NEIGHBOURHOOD

Looting, eve teasing rampant at Jor Mela
Gurdeep Singh Mann
Tribune News Service

Sikhs perform gatka during the Jor Mela in Fatehgarh Sahib on Friday. A Tribune photograph

Fatehgarh Sahib, December 26
Health workers deployed during the occasion of the Jor Mela in six medical centres spent nights in open amidst fog and chilly weather. A large number of health workers and doctors were deployed to give medical aid to devotees during the mela.

Around 4,000 patients were treated at each centre during the past three days. “We have been receiving patients of every kind. Headache, nausea, joint pains, leg pains, gastroenteritis, nasal congestion, high blood pressure and other minor ailments were reported at these centers,” said a rural doctor working under the zila parishad.

He said there was hardly any facility provided to them by the government and they remain ill-equipped during the mela. “Neither the authorities concerned provided us adequate medicines in time nor did they give us winter resistant tents to stay in,” said the doctors.

These camps were held near Roza Sharif, Gurudwara Jyoti Swarup, Gurudwara Fatehgarh Sahib, near octroi number 4, outside Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Engineering College and inside Gurudwara Fatehgarh Sahib.

A number of patients,who had consumed bhang and other intoxicants available in the mela, reported at these camps. They were shifted to the civil hospital and were given medical aid by the doctors present.

No serious case was reported in medical camps during they past three days. Doctors kept a tab over number of patients coming from one particular place.

A majority of persons, who reached at these centres, complained of suffocation, headache due to loudspeakers, breathing problems and giddiness.

These doctors rued that the authorities must adopt a pro-active approach during such occasions and must equip medical staff with all necessary things.

The doctors from nearby districts, including Ropar, Ludhiana, Patiala and other areas were deployed at these camps.

Also the health department had put up exhibitions at these places creating awareness on various issues.

Kalka, December 26
Over 70 villages of the Raitan area located on the Pinjore-Mallah link road remained cut off from Pinjore today due to digging work being carried out by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

Subsequently, thousands of daily commutes, including CRPF men and residents of Himshikha colony, who use the road had to face inconvenience while reaching their destinations.

Under the bypass project, the NHAI is constructing a bridge on the link road near the old Kaushlaya bridge.

The link road remained disconnected after 12 pm.

Kalka, December 26
Construction work of multi-purpose sports stadium in Paploha village adjacent to Kalka has been left in the lurch since more than six months. Villagers of Paploha village said with the starting of the construction work of the stadium in the village, a ray of hope had been raised among the villagers, as it would boost the sports talent among young inhabitants of the area.

But the construction work, which was being carried out by some contractor, has been lying pending since many months due to the apathetic attitude of the concerned department, alleged the villagers.

Vijay Bansal, former secretary of the state Congress, under a special project of the state government to promote the rural sports was constructing 154 multi-purpose sports stadium across Haryana.

Under the project, the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board, Panchkula, had taken an initiative to construct the sports stadium in Paploha village of Kalka sub-division and started the construction work three years back and the village panchayat had also given six acres of land for the same.

The completion of this project would cost Rs 40 lakh, said Bansal. Jaspal, a resident of adjoining Naggal village, said the villagers have been waiting anxiously for the completion of the project, as it would facilitate hundreds of sports persons specially schoolchildren of Kalka sub-division.

Kalka, December 26
The last snowfall of the season has attracted a lot of tourists to Shimla and the neighbouring areas.

The toy train, running from Kalka to Shimla, has become the favourite mode of transportation for the tourists.

A visit to the Kalka Railway Station revealed that despite the recent derailment of the holiday special train, near Dharampur, the trains plying on the Kalka-Shimla Rail section are running beyond their capacity and especially the unreserved compartments are packed overcrowded.

The official sources of the kalka Railway station said the station witnessed a heavy rush of the passengers today, as only Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi Express trains arrived with 600 passengers and tourists for Shimla today, which were beyond the capacity of the Himalayan Queen 255 up Kalka-Shimla train.

According to railway officials, the overloaded trains lead to serious accidents. They said the department had recently started two holiday special trains, which run at 6:30 and 7:00 am, as there were four other trains plying on the section between 4:00 to 8:30 am.

To cope with the rush of the tourists of the Delhi -Kalka Shatabdi and Delhi-Kalka Himalayan Queen, out of the two holiday trains, one train should be started before or after the Himalyan Queeen that runs at 12:10 pm to avoid the inconvenience.

A number of passengers had to face the inconvenienve recently. Some said the railway deparment should increase the number of general compartments for the unreserved passengers.

The official sources revealed the advance booking was full of all the trains, including two rail cars up to December 31.

Ropar, December 26
Harsh Thakur and Pooja Chaudhary were declared the best athletes at the sports meet of Rayat International School that concluded here yesterday. SSP Shashi Prabha honoured the best athletes.

