Kapurthala, June 1
Three youths were wounded in a gang war between two groups of youths in the district courts complex here on Monday. The wounded persons have been identified as Makhan, Deepu and Dilpreet alias Tippu. Makhan reportedly sustained serious injuries. All the injured were initially admitted to the local civil hospital, from where the wounded Makhan was referred to a private hospital in nearby Jalandhar city.

Surprisingly, the clash took place in the district courts complex where the offices of the SSP and DC are also located. Several policemen reportedly played mute spectators to the incident.

So much so, some of the eyewitnesses said the police present in the courts complex had not even come to the rescue of the wounded persons who were bleeding profusely. They reportedly went to the civil hospital on their own in a rickshaw for their treatment.

Talking to mediapersons in the civil hospital, the wounded Deepu and Dilpreet alleged they had been attacked by Lucky, Gopi, Navi and Lavi along with some of their accomplices with swords and other sharp-edged weapons due to some old enmity.

They said they had gone to the courts complex to appear in a case when they were attacked by the other group.

SSP Ram Singh was reportedly in Jalandhar to attend a meeting at the time of the clash.

A case has been registered in this regard. However, all accused are reportedly absconding.

Jalandhar, June 1
In a workshop organised by the Punjab Technical University, the authorities, in association with the officials from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) today finalised modalities for online counselling for admission to B.Tech and B.Pharmacy through CET.

The representatives from various participating institutes, including Guru Nanak Dev University, Punjabi University, Punjab Agricultural University and PTU’s affiliated colleges, were apprised about various steps that have to be followed in this regard.

The colleges were told that the first step in the process would begin on June 8 when the candidates would have to submit the counseling fee to the tune of Rs 2,500 at the nearest branches of some designated banks. The candidates will be given 10-12 days for the same at the end of which the PTU and the banks will verify the same.

After the fee deposition, the next process will be online registration. The students will have to visit the website www.ptu.ac.in, go to the relevant column, fill in their roll numbers, OMR application number, date of birth and other details, such as the categories they wish to apply through.

The candidates will then get a login ID which will be their roll number. They, however, will have to create their own password which they will have to keep secret.

“There was much stress on the point as the officials told us that passing on the password to friends could prove detrimental to the candidates themselves who might attempt to change their preferences and other details,” the representatives, from colleges who attended the workshop, revealed.

The process of filling up of preferences would begin on June 29 and would continue for a week, following which a pre-eligibility checklist would be put up on the website on July 23.

The candidates would then get a few days to report to the colleges that they get admission to where they would also have to appear for their eligibility tests and documentation testing. The colleges too were asked to create their own IP addresses as a PTU-college interface.

The colleges would upload the admission details back to PTU after a stipulated time and present their vacant seats status. The seats of the candidates who do not report would also get declared vacant. A second round of online counseling will then be carried out by the PTU to fill up these seats.

Meanwhile, PTU finally started taking examination, of the students, which had been kept postponed for long. The papers that were to start on June 8 are almost three weeks behind schedule. The authorities also put up a revised date sheet of the postponed papers on the website. 

Hoshiarpur, June 1
In a condolence meeting organised here today by the Punjab Christians Front (PCF), Lawrance Chaudhary, President, William Masih, General Secretary, Stephon Masih, Vice President of the PCF, Prof Surinder Pal, General Secretary, Hoshiarpur unit, Kuldip Singh, former President Pastor Association and many others paid floral tributes to late Sant Ramanand, who was gunned down in Vienna on May 24.

All the speakers condemned the Vienna incident and the violence following it. They demanded a high-level probe into the incidents and compensation for the affected persons and action against all those responsible for the arson and violence. They appealed to all sections of the society to maintain peace and communal harmony. 

Amritsar, June 1
As the sale of spurious milk and milk products increases in the summer season due to reduction in milk production, the district administration has decided to keep a check on this activity this time.

Deputy Commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu said it has come to light that there were certain unscrupulous persons, who were involved in the production and sale of spurious milk along with genuine milk and its products including cheese, khoya, ghee etc.

He said 10 teams, which have been formed to check tobacco use in public places and proper implementation of anti-tobacco law, would also keep an eye on such persons.

However, the health authorities said the department used to take samples from time to time, but there were no such reports of the manufacture of spurious milk products in this border district, rather these are supplied from Haryana and UP side, where these are manufactured at a large scale.

The DC said that they would conduct surprise raids, along with district administration teams, to ensure quality milk supply to the residents.

Amritsar, June 1
Seventeen-year-old Monu, a resident of Mohkampura locality, here drowned in the Upper Bari Doab (UBD) canal near Taran Wala Bridge yesterday where he had gone to take bath. He was a Class X student of a government school in the locality.

His body was recovered today by three divers hired by the police as his friends failed to locate his body which was later handed over to his family after postmortem. Monu is a son of Raj Kumar, a fourth class employee in the government-run Guru Nanak Dev Hospital here.

As the temperature in the region was soaring high, he along with his friends had gone to have a bath in the canal to beat the heat. However, as he jumped in the canal he did not come up again. His friends tried hard to locate him, but in vain. They informed the police that the victim did not to know swimming. The police called the divers to recover the body which was struck in the mud underneath.

Jalandhar, June 1
The Science Teacher Association, Punjab, would meet Director General School Education, Krishan Kumar, on June 3 to discuss issues pertaining to raising the standards of teaching science and mathematics in government schools.

President of the association, Ranjit Singh Dhanoa, said the status of science education has come down owing to the wrong policies of the state government in the past some years.

“There are no practical sessions for the students in the middle school till class X, which in turn leads to poor results in the exams”, said Dhanoa.

He added that even the introduction of EDUSAT in government schools has led to the deterioration of the education system in the state.

“At present, nearly 90 percent of the middle schools in the state have no science and mathematics teachers, which is affecting the standard of education in the government schools”, he added.

Nawanshahr, June 1
The district unit of the Ex-servicemen Cell (PPCC) organised a meeting here today at the Punjab Mata Vidhyawati Bhawan under the chairmanship of Lt-Col Jernail Singh.

The members of All India Ex-servicemen League also participated in the meeting. While congratulating the newly-elected Lok Sabha member, Ravneet Singh Bittu for his victory, the ex-servicemen urged him to take up the issue of setting up ECHS Polyclinic at Nawanshahr, which could cater to the needs of the population of about 10,000 ex-servicemen residing in the Nawanshahr, Banga, Balachaur and Garhshanker assembly segments falling in the Anandpur Sahib parliamentary constituency. — OC