Phagwara, December 19
Yasin Ullah Khan, an official with the Pakistan high commission and his family had a narrow escape this morning when their car collided with an unidentified vehicle due to fog near Saint Joseph Convent School on the New Delhi-Amritsar national highway in Phagwara this morning. One person was killed and around 40 persons were injured in several other collisions which took place in and around here because of the thick cover of fog today. Khan was on his way back to his country along with his wife and two children in his official car, according to sources. His car collided with the rear side of a vehicle when the driver of the latter suddenly applied breaks, the sources add. Confirming this, Phagwara DSP HPS Khakh said no one received any injury but the car’s engine was badly damaged. The Pak envoy was stranded for few hours in Phagwara.

Pak officials sent another vehicle from Amritsar to take their colleague and his family to Wagah from where they reportedly entered Pakistan, sources added.

Jalandhar, December 19
Age seems to have settled lightly on his shoulders and in the autumn of his life he is too busy winning than thinking of his mortality.

For 81-year-old Kewal Krishan Bhanot running is passion and winning a habit. He has an impressive medal tally for someone who started running after retiring as a Hindi teacher from the local Doaba Senior Secondary School. He recently won three medals, including a gold in the 1500 m race, held at a meet in Mandi Gobindgarh.

He has been a champion in the veteran class for the past 15 years and recently won the championships at Imphal.

“In 1992, while walking in the stadium, I came across an 85-year-old man who was exercising vigorously. My curiosity got the better of me and I asked the person why he was doing so. He replied that he was preparing for a championship. There and then I too decided that I would follow suit,” he revealed.

Bhanot says he was born in 1926 and had always liked running. “My father too encouraged me to do so. I was doing my matriculation when I was arrested for participating in the Quit India movement. I spent some time in prison but then those were the times when the patriotic fervour rode on the minds of the youth and we wanted the country to be free,” he added.

This veteran feels that simple living and high thinking is the secret of his longevity and stamina. “Nowadays, people are in a rat race to emulate others and in the process lose their peace of mind and ruin their health. I feel sad when I see teenagers who are physically unfit. The youth should be bursting with energy instead of finding ways to reduce their weight or overcome drug abuse,” Bhanot said.

“I wish to complete 100 years of living and want to continue winning medals till my last breath, he added.

Jalandhar, December 19
The International Human Rights Organisation (IHRO) and a presidium of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) have expressed concern over the deteriorating human rights condition in Punjab, leading to resentment in the Sikh community against the state government, SAD (A) presidium members Harinder Singh Khalsa and Kamikar Singh, IHRO chairperson D.S. Gill and general secretary Mohinder Singh Grewal stated this in a joint statement today.

Alleging that a number of Sikhs were kept in illegal custody or arrested over the past few months allegedly on fabricated evidence, accusing them of being terrorists or their sympathisers, the leaders claimed that the number of such cases was rising, the statement added.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was doing this to terrorise people and silence his political opponents in order to cover up his government’s failures to implement the so-called “bold and futuristic” election manifesto of his alliance, while the opposition remained directionless, the statement said.

“Why did Badal not take steps to terminate section 5 of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act that the Amarinder government had incorporated for safeguarding the current usage of river waters by Rajasthan and Haryana, the abolition of which Badal had promised in the first Assembly session after coming into power,” they questioned.

Capt Amarinder Singh, they said, was better than Badal as he terminated all illegal agreements on river waters that betrayed the state and its people. It was Badal who was instrumental in signing the Rajiv-Longowal accord, a document of surrender, especially on Punjab’s riparian rights, they pointed out.

The Akalis had promised to tackle farmers’ indebtedness and the resultant suicides in the state by offering a one-time debt settlement scheme and a staggered debt settlement scheme for the debt-ridden farmers, but to no avail. Even the subsidies given to them were being withdrawn, they rued. — TNS

Jalandhar, December 19
A team of the directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) raided a leading export house located in sports and surgical complex on the Kapurthala road here.

Ludhiana-based joint director of the DRI Dheeraj Rastogi told The Tribune that the raid was conducted under the provisions of the Customs Act on Raghu Exports after specific information that the company was getting incentive by providing false information.

Rastogi refused to tell whether the owner of Raghu Exports, Parveen Kumar, was also taken into custody by the DRI or not. He also refused to divulge details of the raid claiming that it might hamper the investigations.

However, he said Parveen Kumar had deposited a draft of Rs 1 crore and cheques for Rs 1.5 crore with the DRI in lieu of the incentives taken by allegedly providing wrong information.

Parveen Kumar, also the chief executive of the Punjab Effluent Treatment Society, could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Sources said the union government was giving incentives to exporters for exporting furnished leather and Raghu Exports was allegedly getting incentive by giving wrong information of exporting furnished leather while actually exporting unfurnished leather.

Batala, December 19
The state excise and taxation department imposed Rs 93.60 lakh penalty on the pig iron unloaded at Batala a few weeks ago.

As reported earlier in The Tribune, a rake full of pig iron was booked from Goa to Mandi Gobindgarh but the same was unloaded at Batala by the railways in connivance with traders and brokers. After the publication of the news, the excise department swung into action and confiscated the stock. No one claimed the ownership of the material till the record revealed that it was booked for M/s Balaji Traders of Mandi Gobindgarh. The central excise department gave a clean chit to the party which had dispatched the goods and handed over the same to the Punjab excise department as it was found that there was no evasion of the central excise at Goa, Jagdish Sawhney, chief parliamentary secretary, Punjab, told mediapersons here today.

The Punjab sales tax department imposed 4 per cent VAT with 30 per cent penalty under section 51 (7) B of the Act, which comes out to be Rs 93.60 lakh. — OC