The Shakti house was awarded for performing the best march past. Nidhi Pandey, who led teachers’ contingent was declared the best teacher in march past.

The festival began on December 23, while track and field events were held on December 24. Various parents segments were also presented during the function, wherein, parents played various games like jump and grab tongue twisters, 200 m (fathers) and 100m race (mothers).

Then, there were two rounds of tug of war between teachers and parents. Both the parties won one round, each.

Patiala, December 26
“When established cultures and civilizations undergo a radical change, they generate debris of conflicts, tensions and problems that can be grasped and overcome only with the help of the teachings of great spiritual masters.”

While delivering the first ‘Shaheed Nanak Singh Memorial Lecture’, Dr HK Manmohan Singh, emeritus professor and former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, said all these values were upheld by Sardar Nanak Singh, who made a phenomenal sacrifice to promote religious tolerance and human freedom, even as he was done to death in the pre-partition carnage while trying to save some students of a school, who had organised a peace march against the division of the country.

A science and a law graduate, Nanak Singh could have continued his career with the British police, but his upbringing as a devout made him revolt against his submission to the wrongs being perpetrated, first by the rulers and then by the fundamentalists who wanted to divide the country on the basis of religion.

In his presidential address, Vice-Chancellor Dr Jaspal Singh said that concepts of a pluralistic and multi-ethnic society were essential features of Sikh religion for which Sardar Nanak Singh stood for as an ideologue.

He said no nation in the world could afford to see India getting disintegrated as all values of religious harmony, which were the quintessence of peace in the world, would perish along with it. Even the purity of socio-economic growth and good governance could not be perceived without following the well laid out principles in the Sikh scriptures, Dr Jaspal Singh said.

The social and religious conflicts could easily be avoided if the precepts of true religions are judiciously followed, he added. The Vice-Chancellor presented mementoes to the family members of Sardar Nanak Singh as a token of respect.

Earlier, Shaheed Nanak Singh Foundation donated Rs 10 lakh for the development of Guru Tegh Bahadur National Integration Chair of the university.

Dr Manjit Singh, dean, Colleges of the University, while describing Sardar Nanak Singh as a great visionary, said such sacrifices acted as source of inspiration for others to be emulated. Dr Kulbir Singh Dhillon, dean (students) and Dr Baltej Maan, head of the GTB National Integration Chair also spoke on the occasion.

Impressed by their performances, Deputy Commissioner Vikas Garg, who was the chief guest on the occasion, lauded the role being played by the school in imparting quality education to the urban and rural children as well.

Patiala, December 26
The Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) Chairman, Y.S. Ratra, today asserted the importance of electricity conservation and urged people to make continuous efforts to save power.

Ratra said the board’s enforcement wing was actively engaged in catching the defaulters and whosoever was caught stealing power was being penalised under the provisions of the law.

Citing statistics, out of the 1.66 lakh power connections checked by the board officials, nearly 48,000 reportedly had irregular connections and a penalty of Rs 58 crore was imposed on the defaulters.

He claimed that from January 1, 2009, till November 30, the board’s enforcement wing checked nearly 2 lakh connections, out of which nearly 53,000 were found to be irregular following which a penalty of Rs 86 crore was levied on the defaulters.

The chairman said the board was improving on all fronts and its officers were making the efforts to provide better services to its consumers. He appealed to consumers to refrain from stealing power which, he added, could also damage the electricity supply systems.

Banur, December 26
A five days winter school on innovation and creativity development was held at the south campus of Swami Vivekanand Institute of Emerging Technology recently.

The programme was organised in collaboration with the National Institute of Technical Teacher Training and Research, Chandigarh and the chief speakers were Dr S Gakhar, Dr Rakesh Vats and Dr KL Johar, former Vice-Chancellor, NITTT, Dr Jatinder Mohan and Dr Meena Sehgal of Panjab University.

The programme was held to imbibe innovative and creative ideas in teaching skills. The speakers said teachers should impart a well organised and planned education which would prepare the students to encounter life intelligently.

Professor KK Raina, deputy director of Thapar University, emphasised in his inaugural address that technical education system in our country does not promote lateral or divergent thinking. He added that the technical education programmes must have a greater degree of flexibility and train the graduates to be innovative.

Ashwani Garg, chairman of the Swami Vivekanand Group of Institutes, focused on the challenges of the emerging scenario of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation.

Chandigarh, December 26
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to instruct local police to keep tabs on the movement of prisoners out on parole for preventing harm to witnesses and complainants.

Justice S D Anand, however, believes directions were not required to be issued for expeditious disposal of parole cases as rules adopted by both states and the union territory contained adequate provisions for time-bound disposal of furlough matters.

