Ludhiana, August 25
While some preferred to take cover at the local railway station to save their lives, there were some who displayed exemplary bravery to save the lives of passengers.

Santosh Kumar (22), who was shot by Balbir Singh, was an employee at a tea stall. He worked on a meagre daily wage of Rs 60 and was the sole bread earner of his family that stays in UP. He used to send his earnings home for his two children.

When it came to face a challenge, he did not think twice before risking his life. According to an eyewitness, while passengers were running for cover after Balbir Singh opened fire at two GRP personnel, Santosh pinned Balbir down and got shot.

Deepak, who was travelling in the same train where Balbir hid, said it was due to the brave efforts of Santosh that the accused could not run and was nabbed by the police. “Had he not pinned him down, he would have fled,” Deepak said.

Ludhiana, August 25
His love for a woman proved to be his undoing. Dreaded Babbar Khalsa terrorist Balbir Singh, alias Bhutna, who had managed to dodge the police, was nabbed today when he was planning to start his life afresh with his lover.

Sukwinder Kaur (32), a resident of Muktsar, who deserted her husband and was living with Balbir for the past several months said she came to Balbir after breaking all ties with her husband.

She said she had persuaded Balbir to come along with her to visit her parents. It was after visiting her parents last night that they planned to visit Nanded Sahib. Balbir promised her that he would give up crime and lead a peaceful life with her.

But fate had something else in store for them. Before going to the railway station, she told him not to carry a weapon along, but he refused to listen, saying that he had a weapon since the 90s and had never moved out without it.

She said they were about to buy a ticket for Delhi, from where they were to board a train to Maharashtra, when GRP personnel Karampal Singh and Naranjan Singh got suspicious of their activities and stopped Balbir for frisking.

According to police sources, Sukwinder Kaur said Balbir found himself trapped and shot at the cops before killing Santosh, an employee at a tea stall. Sitting at the GRP police station, the frail-looking Sukhwinder Kaur said: “No one can stop Balbir and he will flee from the clutches of the police soon.”

Mandi Gobindgarh/Khamano, August 25
The trucks parked carelessly on roadsides are endangering lives. The latest incident of five of a family from Kathua getting killed after their Santro collided with one such stationary truck has revealed how wrongly parked vehicles can claim innocent lives.

Today was the fourth such grisly accident during the past few years. Earlier, nine mill workers were killed in Mandi Gobindgarh when a truck ran over them in January. Seven people got killed in the month of March near Khamano when the car they were travelling in collided with a stationed truck and six family members were killed near Madhopur Chowk of Sirhind in November last year when their car smashed into a truck.

Beside these accidents, there are numerous other accidents that took place on the busy GT Road, Ludhiana-Chandigarh road and Patiala-Sirhind road.

Husband of a police inspector, deployed in Fatehgarh Sahib, was also killed in a similar manner few months back. His car rammed into a stationed truck on the Sirhind-Patiala road.

Ludhiana, August 25
A labourer, identified as Sukh Lal (30), was killed after the wall of a factory collapsed on the Hambran road near Kali Mata Mandir here today. According to information, labourers were digging earth for laying the foundation when the tragedy occurred. The wall was around 14 to 15 ft.

Municipal corporation officials said the site where the construction was going on had employed machines for digging which could be one of the primary reasons for the mishap.

Assistant town planner Ramesh Chabbra, who visited the spot, said: “The site where the accident occurred had got a commercial plan approved from the MC and there was no lapse on the part of the civic body as the construction was yet to start.” He added that had the digging been undertaken by way of manual labour, the accident could have been averted.

Eyewitnesses said: “These people had been working for the past few days and a machine was employed for digging the earth. Suddenly, there was a noise and an alarm was raised. When we reached the site, we saw the wall had collapsed and a labourer was crying for help. We informed police and fire officials were called to undertake rescue operations, he added.

SHO Gurpreet Singh said investigations were on and no case had been registered. Photo P3

Mandi Gobindgarh, August 25
Five gunmen with covered faces today robbed Rs 3 lakh from a branch of the State Bank of Patiala at Shamashpur village near Amloh.

