Jalandhar, May 30
Tension prevailed at the local Abadpura locality - a Dalit-dominated area - after members of the Ravidass community placed their newly formed granth “Amritbani Satguru Ravidass Maharaj Ji” at Sri Guru Ravidass Mandir (gurdwara) here today. Heavy police force was deployed to avert any untoward incident.

While the police authorities were found saying that they reached the gurdwara premises fearing any untoward incident, the community members blamed them for stopping them from placing the granth in the gurdwara. This despite the fact that the community members held a “Prakash” and placed the “Amritbani” granth at around 4 pm in the gurdwara.

The granth was placed at a newly separated portion of the years’ old Sri Guru Ravidass Mandir of the locality. While one portion of the gurdwara, separated by a common wall on the same premises, houses Guru Granth Sahib, the other was decorated to house the “Amritbani” granth.

“We respect the religious sentiments of people. We have no qualms about both the granths placed on the same gurdwara premises. And neither we force anybody to follow our granth. People of our locality are comfortable following both the granths and all are free to follow any granth of their choice,” said Kamaljit Singh, a community leader.

The community members said the police was aware of the placing of the granth and policemen had been deployed since 11 am. Later in the evening ADCP Satinder Singh, ADCP Sarbjit Singh and ACP R.P.S. Sandhu reached the gurdwara premises and held a meeting with the community members to discuss the issue.

“The police officials told us to shift the granth to some other place or keep it at somebody’s house as the matter would be sorted out later. However, we have made it clear to the police authorities that the granth would remain placed at this gurdwara only. And we will not shift it at any cost,” said a community member.

The community members also maintained that the administration had earlier visited the gurdwara premises and gave them a go ahead. President of the Sri Guru Ravidass Naujawan Santokh Sabha, Abadpura Anil Kumar said,“We had taken prior permission from the former Deputy Commissioner of Jalandhar Ajeet Singh Pannu regarding placing the granth at the gurdwara. However, now we are being refused on the pretext of using the same gurdwara premises for placing the new granth.”

Commissioner Gaurav Yadav, however, maintained that they were there to check any violation against the placing of the granth. “We had gone there to check any law and order confrontation,” he added.

Earlier in the day, members of Sri Guru Ravidass Dharam Yudh Morcha held a religious ceremony on the first death anniversary of the deputy chief of the Dera Sachkhand, Ballan, Sant Ramanand, at the Boota Mandi locality.

Satish Kumar Bharti, president of the morcha, said the community had decided to rope in as many as 1 lakh volunteers to act as guards for the publicity of the granth. “The volunteers would work in the region from place to place to propagate the new religion among the masses,” he added.

Jalandhar, May 30
Contrary to the established notion, education and wealth hardly play any role in the improvement of skewed sex ratio in the country, especially in the north Indian states.

Rather, the bitter truth is that female to male sex ratio is pretty low in both the highly educated and high-income group families.

This was stated by Dr Kiran Ambwani, Deputy Commissioner, Family Planning Division of Department of Health and Family Welfare, which is responsible for policy making and monitoring family planning programmes across the country.

She was here to attend a function organised by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Jalandhar, under the presidentship of Dr Sanjeev Sharma. Talking to The Tribune, Ambwani said educated and rich couples could easily access sex determination facilities like ultrasound and amniocenteses and eventually abortion facilities in private hospitals.

“As such practices are prohibited, the government is not in a position to maintain data about such abortions. However, the high prevalence of female foeticide in educated and rich couples is clear from the fact that sex ratio is disturbingly low in such groups as compared to poor and illiterate couples,” she affirmed.

As per the recent National Family Health Survey-III, the number of female children per 1,000 males is 854 in families of the high-income group against 954 in the low-income group.

Similarly, the figure is 841-870 in case of uneducated women against 830 in educated women.

She said, “We brand poverty, illiteracy and religious constraints as the root causes of the failure of such programmes and try to project a fantasy that ‘desire for a son’ has crept in our society. However, the fact is that in the want of a son, the poor are reproducing more and the educated and rich are aborting more. The former condition leads to an increase in the population and the latter trend negates the sex-balancing component of the population control programmes,” she added.

Dr Savita Mehta, National Director of Contraceptive and Safe Abortions project of IMA, said sex ratio was better in the regions where movements of women empowerment were relatively strong. The problem is largely owing to the feudal fabric of our society.

Hoshiarpur, May 30
Chairman of the District Development and Planning Board and an MLA Amarjit Singh Sahi yesterday condemned the Maoists for the train accident caused by them in West Midnapore district, near Kharagpur, in which more than 150 passengers were killed and over 200 injured.

Talking to mediapersons here, Sahi criticised the UPA government for its failure to check and control the activities of anti-national forces like Maoists and terrorist outfits, which were not only causing deaths of innocent persons but also posing serious threats to the unity and integration of the country.

Such type of elements should be crushed with iron hands. But constituents of the UPA government were not serious about the anti-national problem, lamented Sahi, apprehended that the these anti-national forces might disintegrate the country for which people would not forgive the UPA.

Jalandhar, May 30
Suspecting unethical sale at a medicine shop in the wholesale market here, District Drug Inspector Kulwinder Singh yesterday seized habit-forming drugs worth Rs 2.65 lakh.

The inspector said the seizure was part of an inspection held two days back.

“On a tip-off, we had found a rickshaw supplying 1,200 bottles of habit-forming syrups sent for Mahalaxmi Medicos. When the rickshaw-puller, coming from a transporter, was asked to produce the bills, he had shown it for 2,400 bottles, claiming that he had already supplied 1,200 bottles earlier. But by the time we were to conduct a raid, the man shut his shop and went away,” Kulwinder said.

“We kept contacting the owner but he did not respond. We then sealed his shop. On Saturday he agreed for the inspection during which we seized 1,648 habit-forming syrup bottles, 1.11 lakh tablets, 7,400 capsules and 510 injections,” said the drug inspector, adding that the items had been purchased on valid bills but were being sold unethically without doctors’ prescription.

Amritsar, May 30
Amidst rumours of the arrest of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) terrorist Baba Bakshish Singh by the Punjab police, its counter-intelligence wing, state special operation cell, yesterday searched the Sultanwind area. However, no official from the wing confirmed his arrest.

Though sources admitted that the area, once known as mini-Khalistan, had intensively been searched for the past four days owing to information of his being hiding there.

The alleged mastermind of the murderous attack on Dera Sacha Sauda chief in Karnal, Bakshish Singh is wanted in more than two dozen cases of terrorism-related activities.

The police also suspected his hand in the planting of a petrol bomb in the Sultanwind area and abandoning of an RDX-laden car near the railway station here. Sources said he was in contact with Pakistan’s ISI and was trying to revive the group.

Jalandhar, May 30
As many as 1,067 traffic challans were disposed of at a special Lok Adalat held at the district court under the aegis of the District Legal Services Authority here on Saturday.

Stating this in a press note here yesterday, District and Sessions Judge-cum-Chairman of the District Legal Services Authority Inderjeet Singh said a penalty of Rs 2,58,900 was imposed on the violators of traffic rules.