Kapurthala, June 16
The district police has busted a gang allegedly involved in a fake currency racket. It arrested three of its members from Goraya in Jalandhar yesterday night.

The police said all the accused were members of a well-known bhangra group from Goraya.

The accused have been identified as Pradeep Singh from Roorka Khurd in Jalandhar, Sukhdev Singh from Chungawa village, and Vikramjeet Singh from Takkar village (both in Amritsar district).

The accused were produced in court today and were sent to a three-day police remand.

The police claimed the accused were trying to pay fake currency notes of Rs 1,500 to employees of a petrol pump at Brindpur village while returning to Goraya from a performing bhangra at a function in RCF, Kapurthala, on Wednesday.

When the employee noticed that the notes were fake, the accused fled from the spot in their Qualis.

The petrol pump employee informed the Kapurthala police, which came to know from the DTO, Jalandhar, that the vehicle belonged to Goraya.

Following this, the police raided respective places in Goraya and nabbed the accused.

An FIR under Section 420 and 489 A, B and C has been registered at the Sadar police station.

A day back, the Jalandhar police had arrested four persons, Sanjiv Kumar, Kamaljeet, Baldev and Yogesh of Kapurthala, with fake currency notes.

The police had also recovered a printer from a house in Kapurthala.

Jalandhar, June 16
Hans Raj Sharma has been running from pillar to post to get himself “reinstated” as the Principal of the Doaba Arya Senior Secondary School in Nawanshahr for over two years now, even though the DPI (secondary), Punjab, had passed speaking orders on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in favour of him, rejecting the decision of the school’s management committee to withdraw Mr Sharma’s financial and administrative powers owing to alleged political interference.

The management has however denied that Mr Sharma was either harassed or removed from the principal’s post.

“Only his administrative and financial powers have been withdrawn,” Mr Prem Bharadwaj, President of the Doaba Arya School Management Committee, said.

Mr Sharma, though, gave details of the alleged “high-handedness” of the management. He alleged that the management had arbitrarily withdrawn his financial and administrative powers and removed him from office without issuing any notice or charge sheet.

He claimed that to “humiliate him”, a social studies teacher was made the officiating principal without initiating any legal proceedings against him.

The management, according to Mr Sharma, had taken this unprecedented action on the pretext of  conducting internal audit and spread rumours regarding embezzlement in funds, though an audit had already been conducted.

Mr Sharma said though he had waited for an amicable solution, but the “callous attitude” of the management had forced him to file a complaint with the DPI(S). “But that too was of no avail due to political pressure,” Mr Sharma alleged.

Then, he said he a filed a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court directed the DPI to settle the matter by passing speaking orders within two months. Mr Sharma alleged that again the matter was delayed due to political pressure.

Finally, the DPI(S) passed speaking orders in his favour in August last year. “But these orders are still lying unimplemented,” Mr Sharma claimed.

Even the official orders of the DPI(S) was torn into pieces and he was manhandled by a teacher and a clerk when he went to “take charge” as principal, he further claimed.

Mr Sharma said he made a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner and the SSP demanding action against the persons causing hindrances in his official duty. 

When the office-bearers of the Privately-managed Government-aided School Teachers and Other Employees Union, Mr Rajinder Sharma and Mr Baldev Singh Pabla, met the local MLA seeking justice for Mr Sharma by implementing the orders of the DPI, a committee was constituted to inquire into the allegations of embezzlement of funds, Mr Sharma said.

Even, the committee, headed by Mr Malkiat Singh Bahrowal, in its report, said the management had been causing undue harassment to him, Mr Sharma claimed, adding that a political leader had been adopting dilly-dallying attitude to get the orders implemented.

Interestingly, the office of the DPI(S) has reportedly not been entertaining the claims of grant in aid of the Doaba Arya Senior Secondary School for want of the signatures of Mr Hans Raj Sharma.

The DPI(S) has also rejected the review petition filed by the school management, Mr Sharma alleged. The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) authorities have also asked the school to send the admission forms of the students for the board examination duly signed by the principal.

Some of the school staff claimed that they have not received salaries for past many months.

Mr Prem Bharadwaj, however, denied all the allegations made against the management committee. He claimed, “Mr Sharma has done a lot of bungling in financial matters. He has also not gone to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The then DPI, Mr Gian Singh, had passed an order on Mr Sharma during the last months of his tenure.”

