Parol (Mohali), March 28
Reckless felling of trees in the precious forest cover here has prompted residents of this village to file complaints with senior forest officials.A complaint, filed last week, has forced the forest officials to order an inquiry, which, interestingly, is being kept secret from junior officials of the department who are suspected to be hand-in-glove with culprits, many of whom claim to be doing so at the behest of politicians and even bureaucrats.

A visit to the area revealed that hundreds of sheesham, khair and kikkar trees have been wantonly felled in sections of the 165-acre Parol forest located on the Chandigarh-Baddi road, around 15 km from Chandigarh.

Panchkula, March 28
Stung by the lure of making easy money, as many as four youngsters, including two students of Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26, Chandigarh, were today arrested by the local police for kidnapping Nipun Gupta, son of a local industrialist, yesterday.

The police arrested Lavish Gugnani (19), resident of Modern Housing complex, Sitanshu Puri (21), resident of Sector 9, and Sahil Negi (18), resident of Sector 5, Mansa Devi Complex.

Abhishek, the fourth accused, has been arrested for selling SIM cards used in this case. Except Abhishek who has been remanded in one-day judicial custody, the remaining three have been remanded in three-day police custody.

Rachit Nagpal, the main accused, who is son of a sweetmeat shopkeeper in Sector 7, is absconding. Nipun, facing a minor mental handicap, was picked as an easy target by the team.

A senior police officer said, “The mastermind is absconding. The others are saying they were lured by him and that they were involved only because they were the friends of the missing accused. Easy fast money for luxuries of life appeared to be the common motive on preliminary investigation. The details will emerge after the arrest of the main accused and a little detailed investigation, catching up on more revelations during the inquiry.”

It has come to light that Lavish and Sitanshu were students of Khalsa Collage Chandigarh. Abhishek runs a shop dealing in mobile phones at Mani Majra. Sahil, son of a bank official, was also a student.

It was yesterday only when Nipun, son of Prem Chand Gupta, an industrialist, was kidnapped by the five accused and Rs 80 lakh was demanded as ransom.

However, the police managed to recover the boy just two hours after the kidnapping. The Verna car used in the crime belonged to Sitanshu.

According to the police, Rachit, who stays in same area, found Nipun a soft target as he was not mentally fit. Rachit also found that Nipun had a friend in the name of Sapan.

Conspiring to kidnap Nipun, the accused procured two SIM cards from the shop of Abhishek on fake identity and Lavish, impersonating as Rohit, made a call to Nipun.

He introduced himself as friend of Sapan and invited him to join him near the Wah Dilli restaurant in Sector 5.

As soon as Nipun reached Wah Dilli, the accused bundled him in their car and took him towards Devi Nagar, Sector 3.

Later, they demanded Rs 80 lakh from his father for his release. The accused also told his father that if he informed the police or failed to pay the ransom, they would kill him.

The father of victim, however, complained to the police. Identifying the exact location of kidnappers through surveillance system, it sealed the entire area.

Finding themselves surrounded by the police they dumped the victim at Devi Nagar and fled, taking the advantage of darkness. The hands and legs of Nipun were tied with a rope.

The police registered a case under Section 364 (kidnapping in order to murder), 364-A (kidnapping for ransom) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

Chandigarh, March 28
A city school has charged an astounding Rs 7,700 for attesting photocopies of the Class IX and X report cards of its student, who needed it to apply for higher studies at a university in the United States.

To meet the deadline for admissions to a few select US universities has become an arduous task for Tarun Sadana, a parent, who was charged a staggering Rs 50 per page by Vivek High School, Sector 38, for getting his son’s report cards attested by the school authorities, which was made possible after repeated visits to the school.

The parent’s plea that universities in the US demand attestation by the educational institute itself was rejected outrightly by the school authorities, which described attestation of 154 pages to be a “time-consuming task.”

Claiming that attestation was the task of the public notary and not that of the school, Vivek High School now made it a policy of charging Rs 50 per page in order “to discourage parents after this case,” said Vivek High School chairperson HS Mamik.

