Chandigarh, April 5
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi seems to have made the “youth experiment” in Punjab as well as elsewhere a prestige point by giving clear cut orders to senior leaders of the Anandpur Sahib parliamentary constituency to give their unstinted support to party candidate and State Youth Congress president Ravneet Singh Bittu.

Rahul called a special meeting of legislators, former legislators, MPs, former MPs and district Congress presidents of Anandpur Sahib in Delhi today and instructed everyone to move in tandem with Bittu.

The meeting, which was also attended by senior leader Ambika Soni, who was herself a candidate from the constituency earlier, also saw Rahul telling everyone that he could not see his youth experiment fail. Talking to the leaders from the constituency, he said they must think that it was he and not Bittu who was contesting the elections. “I want you to ensure his victory,” he added.

Bittu’s brother Gurkirat Singh Kotli said all three legislators from the constituency, Rana KP, Luv Kumar Goldy and Balbir Sidhu, attended the meeting besides former minister Jagmohan Singh Kang and Charanjit Singh Channi.

Meanwhile, sources said Rahul could hold a similar meeting with leaders of Sangrur and Faridkot (Reserved) constituencies to bolster the poll prospects of Vijay Inder Singla (Sangrur) and Sukhwinder Singh Danny (Faridkot) who are also from Rahul’s “quota”.

Sources said there were minor ego issues among senior leaders because all three youth given ticket by Rahul were not favourites for the seat earlier. Moreover, the enthusiasm of the youth had to be balanced with the political maturity of the senior leaders.

A complete coordination among senior leaders and youth candidates is still to be achieved in these three constituencies.

Chandigarh, April 5
By denouncing the party his late father remained associated with for more than three decades, Jasjit Singh Bunny has stirred a political turmoil, the implications of which may change political equations in the State.

The Akali Dal may have a reason to blame its arch rival Congress for provoking Bunny to take the extreme step, yet it finds itself piqued in coming clean out from this episode that started unfolding with the death of Capt Kanwaljit Singh in a road accident.

Whatever be the reasons, it was bound to happen one day because of the deepening crises over widening of differences among senior members of the Akali Dal. On the surface they may be together but undercurrents were indicating something else. It may also be true in other political parties, including the Congress, but the Akalis have got into trouble at a politically critical juncture.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal may have been both shocked and shaken at the obvious rebellion blown on his face. He did try to mollify Jasjit Singh Bunny and indirectly offered to rehabilitate him politically.

Refusal of Bunny to accept the olive branch was perhaps the outburst against certain party leaders and workers whom he held responsible for his late father’s intra-party grievances. The worst of these was Capt Kanwaljit Singh’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections from Patiala in 2004. Bunny’s repeated assertion that his father’s love was Patiala and he could not accomplish his dream indirectly referred to his 2004 Lok Sabha election defeat.

Bunny’s decision to contest from Patiala as an Independent to oppose Prem Singh Chandumajra, the official nominee of the Dal, was perhaps indicative of a part of his hurt. Though Prem Singh Chandumajra remained present throughout the bhog ceremony, he was neither called upon to pay his tributes nor was his presence acknowledged. Jasjit had also not liked patronage to certain political novices who had lately started opposing his father in the Zirakpur-Banur areas.

The developments may have shell-shocked not only the Chief Minister and President of the Shiromani Akali Dal, but also other leaders who were hopeful of pacifying Bunny and keeping him in the party fold by offering him ticket from Banur constituency besides the ministerial berth held by his father.

The Akali leadership cannot take the walking out of the late Captain’s family from Akali Dal fold lightly. It prompted them to have a core committee meeting immediately afterwards. Blaming the Congress may not help as much as introspection would.

Congress hand in decision to contest: SAD
Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service

Bunny calls meeting of supporters today
Jangveer Singh
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 5
Outside support extended by certain Panthic leaders and Sikh ideologues like Giani Mohinder Singh (101), former SGPC secretary, and Manjit Singh Calcutta to the Congress poses a serious threat to the ruling SAD.

Such a step taken by the leaders who had served the committee, called mini-parliament of the Sikhs, could provide an idea (of providing outside support) to the leaders, who have never voted for the Congress despite their differences with the SAD.

