Jalandhar, April 4
The Army today instituted a Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the conduct of a Captain who allegedly beat up a civilian following a minor altercation in Jalandhar cantonment.

Ramesh Kumar, a resident of cantonment area and body building coach at Lovely Professional University, was admitted to the civil hospital here following minor injuries in his right eye and at the back of his head. He has blamed Capt Sandeep S. Lochap of Signals Corps for hitting him up without provocation.

Army officials, however, had a different version as they said that Ramesh Kumar had abused the officer who felt offended and got provoked to take the step.

Col Rajeev Vasandani and Lieut-Col J.J. Singh from the Signals said even as they were not a witness to the incident, they were told that the Captain thrashed the man. “If it is found that he had actually hit him, the Army will definitely take some action against him,” they said. Defence PRO Naresh Vig corroborated the story.

As a prelude to the incident, a reporter from the vernacular media was stopped by Army personnel at a barricade for not wearing a helmet. The jawan and the mediaman reportedly exchanged heated words.

The reporter then called men from the media circle in his support. Ramesh Kumar, who is related to an electronic channel reporter, too, reached the spot.

The matter between the Army personnel and reporters was resolved amicably and the reporters even left the spot.

“It was after I had moved close to the old church in the cantonment that the Captain followed me in a Gypsy and punched me on my head from behind,” Ramesh said.

“He punched and kicked me repeatedly. Since he was in uniform, I did not want to hit him and fled for my defence,” he said.

The Captain, who originally hails from Ropar, has been posted in Jalandhar for the past three months.

This is not the first incident of physical clash between civilians and forces in Jalandhar. Almost one and a half years back, jawans had ransacked the houses of civilians there after a reported incident of chain snatching of a jawan’s wife.

In another incident of clash between CRPF men and mediapersons last year, a youth had lost his eye permanently, while several reporters had got badly bruised.

Batala, April 4
Dheeraj Verma (23), a BEd student of the state college of Patiala, died under mysterious circumstances at Patiala on March 28.

His body was found in hostel No 15 of the college. His father Yudhishter Pal, a resident of Qadian, about 20 km from here, has alleged that Dheeraj had been murdered and his body was hanged in a room of the hostel.

Dheeraj has done his MSc (honours) in physics with distinction and was a student of BEd at Patiala.

On March 28, a student from the same campus informed Yudhishter Pal about the death of his son. The college authorities or the police did not inform the family about the incident.

While addressing mediapersons here on Friday, Yudhishter Pal alleged that there was no suicide note or any other writing in the diary of the deceased.

The police had not investigated the matter regarding the alleged involvement of relatives of a girl of the same college who was having an affair with Dheeraj.

The father cried foul in the death of his son, saying that either his son was murdered or he was compelled to end his life by the girl’s relatives. He has sent representations to the higher authorities to seek a thorough probe into the matter.

Jalandhar, April 4
The Computer Teachers’ Union (contractual), Punjab, today decided to hold a state-level protest on Sunday here against the government’s failure to regularise them despite repeated promises. The teachers working in government schools across the state said they would rip off the posters of ministers and political leaders across the state and instead paste the section of SAD election manifesto on the space in which they had committed regularisation of computer teachers.

Gurvinder Singh, president of the union, said the union had planned to gherao Manoranjan Kalia, local bodies minister, on that day. He said the teachers were upset after a recent statement of Dr Upinderjit Kaur, education minister, on the regularisation of ETT and B.Ed teachers in three years with no commitment made for computer teachers.

Hoshiarpur, April 4
The Sadar police has booked six persons of Bajwara Kalan village for allegedly raping a woman.

The accused have been identified as Hitesh Soni, his father Parveen, mother, uncle, village sarpanch and a panchayat member.

According to the police, a woman of Bajwara Kalan village alleged that her neighbour Hitesh called her to the Ram Colony camp area on March 31 on the pretext of having some photographs of her.

When she reached there, Hitesh gave her a soft drink laced with intoxicant after having which she became unconscious. When she regained consciousness she found herself with Hitesh in a room of his house.

She alleged that she was held captive in the room for three days with the help of other accused and was released on April 2 evening.

She said, “Hitesh used to rape her repeatedly during the tenure.”

Meanwhile, the victim’s husband had lodged a missing complaint with the Sadar police and suspected that she was held captive by Hitesh.