Shimla, December 22
Acting tough with rebels, the ruling BJP today cracked the whip on party leaders who refused to fall in line by ordering their expulsion from the party for six years while the Congress decided to give another chance to them till tomorrow to retire from the contest.

Acting sternly in dealing with indiscipline, the BJP today took the lead in taking action against 29 leaders who continue to queer the pitch for the party’s official candidates in 10 districts of the state where panchayat and urban local bodies polls are being held.

State BJP chief Khimi Ram issued a list of 29 rebels who refused to withdraw their candidature in favour of the party’s official nominee. He said all of them had been expelled from the primary membership of the party.

“We had urged the leaders as well as workers to sink their differences in the interest of the party and withdraw their candidature but those who did not relent will have to face the music,” he said. It was important to ensure discipline in the party and the expulsion order was in line with that party principle.

On the other hand, the Congress decided to give the rebels another chance as HPCC chief Kaul Singh Thakur again made an appeal to rebels to retire from the contest till tomorrow. “The list of rebels who will face action will be released on December 24 as the District Congress chiefs have been authorised to order suspension as per the party constitution and forward it to the PCC,” said HPCC general secretary and spokesperson Kuldeep Rathore.

The maximum number of seven rebels, who face disciplinary action, are from the home district of Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal. Those facing action include Kashmiri Lal Handa, Yashpal Gautam, Abhneesh Sharma, Mastram, Sulochna Devi, Baldev Dhiman and Ranjit Singh.

In Mandi, which too is plagued by infighting, five rebels, including Anil Kapoor, Suman Thakur, Sarita Handa, Ranjana and Roshini Devi, have been expelled. Kangra, even though the biggest and politically most significant district has only four leaders who had to face action. They are Shanti Chaddha, Kamla Patiyal, Minakshi Kalta and Kuldeep Dhiman.

Those who have been expelled from Shimla district include Hariom Thakur (Rampur) and Pradeep Bhranta (Rohru). Sirmour- Rekha Tomar (Nahan) and Neeraj Sharma (Paonta), Una- Balvinder Singh Vainsh (Mehatpur) and Balram Sahay (Daulatpur), Chamba - Preeti Malhotra, Kullu- Narender Sharma and Dinesh Sud (Bhuntar), Bilaspur- Manjeet Singh Kaur and Kamal Gautam and Solan- Subhash Balli (Nalagarh) and Ramdhyan Singh (Parwanoo).

Mandi, December 22
Students of a private college, MG Institute of Engineering and Technology, Badu, today said certain girls and boys of the college were taking their nude pictures in bathrooms by hidden cameras and were using these to make MMS and pornographic stuff for the website. They had demanded a probe and action in the case.

The students alleged that the college authorities were trying to hush up the case. They stormed the Gohar police station today and raised anti-college slogans and demanded a probe.

The students charged that two boy and two girl students, residing in the hostels, were involved in taking nude pictures of students while they took bath.

The students said they put cameras in a pocket of trousers hanging in the bathrooms. The trousers were hanged at an angle to capture the video of the students taking bath, they complained.

They had made the MMS of a girl and put it on the website. They had put the nude pictures of the victim on the laptops, they said. Some outsiders were also involved, the students charged.

Though the police has arrested the accused Abhishek under the IT Act and registered a case under Section 509, IPC, at Gohar police station today, the police claimed it had got no evidence of the controversial MMS of the girl student.

After the students created ruckus on the campus and in the police station, a police team under DSP Narinder Sharma visited the college.

Sharma said the two girls, Neha Punia and Neha Gupta, had been interrogated and while Abhishek is being questioned in police custody.

The college warden Kiran Bedi told the police that the matter had been settled and being probed by the college as well and the safety of the students had been ensured.

MD of the MG group of colleges MG Sharma did not respond to the repeated calls made by this correspondent in this regard.

Solan, December 22
The working of Dabur’s Baddi-based unit has come under a cloud with officials of the health department confiscating a large quantities of Glucose D cartons which carried batch numbers of January 2011 though these had been manufactured in December.

Officials said the unit was raided on the receipt of information from the Health and Ayurveda Minister Dr Rajiv Bindal. Dr Bindal said no such irregularity would be tolerated as the state was committed to checking all such malpractices.

