J A L A N D H A R    E D I T I O N

4-yr-old boy’s body found stuffed in bag
Nawanshahr, January 23
The body of a four-year-old boy Tajinder Singh, son of Ranjit Singh of Palli Uchchi village, was found in a cement bag lying in a cattle shed in the village on Wednesday. Both Ranjit and his wife went out of the village for some work at about 11 am while Tajinder was at home.

GRP probes tantrik angle
Jalandhar, January 23
The five-year-old boy whose body was found from near railway track at Bashirpura railway crossing has been identified as Lokesh. The boy lived in a slum area on the Ladowali road with his father Sailab and belonged to Kota in Rajasthan.

Clear Dues First
Govt decision on grant-in-aid hailed
Amritsar, January 23
The department of higher education has decided to release the quarterly installment of the grant-in-aid to only those private colleges which submit certificates that the retirement dues of college employees have been duly paid.

Penalty for poor services
Replace laptop or pay cost, forum to dealer
Hoshiarpur, January 23
The District Consumer Forum, headed by president P.D. Goel, has ordered Soft Cell Computers to either replace the laptop sold by it or pay Rs 33,020 along with litigation expenses of Rs 1,000 to complainant Kewal Krishan, a resident of Kotwali Bazar, within a month.

Car lift leaves Gurdaspur youth Rs 6,000 poorer
Hoshiarpur, January 23
The Tanda police has registered a case under sections 382, 506 and 34 of the IPC on a complaint of Ajaib Singh of Bhet Pattan, under Hargobindpur (Gurdaspur) police station. Ajaib Singh stated that his son Paramjit Singh, who was employed in a transport company, was waiting for a taxi at the bus stand when an Indica car stopped near him.

Nawanshahr man held for doc’s murder
Nawanshahr, January 23
Parminder alias Pintoo (37), a medical practitioner of Sujjon village has allegedly been murdered by Sukhwinder Singh alias Sukha of the same village by inflicting head injury on him with sharp edged weapons, in his house on Wednesday.

No relief from cold
Jalandhar, January 23
The cold wave continued to grip the region with the mercury touching minimum temperature of minus 3 degree C at Adampur today. A meteorology department report from the Air Force Station today showed that the minimum temperature was 2 degree up from minus 5 degree C recorded yesterday.

4-yr-old boy’s body found stuffed in bag

Nawanshahr, January 23
The body of a four-year-old boy Tajinder Singh, son of Ranjit Singh of Palli Uchchi village, was found in a cement bag lying in a cattle shed in the village on Wednesday.

Both Ranjit and his wife went out of the village for some work at about 11 am while Tajinder was at home. Ranjit got the news at about 2 pm. According to available information, two village youths saw the suspicious bag lying in the cattle shed.

When it was opened, they were stunned to see the body of a child in it. The parents of the child and police were informed. Sadar SHO Surinder Pal Singh, along with the police party, reached the spot. SSP B Chandra Sekhar said the police have started working on different theories to nab the culprits. The help of a dog squad has also been taken for the purpose. Residents say it is the third such incident in the village. Earlier, innocent children had been murdered in 1992 and 2002.

Though, the 1992 murder case was solved by the police, the 2002 murder case is yet to be solved. — OC

GRP probes tantrik angle

Jalandhar, January 23
The five-year-old boy whose body was found from near railway track at Bashirpura railway crossing has been identified as Lokesh. The boy lived in a slum area on the Ladowali road with his father Sailab and belonged to Kota in Rajasthan. The boy’s aunt Shanti identified her nephew at the civil hospital mortuary.

GRP teams visited several cremation grounds in city to find out whether the boy had been taken to any of them to perform any “tantrik rituals” but failed to find any clue in this regard, according to GRP SP Shamsher Jang Bahadur Sharma. Lokesh and his brother had been missing for past several weeks, Sharma said. Their father lodged a report at police station number four on January 1. A case has been registered and a postmortem will be conducted tomorrow. — TNS

Clear Dues First
Govt decision on grant-in-aid hailed
Vibhor Mohan/TNS

Amritsar, January 23
The department of higher education has decided to release the quarterly installment of the grant-in-aid to only those private colleges which submit certificates that the retirement dues of college employees have been duly paid. A communication in this regard has been sent to director, public instructions (DPI), colleges, Punjab, by the department.

