NEIGHBOURHOOD

Encroachments on NH-21
Developers on defaulters’ list
Megha Mann
Tribune News Service

Kharar, June 11
Out of the 270 encroachments identified in the Ropar forest division, 113 are situated on the Chandigarh-Shimla national highway.

As per data collected by The Tribune under the right to information, the forest department has ordered the registration of criminal cases against illegal occupants and range officers have been directed to forward police complaints.

Developers of townships along the NH-21 have encroached upon large portions of the main approach road. According to rules, these developers are violators.

The data reveals that most major land developers are illegal occupants of various portions of the road. Several land developers like Paras Panorama and Ansal API are offering luxury apartments while Emaar MGF (Raipur) is offering a golf course in a leisure city.

The other violators include developers of Sunny Enclave (Mundi Kharar and Desu Majra), Gurufateh Enclave (Kharar), Radiant Buildcom, KPS World (Ballo Majra), Sawan Land Developer (Desu Majra), Paras Panorama (Desu Majra), Gillco Valley (Mundi Kharar), Shivjot Enclave and Punjab Pesticides Industrial Coop Society (Khanpur).

Shivalik Enclave, Dream Land Palace, Parkwood Company (Sante Majra), and even former MLA from Lakhnaur village, Raja Singh, are on the list of encroachers.

Educational institutes like Rayat and Bahra at Sahauran are also on the list.

The encroachments are to be removed by the divisional forest office, central works division, PWD, and the town planning department. The action follows a civil writ petition of 2007 (pending in the High Court), calling for the removal of encroachments for the safety of commuters along highways.

The executive engineer, central works division, Ropar, Karnail Singh, said the list of violators had been forwarded to the national highway authority in Mohali and action would be taken against them.

Entrances of enclave blocked

The forest department has installed barbed wires and pillars to block the side entrances of Sunny Enclave. Only the main entrance now remains open, and this too may soon be closed, blocking all the entrance and exit points for the 2,500 families staying there.

There should be no pact with Pak: Bitta
Tribune News Service

Patiala, June 11
Maninderjit Singh Bitta, chairman of All-India Anti-Terrorist Front, demanded here today that Pakistan be declared a terrorist country as it had been stoking terrorist activities in India.

Addressing mediapersons here today, Bitta said the government must ensure it signed no compromise or pacts with the Pakistan government.

Expressing grave concern over the support of terrorist activities, most recent of which included bomb blast in Jaipur and Shingar Cinema blast in Ludhiana, Bitta said infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan, through Rajasthan border, had increased considerably. He demanded that the government should take immediate action to check the infiltration.

Bitta announced that he was strongly opposed to Afzal Guru’s case being compared with Sarabjit Singh case. He contended that Afzal Guru had been given death penalty for Parliament House attack while Sarabjit case was that of mistaken identity.

He further demanded that an all-party meeting be convened to decide on the date for hanging of Afzal now on death row. Bitta also opposed the plea of Afzal that he be shifted to some Kashmir jail saying that such dreaded criminals should be kept in high security jails.

Bitta announced plans of the ATF to distribute bulletproof jackets among mediapersons and news photographers who were exposed to great risk while discharging their professional duties in the trouble-torn states.

Ambala, June 11
Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala today submitted a memorandum to the city magistrate Girish Arora demanding a roll back in the increased fuel prices.

The memorandum addressed to the President of India stated that ever since Congress government had come to the power, the prices of petrol, diesel and LPG had doubled.

Chautala further stated that Congress government would have to pay a price for this in the coming Lok Sabha elections as the common man had been affected the most.

Addressing a worker meeting of INLD earlier in the day, Chautala stated that the women cell of INLD would stage a protest at the Police headquarters in Panchkula on June 13, against the police inaction in the Sarita Suicide case. 

Rajpura, June 11
The Rajpura police arrested four people from different places and recovered 62 gm of smack from their possession.

Dharamraj, a resident of Shahbad in Haryana, was caught with 20 gm smack. He was arrested from railway under bridge during a naka. Mohan Singh, a resident of Mandi Gobindgarh, possessed 20 gm smack and was arrested from Sirhind bypass. Jagjeet Singh and Gurdeep Singh, both residents of Mandi Gobindgarh, had 11 gm smack, each, with them. They were arrested near the Ambala chungi.

All the four accused have been booked by the Rajpura city police station. Further investigations are on.

Chandigarh, June 11
Local sports connoisseurs have demanded a quota for the budding players of the city in the state-run Chandigarh Hockey Academy at Sports Complex here.

“In the academy, the expenditure of which is being borne by the Chandigarh administration, not even a single local player is being benefited,” said city-based hockey coach N.S. Sodhi.

Besides imparting training to as many as 24 players, the administration also provide them boarding, food, sport-kits and academic fee.

Players had been selected through open trials by the administration.

“I am not opposing the open-trial procedure. There should be some reserved seats for local players so that they can get some benefit,” said Sodhi.

“Chandigarh has produced so many international players. By providing facilities to local players, the administration can prepare top-class players,” he added.

Chandigarh Hockey Association general secretary Y.P. Vohra said, “After completing their training at the academy, the outsiders will go to their respective states and Chandigarh will get no benefit.”

Olympian S.S. Gill said with the introduction of reservation, interest could be generated among the local players.

Chandigarh sports director I.S. Sandhu, when contacted, said, “The concept of academy to make it a center of excellence can be lost with the introduction of reservation. If we induct players on the basis of reservation, that will not only affect the performance of the players but also demoralise those from other states.”

Chandigarh, June 11
Local shuttlers, Sameer Gupta and Aman Sethi, cornered glory by bagging silver medals in the 23rd Inter-national Badminton Youth Teams Tournament Zentiva Cup-2008, held at Czech Republic from June 6 to 8.