“There were more than 150 pages and the principal had to sign every page. It wasted more than an hour. It was after this case that we introduced a system of charging money in order to discourage parents from lining up at the school for every single attestation,” said Mamik.

Sadana, who got the certified copies from Vivek High School on March 26, however, said he had had an entirely different experience at New Public School, Sector 18 (also a private school), from where his son had subsequently studied in Classes XI and XII.

He claimed that he had not been charged any fee for getting the transcripts of his son’s Class XI and Class XII results attested and sealed in an envelope, as required by the universities where his son was applying.

“It should be a matter of courtesy and routine for schools to attest report cards of their students. Why must the principal be the only person authorised,” he asked.

“An administrative functionary can be authorised. It is ridiculous that schools should be charging money for attesting transcripts of former students”, he observed.

All the accused belong to well-off families. Families of Lavish and Sitanshu own separate spare parts shops in Chandigarh. Sahil’s father is employed in a bank.

Rachit, son of the owner of a sweetmeat shop, recently alleged that he was duped of more than Rs 20 lakh by a local financier. He had alleged that he deposited Rs 10,000 everyday since last year with the financier, who assured him delivery of an Audi car. Rachit’s father told the police that Rachit paid the money without his knowledge and because of this, he had gone bankrupt.

Chandigarh, March 28
The class XI answersheets of music and computer science, which had gone missing from Government Model Girls Senior Secondary School, Sector 18, here last week, reappeared in the mail on Saturday — almost around the time when a specially conducted re-test had been completed — just as mysteriously as these had disappeared, leaving teachers and the police equally baffled.

Interestingly, the post mark on the envelope showed that the answersheets had been posted from a post office in Sector 19 located less than 2 km from the school.

The answersheets packed in two parcels were addressed to two teachers, one of whom, Ripjot Kaur, had supervised the conduct of the examination of these disappeared papers last week. The other recipient was Sarbjeet Kaur.

“On receiving the packets, the gatekeeper left them at the school office. The culprit has been cheeky to have timed the receipt of the answersheets on the very day of the re-test,” said a teacher, requesting anonymity, who was present on the spot.

The puzzling case, which is now being speculated upon to be a possible case of internal politics between some school teachers has left the UT education department in a bind.

Confirming the re-appearance of the missing answersheets, district education officer Chanchal Singh said the police would now investigate the matter to identify the perpetrators.

“A daily dairy report had been registered when the case had come to light,” he added. It is believed that the answersheets could not have disappeared without some internal connivance.

“If someone from within the school was responsible for the disappearance of the answersheets, suitable action would be taken,” he added

Chandigarh, March 28
“Malicious intent with a streak of vindictiveness is what the complaint by TK Goyal, an officer of the Punjab Civil Services, and his wife Meeta against Michael Angelo Francis, the arts teacher of St John’s High School, smacks of” noted Justice SS Sodhi, inquiry officer, in his order, signed today, into the controversial case that had rocked the city in the recent past.

Coming down heavily on the conduct of the complainant during the inquiry, Justice Sodhi, a former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, noted that “keeping in view the fact that the complainant

@had also sent a complaint to the Home Secretary, UT, the principal may consider sending a copy of this report to the Adviser and as the complainant, Goyal, is a member of the PCS, also to the Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab”.

The order read that “the striking feature of this entire episode concerning the complaint is that there were many occasions when he was asked to produce material in support of his allegations by the school management, but he refused to do so. He said he did not have faith in the school, but he gave no reason for assuming that the school did not deserve his faith. Later, when he was asked by Mr Justice K Kannan to appear in this inquiry and he was given ample opportunity to produce his evidence , he failed to do so and for no valid or plausible reason.”

“Such being the situation, there can be no escape from the conclusion that the complaint made by TK Goyal and Meeta Goyal was obviously actuated by some ulterior motive, which is wholly unbecoming for an officer to the Punjab Civil Services.”