The robbers came at around 1.15 pm on three mobikes and were brandishing pistols and sharp-edged weapons. They took away Rs 3 lakh from the counter of the bank. They also locked all staff members, customers and the bank manager in a room before fleeing.

Eyewitnesses told the police that the guard of the bank had just left for some work after taking permission when the incident happened.

Three of the robbers were wearing turban and one of them was around 6-ft tall. They had covered their faces with handkerchiefs.

Ludhiana, August 25
The entire IT operations of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) is facing a threat of a possible collapse with the university's main systems being infected by a virus. The virus has caused such grave damage to the main server that the university engineers are foreseeing a crash anytime.

Sources in the university said the threat was so grave that the entire university staff had been directed through an e-mail to prepare a back up of all data and transfer it to safer derives.

A senior university official, requesting anonymity, said: "The entire PAU staff has received an e-mail from the network administrator of the university regarding a virus attack and the possibility of a crash anytime."

Sources added that as a result of the virus attack on the main server of the university, there is a threat of the systems collapsing. In case of a crash, the entire IT operations of the university will come to a standstill, resulting in massive losses, in terms of timely execution of official work, besides causing a lot of inconvenience to staff, students and farmers associated with the university.

The official website of PAU has also gone slow following the virus threat on the main server, as a result of which, the visitors to the site are facing inconvenience.

Ludhiana, August 25
Navita Viveky, a student of department of foods and nutrition, Punjab Agricultural University, has been awarded full-term graduate teaching assistance for pursuing doctorate in nutrition at University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

The award carries an assistance of USD 15,000 per year. Navita did BSc (honours) home science from the PAU. She qualified the All-India Combined Entrance Examination of ICAR for MSc programme and was awarded junior research fellowship.

She also got the ICAR Senior Research Fellowship for pursuing PhD in food and nutrition discipline. She bagged second prize in North-Zone Inter-University Elocution Contest held in Jammu. Courses studied by her at the PAU were equated with the foreign university’s courses.

Dr Manjit Singh Kang, Vice-Chancellor of the university, and Dr Neelam Grewal, dean, College of Home Science, congratulated Navita on her achievement.

Ludhiana, August 25
Punjab Agricultural University will be organising five kisan melas in September. Additional director communication Dr Jagtar Singh Dhiman said the series would start at Ballowal Saunkhri on September 8. It would showcase technologies for Kandi area of Punjab.

Second mela will be held on September 10 in Gurdaspur, third in Rauni, Patiala, on September 12 and fourth on September 15 in Bathinda.

Dhiman said the melas would comprise agro-industrial exhibition, question-answer sessions, disease and pest diagnostic service.

A two-day state level kisan mela will be held in Ludhiana on September 17 and 18.

According to Dr Neelam Grewal, dean, College of Home Science, the mela would showcase technologies for women.

She said there would be exhibitions on food and nutrition, where experts would guide farm women regarding dietary management of obesity, anaemia and its prevention, food hygiene and sanitation, etc.

Dr Grewal added that the projection about clothing and textile would comprise technologies of eco-friendly processing from fibre to fabric, while human development exhibition would guide visitors regarding environmental issues.

There would be demonstrations on methods of energy conservation and printing with natural dyes, Grewal added.

On-the-spot competitions, including seviyan making, clay modeling for children (7-11 years), embroidery and earthen lamp decoration will be organised during the melas.

Khanna, August 25
Twice declared dead by snake charmers after snakebite, 16-years-old Suraj today celebrated his birthday at a local private hospital. On August 12, at 2 pm, a snake bit Suraj. Instead of taking him to doctors, his mother Saroj took him to snake charmers. The snake charmers told her that Suraj was dead and she should take him back to home.

A resident of GTB Nagar, Saroj took her son to Khanna Civil Hospital. At 6 pm doctors referred her son to Ludhiana.

“Instead of taking him to Ludhiana, I again took him to snake charmers. At 7 pm, they declared that Suraj was no more. Unable to accept this, I took unconscious Suraj to Khanna Nursing Home,” she said.

