Amritsar, October 8
While dengue has hit the city with suspected cases rising each day, the district administration seems to be inactive in countering the epidemic.

The solid waste could be seen littering at every nook and corner of the city, which are the main breeding points of dengue mosquitoes.

Even the tall claims made by health and civic authorities, the ground reality is that the Municipal Corporation has been doing a little to counter the disease. This has exposed the public, who has to cope up not only with the garbage but also with the breeding mosquitoes, which have already taken a heavy toll in other parts of the country.

The countless open drains, the stagnant water and the running taps have compounded the possibility of the growing menace, while the government seems to be sleeping over the contingency plan to counter the problem.

The people living in the slum areas in the periphery of the city are highly exposed to dengue. The rapid response team, as announced by the health authorities, does not seems to be working anywhere near these areas in spite of the fact that the administration had announced a series of measures to save the public from the mosquitoes bites.

Mr P.S. Randhawa, general secretary, Pollution Control Committee, an NGO working as watchdog, came down heavily on the civic authorities while turning a blind eye towards the discharge of waste by unauthorised slaughterhouses alongside the Tung Dhab drain.

He said despite repeated warnings the Health Department had shown a callous approach to the dangerous flow of waste into the drain.

Mr Sunil Datti, Mayor, however, said the civic authorities were fully aware of the problem and had launched a campaign. He said he had personally undertaken this operation along with the team of health officers and fogging machines would be deployed in vulnerable areas in and around the city. He said the corporation would leave no stone unturned to make the life of the residents comfortable.

Meanwhile, Dr Sant Parkash Singh Dhillon, District Health Officer, said 24 dengue cases had been identified during the past one week out of which five still continued to be under treatment.

BATALA: Despite the tall claims made by the administration, no arrangements have been made to combat dengue.

The SMO, Dr Jernail Singh, said today that so far no dengue case was reported in the town although four cases with high fever had been hospitalised.

Dr K.K. Singh, Additional SMO, Civil Hospital, said they had asked the municipal authorities to spray insecticides in the town. However, he did not elaborate whether he had sufficient quantities of blood platelets that are necessary to combat the dengue menace.

The municipal authorities have so far neither initiated any action to spray the insecticide nor have made arrangements for the cleanliness of the city. Garbage dumps can be seen here and there. Surprisingly, the Municipal Council does not have any garbage dumping site.

KAPURTHALA: The local Municipal Council has started fogging in different parts of the town, but still there are several areas where no fogging was done till date.

Meanwhile, two cases of dengue have been confirmed in the district.

The council has started fogging in different parts of the town, said the councillor of Ward 19, Mr Mohinder Agarwal. At the same time, he said still more needed to be done as a number of places, including Dashmesh Colony, had been left without fogging.

When contacted, the president of the council, Mr Sudesh Agarwal, admitted that several areas had been left where no fogging could be done. He promised that the entire town would be covered within next two days.

Meanwhile, two out of six suspected cases have been confirmed as dengue.

With inputs from Balraj Mahajan (Batala) and Dharminder Joshi (Kapurthala)

Jalandhar, October 8
As aedes aegypti mosquito, also known as Asian tiger, is spreading its wings in the city, mosquito repellents are selling like hot cakes. “The demand for mosquito repellents has increased manifold in the past two weeks. As the demand has increased, the stocks are vanishing from the market and manufacturers are not able to cope up with the demand,” said Mr J.B. Chaddha of Geeta Medicine Centre at Sodhal Chowk.

He said the demand of chloroquinine tablets and mosquito nets has also increased.

A visit to Dilkusha Market, a wholesale market of medicines, revealed that most of the chemists had displayed the repellents prominently, in the front racks of their shops and display windows. They believed that the dengue mania would certainly boost their sales.

“Disturbed by the plight of patients at various hospitals shown on television and in the print media and warnings from the government that the residents should takes measures, I decided to buy extra repellents,” said Mr Surjit Singh, a buyer from Sanjay Gandhi Colony.

Mr Chaddha said most of the buyers were coming from Gandhi Nagar, Bhagat Singh Colony and Ram Nagar, where unhygienic conditions were creating panic among residents.

“In the past one week we have sold 500 to 600 tables of chloroquinine daily. Mosquito coils are also in huge demand,” he added.

“There has been a jump in sales in the city. Earlier, the sale used to be high only in June and July. This time the sale is high even in October due to the dengue,” Mr Bhushan Jain, another chemist at Attari Bazaar, said.

Jalandhar, October 8
The police today arrested Akram, 32, the alleged rapist of an 11-year-old daughter of a migrant labourer. The girl was murdered after being raped on September 26.

Panic had gripped the area when the body was found at a vacant plot near her rented accommodation in Dashmesh Nagar locality on September 27. She was working as maid at Mithapur.

Initially, the police rounded up one of her cousins, who was putting up near her home. He was the first person who had detected the body.

Later, police investigations pointed a finger of suspicion towards Akram, a rickshaw-puller, who hailed from Uttar Pradesh and lived near the locality of the victim.

Akram revealed during investigations that he had kidnapped the victim on September 26 and subsequently raped and murdered her.