Phagwara, June 14
Residents of the Hadiabad locality today came out of their houses to hold a protest against the Phagwara Nagar Council and its President, Mr Malkiat Singh Ragbotra, for the alleged inability of the civic body in ensuring proper drinking water supply in the area.

The agitated residents displayed empty utensils and even blocked traffic for over two hours on the Phagwara-Hadiabad main road.

They alleged that they had not been getting proper water supply for about a week and that the Nagar Council had done nothing to sort out the problem. They threatened that if water supply was not restored, they would gherao the Nagar Council’s office.

“What to talk about bathing, we don’t even have enough water for drinking. Yet all our protests have been falling on deaf ears,” Ms Rajni Bala, a housewife, said.

She added that though problem had been there for well over a fortnight, it had turned “unbearable” in the past five days.

The Phagwara SDM, Mr Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, pacified the protesters and assured them of ensuring a regular drinking water supply.

A new tubewell would be installed in the area soon, the SDM told the residents.

It is not that only the Hadiabad locality is suffering from a water shortage. Drinking water has become scarce in many other localities in the town too.

Now, “Chabils” have surfaced all over the town and are offering some respite to the residents. Shopkeepers and social organisations have put up “Chabils”, serving sweet water to the residents. 

Phagwara, June 14
The Health Department today said that it had identified a suspected polio case from the Model Town area here.

The Kapurthala Civil Surgeon, Dr Maninderjit Singh, said five-year-old Vishal Sharma was diagnosed with Acute Flacid Paralysis (AFP) and his stool samples had been sent for a medical examination. He added that Vishal’s medical report was likely to arrive by the end of this month.

“Nothing can be confirmed until the stool reports come,” the Civil Surgeon said.

He said that as a preventive measure, the health authorities had administered polio drops to as many as 500 children living in the vicinity of Model Town and would continue the mop up operation for the next two days.

This is the second such polio scare Phagwara has generated in recent months. In December last year, a two-year-old girl from Subhash Nagar locality was detected with AFP. Khushi, the daughter of a labourer, was first admitted to a private hospital in Phagwara with fever. She was then shifted to CMC, Ludhiana. Later, fears were dispelled after the lab reports ruled out the case to be of polio.

Dr Yash Mitra, SMO, Civil Hospital, had claimed that hardly one per cent AFP cases tested positive for polio. Dr Inderjit Singh Ahuja, District Vaccination Officer, had said that earlier too, six children were detected to be suffering from AFP in the district but their stool test reports did not confirm these to be polio cases.

But a scare being a scare, an emergency polio revamp operation and surveillance was launched in and around the locality for administering additional polio drops to 0-5 age group children.

The health authorities in Ludhiana too were forced to undertake an immunisation drive on December 11, 2005, in seven districts within the radius of 40 km after the detection of a suspected polio case there.

Jalandhar, June 14
A nine-year-old boy, Rahim, a resident of the Surgical Complex in Basti Bawakhel, was run over by a truck here today. He died on the spot. The driver of the truck is absconding.

The victim’s family hails from West Bengal. The victim’s father, Janak, said he was riding a cycle-rickshaw to go to a medical shop to get medicines for his ailing wife when his son started following him But Janak did not notice it.

On a turn near the Surgical Complex on the Jalandhar-Kapurthala highway, a truck coming from the wrong direction ran over Rahim.

The police sent the body to the Civil Hospital for postmortem.

The driver has been booked under Section 304 of the IPC.

Meanwhile, four persons, alleged to be part of a robbers’ gang, were arrested from Kartarpur today. Three other members of the gang are absconding.

The police has recovered two revolvers (.12 and .315 bore) and live cartridges from the accused.