A team of officials, including drug controller Navneet Marwaha and drug inspector Garima Sharma, which raided the unit located at plot number 12, Industrial Area, around 3:30 pm today, found two truck loads of Glucose D cartons being rushed out of the unit.

The officials stopped the trucks and seized the Glucose D stock with the help of police officials. The unit had obtained a licence from the CMO, Solan, under the Food and Prevention of Adulteration Act, for manufacturing it and it was valid till 2011.

As many as 1,100 cartons were found in the two trucks and the unit’s store room. Inquires are being made to gather information about the whole stock.

Four batches -1692, 1695, 1702 and 1716 - were seized by the team as these carried manufacturing date of January 2011 while they had been manufactured in the first week of December, revealed the officials. This was a violation of the norms as the manufacturing date had been pushed forward by almost a month on the packaging material and it amounted to cheating the consumers.

The unit management, however, pleaded before the officials that appearance of January 2011 was a human error. However, it failed to hold ground as the unit had tried to send truckloads of the product to various places in Baddi, including their other units after learning about the raid.

Since food inspector Satish Thakur was away on court evidence, the medical officer Dr NK Gupta rushed to the unit to initiate action as per the violations detected.

Dr NK Gupta said a show-cause notice had been given to the unit to explain this irregularity and if its response was not found satisfactory, the licence could be suspended.

Shimla, December 22
Notwithstanding the continuous increase in temperature minimising the chances of a white Christmas, tourists from all over the country have converged on the “Queen of Hills” to celebrate Christmas and New Year.

Most hotels are showing very good occupancy rate while these are almost booked from Christmas to January 1. However, the cold, which had intensified its grip all over the state last week with minimum temperature touching as low as 2.2 degrees Celsius in Shimla, seems to be losing hold as the mercury has begun to soar, more than normal for this time of the year.

The maximum temperature recorded here today was 15.1 degrees Celsius while the minimum was 6.4 degree. Both the day and night temperatures are almost four degrees above normal.

In fact, as per the forecast by the local Meteorological Centre, the weather will remain dry till December 26. There could be rain or snow at isolated places in the hills in a day or two.

There is an air of festivity as tourists as well as locals are taking part in the Christmas celebrations being held at Christ Church on the Ridge and other churches and chapels in the city. Tableaux, representing scenes from Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus Christ have been prepared at various places amidst singing of Christmas carols. With no cloud cover and clear sky during the night, people are enjoying ice skating.

The district administration and the police have made arrangements to ensure that the law and order situation remains under control as thousands of tourists throng Shimla to celebrate Christmas and New Year. Certain areas, including Chaura Maidan and Boileauganj, have been opened for parking during the last week of December to enable proper parking and traffic management.

An additional police force has been deployed in various parts of the town to ensure that there is no hooliganism and night patrolling too has been intensified.

Dharamsala, December 22
The BSNL authorities in the state have been forced to shell out about Rs 33 lakh on account of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) scam committed by contractors working for the organisation in the Dharamsala and Hamirpur circles.

The scam was allegedly committed in connivance with certain BSNL officials. The BSNL has now started the process of recovering the amount from the contractors. If the authorities fail to recover the amount from them, the liability could be shifted to certain BSNL officials posted in the Dharamsala and Hamirpur circles.

As per information available with The Tribune, the EPF authorities had detected that Rs 29,84,890 was not deposited by the contractors working for the BSNL in the circles from October 2000 to March 2010. Another Rs 2,78,020 was swindled during June 2003 to May 2008. The amount was to be deposited into the EPF accounts of temporary labour working for the BSNL contractors, generally laying telecom lines in the state.

As per the EPF rules, the contractors working for the BSNL had to deposit 12.5 per cent component of salary and an equal share from their own pockets in the EPF account of the daily wage earners.

The condition was included in tender documents and contract agreements made by the contractors with the BSNL.

A direction was also issued by the corporate accounts section of the BSNL to the bill passing authorities of the BSNL here that they must check the payment particulars regarding EPF contributions of the contractors before clearing their bills.

