Moga, June 26
‘Infiltration’ bid to smuggle arms and ammunition in the district jail at Moga was reported here, late on Saturday night. The SDM HS Sandhu and DSP Pargat Singh had reached the spot and a search operation was carried out in the jail but no arms and ammunition were recovered from the jail premises, confirmed the SDM. He said as a precautionary measure as many as eight inmates were being transferred to some other jails in the state due to security reasons.

Sources revealed that a black colour Scorpio came outside the jail at about 4.00 pm and two persons came out of it and went inside the jail to meet some inmates lodged in the jail. Two others remained in the jeep.

A couple of hours after this when two persons were still on the jail premises the SHO of the police station (city) and in-charge of the CIA-Staff came and rounded up two persons taking the jeep into custody. When the other two persons saw this happening they immediately fled away from the spot.

Sources confirmed that some weapons had been recovered from the jeep but the senior police officers were tight lipped on it because the disclosure could help their associates to run away.

The DSP Pargat Singh while talking to The Tribune said he had sent a team of the police on raids and then only he could confirm whether an attempt was made to infiltrate arms and ammunition into the jail. “We are on the job and have also launched a search operation in the jail,” he said.

The SSP Sneh Deep Sharma said it would take a few more hours to comment anything on the incident. The jail superintendent Gurmeet Singh Dhillon also had a similar view saying that he was not in a position to comment anything at this time. It may be mentioned that the jail superintendent was not present in the jail at the time of the incident. He was reportedly at Faridkot and came here only after the local SDM and DSP reached the jail premises.

Meanwhile, the local MLA Joginder Pal Jain talking to The Tribune on phone from Delhi alleged that he had informed the home secretary of the state a few days back that some people were planning to infiltrate arms and ammunition into the jail in a plot to kill some of his supporters lodged in the jail in various cases.

He claimed that a conspiracy was planned by some persons through some inmates of the jail to kill a local Congress leader Harnek Singh also a former Sarpanch of Ramuwala Kalan village and his associate Raju of Dala village who were lodged in the jail in various cases.

A case of attempt to murder was registered against the duo along with the local MLA on May 26, 2008 at the time of panchayat elections due to political rivalry. Jain was presently out on bail. Harnek is also facing charges of sexual abuse of a woman. 

Bathinda, June 26
Irked over the indefinite snapping of power supply to village Ramniwas, residents along with large number of activists of the farmer and farm-labour unions today staged a dharna at Lehra Dhoorkot village and blocked the Bathinda-Chandigarh national highway till late evening.

With the approval of the administration, Powercom had snapped the power supply to the village on Friday. After that the villagers lodged an aggressive protest against Powercom’s drive of shifting the place of installation of meters from inside the house to outside of houses in the streets. The drive aimed at checking power theft.

The day-long dharna by the protesters on the highway, reportedly, failed to “serve” its purpose as neither the administration relented nor the power supply was reinstated. Moreover, giving no heed to their way of protest, the administration diverted the traffic through some link roads.

Though the area was turned like a fortress with heavy deployment of cops and anti-riot vehicles, the officials sitting over there avoided holding negotiations with them. Finally, observing the administration just “ignoring them,” the protesters lifted the dharna in the evening. However, leaders of the BKU Ekta (Ugrahan) and Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union warned the officials to stage it again on Sunday, if the power supply was not reinstated.

Accusing the administration of adopting “cruel” attitude towards them, villagers said, “We raised voice against the shifting of meters out of our houses as it was a step towards the privatisation of the state electricity department. If the administration was not playing foul it could resolve the issue through negotiations. But the heartless officials snapped the power supply, leaving our kids and cattle to bear the scorching weather without water and fans.”

Claiming no relent, the SDM Rampura Phul, Uma Shankar said, “This time, we are not going to tolerate the high-headedness of the handful persons, who claimed themselves to be caretakers of the villagers. Villagers are willing to have table talk with the administration but such leaders create hurdle in the process.”