While announcing outside support to the Congress, Calcutta, a Tohra loyalist, in the presence of Capt Amarinder Singh, former Chief Minister, said he wanted to see the re-election of Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister for another term. Similar views were echoed by Giani Mohinder Singh, who had a long stint as SGPC secretary, when Congress candidate from Amritsar Om Parkash Soni visited his residence a couple of days ago.

Calcutta, former Akali minister who was the main architect of the much-talked “Tohra-Badal rapprochement”, was one of the five Akali ministers who had resigned following a tug-of-war between Parkash Singh Badal and late Gurcharan Singh Tohra. Calcutta was, however, unceremoniously removed as SGPC’s chief secretary following his ideological differences with Badal. However, Calcutta never contested any election against the ruling Akali Dal since then. He had earned the wrath of the Akali high command for eulogising Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress, for selecting Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister of the country. Calcutta had honoured Capt Amarinder Singh with a “siropa” during his stint as chief secretary of the committee.

Earlier, Paramjit Singh Sarna, president of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, another Tohra loyalist, had floated a separate Delhi Akali Dal. Another Tohra loyalist, Inderjit Singh Zira, who had resigned from the Akali ministry along with Calcutta, had also joined the Congress in the presence of Capt Amarinder Singh.

Senior Tohra loyalists JS Rajla, Rajbir Singh Padiala had also joined the Congress.

Pathankot, April 5
Transport Minister Master Mohan Lal is a politician with a difference. His first love is wresting. Despite his busy election schedule, he spends a few hours in an akhara doing exercise and giving wrestling tips to his disciples before going for electioneering. He has been promoting wrestling in the region and a number of his disciples have brought laurels to the state at the national level.

The minister says wrestling is his passion, hence he could not leave this routine that he has followed throughout his life. “I believe only a healthy body can have a healthy mind.”

The morning scene of the akhara here is a rare feast to the eyes. Young wrestlers touch the feet of Master Mohan Lal as he enters the arena. “I consider it a great achievement that the Almighty has assigned me the duty to hone skills of young wrestlers,” he says. Akharas have been institutions in themselves because these serve a great role in promoting the rural sports all over the state. He has been attending akhara for more than four decades. In the wrestling arena, Master Mohan Lal behaves like a commoner or at the most as “Ustad” of the young trainees.

However, the minister has stopped enacting the role of Ravna during Ram Lilas for the past couple of years. Now, he loves to compere Ram Lila arranged by the local Rama Dramatic Club every year.

About the Gurdaspur constituency, he says it borders Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP will demand votes on the basis of the performance of the government, which has taken a number of measures to boost state’s economy. The industry in this border district, especially in the Pathankot assembly constituency, has been suffering losses since many industrial units have shifted to the adjoining states due to attractive incentives, he adds.

Bathinda, April 5
A team of the Department of Atomic Energy, Mumbai, will visit Faridkot tomorrow to ascertain how uranium has been reaching Punjab. The Tribune, the first in India, broke the story on March 16 and it attracted attention from across the globe.

Dr Carin Smith, who came from South Africa to collect urine samples of the children whose hair sample reports revealed presence of uranium, will return to South Africa tomorrow with the samples she has collected.

Dr Smith today said, “Stay at the Baba Farid Centre for Special Children was emotional. I had come to do specific job and it has been completed successfully. Nearly 53 children were tested and their samples taken. I did counselling of the parents of these children too. I have heard DAE team is arriving here tomorrow. I am glad the Indian government has woken up. I will the DAE team take soil, water and vegetation samples for research and the children whose samples we took earlier be tested again by the team.”

Dr Smith said she would return to India to start nutrition programme for children tested positive for uranium to prepare them for detoxification treatment. DAE sources said a team would reach the centre on Monday to collect samples of water, soil, vegetation and hair of the children at the centre.

“Whatever possible will be done on the spot and additional tests will be carried out in Mumbai,” a DAE spokesperson said.

Naturopath Pritpal Singh, president of the centre, said the centre had appealed to the government to include 150 children from the centre in the “nirogi” scheme started by the government last month to treat people suffering from the disease, who are below the poverty line.

Sadhu Ram Khusla, member (working group), National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said “I am happy at the government response. All children, regardless of the financial status, should be treated. I wrote about uranium presence after The Tribune highlighted it to the Health and Sanitation Department, government of India, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, the state government and also to the Governor of Punjab”. 