For four days Suraj was kept on ventilator and he has recovered now. The doctors at Khanna Nursing Home celebrated his birthday today.

The Khanna Hospital director Dr Ranjit Singh Khanna said Suraj was in a critical condition when brought to the hospital, as it had already been five hours after snakebite, the teenager was serious.

Total cost of Suraj’s treatment was Rs 60, 000 to Rs 70, 000. Various non-government organisations had paid for Suraj’s treatment. Dr Khanna said it was only after fourth day that child started showing symptoms of recovery.

He said instead of taking victims to snake charmers, the patient should be immediately taken to a hospital and given medical care. He added that delay in the treatment could lead to death.

Jagraon, August 25
The pulses mills owners of Raikot were terrorised as the Income Tax sleuths raided three mills situated at the Sherpura road.

The mills that were raided by the teams of ITO BK Pathak and Madan Lal included Annpurna foods, Meenu Foods, Mangla Foods and Bihari Lal Pawan Kumar and Sons. The raid was conducted in the afternoon and all the communication with the mill and its owners with the outer world severed by the raiding sleuths, which came along with the police to prevent any untoward happenings.

Later, KJ Singh, Income Tax Commissioner, said a huge amount of unaccounted black money was expected to be recovered from the mill of the records was still on till the filing of the report.

However, sources revealed that more than one crore was going to be surrendered by the mill owners to the Income Tax department. The actual figures could be available by tomorrow morning. Income Tax sleuths had raided the brick-kiln owners of the city on August 11.

Ludhiana, August 25
Residents in the city today continued to reel in the hot weather conditions as the power supply eluded major parts of the industrial hub of the state for eight hours starting from early morning.

The power cut of such a long duration also defied the claims of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) that no power cut was being imposed on mixed feeders anywhere in the state beyond the scheduled seven-hour power with periodic relaxations depending on the availability of power.

Almost half the city remained without power supply from 6 am to 7 am while in the other half, power cut was imposed from 7 am to 8 am. Thereafter, the power cut which commenced from 10 am continued almost in the entire city till 5.15 pm with supply being resumed just for about 15 minutes from 12.30 pm to 12.45 pm.

Senior officials in the PSEB, Patiala, claimed that power cut of six hours was to be applied for a day as against scheduled seven hours.

PSEB officials in the city were uncertain about the duration and timing of power cut. One of the senior PSEB officials in the city said maximum seven hours cut was to be imposed and had no clue regrading the extra one hour.

Ludhiana, August 25
Hundreds of residents of HIG flats in Dugri Urban Estate, Phase I, here, have persistently been taking up the issue of boundary wall, a part of which was pulled down by some miscreants more than a year ago, without evoking any positive response from authorities of the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA).

Through a spate of representations sent to senior officials of PUDA here as also to the Punjab Chief Minister and other government functionaries at Chandigarh, the affected residents have alleged that the boundary wall around a park (No. 150) near the HIG flats was deliberately demolished by certain residents of Jawaddi village who wanted a common passage to the Dugri main road along the canal from this site.

Residents alleged that the absence of the boundary wall had provided an unrestricted access to outsiders into the PUDA colony, posing great security risk to them. “The bad elements, drug addicts and other persons enter the colony through the park and keep creating nuisance, much to the annoyance of bonafide residents,” said a resident of the colony.

Functionaries of the HIG Residents Welfare Association told The Tribune that a deputation of area residents had met the PUDA chief administrator AK Sinha in April who had given an assurance that the work for reconstruction of the part of the boundary wall was held up due to the model code of conduct for Lok Sabha polls, and further that the work will be taken in hand after the elections.

However, even after the additional chief administrator of PUDA, Indu Malhotra, had visited the site and the fact that the engineering department of PUDA had already prepared an estimate for reconstruction of the demolished portion of the boundary wall, there had been no progress in this regard till now.

A senior PUDA official said there was apprehension of law and order problem as a section of Jawaddi residents was opposed to reconstruction of the wall since it would block the common passage being used by them to gain access to the main road.

“We have made a formal request to the district authorities and the police administration to provide adequate police force for this purpose. As and when we get the police protection, the boundary will be reconstructed as provided in the site plan of the colony,” he said.

