Begowal (Kapurthala), June 19
A pall of gloom descended on Begowal in Kapurthala district after the report of the death of a youth Gurdev Singh (28) hailing from the area in an accident in Italy was received here today.

Gurdev, who had gone to Italy about three years ago to earn a livelihood, reportedly died on Saturday afternoon after he fell down from a tractor and was crushed under the vehicle while spraying pesticides on the standing crops in the fields in Rome.

When he did not return to his place till Sunday morning, the owner of the fields sent his another employee to look for Gurdev. The employee reportedly found Gurdev lying under the tractor in the fields.

Gurdev’s parents Sewa Singh, Surjeet Kaur and his widow Sarabjeet Kaur, were inconsolable after they heard the news of his untimely death.

Gurdev was married to Sarabjeet Kaur about three years ago before he left for Italy. They have a two-and-a-half-year-old baby girl.

His relatives said Gurdev was so hard-working that his family was not only able to repay the debt of Rs 7 lakh spent to sent him abroad, but they also renovated their house here with the money earned by him during the short span of about three years. Gurdev’s relatives said they were making arrangements to bring his body to his native place from Rome for last rites.

Mukerian (Hoshiarpur), June 19
Residents of nearly 20 villages of the Bet area and thousands of farmers from villages around the township are anguished over the proposed construction of a toll plaza on the Jalandhar-Pathankot highway at Aema Mangat village near here. They say a number of them have lost their pieces of land.

Residents and farmers, mostly marginal with small holdings, claim the plaza does not have any technical or financial feasibility, but the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was bent upon setting it up to collect tax from vehicles.

The residents and the farmers are now planning dharnas, demonstrations and a “Chetna March” to lodge their protest with the Ministry of Surface and Road Transport.

Last week, members of the Mukerian Mahapanchayat has met the Union Minister for Surface and Road Transport apprising him of the situation.

“Hundreds of farmers from nearby villages have to cross the “Phatak of Alipur” railway crossing and grain market to come to Mukerian on a daily basis,” a farmer based at Mukerian said. “After the construction of the toll plaza, they would have to pay toll charges,” he added.

Satbir Thakur, convenor of the Mahapanchayat, said, “Sher Shah Suri had constructed the GT Road, adorned it with shady trees and wells without charging people anything. But this government is bent upon thrusting a “Jazia” (a tax collected by the Mughals from farmers), on the people of independent India.” The Mahapanchayat was formed by to spearhead the struggle.

He said a memorandum was submitted to the Mukerian SDM the Mahapanchayat formed to spearhead the struggle.

“Nothing has been done so far. Old proposals are still in force. People are simmering with discontentment. If situation continued like this, we will have to resort to full-scale protests,” Mr Thakur added.

Jalandhar, June 19
The district police is going to put mobile operators under the scanner if a phone subscribed to their company is found to have been used in any criminal activity.

The police is issuing instructions to these operators to verify the credentials of the subscribers coming to them for connections.

The step has been taken in view of criminals increasingly using mobiles for crimes and the police has a hard time tracing them.

The mobile connections were found to be easily disposed off by the criminals.

The connections have been found to be taken on false addresses and were given away by the mobile service providers without properly verifying the addresses.

The operators failing to abide by the new instructions are liable to be included in the process of investigation against such criminals.

SSP Ishwar Singh today held a special meeting with the area managers of the mobile operators. The area managers of Spice, Airtel, Hutch, Reliance and BSNL and others were part of the meeting.

The companies have been issued special guidelines regarding giving mobile connections to customers. The SSP said the police was facing difficulties in tracing criminals who get mobile connections on fake identity cards and later dispose them off.

He said the misuse of these connections in recent cases had led to the police to reach out to the mobile service providers.

As per the new orders issued in the meeting, the failure of the mobile operators to properly check and verify the genuineness of the identity proofs provided by the customers would lead to the investigations involving such companies too.

The companies would also be treated as vested party in the criminal act as the investigating authority might consider that the company had vested interest in not verifying the credentials of the customer, the SSP added. 

Kapurthala, June 19
The Kapurthala police would interrogate the four persons the Jalandhar police arrested on Thursday on charges of running a fake currency racket.

Sources said several revelations were likely during the proposed interrogation. They claimed that several local persons with political clout were involved in the fake currency racket and the names might come out during the interrogation.

SSP Rajiv Ahir said the police would try to bring them to Kapurthala on a production warrant as early as possible for a deeper probe into the racket.

The Jalandhar police nabbed Sanjiv Kumar, Kamaljeet, Baldev and Yogesh from different localities under Maqsoodan police station.

The Maqsoodan police had laid a trap to nab the four accused after a tip-off. It also recovered fake currency notes of Rs 20,000.

The Jalandhar police had raided several places in Kapurthala on Thursday evening after the arrests and recovered two printers and other material used for printing fake currency notes.

According to police sources, the accused are part of a network working in Kapurthala that runs the racket.

Sources added that Kapurthala was being used as a hub for fake currency racket for last several years.

Three years back, the Ludhiana police had arrested a Kapurthala resident with fake currency notes of about Rs two lakh. Several influential persons were found involved in the racket, but no action has been taken against them till date.

Phagwara, June 19
The Phagwara police today arrested two persons on charges of possessing stolen motorcycles from two different places in Phagwara .

A police team headed by Sadar police station SHO Lakhwinder Singh Mall raided Bhullarai village and Khilwara Gate locality. The accused were identified as Jaswant Singh, a resident of Banga, and Jiwan Kumar from nearby Dhak Pandori village in Phagwara. The duo have confessed to have stolen the motorcycles (PB-08AE-8606) and (PB-36B-5181) from Bhullarai village and Baba Gaddian locality, respectively, the SHO added.— TNS