The case came to light on November 3, 2009, when the Goyals sent their complaint to the principal of the school, alleging that Michael Angelo Francis, the teacher under question, did not teach properly, used mobile phone in the classroom, instigated minor students to become members of adult sites, made students skip their class tests by granting unnecessary permission, was not a role model for students, used unparliamentary language, used the art room for illegal activities and demanded and took money from students.”

Despite several communications addressed to them, the complainants did not produce any material in support of the allegations before the management committee of the school.

The District Education Officer, despite being told that St John’s High School was a minority institution with its own set of rules and regulations, conducted an inquiry, which reported that “the teacher had been indulging in teaching of vulgarity and cyber crime to the students. He cannot be set free for teaching of vulgarity and cyber crime to students”.

The school decided that the matter needed to be adjudicated by an independent party and the case was entrusted to Justice Sodhi on February 22 this year.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had disposed of a writ petition filed by the Goyals, noting that “there is an inquiry constituted before Justice SS Sodhi and as the inquiry notice has been served on the petitioners, it appears that the petitioners had not availed themselves of the opportunity to present themselves and tender evidence in support of the complaint”.

Chandigarh, March 28
Speaking on the dire need to restructure legal education in India, Union Cabinet Minister of Law Dr M Veerapa Moily said today post 1990 there had been no reforms in legal education.

A national convention would be held on May 1 and 2 to look into the problems of infrastructure and teachers for legal studies in India.

Talking to the mediapersons after the valedictory function of the All-India Law Congress at the Panjab University, the minister stressed on the need to amend laws to support women to wage legal battles in cases of rape, molestation, etc. “Such cases don’t end and in most cases, the laws deter women from coming forward to seek justice.”

Emphasising on giving enough representation to women even in the judicial set-up of the country, the minister said he had written to the Chief Justice of India and also recommendations had been made to the high courts.

The minister also talked about the reforms to be introduced in the next three months. The major one would be the clearing 2/3rd cases under trials in courts by June.

“A task force of senior judges has been constituted to find out a solution to the issue of pending cases,” added Moily. He also talked about setting-up of e-courts in the country.

In the two-day “All-India Law Congress” that concluded at the PU today, 130 papers were presented. Legal luminaries and academia from law as well as other disciplines were present.

Judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court were honoured, along with the former chairpersons of the department.

Chandigarh, March 28
Blending the classical conservatism and dynamic spirit of innovation in the otherwise rigid Bhartnatyam dance genre, the acclaimed dance queen, Leela Samson enthralled the audience in a scintillating recital on the second day of the Arts and Heritage Festival at the Tagore Theatre.

The minor snag of failure in electricity twice did not deter her mood to spell her magic with an adroit mastery over footwork, gestures and eloquent stage movements.

Leela transported the audience to various Indian mythological world, especially while tracing the genesis of the scared river the Ganges. Based on a kriti by Muthuswami Dikshitar set to raga Jhinjhoti, she weaved her dance sequences incorporating several myths about the river, which remains a symbol of sanctity and culture to every Indian. The presentation was well received.

Earlier, Guru Leela Samson commenced the recital with shlokas from Shiv Puran followed by a song in laudation of lord Shiva composed by Maharaja Swati Tarinual.

Next in the sequence was a dance performance on a few shlokas from Kumar Sambhav of Mahakavi Kalidas in raag bhivas, which shows the grandeur of lord Shiva.

She concluded the concert with thillana in raag natabhairav. She was accompanied by vocalist Gana Kala Bhaskara Sri G Srikanth, Balakrishanan KS on Nattuvangam, Shri G Vijaya Raghavan on Mridangam, Shri T Bhavani Prasad on Veena and G Raghuraman on flute.

Chandigarh cannot sit with closed eyes like the proverbial horse of ancestral wisdom, expecting the trouble of rapidly changing population graph, particularly in the periphery, to tide over. A planned trip by officials to gauge the ground realities will be an eye opener and should shake them and force them to sit down, immediately. They need to take stock of things for planning a streamlined growth and preventing the Bangalore example of the neat and serene environs of 'City of Gardens' turning into shambles.

