Jalandhar, November 22
Councillors belonging to the opposition are ready with their homework to make the maiden meeting of the MC house to be addressed by the mayor Rakesh Rathour tomorrow afternoon, a stormy one.

Despite courteous and polite attempts by the new mayor to strike a rapport with the councillors they are however in no mood to spare him or the commissioner C.S. Talwar.

“All our projects have been lying stalled because officials are not sanctioning payments to the contractors,” alleges a second time Congress councillor, Kuljit Singh Babbi.

There are other issues that the 19-member opposition has planned to take up. “As per the earlier BOT project, the underground parking just outside the MC office was scheduled to have a fast food joint and advertisement slots atop. After reading the agenda today, we have come to know that the project has now been changed and a multi-storey building will now be constructed on it which will be sold out later,” questions another councillor.

The councillors will also be taking up the issue of allotment of nearly 11 parking lots to one Rajinder Kumar in separate auctions. “Who is he and why have the officials favoured him?” the councillors point out. Inadequate street lights in the city are also another issue likely to be taken up in the meeting by the councillors. 

Jalandhar, November 22
Punjab State Electricity Board chairman Y.S. Ratra’s and the Technical Services Union (TSU) are at loggerheads over the issue of former’s statement of deducting one-day salary of strikers.

Ratra had termed the state-level strike by the PSEB employees as illegal and announced deduction of one-day salary of those employees, who had not attended their work and had taken part in 
the strike.

Irked over the statement, state president of TSU Gurdial Singh Bhangal told The Tribune the union would strongly oppose the decision.

He said the union would immediately organise a rally against the chairman’s decision. Following which, sub-division level rallies in the state would be organised to put pressure on the PSEB authorities to take back the decision, he said.

The date of the proposed sub-division level rallies would be finalised within a few days, he added.

Claiming that the PSEB chairman would be forced to withdraw his decision, he said the authorities earlier also had decided several times to deduct salary of the strikers but they had to take withdraw their decision after agitation and agreed to pay salary of strike period against leave. The same thing would happen this time too, he expressed hope.

Terming the decision as a tactic of suppressing their agitation against privatisation, Bhangu said the withdrawal of the decision would be included as another demand in their on-going agitation against proposed privatisation of the PSEB.Bhangu threatened to block vehicular traffic in the entire state on December 4 and 5 after deciding about it in the union’s proposed meeting on November 26.

TSU is spearheading the agitation against outsourcing of different works, contractual appointments, and proposed privatisation of PSEB. 

Hoshiarpur, November 22
A march was taken out by the activists of the Christian community, along with workers of SAD (A), Dal Khalsa, State Balmik Sabha, BSP, Dr Ambedkar force and Pastor Association, Punjab, here today. They alleged that some activists of Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bharati Jan Shakti and Shivratri Utsav Committee had created hooliganism during their religious function at a local marriage palace on the night of November 13. The rally which started at Shaheed Udham Singh Park culminated at bus stop chowk.

Heavy police force was deployed in the area to tackle the situation. The district administration, led by deputy commissioner D.K. Tiwari and SSP Anita Punj managed to persuade the protestors led by Lawrance Chaudhary, Avtar Singh Khakhand others to call off the rally which was originally scheduled to be taken out from the main bazars of the city to the mini secretariat. Later, the protesters presented a memorandum of their demands to the DC, seeking immediate arrest of the accused, names of whom figured in the FIR registered under section 452, 427, 506, 148, 149 and 342 of the IPC. Their other demands included provision of security to minorities, imposition of ban on organisations trying to disturb communal harmony and de-recognition of political organisations indulging in anti-social activities.

They said if their demands were not accepted within six weeks they would intensify their agitation. D. K. Tiwari assured that strict action would be taken against all persons involved in the incident. Notably the activists of all the aforementioned Hindu organisations had obtained anticipatory bails from the court. 

Jalandhar, November 22
Body of Sunder Singh (18) a student of Lovely Professional University (LPU) hailing from Mewat in Haryana, was found hanging from a tree near Cantonment railway station today. The student had been missing for the past one week.

According to the police it was unclear whether the death was a suicide or murder. Station house officer of cantonment police station, Paramjeet Singh, said body of the student was found hanging from a tree this afternoon.

Prima facie it appeared to be a case of suicide but the exact cause of the death would be known only after the post mortem report, the SHO added. Sunder had been missing since November 15 last, he added.

This is the second tragedy to strike the LPU in just five days. Earlier, a girl student belonging to Faridkot was found dead in the private hostel of LPU in Phagwara.

It is not clear yet whether she committed suicide or the cause of death was natural.

Viscera of the girl’s body has been sent to the forensic laboratory in Patiala and the report is awaited. 

Nawanshahr, November 22
A team of civil and medical officials, led by Balachaur SDM, Davinder Singh, conducted raid at Suri Hospital, Balachaur and detected discrepancies in the functioning of the ultra sound scan centre being run under the name of Radha Soami Scanning Centre.

The centre has been sealed for 14 days. Deputy commissioner Gurpal Singh Bhatti said the surprise checking of ultrasound centres, registered medical practitioners and trained midwives, would continue and strict action would be taken against those found guilty of using sex determination techniques. 

Jalandhar, November 22
A passenger was found dead in the Amritsar bound Punjab roadways bus at the local bus stand this morning. The deceased has been identified as Ranjit Singh, belonging to Jharkhand, boarded the bus from the Delhi bus stand, according to police post in charge, Jatinderjeet Singh. All passengers alighted from the bus at the local bus stand but Ranjit Singh remained in his seat making the driver and conductor suspicious.

They took him to be sleeping at first but found him dead when they tried to wake him up. They informed the bus stand police post, who sent the body to the civil hospital for a postmortem.

Jatinderjeet Singh said while the exact cause of death would be known after postmortem examination, however, prima facie it seemed that he died due to a heart attack.

Ranjit Singh was alright at the Rajpura bus stand where the bus halted for few minutes and he went for some refreshments, Jatinderjeet Singh said quoting the bus conductor and the driver.