Nakodar, June 3
Days after an outbreak of gastroenteritis hit Bathan village in Mehtpur that claimed a man’s life, it was the turn of Kasupur village at Shahkot to be down with the water-borne disease.

The gastroenteritis claimed life of Harpreet Kaur (18), a 10+1 student. The girl died last night at her residence. Due to her death, panic spread among villagers.

The moment villagers felt the symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting and breathlessness, they started moving to the Civil Hospital. More than 24 admissions were reported in private and the Civil Hospital. Majority of the victims are women and children. Medical teams immediately swung into action and started door-to-door inspection of the villagers.

Veena Paul, SMO, Civil Hospital, said the disease spread due to mixing of sewage water with the only drinking water source of the village. She said the medical camp would be held for four days and 145 villagers had already been examined.

She further said 2,500 tablets of chlorine were distributed and clean drinking water source has been arranged for the villagers. Along with stool samples of the villagers, water samples have already been sent to laboratory for testing.

Meanwhile, war of words has started between the villagers and Sanitation & Water Supply department.

The villagers blamed the authority for adopting lackadaisical attitude towards the problem.

Amrik Singh, Malkit Singh, along with other villagers told The Tribune that pump operator Nirmal Singh Bhatti was not serious about his job. They lamented that he was absent from the past one year.

Due to this, the villagers themselves operate the water tank. They said they had asked the concerned department to clean the surroundings of the water tank many a times but in vain.

Prem Nath, SDO, Sanitation and Water Supply, said the authority had conducted a survey on February 25 and found that the sewage water was mixing with the drinking water source and on March 1, the authority even sent a letter to the Sarpanch of the village to repair water source to prevent spreading of water-borne diseases.

The SDO further said after sending a reminder on May 17 again, a final letter on May 28 was sent to the Sarpanch regarding the closure of the water supply. He lamented that despite closing the water supply, the villagers started operating water pump at their own.

He also promised to take action against the errant pump operator employed by the department.

Assistant Civil Surgeon and Executive Magistrate Bhupinder Singh also visited the village to take stock of the situation.

Meanwhile, the villagers demanded that the water tank and its supply pipes should be cleaned.

At Bathan village, as many as 89 cases of gastroenteritis were reported.

Jalandhar, June 3
Irked over the “indecisiveness” of the state government in regularising their services, members of the Sarv Shiksha Abhayan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhayan (RMSA) Teachers’ Union announced here today to launch fast unto death from June 5.

Representing over 13,000 such teachers in the state, the union leaders said the decision to adopt the extreme form of protest was due to repeated failures of the government to keep its promises made at different points of time during their struggle.

Refuting the state government’s claim that the states could not regularise SSA and RMSA teachers as the projects were run by the Central Government, Didar Singh, president of the union, said around seven states had already regularised the services of the SSA and RMSA teachers.

“When such states can regularise the teachers working under the similar project, what is the hitch for the Punjab Government. Moreover, if the regularisation is technically not feasible, then why the government had promised us the same,” he questioned.

Ram Bhajan, general secretary, said owing to their contractual jobs, such teachers were not entitled to benefits and allowances given to permanent employees. “This variation is discriminatory as we are equally qualified and perform similar jobs as that of our regular counterparts. Therefore, SSA and RMSA teachers are equally eligible to be taken as regular employees,” added Bhajan.

Batala, June 3
As many as 13 persons, including two Lambardars and 11 others, were booked in a fraud case. The accused were trying to usurp agriculture land measuring 26 kanals at Said Mubarak village on the Batala-Amritsar Road.

Rekha Rani, owner of the land, stated in her complaint that her husband Harinder Parkash died on April 17, 2010, and seven months later, her son also breathed his last. She said her husband had got a will registered in her favour before his death.

She added that she came to know about the fraudulent deal struck between her impostor Rekha Rani w/o Harinder Parkash with some land mafia. She accused Rekha Rani (impostor) for selling her prime land to a group of property agents in connivance with two Lambardars.

The police has registered a case under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 120-B of the IPC against Munna Kumar s/o Avdesh Kumar r/o H.No. 1255/5, Chack Hussaiana Lama, Tehsil and District Jalandhar, Sumitra Devi w/o Ashok Kumar r/o Batala, Ajay Kumar c/o Sumitra Devi w/o Ashok Kumar s/o Siya Ram Singh r/o Batala, Balwinder Singh, Lambardar r/o Batata Sarki, Deepak Kumar deed writer, Tehsil Compound, Batala, Sukhdeep Singh s/o Lal singh r/o Gobind Nagar, H.No. 639/12, Ludhiana, Sham Singh Lambardar, Tehsil Compound, Ludhiana, Naresh Luthra r/o Batala and Rakesh Aggarwal (Daagi) r/o Batala and four other unknown persons.

Naresh Luthra and Rakesh Aggarwal said they were not involved and said their names were added in the FIR later on for political reasons.

All accused are at large.

Jalandhar, June 3
The Jalandhar (Rural) Police has arrested Chhinda Singh, an international drug smuggler, and seized 1 kg of heroin and fake currency worth Rs 10,000 from him. The value of the heroin is said to be Rs 5 crore in the international market.

Acting on tip-off, the police laid a trap in Adampur last evening and arrested Chhinda Singh, a resident of Mundhala Chhanda in Jalandhar, while he was carrying the contraband and fake currency in a packet.

The police revealed that the contraband had been brought from Pakistan as the packet in which it was wrapped had Pakistan and Afghanistan stampings over it.

Chhinda, who has been arrested under the NDPS Act and taken on four-day police remand, will be interrogated at Joint Interrogation Centre in Amritsar to get more information about the network of smugglers involved in smuggling contrabands and fake currency into India from across the border.