If you ask the waiter for the menu in any hotel or restaurant in the city and he hands you a cricket bat instead you might be totally nonplussed. But this is exactly what is happening at Hotel Mountview nowadays. However, the bat contains the menu of the various dishes and drinks served at the restaurant. Mount View, where members of the IPL teams are putting up while their matches are on in Mohali, appears to be completely under the grip of cricket fever. Visitors are offered cricket bats listing various items with names associating them with cricketing terminology.

Chandigarh, March 28
The UT fire department is all set to issue yet another notice to the Government Multi-Speciality Hospital (GMSH) for failing to install requisite fire safety and detection mechanism at the hospital.

The fresh notice, incidentally second in the past one year, is a fallout of the last week’s fire in which the nurses’ duty room in the emergency trauma operation theatre was gutted.

The incident is a wake-up call for the hospital authorities, which have failed to implant fire safety norms in the old building.

The Tribune, in its series on fire safety measures in various institutions in the city in 2008, had highlighted the fact that GMSH did not even have fire extinguishers and alarm system, exposing patients and the staff to the threat of fire.

However, nothing seems to have changed, as the trauma operation centre, where the fire broke, out had no extinguishers.

The alarm, which alerted the patients and the staff, were the shrieks of a nurse who noticed the fire.

Confirming the move to issue notice to the hospital, station fire officer, Sector 17, JS Kang said: “To avoid accidents in future, we had issued a note to the hospital authorities a year ago and had informed them about how grave the situation was. We had directed them to install automatic fire detection and alarm system under the fire safety norms. But so far they have not done it.”

Admitting that the situation could have been worse on Friday had the fire not been detected by the nurse, Kang said it was imperative to have an alarm system and extinguishers to control the blaze.

As per the record, the hospital’s old building lacks illuminated exit ways, marking signs, fire-lift with a fireman switch, wet Riser Down Comer system, besides other safety features.

According to the fire safety guidelines, buildings should have convenient means of access, water tank, sprinkles, hose reel, extinguishers, detection system, well-lit exit signs, PA system, alternative power supply and fire lift.

Chandigarh, March 28
There is no denying the fact that being the only hospital in the region providing tertiary care, the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) is far better equipped to provide emergency care than the other two city-based government hospitals, the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, and the Government Multi Speciality Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16.

However, when it comes to cleanliness of the emergency ward, the authorities of this premier institute have a lesson or two to learn from its poor cousins (read GMSH and GMCH).

Hospitals, especially their emergency wings, are supposed to be the most hygienic places and not appear like garbage bins or public urinals.

However, the PGI’s emergency ward was far from being clean during a visit by this correspondent to the emergency ward on Thursday night.

In sharp contrast to the spick and span corridors and wards of PGI’s advanced centres of cardiology, paediatrics and eye, where one may not even mind sitting on the floor and dine, the upkeep of the emergency ward was a shame.

Overflowing garbage bins, with rubbish strewn on the floor, leaking taps and stinking and filthy bathrooms left one wondering about the unfair treatment being handed out to this ward, which on the contrary should be the most sanitised places because of the nature of the trauma cases it handles.

The four-hour stay in the ward was uneventful in terms of lack of news of doctors and nurses being absent from duty or failure of equipment but conditions there in term of hygiene were appalling.

For a hospital that has a financial budget five times that of other two city hospitals, such unhygienic conditions indicate official apathy.

Doctors on duty in the ward admitted that things weren’t exactly up to the mark and blamed people for it.

“Most of those who come to the emergency lack civic sense and don’t care about how to use urinals or where to throw garbage,” said a doctor.

However, even if one agrees with this argument, does it absolve those who are supposed to keep the place sanitised and clean?

As for the oft-reported shortcoming about lack of space and overcrowding of the ward, it’s high time the hospital authorities do something about it.

The surgical emergency desperately needs some more area as even on a routine night, corridors get crowded with stretchers, leaving no space for free movement.