On his part, the chief engineer, Powercom (west zone), VK Dua said, “As the villagers were intimidating our staff, we had left with no way out than taking this stand. However, before taking the step, the district administration was consulted and the supply was suspended only after the senior officials of the deputy commissioner gave his nod.”

Mansa, June 26
Women folk in rural areas of the Malwa belt have this time turned out in the fields in large numbers to transplant paddy because of shortage of migrant farm labour.

Women braving scorching sun to transplant paddy saplings in almost every field are a common sight as one drives through any highway in this region. Paddy transplantation is at its peak these days.

The number of farm labour migrating here from Rajasthan, Bihar, U.P and Jharkhand has been declining over the years as the centrally sponsored Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has generated employment avenues for them in their home states.

Shortage of farm labour has pushed up the contract rate of paddy transplantation between Rs 1500 and Rs 2000 per acre, claimed Nirmal Singh, a farmer.

Women outnumbered men in the job of transplantation in the villages around Bhikhi and Dhalewan in the Mansa district and Talwandi Sabo,Jeda, Gillpati, Bajakhana, Gillkalan and other places in the Bathinda district.

Reports from other parts of Malwa, including Moga, Faridkot, Fazilka, Kotkapura, Barnala and Ferozepur indicated that women and children were engaged in transplanting paddy.

Shingara Singh, a farmer leader, said it was a normal practice that the Punjabi women from families of small and marginal farmers assist the men in paddy transplantation every season, but this time their number was more because of shortage of migrant farm labour.

He said as the transplantation season was at its peak, farmers were utilising all available resources for the job.

Transplantation had got delayed a bit because of the dry spell and also due to the ban imposed by the government on this activity before June 10, Shingara Singh added.

Meanwhile, farmers were cheerful as the government was by and large supplying power for tube wells according to the schedule to facilitate paddy transplantation.

Ferozepur, June 26
The administrative action has been initiated against three officials of Punsup for their alleged involvement in the “scam” connected with filling the wheat bags with sandstones and sand to siphon off enough quantity of wheat to mint money.

The scam running into crores of rupees surfaced in this district yesterday following the detection of sandstones and sand in wheat bags by the officials of Food Corporation of India (FCI), allegedly filled by a section of officials of Punsup.

Official sources said Punsup authorities might place three officials including Surinder Singh, public distribution clerk, Jagir Singh, joint custodian and Sham Lal, field officer, either under suspension or could issue charge sheet to them by tonight.

“Besides, we are assigning the probe to an independent agency. We have taken the scam seriously and would not spare anyone, found involved in it,” said a senior functionary of Punsup on the condition of anonymity.

Deputy Commissioner, KK Yadav set up a committee comprising deputy director, food and supply, district food and supply controller (DFSC) and Tehsildar, Ferozepur to probe into the matter.

He said further action would be taken after the report of inquiry committee would be submitted to him on June 29. He said movement of wheat bags from the storage point of Punsup to the loading point of FCI had also been stopped till the completion of inquiry.

Information gathered by TNS revealed that Punsup authorities were contemplating to launch the physical verification of wheat stocks lying in its own and hired godowns in entire Ferozepur and its neighbouring districts after the scam came to light.

Sandeep Kumar, district manager, FCI, said he had witnessed such a modus oprandi used by the unscrupulous elements to siphon of food grains to mint money for the first time. However, the district manager of Punsup, Ferozepur, could not be contacted despite repeated efforts. 

Moga, June 26
The Punjab Government has set minimum standards of care for drug addicts undergoing treatment at drug de-addiction centres by making it mandatory that all treatment services should be managed by qualified and trained professionals as per clinical and human rights standards.

The norms have been formulated on the orders of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana that directed Punjab to set up an expert’s committee to set minimum standards of care for Drug Dependence Treatment Centres.

The salient features of minimum standards include the terms drug addiction being currently considered as stigmatising and unfair, the committee uses the internationally professionally preferred term ‘Substance Use Disorders’ (SUDs). 

Teja Rawela (Fazilka), June 26
To pacify the anger prevailing among the residents of this village bordering Pakistan due to constant ignorance by the successive state governments and forcing them to drink contaminated water, Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav along with official visited them here today.

