NEIGHBOURHOOD

Labour inspector nabbed with dirty money
Our correspondent

Labour inspector Ramesh Chand, who was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau at Sultanpur village near Ambala on Monday. A Tribune photograph

Ambala, June 9
The condition of the bus stand in Ambala City would make any one wring his nose in disgust. People sitting on the ground, stagnant water with garbage floating on it and people defecating in public is what greets you at the bus stand that too if you can make it through the potholed road that leads to it. The bus stand is about 25 years old. According to the people present there, the structure of the bus stand was declared unfit five years ago and was razed to the ground in 2005. Now, all that stands there in the name of a bus stand is a shed with a few benches underneath it.

The area at the entrance remains water clogged with algae and garbage floating on it. Ragpickers at the bus stand have made their havens in one corner of this marsh. The area is covered with thick and long grass that has virtually turned it into an open urinal.

The bus stand sees heavy rush of passengers everyday. With the famous cloth market of Ambala based in the city, several passengers from the nearby districts and also from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh frequent the city for shopping.

Members of the Haryana Co-operative Transport Society, Ambala, who have an office at the bus stand informed this staffer that they had written to the local administration and even local MLA Venod Sharma many times but to no avail.

“We have to pay Rs 1,800 for every private bus we park at the bus stand. On an average, we pay Rs 90,000 as monthly rent for parking our bus to pick up passengers from the counters. However, no bus counters exist and there are no facilities,” states a member of the society, Des Raj. There is also no facility for drinking water. A water cooler, however, lies in disuse at the bus stand. A toilet exists only in name. All this reflects the callous attitude of the authorities concerned. 

Rajpura, June 9
A team led by chief medical officer today raided two medical shops at Rajpura and found drugs worth Rs 7.5 lakh there stored illegally. Thousands of injections and tablets being used by drug addicts were recovered from these shops.

“This is for the first time that such a huge cache was recovered from Rajpura shops - Jagdish Medical Hall and Gurkirpal Medical Hall,” said an official of the raiding team.

The officials said besides the shops, drugs were also stored in an adjoining place. Interestingly, the owner of Jagdish Medical Hall was the president of Rajpura chemists association.

CMO Avtar Singh said morphine injections, Lomotil tablets, Carisoma, Lomofil, Avil tablets, Alprazolam, Diazepam and many others.

He said the owners of the medical stores were selling these drugs without having any valid licence and without bills to the customers. Action would be initiated against them and cancellation for licence would also be recommended in this connection.

While drugs worth Rs 7 lakh were recovered from Jagdish Medical Hall and medicines of around Rs 50,000 were recovered from Gurkirpal Medical Hall, he said.

Bassi Pathana, June 9
Hundreds of anganwari workers today held a protest rally in support of their demands in front of the CDPO office, Bassi Pathana. The anganwari workers led by block president Narinder Kaur raised slogans against the government and marched towards the CDPO office with placards and banners in their hands.

General secretary of the association Saroj Rani strongly criticised the government for not fulfilling their genuine demands. She demanded the remuneration of anganwari workers should be increased; they should be given pension on the Maharashtra pattern, vacations should be allowed in anganwari centres as per primary schools, there should be reservation for anganwari workers in ANM and ETT posts, arrangement of cooking gas should be made for cooking food in anganwari centres.

State president of the association Harjeet Kaur Panjola said till June 15, protest rallies would be organised at the block level while from June 30 to July 5, the protest rallies would be organised at the district headquarter. She warned that even then if the government did not fulfil their demands, they would organise a massive state-level protest rally on July 7 in front of the Director Social Security and Child Development office followed by indefinite hunger strike till their demands are conceded.

Chandigarh, June 9
Over 200 young NCC cadets, including 74 girls, participated in a talent scouting-cum-coaching camp for marksmanship organised by the Chandigarh NCC Group at the Patialvi Rao Police Firing Ranges here today.

Aimed at searching shooting talent and preparing the selected cadets for the North Shooting Championship of NCC, the Mavlankar Cup and thereafter for the National Shooting Championship, the camp witnessed encouraging participation of young shooters from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.

Group Commander, Chandigarh, Col M.S. Chauhan, who is also an internationally trained coach, is supervising the training of the participants. Systematic training over a period of 10 days has lifted the overall standard of shooting among the cadets. The camp is being run under the overall supervision of Col Vikram Dutta, Commanding Officer, No.2 Chandigarh NCC Battalion.

Over the years, NCC has come a long way in training cadets for shooting championships at the national level. In the last edition of the National Shooting Championship, NCC walked away with 38 medals, beating renowned teams of the Army, Punjab, Rajasthan, Navy and Air Force.

One of the NCC girls from Patiala, Gurjit Kaur has been selected for trials for the Commonwealth Games 2011. The camp has been provided with state-of-the-art shooting equipment, weapons and imported ammunition by the NCC Directorate headed by Brigadier Rajindra Singh.

This is the first in a series of such camps that are proposed to be organised by the NCC at Chandigarh. It will be followed by inter-group and later inter-directorate championships. The selected cadets will then represent the NCC team at the National Shooting Championship.