A better referral system, where patients are not mindlessly sent to the surgical emergency, can ease some pressure but it’s not a permanent solution. 

Chandigarh, March 28
With the trading community faced with the onslaught of the entry of MNCs and big corporates in the retail sector, trader-friendly building bylaws are high on the agenda of Diwakar Sahoonja, the new president of the largest representative body of local traders, the Chandigarh Beopar Mandal.

Sahoonja defeated former mandal president Jagdish Arora by 80 votes (217:137) here today.

He said building bylaws needed to be made more pro-trader so that traditional traders could prosper in a highly competitive market.

Slight bitterness in the run-up to the elections was a thing of the past and all traders should put up a united front in the interests of the community, Sahoonja said after his win.

There has been no progress on various traders’ issues, including a balanced rent Act, hassle-free trader-related rules and regulations trader-friendly bylaws, construction of a ‘beopar bhavan’, inclusion of mandal representatives in various committees of the Chandigarh administration and upgradation of sector markets, over the years.

The previous executive, headed by Charanjiv Singh, in which Sahoonja was the general secretary-cum-official spokesman, had some success in persuading the administration in affecting certain changes in building bylaws.

Though the notification dated October 28, 2008, amending building bylaws, addressed some issues raised by traders over the years, major demands were still pending with the administration.

Sahoonja would have a tough time in convincing the administration about the need to have more relaxed bylaws to give a boost to Chandigarh’s economy.

Zirakpur, March 28
Despite the Mohali Administration implementing a ban on slaughter of animals and the sale of non-vegetarian products in the Mohali district on the occasion of Mahavir Jayanti today, the shops selling meat were seen open in Zirakpur and surrounding areas.

In the evening, cars were seen parked outside kiosks offering non-vegetarian soup and eggs. The officials had further mentioned that a case would be registered in case of violation. The police raided various shops at Zirakpur and seized their meat products. One of the shopkeepers said he was not aware of any such orders.

Deputy commissioner, Mohali, Prabhjot Mand when contacted, said he had asked the DSP, Dera Bassi, to check the matter and to take strict action against the violators.

Chandigarh, March 28
With the temperature rising, cut fruit and ‘banta’ bottles are in great demand, notwithstanding the unhygienic conditions under which these are prepared and served.

A visit to various areas of the city revealed that small-time vendors were selling cut fruit under unhygienic conditions and people relishing the same, putting their health at risk. Water is occasionally sprayed on cut fruits to give them a fresh look. However, the water is, too, stored in old rusted containers.

“What hygiene you are talking about. People love coming to my stall to relish these fruits,” said a fruit seller outside a wine shop near Sunbeam Hotel.

When another fruit seller was asked about cleanliness, he replied: “Health-conscious people come here to have fruits. You mind your own business.”

Poor storage facilities, refrigeration, missing garbage bins and unclean utensils are a perfect recipe for health-related diseases. Doctors in a polyclinic in Sector 22 admit that exposed eatables, unripe fruits and vegetables and ice-candies made of polluted water are the major sources of water-borne diseases. Over 70 per cent of diarrhoea cases are because of bacterial infections, they said.

Sellers of old-fashioned lemonade bottles, popularly known as ‘banta’, are also doing brisk business. Similarly, the sale of kulfi and ice-candies have also picked up, especially in the periphery of the city. However, the residents don’t realise that often impure water is the prime constituent of these ‘summer delicacies’.

An MC official said the administration had neither will nor time to check the sale of such items. However, the administration claimed that the authorities were regularly conducting raids to check the sale of unhygienic eatables. 

Chandigarh, March 28
The Pune-based classical vocalist Manjusha Sandeep Patil gave an absorbing recital at the Triveni Sangeet Sabha complex here today.

The programme, sponsored by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, was attended by music lovers.

Manjusha bared the melody of raga puriya with a sonourous alaap and in bada khyal composition “Payre veh ghare laage” in “Vilamabat gat and ek taal”. Manjusha concluded the recital with popular bhajan “ Itna toh karma swami” in raga bhairavi.