The residents of this village and its surrounding areas have been facing stunted growth allegedly due to consumption of underground water contaminated due to presence of metallic substances besides from other pollutants. These villages are situated on the bank of river Sutlej, whose water has turned black due to release of polluted waters of industries and sewage of Jalandhar, Ludhiana and waste materials of tanneries of Kasur district of neighbouring Pakistan.

A team of the PPCB came to this village to collect water samples after residents raised hue and cry over their plight due to consumption of contaminated water.

Yadav said required steps would also be taken for fulfilling the needs of these villages as per the contents of report of the PPCB. 

Bathinda, June 26
Resentment prevails against the Punjab government among lakhs of employees (ministerial staff) of the state government as well as the boards and corporations against the alleged “non-seriousness” of the government towards implementation of their long-pending demands. Due to such an "indifferent attitude" of the government towards the ministerial staff, the Punjab State Ministerial Services Union is reportedly planning to chalk out a “do or die” action to compel the state government to accept their demands without any further delay.

The state leadership of the union has convened a meeting of the state executive and district presidents of the union in Amritsar on July 3 to draw up the methods of agitation and get a nod from the state executive and district presidents to implement the agitation in a big way.

Despite getting assurances from the state government time and again with regard to the demands, the union leaders are of the view that the government has been adopting dilly-dallying tactics. They will not allow the government to do so for a long, they said.

Talking to TNS today, state president of the Punjab State Ministerial Services Union Darshan Singh Bajaj said a meeting had been held on April 13 with the Chief Secretary and secretaries of departments of personnel, health, finance and vigilance with regard to the demands. At that time, it had also been decided that a meeting with the union would be held in the last week of May to settle the issues, which had not happened so far.

He said it showed that the state government was not serious towards the implementation of employees' demands.

Bajaj said their main demands included payment of arrears of the revised pay scales for 43 months, B.Ed. teacher's scale to clerk, computer training by the government to clerks in place of type test, power to civil surgeons to pass medical reimbursement up to Rs 1 lakh and filling up thousands of vacant posts in government offices.

He also expressed resentment against the government that it had not made all scale II office superintendents of the period prior to 1986 as scale one superintendent throughout the state so far.

Abohar, June 26
The three-day drama festival-cum-theatre workshop, organised by Sparsh Theatre Society, under the aegis of Punjab Sangeet Natak Academy, began at the Gopichand Arya Mahila College here last night.

The chief guest Rajinder Singh Jakhar, ex-chairman of the Fazilka Cooperative Sugar Mills, appreciated the Academy headed by eminent Sufi singer Hans Raj Hans, for choosing this tail-end small town of the state for the events. He also lauded Sparsh members for flying the flag of art high. Prof Gaurav Vij coordinator for the festival thanked those who thronged the auditorium.

Academy representative Pritam Singh Rupal from Chandigarh informed that drama festivals and workshops had this time been held in different towns of Punjab. On the day-one Satya Rang Manch, Ahmedgarh staged one of the most popular plays “Rani Kokila” scripted by Kapur Singh Ghumman. — OC

Ferozepur, June 26
Hundreds of members of the Scheduled Caste community on Saturday blocked traffic near village Khalchian, situated on the Ferozepur-Fazilka highway for hours together to lodge their protest against the damaging of septic tanks setup by them on a piece of land belonging to the Wakf Board.

They were adamant not to lift blockade until they would be allowed to set up septic tanks on that piece of land again. A leader of community, Bagga Singh, said a police functionary had assured them that they would be allowed to construct septic tank on that piece of land. The blockade continued till the filing of this report. — TNS

Bathinda, June 26
The two-day job fair for graduate students was inaugurated at Baba Farid Group of Institutions at village Deon today.

Hundreds of students from Punjab as well as Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu attended the job fair on day one. The purpose of the job fair is to provide students job opportunities at their doorstep. Over 30 companies from different sectors are participating in the fair, staff of the institution claimed. — TNS