Hoshiarpur, August 14
The heavy rains which continued to lash the district even today have hampered the relief measures in flood-hit areas of Hoshiarpur. According to the information, three more persons were drowned during flash floods yesterday, which have raised the death toll to six in the district.

Talking to The Tribune, deputy commissioner N.K. Wadhawan said those drowned on Wednesday had been identified as Sanju (18 months), Rakesh Mohan (30 years) and Channu Ram (65).

In the meantime, the Punjab Chief Minister has announced a grant of Rs 1 lakh each to kin of those who were drowned in yesterday’s flash floods.

Wadhawan said he had ordered all the SDMs in the district to constitute teams to assess losses. Besides, a request had been sent to the Punjab government to release Rs 3.15 crore immediately for relief operations.

The DC said he had instructed civil surgeons and executive officers of the municipal councils to send teams of doctors and paramedical staff to the flood-hit areas to take preventive measures before an epidemic breaks out.

The residents of Dhobi Ghat and Bhagwan Dass Karkhana staged a dharna and blocked traffic on the Dhobi Ghat ring road for more than an hour on Thursday to protest against the failure of the district administration to carry out flood relief operations. They rued that their localities were waterlogged with 2 to 3-foot-deep water and alleged that the district administration had done nothing to drain out the water. The deputy commissioner, along with other senior officials, reached the spot and pacified the agitators.

Meanwhile, former Punjab minister Naresh Thakur and Bassi Gulam Hussain village sarpanch Narbir Singh Nandi have alleged that substandard materials had been used in the construction of the Rajiv Gandhi Kandi canal which caused floods. They added that Manjhi village, Chand Nagar, Dhobi Ghat, S.D. Sanskrit College, Nai Abadi, Sukhi Choe and some areas of Bahadurpur were the worst affected. They demanded a probe into the construction of the canal.

Jalandhar, August 14
Parents of the candidates aspiring for a better seat in the PTU-CET second counselling have demanded that hundreds of seats in the reserved category quota lying vacant in top colleges be converted to the general pool.

A huge number of seats, especially in SC and sports category quota, are lying vacant even after the first counselling in Guru Nanak Dev University, Punjabi University and top PTU colleges. Since not many candidates appeared in the reserved category quota for these seats even in the first counselling, the parents of aspirants from the general category have said there would be fewer such candidates in the second counselling.

The parents are demanding that after the reserved-category candidates are allowed to fully exercise their chance to take the seat, these vacant seats be transferred to the general pool.

But registrar Sarojini Gautam Sharda raises an objection, “Do they expect us to hold a third counselling now? If that is the case, then I believe that it is an unending process. There was no second counselling till the last year. We only proposed that it be done for the benefit of the students. They now want us to just keep on extending the admission process.”

The parents, however, argue, “Till the last year, there was just one counselling in which the reserved-category seats were filled prior to the general ones. All those seats falling vacant in the reserved quota were then transferred to the general quota even before the first counselling and such a problem did not arise. We cannot simply sit and see all those seats slipping out of our hands.”

But Sharda makes a point, “We did not ourselves make the amendment of starting counselling with general group. We are simply following a Supreme Court judgement which states that the general counselling should precede the reserved category counselling so that even the reserved category candidates can avail themselves of counselling opportunity in the general pool.”

As per the data available on the PTU’s official website, 16 of 21 seats meant for the wards of defence personnel are lying vacant in Punjabi University. All nine seats in the DAV Institute of Engineering and Technology (DAVIET) and eight of the nine seats in Guru Nanak Dev University are lying vacant in the same category.

While this is the status in top colleges, there have hardly been any takers in this category in other colleges.

As many as 14 seats in Guru Nanak Dev University, seven in DAVIET, 68 in IET, Bhaddal, and on an average 40 seats in each college are lying vacant in the SC category.

Phagwara, August 14
The police here solved the blind murder of a truck driver within a fortnight and arrested three persons, including the cleaner of a truck, for killing the driver and looting material loaded in the truck. Two of the arrested accused are migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

DSP H.P.S. Khakh said cleaner Vinod Kumar and his accomplice Saurav Kumar, both presently living in Amritsar, had been arrested for murdering driver Sarup Singh of Modipura in Amritsar. Sarup’s body was found in the truck abandoned on the GT Road in Phagwara on August 1.

The police also arrested Jaswinder Singh of Hoshiarpur whom the cleaner and his accomplices had sold the stolen material worth over Rs 7 lakh. But the main accused (for murdering and looting) Balvir Singh, alias Raju, of Sardulgarh in Mansa is still at large. While Vinod Kumar was still working with Jyoti Transport Company at Sherawali Gate in Amritsar, Balvir and Vinod were the ex-employees of the company.

The transport company used to consign different items to consignees of surrounding districts. The trio made a plan to loot a loaded truck and they succeeded in their plan in December last year when they looted material worth over Rs 80 lakh as the cleaner claimed that the items were stolen and he was beaten up by the looters.

As Sarup Singh was a new driver with the transport company, the trio considered him a hindrance in carrying out their plans of further looting. At this, the cleaner first administered some intoxicating tablets to the driver by mixing them in some sweets. Later Balvir Singh, who was chasing the truck in his car, killed him by hitting him on the head with an iron rod.

Later, they took the truck to Jaswinder Singh’s place in Hoshiarpur and unloaded the material. Subsequently, they abandoned the truck with the driver’s body in it on the GT Road in Phagwara. — TNS