Ludhiana, August 25
Punjab sports department in collaboration with the Panchyat Youth Sports and Games Movement, will be organising the District Level Tournament (boys and girls) from August 27 to 29 at the Guru Nanak Stadium.

According to Jaswinder Singh Bhandari, district sports officer, Ludhiana, said players who secured the first position in just-concluded block level games were eligible to participate in these games. Those who emerged winners in wrestling, athletics and weightlifting were also eligible for the tournament. Competition will be held at the Guru Nanak Stadium.

Machhiwara, August 25
A 12-year-old boy has been arrested for killing his friend over a trivial issue. The body of 10-year-old Biru Sahni was found lying in a pool of blood adjoining a garbage dump.

The family members of the boy suspected the role of his friends behind the murder and the police interrogated three boys who were playing with the victim yesterday.

One of the boys, during interrogation, admitted that he killed Biru yesterday after they fought over a trivial issue while fishing in a canal.

Some passersby and residents informed the police that they saw the boys fighting. The accused told the police that he hit Biru twice with a brick and he fell unconscious. They left him lying in a pool of blood.

The incident took place at around 1 pm and during a search by his family, Biru was found dead near Bali Beg Basti. The police said the accused was a student of Class IV and had been playing with the victim for the past several days.

Ludhiana, August 25
A truck carrying more than 30 buffaloes/calves was intercepted by the activists of Care of Animals and Protection of Environment (CAPE) India, Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Jamalpur at the Chandigarh road last evening, followed by registration of a case against three men, including the truck driver.

The cattle were being illegally transported to Meerut for “slaughtering”. The truck driver did not have any certificate from the department of the Animal Husbandry or Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI). It is mandatory for the owners of the animals to acquire the certificate for transporting the dairy animals even within the city.

In a clear violation of the Prevention of Cruelty towards Animals Act, a large number of dairy farmers operating in Tajpur dairy complex and Haibowal dairy complex are illegally transporting buffaloes for “slaughtering” outside Punjab.

These dairy farmers do not procure any certificate from the department of animal husbandry, Punjab or Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), which is mandatory for transporting the dairy animals.

Ironically, the cops were repeatedly given information of four trucks carrying cattle illegally in the past one week, but they failed to take any action. On one occasion The Tribune correspondent too called up the police control room to pass on the information, but to no avail.

However, last evening the truck was followed, intercepted by the above mentioned activists and the police was called on the spot that left them with no option but to register a case.

So much so that deputy director animal husbandry Dr Joginder Singh having tried hard had failed to get any help from the district administration and the police.

There has been a perpetual increase in the smuggling of cattle from Ludhiana to other states of the country over the past few years as the law enforcement is negligible. “The nexus of transporting cattle is operating under the shelter of cops who despite getting the information give them a free access out of the city,” alleged an activist of the AWBI.

The drivers/ cleaners carry money, which is distributed to the cops on every barrier to give them the clearance to transport the animals, the activist alleged further.

Ludhiana, August 25
Judokas from Bhartiya Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School, Udham Singh Nagar branch, proved their mettle and annexed the overall championship in the under 14 and 17 categories in the girl’s section of the Ludhiana District Inter-School Judo Championship being organised by the education department at the indoor multipurpose hall of Guru Nanak Stadium here today.

In the under 14 category, BVM School, Udham Singh Nagar, secured 23 points to win the title while Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Division No. 3, collected 14 points to finish at second place. BVM Senior Secondary School, Chandigarh road branch, garnered 11 points and had to content with third position.

In the under 17 category, BVM School, Udham Singh Nagar branch, accumulated 29 points to win top honours and BVM School, Chandigarh road branch, secured 11 points to finish as runners up. The third position was shared by BCM Senior Secondary School, Chandigarh road branch, and Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Division No. 3, as they secured 10 points each.

However, in the under 19 category, Guru Girls Senior Secondary School, Model Town, secured 30 points to stamp its superiority over others. BVM School, Udham Singh Nagar branch, with 17 points finished at the second place while Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Division No. 3, secured 14 points and finished at third place.