Machhiwara (Khanna), April 25
A maths teacher and his wife were found dead in their house in government quarters on the Charan Kanwal road here this morning. The exact sequence of events leading to their deaths is yet to be ascertained.

The Khanna SSP said on the basis of circumstantial evidence and statement of Pardeep Kaur, a cousin of the deceased, it seems that the teacher, Amritpal Singh, allegedly bludgeoned his wife to death last night, suspecting her loyalty.

He hit her on the head repeatedly while she was sleeping. The SSP said it seemed that immediately afterwards, he committed suicide by first banging his head against a wall and later consuming a toilet cleaner.

The teacher, posted at a government school, Panj Garayian, was found on the verge of death this morning. He was lying close to his wife, Gurpreet Kaur.

Pardeep Kaur, who had come to settle the dispute between the couple, was the first to see the gory scene.

She along with neighbours and the police helped shift the teacher to hospital where he was declared dead.

Though the incident took place in a two-room house, their two children, 10-year-old Darshpreet Singh, and 6-year-old Gurpreet Kaur, and their maternal aunt and her two minor children did not hear anything. The bed was soaked in blood, which was also found splashed on walls.

The SSP said it seemed that the man tried to kill himself by hitting his head against the wall or hitting himself with the same stick he killed his wife with.

After failing to do so, he allegedly drank an entire bottle of a toilet cleaner. He then lay next to his wife.

Pardeep Kaur claimed that the couple had called her to settle a dispute between them. She said she had come their her two children.

She stated to the police that the teacher had charged his wife with having an illicit relation. Both had a heated argument in her presence late last night.

She said she had managed to cool them down, after which they both went to their room while she slept with the four children in the other room.

She said she did not hear any abnormal voice at night. However, when she woke up in the morning and went to their room, she was horrified to see blood all around. She said when she shook Amrit Pal, he was alive and she called the neighbourers for help.

The SSP said the woman was being questioned as it was strange that she did not hear anything. However, he said she had to be believed as she would not come to their house with her children to commit some crime.

Amritpal, whose parents are already settled in Canada, was all set to fly to Canada in a few days as his immigration file was cleared.

Investigations have revealed that his wife was against this. She had threatened to marry a travel agent, with whom her husband suspected her to be having an affair.

Ludhiana, April 25
A fast-track court headed by an additional sessions judge has convicted a man and his mother in a dowry death case. They were sentenced to undergo rigorous life imprisonment. Bhupinder Singh and Nasib Kaur were convicted of burning alive Harpreet Kaur. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each on the accused.

The judge held that the prosecution had proved the charges levelled against
the accused. As per the prosecution, Harpreet Kaur married Bhupinder Singh, but a few days after the marriage, the accused started harassing her for dowry.

She was beaten up several times and even turned out of the house. However, following the intervention of relatives, she was taken in again.

On October 17, the accused beat her up and she called her father Ujagar Singh. Infuriated, Nasib Kaur brought kerosene and poured it on her while her brother-in-law Harwinder Singh caught her. He then set her alight. The accused then fled the spot.

The police recorded the statement of the victim in hospital and a case was registered against the accused.

Later, Harpreet Kaur succumbed to her injuries and the police arrested the accused. During the pendency of the case, Harwinder Singh had died.

Samrala, April 25
Apprehending threat to the life of his recently wedded wife Kirandeep Kaur, Hardeep Pal Singh has urged the higher authorities to impress upon the police to help Kirandeep, who has been confined by her parents. He alleged that they had abducted her after assaulting the couple yesterday.

The police has initiated a probe into the matter after registering an FIR against Manjit Singh, Kiran’s father, Jagjit Singh, Charanjit Singh, Sukhdeep Singh, Avtar Singh and Gurmail Singh, all uncles of Kiran, for allegedly assaulting and threatening the complainant and abducting Kirandeep.

Investigations revealed that Hardeep Pal Singh and Kirandeep had fallen in love about two years ago. Though the parents of Hardeep agreed to the marriage, her parents opposed the proposal because of caste disparity.

The couple got married in Chandigarh on April 16. Apprehending a threat to their lives, the couple had sought protection also.

“When I resisted their attempt to take away my wife, they threatened to kill me and took her with them with an intention to kill her for their honour,” Hardeep Pal Singh told the police.

Sources at the local police station revealed that the DSP, Samrala, Daljit Singh Rana, had constituted a team led by Gurcharan Singh to rescue her.