Jalandhar, April 5
Parties are queueing up to hire choppers and small aircraft for election campaigns. All major parties, including the Congress, BJP, BSP, SAD and the NCP, are using charter helicopters for ferrying ministers, candidates and star campaigners.

Going gaga over the trend is Dhillon Aviation, which has given nine of its helicopters and aircraft on rent to parties across the country.

MD of the company Ajay Vir Singh, who hails from Jalandhar, has office in Delhi. “Though poll mania in the country has geared up in the past some days, hiring of helicopters started at least two months back. In fact, we remained busy throughout the year with one political engagement assignment or the other,” he said.

The company owns three personal helicopters whereas the rest six aircraft have been taken on lease from other companies. The hiring charges of these choppers vary anywhere from Rs 65,000 to Rs 3,75000 depending upon the seating capacity of the helicopter. “From a small air-conditioned three-seater helicopter to the extra large 12 seater, the demand has been increasing ever since the dates of the Lok Sabha elections were announced. Since the party campaigners have to travel to remote locations at short notice, the political parties do not mind doling out an extra amount for this purpose,” maintained Ajay.

Ajay started this business along with owner of the company Harbans Singh Dhillon, who is a US-based NRI, in 2004. The company has helicopters like Bell, Augusta and HAL with its own commercial pilots. “We also worked with Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra for his film ‘Rang De Basanti’ in Ludhiana for certain scenes of the film,” he added.

Jalandhar, April 5
Representatives of non-government organisations (NGOs) and like-minded persons have formed a group to create a casteless society.

The persons, including several SCs, have held meetings in Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Hoshiarpur, Patiala and parts of Punjab in to have name and constitution of the organisation.

The body will be named after Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The meeting discussed reservation in education, jobs and politics was the main hurdle in creating a casteless society.

General secretary of the Sahara Youth India Ajay Kumar said Baba Sahib’s dream was a casteless society.

Ajay Kumar, an SC, added initially reservation was for 10 years to enable the Dalits get their rights, but only a section of the Dalits got benefits of reservation continuously despite extending the reservation policy for every 10 years since then.

The general secretary of the Sahara Youth India, which has been working for a casteless society for over four years, said the group would awaken the down-trodden and backwards among Dalits that their rights had been grabbed by the elite 
Dalit class.

Ajay, who has not taken the benefit of reservation even for education (he is from a business family), said the public, including backwards among Dalits, would be educated to pressurethe political parties to exclude the elite Dalit class from the benefit of reservation.

He added their organisation would work as pressure group in the nation. Gradually they will stress excluding the families from the benefit of reservation in jobs, which had got the benefit.

Reservation would be done away with in a few decades, he claimed.

He admitted that the task was Herculean to end reservation in a country like ours where political parties used castes as vote banks.

He hoped somebody had to move in this direction and their organisation would work for a casteless society which Dr Ambedkar had dreamed of. 

Chandigarh, April 5
The Punjab government, with the Lok Sabha (LS) elections in mind and the Union government failing to lift paddy and wheat stock, over 100 lakh tonnes, from the state, has been trying to create space to store wheat crop.

The government has drawn up a strategy for the smooth procurement, timely lifting of procured stock, its movement to temporary storage points and the movement of wheat outside the state, besides payment to farmers in 48 hours of lifting of wheat.

To avoid pitfalls, especially in the absence of traders, the government has constructed fresh plinths to store 11 lakh tonnes of wheat and hired plinths to store 17 lakh tonnes of wheat.

Sources said the government had tied up with all sugar mills in the state to utilise their space to stack wheat. The remaining stock will be stored in permanent mandis having concrete floors. The government has made arrangements to store115 lakh tonnes wheat against last year’s procurement of 105 lakh tonnes.

As many as 50 lakh tonnes of old stock of wheat and so much of paddy is lying in godowns. Expected bumper wheat crop, despite two spells of unseasonal rain may add to storage problem.

So far the RBI has sanctioned a release of Rs 8,850.70 crore for April, out of the government’s total cash credit limit of Rs 12,153 crore for payment in 48 hours to middlemen and from them to farmers.

Due to advanced tendering, the government has received 3.07 lakh bales of gunny bags and 2.65 lakh bales are in transit. The remaining 42,000 bales will be received by middle of April. Besides, the rate contract to transport wheat from mandis to the storage place and labour contracts have also been finalised.