The directions follow an application forwarded through post by “a number of prisoners incarcerated in Punjab jails”. The application was ordered to be taken up on the judicial side.

After going through the plea, Justice Anand observed: “The essential grievance was that the convicts of Nawanshahr were facing difficulties in expeditious disposal of parole cases. In the light thereof, a report was ordered to be obtained from Punjab Director General of Police, Prisons. As the matter involved a larger segment of prisons in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, the court issued notice to the law officers of the states as well, referring them to indicate the present, and also the proposed methodology, adopted in their respective spheres for the expeditious disposal of parole/furlough plea.”

The common factor emerging in the replies, filed in response to the notices, was that the interest of the victims of the crime, and the witnesses deposing against the convicts shall also be kept in mind.

After going through the replies, Justice Anand asserted: “It is apparent that the rules adopted by both the states of Punjab and Haryana and also the Union Territory of Chandigarh contain adequate provisions for expeditious and time bound disposal of the parole/furlough matters, though certain aberrations on point of delay do occur at times.”

“So far as the protection of the complainant and the witnesses, who deposed at the trial against the prisoner released on parole, is concerned, the competent authority in both the states and Chandigarh would be well advised to issue instructions to the local police to maintain a tab on the movement of the prisoner during the time he is in the village on parole, and also to take appropriate steps to ensure that the complainant and witnesses are not harmed by the prisoner on parole in any manner.”

Panchkula, December 26
After filing a chargesheet against two of the gangrape accused in the court on Tuesday, the Panchkula police has now decided to conduct a lie detector test on Khushhal Kaushal, who has been accused by the victim of taking her to Tribune Chowk in Chandigarh in his Swift car before being taken to a Punjab village by her perpetrators in another car and raped.

The victim in her complaint with the police on September 17 had alleged that one of the accused, Chhavi, reached her home on September 16 evening and took her to Sector 12 where she parked her scooter at a temple.

Chhavi along with the victim and another boy got into a car. The boy driving the car returned after dropping them at Tribune Chowk, stated the victim.

The victim also mentioned the registration number of the car in her complaint. The car was later found traced to Khushhal Kaushal, a national-level judo player, who denied the allegations saying that the victim never sat in his car.

During questioning by the police, Kaushal, claiming that he did not know anything about the incident, said he was present at the sports complex in Sector 42, Chandigarh, at the time mentioned by the victim.

He also claimed that the victim could only tell the number of the car and knew nothing about the interior of car, as she never sat in it.

Not believing Kaushal’s story, the the police has now decided to conduct a polygraph test on him. The family was notified that the test was to be conducted on December 24, but the date was deferred, as Kaushal failed to turn up before the police that day.

The police instead took a former classmate of the victim for the test at Madhuban.

The victim in her complaint had accused the classmate of introducing her to two of the accused — Jatin and Chhavi, whose addresses have not been traced so far.

The girl, however, denied any knowledge about Jatin and Chhavi when the police questioned her last month.

Chandigarh, December 26
Japjit Singh, the seven-year-old boy who was kidnapped for ransom in November, has identified all the four accused during an identification parade held at the Burail Model Jail here today.

Sources in the police said that all the four accused- Prem Singh, Vishal, Sahil and Sandeep - were present before Japjit in a group of 10 persons each. Japjit was prompt to identify the accused, said sources.

The parade was conducted in the presence of the SDM (South) Prerna Puri and the Jail superintendent. A police officer said the identification parade had given a boost to the ongoing investigation into the case as it is being considered as strong evidence against the accused establishing their involvement in the case. The police was initially apprehensive about the outcome of the parade fearing that the child may fail to identify the accused after about a month’s gap.

The alleged kidnappers had meticulously designed the kidnapping and almost failed every move of the police to nab them. They managed to flee with the ransom of over Rs 3.3 lakh by befooling a police team that was following them on November 30.

The accused acted smart and used new sim card for every call and destroyed the phone sets to eliminate evidence.

Though it was their first kidnapping for ransom, but the police was surprised at their planning and found it hard to nab them. However, the police successfully busted the gang in a couple of days.

Chandigarh, December 26
The police has seized 22 boxes of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) from a car (HR-02-F-7314) and registered a case against the driver who fled from the spot leaving his car near the TPT light point, Sector 26, yesterday. A case under Sections 61/ 1/14 of the Excise Act has been registered at Sector 26 police station.

Chandigarh, December 26
Param Pun, the top seed of boys (under-10) category, blanked his opponent Shikhar Shail 6-0 in just 20 minutes during the YMCA Total Tennis Championship, which began at the Total Tennis Academy, here today.

The second seed, Karandeep Singh of Ludhiana, outclassed his opponent Pevansh at 6-0. The third seed, Nihit Rawal of Total Tennis, blanked Digvijay Singh by 6-0.