In the finals, Indian team lost to hosts by 2-3. Rupinder Singh (from Punjab) was declared the best player. 

Chandigarh, June 11
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) set title clash in the ongoing sixth Olympian Dharam Singh Memorial Hockey Tournament at Hockey Stadium here today.

IOC got the better of BPCL by 11-9 while ONGC, Delhi, beat RCF, Kapurthala, by 9-8 in the semi-finals to secure their berths in the final.

In the first semi-final between IOC and BPCL, forward Rajpal was instrumental in the win with his whopping eight goals. For BPCL, Ravipal finished as top scorer with five goals.

It was BPCL team, which opened the account first and took lead of two goals. Rajpal rose to the occasion and levelled the score.

At the half time, BPCL was again leading by two goals as the score was 6-4.

Prabhjot and Hamza netted two and one goal, respectively, for the winners. On the other hand, Tushar Khandekar and Pundlik contributed three and one goal, respectively.

IOC earned nine penalty corners out of which only three could be converted. BPCL converted five short corners into goals out of total eight. All the five conversions were made by Ravipal.

In the second well-contested match, ONGC rode on six goals by Sandeep Antil to register win over RCF.

At the half time, both the teams were equalled at 2-2.

But in the action-packed second half, both the teams put up spirited show but it was ONGC, which ultimately finished winner by a margin of one goal. For ONGC, the scorers were Sandeep Antil (6), Arun Rawat (1), Jasbir (1) and Baljinder (1), while Gagandeep, Paramjeet, Sanjay and Deepak contributed two goals each for the losers.

The final will take place at 7.30 pm tomorrow at the same venue.

Chandigarh, June 11
Seventy-two junior golfers (7 to 17 years) are honing their skills under the watchful eyes of the region's only A-grade coach Jessie Grewal at the first national camp being held on the greens of the Chandigarh Golf Range.

Organised by the Chandigarh Golf Association in collaboration with the Professional Golfers Association of India (PGAI) and the Indian Golf Union (IGU) the camp, which began on June 7, attracted more than 100 budding golfers. But the organisers had to put a ceiling on the particpants beccause of the limit fixed by the PGAI of 50 plus 10 trainees for the camp.

The 72 traineees include five promising caddies of the Chandigarh Golf Club.

The national junior camp, being funded by the Lalit Suri Foundation of New Delhi, has got the backing of the IGU and the PGAI for which 1500 balls have been supplied free of cost. "This has gone a long way in cutting down on the expenses of the camp," said Jessie Grewal.

Six hours of training every day in two-hour shifts is a virtual complete drill in golf training that covers all facets of the game. Dressed in their beige and black uniforms, the trainees are a disciplined lot as they go through corrective postures and swings after being shown the video recording of the day's drill.

And the golfers are not just from Chandigarh. They have come from as far away as Kapurthala (Ketan, Gagandeep and Karan). They have made Chandigarh their home for the 10-day camp. Subhankar Sharma and Harneet travel from Patiala every day.

The coach is happy as the trainees are shaping up well. Three of the caddies - Shehzada Khan, Vivek Gupta and Akshay Sharma - show a lot of promise. Seventeen-year-old Akshay Sharma said the camp had benefited him a lot. He found his wrist cock error after “Jessie Sir” showed him the video of his swing. His posture was also bad. With these correctives he has already found a lot of improvement in his swing.

Also training in the 9 to 11 am group was Shivali Aggarwal who finished third in the girls' under-15 event. She showed perfecton in her drive.

The national camp will not be restricted to the 10 days. A special camp for those showing promise will be conducted by the Chandigarh Golf Association after going through the video recordings of the trainees at the national camp.

The Chandigarh camp is the fifth national camp being run by the Lalit Suri Foundation after first was held in Mumbai in April-end.

Jessie Grewal is being assisted by Mahesh Kumar, a Grade B coach categorised by the Indian National Golf Academy.

"I am not tired," said seven-plus Prajwal. His sister, six-plus Amiya, wanted to go for putting. Jessie took these requests in his stride as he explained the posture to one of the caddies.

The camp will conclude on June 17 with competitions among the trainees.

Chandigarh, June 11
Praveen Narang, a property dealer, was injured in a clash that took place in Sector 11 here this evening.

Praveen had a quarrel with some people while waiting for a friend yesterday, but a compromise was later reached.

He was taken to hospital where he is still under medication.

Chandigarh, June 11
After a delay of two weeks, public prosecutor (PP) Vinay Jhingan today finally managed to get an FIR registered in a cheating case against the shopowner of Anmol Watches, Sector 22, Rajesh Narang, who had allegedly opened and swapped the original speakers of his handset with duplicate ones.

The public prosecutor filed a complained against the shop at the Sector 17 police station. He said he had purchased a Nokia 5310 handset, worth Rs 8,500, from the shop on April 28 this year. The phone developed a defect and he took it to the shop for repairs.

He said the handset was repaired, but when he took it to the Nokia’s authorised service centre as it developed some fault again, he was informed that its original speakers had been swapped with the duplicate ones. He said though the shopowner had informed him that the faulty speakers had been replaced. However, he had not informed him that he had replaced the speakers with the unbranded ones. He said because of the shopkeeper’s act, Nokia refused to repair the set on the grounds that the warranty was no longer valid.

It may be mentioned here that the apex court ruling clearly states that the police cannot refuse to register an FIR doubting the credibility or genuineness of a complaint. There are also standing instructions from the UT SSP to register an FIR within 24 hours of the complaint.

Meanwhile, the owner of the shop has been arrested.