Mandi Ahmedgarh, April 25
With meager resources at her disposal, Krishna Rani, eldest daughter of a family of Rangoowal village, near here, is striving hard to help her 26-year-old brother Gurcharan reach his maximum potential and revive her father Butta Singh from paralysis attack.

Embroidery work, which she started to fund the treatment of Gurcharan Singh who is suffering from cerebral palsy and quadriplegia, was interrupted suddenly after Butta Singh fell ill recently.

Apprehending social degradation, the family has not sought help from any NGOs or philanthropist. She has urged authorities, including Governor and Chief Minister, to come to the rescue of her father at least.

“As adequate treatment for paralysis is not available at government dispensaries and we can’t afford expensive treatment at private hospitals, we are administering ayurvedic preparations received from a medical practitioner at Hassanpur to my father,” said Rani. The family was unable to hire even a taxi to take Butta Singh to Hassanpur.

While Rani dropped out of school after class X due to financial constraints, she wants her younger sister Sukhjinder, who is pursuing her BA privately, to continue with her studies.

Her father used to make both ends meet by working as a tailor, but now there is no source of income for the family

A social worker, Mahavir Goyal, has requested the administration to come to the rescue of the family.

Ludhiana, April 25
Punjab Agricultural University has approached the bank seeking reasons and revalidation of cheque or any possible solution to “carelessness” in not getting a special cheque cleared within time, which led to the university not supplying copies of its magazine to villages under a special government scheme.

Additional director of communication Jagtar Singh Dhiman said: “The carelessness occurred on part of the bank in not getting the cheque cleared within time. The matter has been taken up by the comptroller office with the bank authorities.”

Dhiman said: “There will be no effect of the copy supply to regular subscribers. They will get the normal supply of their monthly copies.”

He said certain farmers had become apprehensive about possible problems in receiving their monthly copies, which was baseless. PAU publishes “Changi Kheti”, which is dispatched to over 10,000 subscribers in different villages of Punjab every month.

Dhiman said: “The matter under question pertained to a new order of the magazine received from the state department of agriculture for supply to gram panchayats of different villages in the state for a period of one year. For this, an amount of Rs 19.68 lakh was sent by the department in the fag end of March. The cheque was valid till March 31. The same was presented to the bank on March 24 by the office of the comptroller, who deals with financial matters of the university. The carelessness occurred on part of the bank in not getting the cheque cleared within time.”

Ludhiana, April 25
Around 45 alumnus of the erstwhile Khalsa School, Kila Raipur, now Government Senior Secondary School, got together to discuss preservation of old glory of the school and help upgrade the existing infrastructure here yesterday.

An alumni from the first batch of 1933, Dalip Singh, was honoured. Speakers stressed the need for good education and promotion of sports activities, particularly in the rural areas.

Convener Kuldeep Singh said during the past two years, old students had contributed around Rs 2.5 lakh that had been spent on restoring the decaying school building.

Those who attended the function included Prof Pritam Singh Grewal, Lieut-Col Jai Singh Grewal, Man Singh Grewal, Balbir Singh Grewal, Ranjit Singh Grewal, a retired DSP from Railway Police, Capt Karnail Singh, Daljit Singh Grewal, advocate Kuldeep Singh, principal Bhagwan Singh, Darshan Singh Grewal, Sukhdev Singh, Santokh Singh, advocate Ramesh Kumar, Boota Singh, Jaswant Singh Grewal of UK, Iqbal Singh Grewal and Paramjit  Singh Grewal.

Ludhiana, April 25
With mercury rising and heat wave-like conditions prevailing in the region, the power situation has worsened, thereby disrupting the day today life of the people.

With three to five hours of daily power cuts, people from all walks of life have to sweat it out in the sweltering heat, and at times, have to go without water as the supply of potable water is directly linked to the power supply.

According to sources in PSEB headquarters at Patiala, for the past few days, one unit of Bathinda thermal power plant has been rendered inoperative due to a snag, causing loss of nearly 25 lakh units.

Even otherwise, the state was facing a gap of 150 lakh units of power between availability and demand, which has now gone up to 175 lakh units with the result that duration of power cuts had to be increased, say the sources.

Though Punjab was getting 20 lakh units of power from other states, but in the wake of low frequency on the grid caused due to increased demand of power from western and southern states, it could not even draw its legitimate share whereas earlier, the state used to overdraw power in cases of acute shortage that was being witnessed now.

Low power generation at almost all hydel projects due to poor inflow and low water level at Bhakra was another reason for the prevailing power crisis, said the sources.