The fourth player, Rishabh Sharda, beat Shabnit Singh 6-0. Adish Bansal beat Sidharth Kalia 6-1 to face Param Pun in the quarterfinals tomorrow.

Results:

Boys (u-10):

Param Pun beat Shikhar Shail 6-0

Adish Bansal beat Sidharth Kalia 6-1

Rishabh Sharda beat Shabnit Singh 6-0

Madhav Coinoria beat Jaskaran Singh 6-5(4)

Boys( u -12):

Param Pun beat Jaskaran Singh 6-0

DIviansh Pandey beat Harnoor Inder 6-0

Utkarsh Khosla beat Sidharth Bhardwaj 6-1

Nihit Rawal beat Shikhar 6-1

Boys (u-14) quarterfinals:

Abhijeet Singh beat Prabhsharan Bal 8-5

Andrew Pardeep beat Nihit Rawal 8-2

Utkarsh Khosla beat Diviansh Pandey 8-2

Santbir Singh beat Anish Goel 8-1.

Chandigarh, December 26
SG Amravati University, made a big splash on the second day of the All India Inter-University Baseball (women) Championship as they blanked CCS University, Meerut, 17-0 home runs.

Vaishali Sadawarte, Sonam, Sarika, Sarita, Durga, Sonali, Saroj and Heena all contributed with 2 home runs while Vidya contributed with 1 home run.

In another lopsided encounter, Lucknow University, trounced MJP University, Rohilkhand, Brailley, 10-0 home runs. Aparna, Kajal, Shweta and Sumaria all scored 2 home runs to fashion their team’s win.

Chandigarh, December 26
CRPF and GCG Club-11 won the Senior State Basketball Championship 2008-09 in the men and women section here yesterday at New Public School-18.

In the men section, CRPF defeated Sports Complex-A, Sector-7, by 84-53. Half-time Score was 41-23 in favour of CRPF. Main scorers were Sanjay-24 and Ashfaq-18.

Sports Complex -46 defeated SGGS Club-26 by (62-42). Half -time score was 39-24 in the favour of Sports Complex-46.

December, Chandigarh 26
Nidhi (Delhi) snuffed out the spirited challenge of Sutta (Delhi) 4-3 in the individual singles girls’ final of the 4th Junior National Soft Tennis Championship Boys/Girls being organised by the Chandigarh Amateur Soft Tennis Association here at St Peter School, Sector 37 today.

Earlier in the one-sided semi-final matches, Nidhi beat Roshni (Chhatisgarh) 4-1 and Sutta beat Sania (Rajasthan) 4-1. In the hard line match, Sania (Rajasthan) beat Roshni (Chhatisgarh) 4-2.

Results: Individual singles (girls): Quarterfinal matches: Roshni (Chhatisgarh) bt Gautmi (Guj) 4-1; Nidhi (Delhi) bt Akshya (Chhatisgarh) 4-0; Sania (Rajasthan) bt Prakriti (Delhi) 4-1; Sutta (Delhi) bt Riya (Chandigarh) 4-0.

Chandigarh, December 26
Chandigarh Basketball Association has selected the players who will be participating in the Senior National Basketball Championship to be held at Surat (Gujarat) from December 31to January 7.

Men: Sanjay, Ashfaq, Rajbir and Balraj (C.R.P.F), Gurinder, Arun Goyat, Arshdeep, and Rahul (Sports Complex‘A’-7), Gaurav and Baldev (SGGSC-26), Manpreet (Sports Complex-46) and Naveen (Sports Complex ‘B’-7).

Women: Reena, Nimrita, Santoshi, Pooja and Veena (G.G.S.C-26), Sweety, Sonam, Kiran and Namrata (MCM-36), Navneet, Rimpy and Shweta (GCG-11).

Chandigarh, December 26
In the boys’ section Karnataka and in the girls’ section Tamil Nadu won the 54th Junior Ball Badminton Championship held here today at Mt Carmel School, Sector 47.

Karnataka had edged past Tamil Nadu 29-24 29-26 and in the girls’ section Tamil Nadu had outclassed Andhra 29-10 29-18 in the finals to emerge winners.

Other results:

Boys third place

1. Kerala bt Hyderabad by 29-12 26-29 29-24.

Boys 5th and 6th place

1. Andhra bt Maharashtra by 29-21 29-18.

Boys 7th and 8th place

1. Chhattisgarh bt Chandigarh by 27-29 29-18 29-6.

Girls’ final

1. Tamil Nadu bt Andhra by 29-10 29-18.

Girls third place

1. Kerala bt Karnataka by 29-28 29-27.

Girls 5th and 6th place

1. Chhattisgarh bt Maharashtra by 29-28 29-17.

Girls 7th and 8th place

1. Chandigarh by Hyderabad by 29-1 29-27.