However, contractors did not deposit the amount in EPF account of poor labourers. They even did not deposit 12.5 portion of their share contribution in EPF accounts of labourers. Account officials of the BSNL and the higher authorities working in the circles also made the payments to contractors without verifying their documents.

As per the EPF Act, if the labourers are not paid provident fund by the contractors, principal employer (BSNL in present case) is liable to pay the amount.

As per the orders of the EPF commissioner, Chandigarh, this month, BSNL had to deposit Rs 31 lakh from its own coffers.

General manager, BSNL, Hamirpur, who is also holding the additional charge of Dharamsala these days, Ishb Singh, said they had started the process of recovering the amount from the defaulting contractors. When asked if some action would be taken against the employees who failed to check the evasion, he said if the amount was not recovered, the employees would be held liable.

The case was brought into limelight by the Anti-Corruption and Crime Investigation Cell, a Punjab NGO.

Hamirpur, December 22
While five candidates are in the race to capture the post of president of the Hamirpur municipal council, the contest is emerging quite interesting with three veterans also in the fray. As the campaigning is gradually picking up, the candidates have started door-to-door campaign and trying to reach the voters.

The BJP has fielded sitting MC president Deep Kumar, who had been elected ward member four times.

On the other hand, the Congress has also fielded an experienced and sitting member Prakash Chand who had represented ward no 8 twice.

Prakash Chand was elected from ward no 8 in 1986 and 2005. The third veteran in the fray is Kashmiri Lal Handa who is contesting as independent candidate this time.

Handa had joined the BJP during last Parliament election after revolting against the Congress but has now ditched the BJP after denial of ticket to contest this election.

He had been elected five times from ward no 4, 6 and 8 and is continusaly getting elected from 1978 onwards till date and had remained MC vice-president and president.

To challenge these veterans, a youth leader Avnish Kumar, who had been an ABVP leader and elected in the college elections, is also in the fray as an independent candidate.

Another independent Yashapal is also trying his luck in this election.

Shimla, December 21
Having made great strides in the field of literacy, almost on a par with Kerala, the state will reserve a seat each in all professional courses in 200 colleges for the single girl child, its novel way of fighting female foeticide.

The executive council of Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) has approved the proposal put forward by the secretary, student council, Shalini, that the provision of seat reservation for single girl child should be extended to professional courses in all colleges in the state.

Dharamsala, December 22
The police has arrested three youths from Kangra, Tilak, Subhash and Puneet, while trying to smuggle narcotics and mobile phone in Dharamsala jail. Sources here said last night, three accused came in a car and were trying to throw across the jail wall narcotics and mobile phone. They were spotted by the jail warden who raised an alarm. The police deputed near the jail arrested the accused.

Kangra ASP Umapati Jamwal said a mobile phone and 9 gram charas was seized from the accused. The accused had informed the police that they were trying to smuggle the material to their friend Suman who was in the jail.

Jamwal, however, said the accused and jail authorities had yet to establish a link between Suman and the arrested youths. The police has registered a case under the NDPS Act against the accused.

The sources said one of the arrested accused was also allegedly involved in other criminal cases in Kangra.

In the recent past, a jail inmate died under mysterious circumstances.

Chamba, December 22
The Additional Sessions Judge, Chamba, Yashwant Singh, yesterday, convicted accused Jagdev, resident of Ladwah, Pargna Juhand, tehsil Salooni, district Chamba, in a murder case and sentenced him to life imprisonment and imposed on him a fine of Rs 25,000. In the event of default in the payment of the fine, the convict shall undergo an additional imprisonment of one year.

On August 27 last year, the complainant Dilo Devi, wife of Late Dhruv Ram, had got her statement recorded under section 154 CrPC to the police that the occurrence pertains to the month of Bhadon.

“I do not remember the date. I along with my husband had gone for grazing of cattle towards primary school, Sandhi. It was the time of the day when my husband, schoolchildren and I were present there and no one else. Naresh, one of the accused had injured my husband about three years back; so we had a dispute with the accused. All the accused gathered around us and insisted on a compromise, but my husband refused,” the statement reads.

According to the statement, when Dilo Devi’s husband refused to compromise, all the accused allegedly started abusing them. Accused Jagdev shot my husband ,” she further stated.

Three accused have been acquitted. However, Jagdev, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.