Chandigarh, June 9
Putting up a good stick work, ONGC’s Rajdeep Singh stole the limelight, netting five goals against Air Force 3BRD team in the ongoing sixth Olympian Dharam Singh Memorial Six-a-side Hockey Tournament at hockey stadium, Sector 18 here today.

ONGC, Delhi, got the better of Air Force team by 7-4. Rajdeep was well supported by Arun Rawat who chipped in two goals for the winners.

Air Force players struggled till the last and in the course the team managed to score four goals -- three by Alam and one by Prabhakar. The man of the match title was awarded to Rajdeep for his sterling performance.

In the high-scoring second match between star-studded BPCL, Mumbai, and Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala team, national players Tushar Khandekar and Ravipal steered the former to emerge triumphant by a margin of five goals (16-11).

In a highly action-packed outing, both the teams fought neck and neck, but Mumbai dominated the proceedings in the end.

Living up to the expectations, Ravipal and Khandekar coordinated superbly to guide their team to net 16 scores. Ravi contributed the highest, six goals, followed by Khandekar and Jarnail Singh with five and four goals, respectively, whereas Pundlik scored one goal.

For RCF, Sanjay sent the ball into the net for three times. Gagandeep Singh, Paramjeet Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Deepak contributed two goals each.

Playing against Namdhari XI, CISF, Delhi brought off spectacular 10-2 victory. Dominating the proceedings from the word ‘Go’, Delhi team was leading by 4-0 when the whistle indicating half time blew.

National player Cyril Ekka rose to the occasion with his six goals whereas Major Singh and Bharat Kumar netted two goals each.

For the losing team, Dilbagh Singh was the lone scorer.

In the last match of the day, local outfit Rock Rovers lost to anther star-studded team, Indian Oil Corporation by 8-11.

Though the local team lost, it had won the hearts of the audience by putting up a brave show against the strong team, involving stars Rajpal Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Jaswinder Singh and Roshan Minz.

Ace forward Rajpal finished the highest scores with five goals while Prabhjot netted three goals. Bharat, Jaswinder and Minz scored one goal each.

Rock Rovers’ Navdeep Singh and Harman Singh shot two goals each and the rest were scored by Davinder Kumar, Manmohan Singh, Gurtej Singh and Davinder Singh, one each.

Chandigarh, June 9
Satinder Sharma has been appointed as an umpire by the Federation of International Hockey (FIH) at the 30th Men’s Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament to be held at Rotterdam (Netherlands) from June 21 to 29. He is an International Grade-I hockey umpire.

This will be Sharma’s fifth assignment in the Champions Trophy, a rare achievement. He is working as an officer with the State Bank of India, Panjab University branch, Chandigarh.

Sharma is the only Indian umpire on the elite panel of FIH and has the unique distinction of having supervised matches in almost all the international level hockey tournaments organised under the aegis of the FIH, which include junior World Cups at Hobar, Australia, 2001 and Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2005, senior men’s World Cups at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2002 and Monchenglabach, Germany, 2006, Busan Asian games, Korea, Olympic and World Cup qualifies and main Olympics at Athens, 2004.

Sharma is likely to cross a century mark in ensuing the Champions Trophy and Beijing Olympics, 2008, for which, too, he has already received the appointment from the FIH.

Chandigarh, June 9
The Chandigarh sports department has fixed date for the trials/interviews for the issuance of sports gradation certificates. All eligible sportspersons of the UT can submit their applications on the prescribed proforma duly complete in all respects latest by June 13 (5 pm) to the office of director sports at Hockey Stadium, Sector 42.

All eligible candidates are required to report for the trials/interviews in proper sports kit at Hockey Stadium, Sector 42, on June 17 at 9.30 am along with their original certificates. 

Chandigarh, June 9
In a twist to the ongoing investigation into the stolen passport case, Neeru, wife of prime suspect Vicky, today claimed that she had no relations with the suspect.

Neeru, who was arrested on June 6 by the crime branch from her residence in Kapurthala, denied her involvement in the case.

She said she was the wife of Lucky, alias Gurinder Singh, who was not linked to the case. “The police is trying to implicate me and my husband in a false case”, alleged Neeru.

Contrary to her statement, the police claimed to have ample evidence to prove Neeru’s involvement in the case along with her husband.

According to sources in the crime branch, the police had gathered sufficient evidence against Neeru to establish her role in the case.

Neeru was in regular touch with prime suspect Vicky before she was arrested by the crime branch, they claimed.

Besides, officials tracked Neeru through photographs that matched with those in a photo album recovered from her residence.

Moreover, during the interrogation of Sukhwant and Raj Kumar, who were arrested by the Punjab police in Amritsar after they were deported from Singapore for travelling on stolen passports, they revealed that Neeru had accompanied Vicky at the time they boarded the flight to Singapore.

The sources added that Vicky had taken Rs 8 lakh from Sukhwant Singh of Bassi village and Raj Kumar of Kharabgarh village in Patiala on the pretext of sending them abroad.

Meanwhile, Neeru was today produced in the court, which remanded her in 14-day judicial custody. Sukhwant Singh and Raj Kumar were remanded in police custody.