Jalandhar, May 29
City residents have heaved a sigh of relief as no untoward has been reported during the past 48 hours and this is reflected in the decision of the authorities to relax the curfew by another two hours till 10 pm today.

A round across the city revealed that all shops and other business establishments hummed with activity and there was no fear among the shoppers and shopkeepers. Yesterday the shops closed down and people were back home well before curfew time on account of rumours of violence from various parts of the city. Thankfully, this was not the case today.

Examinations of Guru Nanak Dev University that had been announced prior to the violence that rocked the city were held as scheduled. The examinations that were to be held in the previous days will be held later.

There was full attendance in offices and work was back to normal bringing a sense of security and relief among the people. Work in the district administrative complex too was back on the rails. Courts also functioned normally after many days.

Small roadside vendors and rickshaw-pullers were back to business.

The opening of small eateries and dhabas brought cheers to those living alone. They literally fasted for three days as nothing was available due to curfew.

Commuters could reach their destinations without any fear as buses plied on all the routes in the state. Train services were back to normal. Yesterday, only 60 per cent of the road routes were operational as the authorities did not ply buses on potentially hazardous ones. Buses from neighbouring states were plying on select routes only after the protesters torched scores of buses.

Life was normal even in those areas that had been the scene of disruptive activities by the rampaging mobs.

However, people had to run about as many ATMs in the city were still unfunctional as banks played it safe after such machines were damaged by the mobs.

Jalandhar, May 29
With the post of Vice-Chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, lying vacant, the functioning of the university has virtually come to a halt. It has been more than three months since the top post is lying vacant.

The principals as well as the parents of students from various colleges have expressed their resentment over the non-appointment of a regular VC by the Punjab government for so long.

General Secretary of the Principals Association of Non-Government Colleges Dr Jaspal Singh Randhawa said, “At present the university is being run by ad hoc arrangement which will affect the compiling of results. At the same time this will affect the admission process in the colleges as well. The SAD-BJP government should immediately intervene and appoint a regular VC at the earliest.”

The post has been lying vacant since February when former VC Dr Jairup Singh left the university to join Punjab Central University at Bathinda. The officiating VC Anjali Bawra is an IAS officer and is Secretary for Higher Education. “As the officer is posted in Chandigarh she is seldom available at the university, leading to poor functioning of day-to-day affairs of the university,” said Randhawa.

Even the posts of Dean, College Development Council, and Controller of Examinations are also lying vacant. “At present there is no officer in the university who can appropriately answer the queries of the colleges, rather letters are being issued without any careful attention towards the subject concerned,” said Nirmal Pandhi, General Secretary of the association.

Registrar Dr Raghbir Singh is heading four positions at one time. “He is serving as Registrar, Dean, College Affairs, Dean, Academics Affairs, and looking after certain dedicated duties of VC,” said Randhawa.

Besides, the posts of Director, Youth Affairs, Director, Press and Publication, and Director, Public Relations, are also lying vacant for the past more than two years. “The authorities should appoint the Vice-Chancellor at the earliest and help in ending the prevailing chaos,” he added.

Jalandhar, May 29
A student of Apeejay School, Siddhant Malik, has stood first in the city and fourth in the overall Punjab Technical University CET results declared this morning.

Son of a bank manager, he has scored 104 marks out of 120. Siddhant has also cleared the BITS entrance test with a rank of 332 and is currently waiting for the AIEEE results before he makes up his mind for taking a seat. “My ultimate desire is to do electronics and communication engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering,” he aspires.

A student of MGN Public School, Raghav Aggarwal, has got the 15th rank in PTU-CET. The most commendable achievement of the boy is that he has been able to make it to the top slot without taking any tuitions. “Whenever I had doubts, I got these clarified from my schoolteachers,” he said. A state-level cricketer, he also boasts of a high score of 99 in chemistry in the CBSE class XII examination.

In a press note from the PTU, the officials stated that 26,051 candidates had appeared for the examination, of whom 25,723 had been declared eligible for engineering and 1,040 for pharmacy.

IIT rankers

Ankit Bhutani, a student of CJS Public School, has got the 302nd rank in the IIT. The student who did not take tuitions and was simply relying on guidance given by his teachers and notes dispatched to him at his place by a coaching centre, aims to do mechanical engineering from the IIT Delhi or Mumbai. He says he was much interested in topics such as eco-friendly and fuel-efficient devices owing to which he wanted to take the stream. His elder brother is doing engineering from the NIT Jalandhar. Two MGN students Vipul Khinder and Saurabh Saroya have also cleared IIT entrance by securing the 430th and 900th ranks, respectively

Jalandhar, May 29
The political parties were finding it hard to maintain the tempo of electioneering after the Nurmahal byelection was postponed to June 12 in wake of the Vienna incident.

The poll managers who have been marshalling the resources for their respective candidates said the pace of electioneering had slackened after violence broke out in Phillaur. As a result, leaders and workers had gone for a break.

A local leader belonging to the ruling alliance said it would be quite tough for all of them to start from scratch since all the good work had come to a naught. “All the money and time spent on the work done to ensure the victory of our candidate has gone down the drain. Even the workers would have to be ferried back and all the tour programmes of the senior leaders would have to re-chalked,” he said.

On the other hand, Congress managers said though the events in the past days were unfortunate, they would have more time to prepare for their campaign. “Our campaign was on full steam, although we had been complaining against the misuse of official machinery by the Akalis.”

Political pundits are of the view that there is bound to be polarisation of Dalit votes after the violence that rocked the city and its vicinity.

Whatever the outcome, the Nurmahal victory would go a long way in setting the stage for future electoral battles in the Doaba region.

Nawanshahr, May 29
SSP Rakesh Aggarwal today claimed to have busted an inter-state gang involved in 19 incidents of robbery, murder, drug smuggling and vehicle snatching by arresting its six members, including its kingpin Gurbaksh Singh, alias Balram Singh, alias Jassi, a resident of Faridkot.

Gurbaksh Singh is a proclaimed offender in a number of cases and had already been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The other gang members arrested are Kesar Singh of Rasulpur village, near Morinda, Rachhpal Singh, alias Pal, a resident of Bilaspur district (UP), Gurmukh Singh of Amritsar, presently residing in Bareilly district (UP) and Jodha Singh, of Lakhimpur district (UP). One of the gang members Narayan Gulabpuria of Bhilwara district (Rajashthan) has absconded. Besides, Kaushalaya, wife of Amrik Singh Billa of Gunachaur village (Nawanshahr), has also been arrested for giving shelter to the gang.

The Senior Superintendent of Police said acting on a tip-off that Gurbaksh Singh, along with his accomplices, had been staying at the house of Kaushalaya Devi for the past couple of weeks, Banga DSP Gurkirpal Singh and CIA in charge Inderjit Singh arrested them from a house on the link road near Gosalan village.

They were reportedly chalking out a plan to commit robberies at a number of places, including banks, in the district, the SSP said and added that a .12-bore gun, two .315-bore pistols, one .12-bore pistol, eight cartridges, a datar, a motorcycle, a tractor-trailer, a Scorpio vehicle and two Indica cars were recovered from them.

Gurbaksh Singh and his accomplices were wanted in 11 cases registered against them at different police stations and they had been declared proclaimed offenders in eight cases.