Shimla, May 10
The CPM manifesto has promised to make the “queen of hills” an information technology (IT) hub, solve the water problem using modern hydrological techniques, set up an electric crematorium, pursue the case for setting up a central university and develop a modern mass rapid transport system to end traffic congestion.

Releasing its manifesto for the MC poll, here today, Shimla district party president Sanjay Chauhan said the party would encourage BPO (business process outsourcing) units to help create employment opportunities and improve the basic infrastructure.

He blamed both the Congress and the BJP for the dismal state of civic amenities and said residents of the merged areas paid taxes but were not being provided any facilities.

He said the central university would facilitate 10,000 students and would focus on vocational courses.

The manifesto also favoured the regularisation of illegal “dharas” and promised 1 biswa of land to the poor and landless for construction of houses, besides construction of an ambulance road and a community hall in every ward.

General secretary of Congress Kuldeep Rathore said the Rs 66 crore Giri Lift Water Supply Scheme was fast nearing its completion and would make 20 million litre of additional water per day from October 2 next. He said four pumps were installed in the Ashwini khud at a cost of Rs 90 lakh and augmented the supply from Nauti khud by spending Rs 9 crore.

Nahan, May 10
Government Senior Secondary High School, Jamta, 18 km from here, has set a record of sorts in the recently declared result of the class VIII examination conducted by the Himachal Pardesh School Education Board.

None of the 31 students of the school, who appeared in the examination, was able to pass.

Members of the Navni gram panchayat have expressed serious concern over the alleged declining standard of education in the school.

Never before in the past 22 years, the school had put up such a dismal show, they maintain.

School principal Rusam Lata admitted that the result had been dismal.

President of the Parent-Teacher Association of the school Prem Pal Thakur said had the teachers taken their task seriously, the result would have been different. Schoolteachers Dharmender Singh and Harkiran, however, blamed it on the revised syllabus.

Shimla, May 10
The HP High Court today directed the home secretary, the director general of police and the Superintendent of Police, Shimla, to file their personal affidavits by June 12 on the issue of alleged theft of Rs 50 lakh from the office of the Chief Minister under mysterious circumstances.

A division Bench comprising Chief Justice V.K. Gupta and Mr Justice V.K. Ahuja passed the direction on a PIL filed, wherein, the petitioner had alleged that a mysterious theft had taken place from the office of the Chief Minister.

He further alleged that according to a news item published in an English daily, the police authorities had managed to nab the suspect, a home guard volunteer, who later confessed to the crime. It was further alleged in a news item that no FIR or complaint was registered.

Petitioner submitted that whatever had been reported in the news item was a serious matter and the general public had the right to know as to what was the truth.

If a theft could take place in the high security area, that too in the office of the Chief Minister, than what would be the plight of the common citizen the PIL said. It was further alleged that the police authorities had failed to discharge their duties in a proper manner which had made common man insecure.

Dharamsala, May 10
An undertrial criminal lodged in the district jail of Dharamsala escaped from police custody this afternoon, while he was being brought back by the local police after producing him in the judicial court where a criminal case was pending against him. He escaped while on way from Dehra to Dharamsala.

Confirming the incident, Kangra district ASP Santosh Patial said the under-trial criminal, Pawan Kumar, jumped out of the bus near Ranital, this afternoon. He was being brought back on the bus by two police personnel after producing him in the judicial court at Dehra where a criminal case was pending against him.

He said Pawan Kumar was arrested by the police on April 21 this year from Amritsar, on charges of kidnapping and raping a minor girl. Since then, he was lodged in the district jail here and the trial of this case was going on in the judicial court at Dehra.

The ASP further said the two police personnel Jai Chand and Sanjiv Kumar, who were accompanying Pawan, had been suspended and a departmental inquiry ordered.

The first paper will be held from 10a.m and second from 2p.m, according to the Dean of Studies.

Shimla, May 10
Governor V.S. Kokje has expressed sorrow over the demise of Lt-Gen K. Bahadur Singh (retd), a former Lieutenant-Governor of Himachal Pradesh, who passed away at Kota in Rajasthan on Tuesday night.

Kokje said the services rendered by Bahadur Singh as the Lieutenant-Governor would always be remembered by the people of the state.

Virbhadra Singh also expressed grief over his death and conveyed condolences to the bereaved family members.

Bahadur Singh remained Lt-Governor of Himachal Pradesh from May 16,1967, to January 24, 1971.

Mandi, May 10
With the UN Office of Drugs and Crime mounting pressure on the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) and other enforcement agencies, the NCB and the HP police has decided to map the entire area under poppy and cannabis cultivation through the aerial cum-photographic survey to destroy the contraband crops in the state.

The NCB and the police joint teams will destroy both poppy and cannabis crops in the areas this season, regardless of its consequences. “After this, the aerial survey and photographic mapping of the poppy and cannabis cultivation will be done so that crops are destroyed with the help of local community participation”, said NCB and police officials here today.

After a high-level meeting with central range DIG J.R. Thakur and district police chiefs at Mandi and Kullu here today, NCB zonal director Saji Mohan said he had taken stock of the situation and had found that the poppy crop was ready for harvest and had chalked out the strategy to eliminate the contraband crop in the state.

He said the survey would be funded by the UN agencies. “There is no question of legalising the cannabis crop as hashish made from it has no medicinal value in the world. “Poppy cultivation is legalised in few states to get morphine or codeine for pharmaceutical industries”, he said.

“The UN agencies have mounted pressure on the NCB and enforcement agencies as opium and hashish are making its way through couriers to metros like New Delhi, Goa and Mumbai before reaching Europe and America” He added.