Mr Bhardwaj said Mr Sharma was still the principal and only his financial and administrative powers had been withdrawn. He denied any political interference in the matter.

Kapurthala, June 16
The district’s official website, kapurthala.nic.in, is trapped in a time wrap.

Mr Samir Kumar was shifted from the post of the Kapurthala Deputy Commissioner to that of the Special Secretary, Irrigation Department, about three months back and was replaced by Mr Raminder Singh. But the website says Mr Kumar is the Kapurthala Deputy Commissioner. 
Apart from the Deputy Commissioner’s name, the website contains the name of Mr S.S. Gupta as the District and Sessions Judge, whereas he was shifted from Kapurthala some time back. Presently Mr S.P. Bangar is serving at the post.

Besides this, the website has adopted a discriminatory attitude towards officer-bearers of parties that are not in power. It only contains names of some office-bearers of the ruling party. But that too is not updated. 
The official website was updated only once, three months back. It was launched nine months ago. 
Under the column: “Telephone Numbers of Politicians”, the website mentions the names of Congress district and youth president with their respective telephone numbers. But names of none of the office-bearers of other parties find any place.

Strangely, the website also says that Mr Mohinder Aggarwal is the Congress’s state secretary, even after he joined the SAD some time back.

Apart from this, the website provides wrong telephone numbers of several press reporters. There are names of persons who are presently either not working as journalists or have left the organisation mentioned in the column.
When contacted, the District Informatics Officer (DIO), National Informatics Centre (NIC), Mr Balraj Dhingra, admitted that the website could not be updated regularly due to “some problems”.

He claimed that the website would be updated within a week with the availability of online forms of Suvidha Scheme and online information on other programmes.

There is a general perception among regular Internet surfers in the region that the data on governemnt websites is mostly outdated. This is a case in point.

Kapurthala, June 16
A couple was killed, their son and a relative injured and two other escaped unhurt when their car collided with a tractor-trolley near Dhilwan on the GT Road here today.

Varinder Singh (42) and his wife Ravinder Kaur (40) along with their son Ranjit Singh had come from Ramgarh in Jharkhand to participate in Guru Arjun Dev’s 400th martyrdom day function in Tarn Taran. A relative of theirs, Kulwinder Kaur of Ladowali Road in Jalandhar, and two other persons were also in the car.

The bodies were sent to the Civil Hospital for a postmortem and the injured have been admitted to a hospital in Beas. The driver of the tractor-trolley managed to flee the spot.

Today’s incident comes a two days after another couple, from Chandigarh, was killed and their three children seriously injured in a similar road accident in Phagwara.

Jalandhar, June 16
The body of a Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) employee was found from the Kala Bakra village here.

Ashok Singh (45), a resident of Sujanpur village in Pathankot tehsil, was working at the PSEB’s Doraha station in Ludhiana.

The police suspects that he may have been murdered, though it says the postmortem report will reveal the cause of the death. A case under Section 174 of the IPC has been registered.

The body was recovered by the Bhogpur police and was sent for postmortem to the Civil Hospital.

The family of the deceased suspected that Ashok Singh could have been robbed by some assailants. They said the victim had left for Doraha a week back.

The body was found in sitting position and he might have been drugged or he may have suffered an attack, the police said.

SHO of Bhogpur Varinder Singh said Ashok Singh was employed as a work charge in the PSEB and added that he was mentally unsound. Ashok Singh is survived by a wife, son and daughter.

Jalandhar, June 16
Jalandhar Deputy Commissioner Anurag Verma yesterday said the draft electoral rolls would be published on June 19 by respective Electoral Registration Officers.

The rolls are being published after intensive revision with enumerators going door-to-door. The revision is being done with January 1, 2006, as qualifying date.

Anybody with an objection regarding these rolls can file a claim or an objection between June 19 and July 3 and respective electoral registration officers shall dispose off the claim or objection by July 24.

The draft electoral rolls would be made available at a large number of places for convenience of political parties and general public. These rolls shall be displayed at offices of the Electoral Registration Officers or Assistant Registration Officers.

Phagwara, June 16
Railway officials from India and Pakistan would meet at New Delhi in the first week of July and later at Karachi to discuss plans to introduce more trains between the two countries.

Sources said the “Thar Express”, a weekly train between Munnabad and Khokhrapar, would run twice a week and a formal announcement in this regard would be made after the Delhi meeting. The train was introduced in February.

Railway authorities from both India and Pakistan were planning to increase its frequency to meet the rush of passengers, sources added.