Welcoming the decision, principal R.C.Verma (retd), president of the Welfare Association of Superannuated Employees of Aided Colleges, said the orders issued by DPI (colleges) Kanwarjeet Singh would go a long way in ensuring that retired college employees don’t have to run from pillar to post to get their retirement dues.

The special secretary, higher education, has written to the DPI (colleges) that the government had taken note of a number of cases where the retirement dues of the employees of private aided colleges had not been paid, leading to undue hardship to the employees concerned. Under the grant-in-aid scheme of the Punjab government, there is no provision that the retirement benefits like gratuity, leave encashment and others will be paid by the state government. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in its order dated November 2, 2007, had directed the Punjab chief secretary to evolve a mechanism to ensure that the employees promptly get such payments, adds the letter.

It has, therefore, been decided that to ensure prompt payment of retirement benefits by the college managements concerned, principals will submit a certificate, countersigned by the CA to the effect that retirement dues have been paid along with claims for release of the quarterly instalment of grant-in-aid.

Verma said, “The directions to private colleges have acted as a healing balm for the harassed retired employees. This has fulfilled a long-pending demand of teaching and non-teaching staff of private colleges.”

Penalty for poor services
Replace laptop or pay cost, forum to dealer
Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, January 23
The District Consumer Forum, headed by president P.D. Goel, has ordered Soft Cell Computers to either replace the laptop sold by it or pay Rs 33,020 along with litigation expenses of Rs 1,000 to complainant Kewal Krishan, a resident of Kotwali Bazar, within a month.

Kewal Krishan filed a complaint under section 12 of the Consumers Protection Act, 1986, on the ground that the laptop acer computer, with a warranty of one year, had a manufacturing defect the very next day of its purchase from Soft Cell Computers. The computer firm neither removed the defect nor replaced the laptop.

The owner of the firm pleaded that he is only an authorised dealer and not the manufacturer of computers.

The forum held that Soft Cell Computers failed to rectify the defect in the laptop which amount to deficiency in service on its part.

Car lift leaves Gurdaspur youth Rs 6,000 poorer

Hoshiarpur, January 23
The Tanda police has registered a case under sections 382, 506 and 34 of the IPC on a complaint of Ajaib Singh of Bhet Pattan, under Hargobindpur (Gurdaspur) police station.

Ajaib Singh stated that his son Paramjit Singh, who was employed in a transport company, was waiting for a taxi at the bus stand when an Indica car stopped near him. The driver enquired about the way towards Gurdaspur and offered him a lift. Paramjit boarded the vehicle. Later, two Sikh youths also hitched a lift in the car. When they crossed the cardboard factory, one of the youths pointed a pistol at Paramjit and looted Rs 6,000 from him. The victim was thrown out of the car after being threatened with dire consequences if he reported the matter to the police.

The incident happened in December but the victim and his family were so horrified that they did not report the matter to the police. However, on Sunday evening when the family members saw the same car in their village they brought the incident to the notice of some prominent persons who advised them to lodge a complaint. — OC

Nawanshahr man held for doc’s murder

Nawanshahr, January 23
Parminder alias Pintoo (37), a medical practitioner of Sujjon village has allegedly been murdered by Sukhwinder Singh alias Sukha of the same village by inflicting head injury on him with sharp edged weapons, in his house on Wednesday.

As per the available information, Sukhwinder Singh alias Sukha dragged Parminder into his house and attacked him with a weapon. After seriously injuring him, he boldly informed the villagers about it.

The police was informed about it. Parminder was taken to the civil hospital, Banga, where he succumbed to his injuries. The police has arrested Sukhwinder Singh alias Sukha and started further investigation. — OC

No relief from cold
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 23
The cold wave continued to grip the region with the mercury touching minimum temperature of minus 3 degree C at Adampur today.

A meteorology department report from the Air Force Station today showed that the minimum temperature was 2 degree up from minus 5 degree C recorded yesterday.

Defence PRO Naresh Vig said the weather experts had predicted that the cold wave would persist for another 24 hours. Fog, haze and mist was expected tomorro morning followed by clear, fine afternoon. The temperature recorded was -2º C in Amritsar, -1 ºC at Halwara, 1.4ºC in Chandigarh, 0.6ºC in Pathankot, 1.6ºC in Bathinda, 0ºC in Ambala, 1.8 ºC in Jammu, -1.2 ºC in Udhampur, -4º C at Avantipur.