses Act 1897, inter alia, provides protection to any right, privilege, obligation, or liability acquired or accrued under any enactment repealed.”

However, Mr Jaswant Singh, Officer on Special Duty, Revenue, Punjab, when contacted, claimed that the state government had got a communiqué from the Centre that all the Acts meant for rehabilitation of displaced persons at the time of the Partition had been repealed, hence nothing could be done in these cases.

Fake marriage bureaus mushrooming: LBP
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 7
Claiming that thousands of innocent people from Punjab were being duped by the mushrooming fake marriage bureaus, placement agencies and “Jyotish Kendras”, the Lok Bhalai Party (LBP) today accused the police of doing “nothing to contain the activities of such unscrupulous elements”.

Addressing a press conference along with some “victims” of such fake agencies here today, the LBP, headed by the former Union Minister, Mr Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, displayed audio recordings of certain people allegedly running “fake” marriage bureaus.

Mr Ramoowalia, who was accompanied by senior party leaders, including Mr Avtaar Singh Mullanpuri, the executive president of the LBP, Mr Ramoowalia alleged that these agencies first published catchy advertisements inviting matrimonial proposals for “foreign based” girls in vernacular newspapers.

Then, they charged those responding to these advertisements heavily in the name of registration and other fees, he added.

Showing clippings of an advertisement given by a marriage bureau, he said, “In this advertisement, a marriage bureau is inviting matrimonial proposal from boys of poor families claiming that a Canada-based girl, owning over 50 acres of land in Punjab, was interested only in boys with humble and poor background”.

“When we called at the mobile number given in the advertisement, as an interested party, the person at the other end demanded a whopping Rs 7.5 lakh for sending the interested person abroad along with the girl,” Mr Ramoowalia claimed.

“In fact, most of such catchy advertisements were fake and usually there were no such Canada-based or England-based brides,” he said. “This trick is used to lure people.”

“Similarly, Jyotish Kendras are also coming up in every nook and corner of the state. Firstly, most of owners of such kendras entice people through advertisements about availability of easy spiritual solutions to vexed problems. Then, they lure their clients with promises to send them abroad or get them some job,” Mr Ramoowalia claimed.

He claimed that his party had exposed two fake Jyotish Kendras in Ludhiana and a marriage bureau in Jalandhar.

Roads of Punjab less lethal: Study
Anil Jerath
Tribune News Service

Phagwara, May 7
On an average, seven persons were killed daily in road accidents in Punjab during the past couple of years. This was revealed in a study conducted by the officials of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) here recently.

Apparently, the number of fatal accidents is quite high and disturbing, too. And it calls for a concerted effort to check the killers on the roads.

However, there is some consolation in the fact that Punjab ranks much lower in the number of fatal accidents reported in the country. Even cities like Amritsar and Ludhiana are towards the bottom of the rung among the country’s 35 metros, as revealed in the latest publication of the National Crime Records Bureau on accidental deaths in 2002.

As to the overall situation on account of all accidental deaths (other than road accidents), Punjab ranks 18th. Haryana is at the bottom among the 35 states and union territories. Among the 35 major cities, Amritsar ranks 27th and Ludhiana 33rd.

There were only 1,608 deaths in road accidents in Punjab in 2002. Punjab has over 31 lakh registered vehicles , which is one-third of the national average. There were 1.4 deaths per thousand registered vehicles in the country.

In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, the number of deaths in road accidents were almost half (838) of those in Punjab, yet the rate of deaths per thousand registered vehicles was seven times higher (3.40).

But Haryana presented a rosy picture. There were only 248 deaths (just 20 per cent of those in Punjab) and the rate per thousand vehicles was just 0.1 per thousand.

It has also been observed that the number of vehicles and the quantum of road accidents have increased, but the rate of death per thousand vehicles has been decreasing continuously — from 2.2 in 1995 to 1.4 in 2002.

Contrary to general perception, the share of two-wheelers in fatal road accidents is quite low. Though two-wheelers constitute 70 per cent of all the registered vehicles in the country, its share in deaths in road accidents was only 13.3 per cent.

On the other hand, buses constitute 1.1 per cent of the total registered vehicles and have a 13.7 per cent share in accidental deaths. And 8.9 per cent killed in road accidents were pedestrians, while 6.6 per cent of those killed were travelling by car.

Since women travel less frequently than men, they constitute only 15 per cent of all road victims. Of the 81,873 people killed in road accidents, only 12,830 were women.

Technical snag delays trains
Tribune News Service

Phagwara, May 7
Rail traffic was disrupted due to an electricity snag at Chaheru railway station near here this morning. More than a dozen trains were delayed.

Major trains including Amritsar-New Delhi Shatabdi Express was also held up near the station.

According to railway sources, a clamp which drew power from the main line was found missing. It had loosened the power line and the power to Shatabdi’s engine was disconnected, they added.

Jhelum Express too was held up near the station but was brought to the Phagwara railway station with some provisional arrangement.

A team of technical experts reached the spot to overlook necessary repairs. Rail traffic was restored after more than six hours.

Students get patent on drill machine
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 7
The students of the mechanical engineering department of the Lovely Institute of Technology here have secured a patent for a Square Hole Drilling Machine indigenously devised by them.

Giving details, Mr Ashok Mittal, president of the institutes, said that while drilling was generally done to make round holes, cavities in the shape of square or rectangular were done by other methods such as broaching, slotting or punching.

He said the new method devised by the students was likely to help the users overcome the limitations of the previously existing methods and offer more advantages.

He added that it was the first project by students of Punjab Technical University which had got patented from Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) through the Punjab State Council of Science and Technology.

The students who have made it possible are Gurpreet Singh Heer, Ritesh Kumar Kaushik, Shekhar Singh Thakur, Vikram Rana, Ashok Kumar, Avineesh Sharma, Ajay Pal Singh, Ashish Katyal, Kuljit Singh, Preet Kanwal Singh, Gurdeshbir Singh and Gurpreet Singh Virk. 

120 kg of poppy husk recovered

Kapurthala, May 7
The Subhanpur police on Sunday claimed to have recovered over one quintal of poppy husk from the possession of a woman and her son at Boot village here.

The recovery was made by a police party led by SHO Paraminder Singh from the house of the accused, Bholi, the wife of one Harnam Singh. The poppy husk weighing 120 kg was found concealed in a bunker. The police arrested Bholi, while her son, Surajpal Singh, managed to flee from the spot. — TNS