Amritsar, April 5
Passengers of the first Birmingham-to-Amritsar-via-Vienna charted flight of Akal Airlines had to face hardships as it got delayed by one and half hours today reportedly due to some problems in Uzbekistan.

About 152 passengers, who arrived by the 225-seater Boeing 757 aeroplane were not allowed to come out of the airport as the passengers list was also not available with the airport authorities which later came through e-mail.

At present the flight will be run once a week, which will be made, twice a week soon, said the authorities of Akal Airlines after these flights were scheduled. They said Vienna (Austria) was centrally located in Europe from where there were a number of connecting flights to other European countries. However, no passenger boarded the return flight.

Meanwhile, the passengers of the first flight of Akal Airlines, which is promoted by NRI Daljit Singh and Bhupinder Singh Kandra, were welcomed by SGPC secretary Dilbir Singh and member Rajinder Singh Mehta at the international airport. Navjot Singh Sidhu, BJP MP also welcomed the passengers. 

Patiala, April 5
The Punjab Academy of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (PAFMAT), state body of forensic medicine doctors and medico-legal consultants, said like women judges, women police officers and women doctors, public prosecutors and defence lawyers must be women lawyers in trial of rape cases in courts must also be female advocates.

Dr Bhullar, PAFMAT, president, said the Union Cabinet recently approved some changes in the Criminal Procedure Code relating to sexual assault cases directing the police to complete probe in three months and file chargesheet and the trial of rape cases be supervised by a woman judge. If a woman judge is not available, the case be transferred to another court. Also rape victim will not be asked to come to the police station to record statement and the woman police officer will go to the victim’s s house. If the victim is a minor, the statement will be recorded in the presence of at least two women family members.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had in 2002 directed the governments of Punjab, Haryana and the Chandigarh administration not assign men doctors to conduct medico-legal examination of rape victims. This was held by the Supreme Court in the state of Punjab versus Gurmit Singh case of 1976.

Following this, the Punjab State Women Commission directed the state Health Department when a victim was produced before for medico-legal examination that she be examined only by women doctors or under the supervision of women registered medical practioners.

Dr Bhullar said despite administrative and legal instructions mentioned above, there were no guidelines that the trial of rape cases should allow only women public prosecutors and women defence lawyers to try these cases. It was believed that women doctors in government hospitals hesitate to give candid medical opinion in rape fearing appearing as prosecution witness and then being subjected to embarrassing cross-examination in courts. Hence, there was an urgent need of guidelines in respect of women lawyers who were easily available in courts in the country. 

Jalandhar, April 5
Taking notice of the attack on the District Congress office by Danga Peerat Welfare Society members, Punjab, on yesteday, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Punjab, has asked the district commissioner-cum-district electoral officer (DEO) to submit a report in this regard.

Kusumjit Kaur Sidhu, CEO, in a fax message to DEO Ajeet Pal Singh Pannu, asked him to report about the attack. The fax also contains cuttings of certain newspapers in which the news appeared. Pannu said he had marked an inquiry into the matter.

Meanwhile, president of the District Congress Committee Arun Walia has complained to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab, blaming the Punjab government for the attack. He sought an inquiry and action against the suspects in the episode.

Mullanpur Dakha, April 5
A married woman was reported kidnapped and raped by two youths last night. The victim (24), who hails from Kishanpura village in Moga district, is married to a man of Ramgarh Bhullar village near Sidhwan Bet and at present resides with her friend on the Rahon Road, Jodhewal Basti in Ludhiana. Her husband is in Italy.

In her complaint she has said that yesterday after getting medicine from a hospital, Mullanpur Dakha, she was waiting for a bus at Dakha village around 6.30 pm when four youths in Zen Car (PB 03 BQ 8939) kidnapped her and took her by the side of the Sutlej near Rahon village where Raju and Rinku raped her in the car. Later, they dropped her at Jalandhar bypass, Ludhiana, at 10.30 pm.

She reached the house of Paramjit Kaur and today visited Rahon police station. The Rahon police sent her to Dakha police station and got a case under Sections 366 and 376, IPC, registered.

The accused and the car used in the crime belong to nearby Rurka village. There was no entry of the complainant in the record of Grewal Hospital. SHO, Dakha, Yogi Raj said the victim had been sent for medical examination to the civil hospital, Ludhiana.