Thakur said during the drug drives in Mandi and Kullu districts, three cases have come to light so far- one in Chauhar and two at Bali Chowki.

Thakur said the cases registered against cultivators last year were under investigation under the NDPS Act. “Most of the smugglers come from outside, including Punjab and Haryana, who have been arrested over the years, but even local smugglers are also involved”, he added.

Kangra, May 10
Rajesh Kumar (45) of Backloo village in Chamba district, has been moving from pillar to post in search of his son Sonu, who he alleged was taken by a swami and a sadhuvani for providing him with good education and who later on conveyed him through a letter that Sonu had gone missing from the ashram, today demanded a CBI inquiry into the entire episode.

A balloon seller by profession, Rajesh told The Tribune that he had lost faith in the Himachal Pradesh police and the CID, as they had failed to trace his son and had not interrogated the accused Swami Hari Haranand Puri.

He alleged that the police had succumbed to the influences of the Swami and he being a poor man was a rolling stone in this traumatic situation.

Rajesh recalled that it was on August 23, 2000, when he was at Manimahesh pilgrimage and Swami Hari Harnand Puri of Adayot Saniyas Ashram of Pathankot allegedly took his son from his wife Prakashu Devi with a promise that he would provide him with good education. But a few months later, he received a letter from the swami that his son had gone missing from the ashram. The swami said the boy left the ashram on his own.

Meanwhile, the swami got an anticipatory bail from the Sessions Court on January 21, 2002, when Rajesh moved the court. He said that inspite being poor, he had tried his best to locate his son but all in vain. He also lodged a missing report in the Dalhousie police station but Sonu could not be traced till date.

He said he had approached the deputy commissioner, SP Chamba, DGP, and even the state Human Rights Commission but to no avail.

Additional district police chief Chamba, Sunil Kumar, when contacted told The Tribune that the police undertook great efforts and had accompanied Rajesh to raid the suspected hideouts in Punjab, but to no avail.

He said at one stage when he was declared untraced, the case was transferred to a gazetted officer of ASP rank to investigate at Chamba and later it was transferred to the Crime Branch for investigation. He said the CID also could not trace the boy and the file was closed.

The ASP said that though the boy went missing from Pathankot and it was the responsibility of the Punjab police to locate him, even then the HP police had tried its best to find him.

Rajesh said he had been struggling single-handedly and the government did not provided him with legal assistance to fight the case on the legal ground because swami had got an anticipatory bail.

He has demanded that the case to be handed over to the CBI.

Mandi, May 10
Patients, including accident victims, waiting to undergo surgical procedures at the Zonal Hospital here are at the mercy of a single surgeon and an anaesthetist as the Health Department has yet to fill three posts of surgeon, thanks to bureaucratic apathy.

Attendants of patients say whenever the surgeon or the anaesthetist proceeds on leave, patients are referred to the PGI, Chandigarh, or the IGMC, Shimla. In case they do not want to go to these institutions, they have no option but to go to some private hospital in the town for which they have to pay hefty charges.

Apart from this, the hospital has just one “autoclave” to disinfect surgical instruments and that, too, has run out of order. “The instrument has been sent to Delhi for repair. It will take three four days,” said officiating MS D.K. Arora.

Most of the sufferers are the poor patients who cannot pay hefty charges of private hospitals or go to the IGMC or the PGI for treatment.

Though the government has upgraded district hospitals as zonal hospitals, there is no specification as to how many surgeons or other specialists are required in each zonal hospital in the state, sources maintain.

The patient load has multiplied at the zonal hospital many times over the years as the number of victims of road accidents and the referred patients from the region has increased over the years, making it difficult for a single doctor to handle surgeries.

The surgeon at the Zonal Hospital A.P. Gupta said it had become very difficult for him to proceed on leave or take day off. “We are giving our best to the patients and we need at least one more surgeon here,” he added.

General secretary of the HP Medical Officers’ Association (HPMOA) J.N. Chouhan said they had taken up the matter with the Health Department.

Additional secretary (health) Mohan Chauhan said: “The government has approved appointment of 120 specialists on permanent basis through the HP Public Service Commission and the process is on.”

Solan, May 10
In less than 48 hours of theft of three precious-metal idols of Mahasu deity in Dunnu village in Sakori panchayat, the police succeeded in recovering the idols from a nearby forest, this afternoon.

The unidentified burglars had stolen the idols of the deity valued worth crores of rupees, from the temple on Tuesday.

The deity at the temple is considered the ruling deity of scores of villages of Sakori panchayat and its adjoining areas. It was constructed about 250 years ago.

SP Diljeet Thakur who had also visited the spot said soon after the information of the theft, special teams were constituted to recover the idols.

Kangra, May 10
State chief of the Matth Mandir Suraksha Samiti, Swami Virendranand Giri, today demanded the towns where the Shiv Shakti Peeths were situated to be declared as ‘holy towns’ on the pattern of Haridwaar.

In a letter to the Governor of Himachal Pradesh, V.S. Kokji, Swami Giri said the towns of Chintpurni, Naina Devi, Chamunda Devi, Jawalamukhi, Bajjreshwari Devi, Baijnath and Baba Balak Nath should be declared as ‘holy towns’.

Parwanoo, May 10
The HP unit of the Akhil Bhartiya Rahul Gandhi Brigade was formed here yesterday. The brigade was formed with an aim to counter corruption in the state.

Brigade national president Ravinder Panchal said honest people would be made members of the brigade. The main objective of brigade was to end corruption from the society, he asserted.

When asked about the involvement of Congress leaders in corruption he said these were only allegations. No such case had been proved so far, he added.