Till last year, the state was getting about 100 lakh unit power every day from the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) whereas presently it is supplying just about 70 lakh units.

According to the sources, the prevailing power situation was expected to continue for a few more days and was likely to get better once the water inflow at hydel projects and level at Bhakra reservoir improved which seemed imminent in the wake of high temperature all over the region.

City residents from a few localities complained that with the reimposition of power cut early in the morning, and again in the afternoon and evening, the water supply was badly affected.

In some areas, the supply of piped water was reported to be disrupted all through the day as a result of power outage or shut downs for maintenance work.

Ludhiana, April 25
The process of revising power tariff for the year 2008-09 has been set in motion with the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) holding its first public hearing on the aggregate revenue requirement for the current financial year filed by the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) last month here today.

PSERC chairman Jai Singh Gill along with two other members- S.S. Pal and Baljit Bains- heard representatives of different categories of consumers, mostly from the industry.

The PSEB chief engineer (commercial), making a fervent plea for a reasonable hike in power tariff, said at prevailing tariff, the board would incur a deficit of Rs 2,115.36 crore and taking into account the deficit of Rs 3,139.10 crore during last financial year, the PSEB would face a staggering deficit of Rs 5,254.46 crore.

A few activists of different industrial organisations, including Inderjit Singh Pradhan, P.D. Sharma, T.R. Mishra and Sandeep Jain vociferously opposed any further increase in power tariff.

They rather demanded that like other states, the state government should abolish octroi on power, particularly when octroi on all other items had been done away with.

The representatives of industry pointed out that steep hike in the prices of raw material, other inputs and labour had created a crisis-like situation for the industry; especially the small and medium sectors and any hike in the power tariff would inflict a fatal blow to the industrial economy of Punjab.

Later talking to mediapersons, Gill said the PSERC would complete the process of public hearing on the “retail tariff petition” of the PSEB within next one month and a decision on power tariff was likely to be announced by early June.

Ludhiana, April 25
City mayor Hakam Singh Gyaspura today inaugurated the gram shree mela at Kidwai Nagar here today.

Artisans from all over the North India are displaying their artifacts at the mela that would continue till April 30.

The event is being organised by the Guru Angad Dev Sewa Society and CAPART. Creations of artisans, including pottery, terracotta, plaster of paris, carpets, artificial jewelry and leather purses are on the display.

Pickles from Haryana, decorative items and furnitures from Saharanpur are also
being exhibited.

Senior deputy mayor Parveen Bansal and councillor Gurdeep Singh Neetu were also present on the occasion.

Power supply to Manjh Phagguwal, Fatehpur, Talwandi, Hardy World, Hemkunt, Hussainpura, factory area and Ajit Nagar will be suspended from 9 am to 4 pm today; to Mohalla Greenpark, Club road, Ramnagar, Patel Nagar, Cemetary road, Phuhara Chowk market and Church road from 9 am to 5 pm; and Dholewal, Sant Nagar, Kabir Basti, Oswal street, Industrial Estate, from 8.30 am to 2 pm tomorrow.

Ludhiana, April 25
The kindergarten section of Nankana Sahib Public School hosted a welcome party for freshers of nursery and LKG sections here today.

The tiny tots came clad in colourful attires.

In charge of respective classes played host and created an ambience of party in Montessori room.

The teaching staff and students danced to the tunes of foot-tapping music. The kids were provided with snacks.

In all 18 institutions, including Auckland University of Technology, Massey University, University of Waikato, participated in the exhibition.

Ludhiana, April 25
The state-of-the-art gymnasium at multipurpose stadium, which had been gathering dust for the past several months, was formally inaugurated by Punjab’s director of sports Pargat Singh, here today.

The inauguration follows the publication of a report on the apathy of the authorities and the condition of the gymnasium in these columns on April 23.

Gymnasium, which has been build at the cost of Rs 7 lakh, will cater to the needs of hundreds of athletes. The gymnasium had been kept under lock and key by the district sports department authorities.

The inauguration brought cheer to athletes who despite having a gymnasium had to endure scorching heat while doing weight training.

“It means a lot to us. Physical training using latest equipment will help us improve our standard,” said a group of athletes.

They added: “We thank the sports department and Ludhiana Tribune for highlighting the issue. We will no longer have to do the weight training under gruelling conditions any more.”

District sports officer Gian Inder Singh said the gymnasium belonged to athletes and they had given it to them today.