Nawanshahr, June 15
The SSP, Dr Narinder Bhargav, in a press note issued here today said the police nabbed the accused in the two separate looting incidents within 24 hours.

Giving details, Bhargav said Sharandeep Singh, alias Bunty, resident of Bathinda, had lodged a complaint with the Balachaur police that Jagmeet Singh, alias Tony, resident of Bathinda, had taken him along with his Alto car (PB-03-1996) on the pretext that he had to travel in the local area for some urgent work.

But, on the way, he started threatening him and took him to Dhaula village, near Balachaur, in the district, where he forced him to get out of the car and tried to kill him by hitting him with the car and he had to save himself by climbing a wall.

A case was registered under Sections 382 and 307 of the IPC at Balachaur police station and the police immediately put up nakas for nabbing the accused. During the checking of suspected vehicles at the police nakas, the police succeeded in nabbing Jagmeet Singh along with the stolen car on Garhshanker Road, Banga.

In another incident, Gurjit Singh of Hardiwal village, Ludhiana, had lodged a complaint with the Rahon police that on Monday he was going to his village from Rahon on his scooter and two motorcycle-borne youths blocked his way by stopping their motorcycle in front of his scooter. The youths snatched his mobile phone and Rs 760 by brandishing a pistol and fled away.

A case was registered under sections 382 and 34 of the IPC and the police put up nakas for nabbing the accused. The police succeeded in arresting the accused, identified as Avtar Singh, alias Tari, and Harsandip, alias Sonu, and recovered a .12-bore pistol, stolen mobile phone and cash from them.

Phagwara, June 15
The Doctors Federation of India today opposed the proposal to recruit 1,214 doctors in the Punjab Health Department through Panjab University and not through the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC).

In a press release issued here today, Dr DC Sharma, president of the federation, and general secretary of the Punjab Civil Medical Service-I (PCMS-I) Association, termed the bypassing of the commission as subversion of the Indian Constitution as the PPSC is a statutory body established under the Constitution for the recruitment of all categories of gazetted officers, including doctors.

He said any malpractice by a PPSC member is no excuse to withdraw work from the commission. “Instead, the government should take stringent action against anybody found guilty of malpractices in the selection of officers rather than withdrawing the work. If it is not to be given any work, then why the state is spending huge amounts of public exchequer on the establishment of the PPSC,” asked Sharma.

It should better be abolished if it is not to be utilised, he added.

Dr Sharma said the recruitment of 214 medical officers (general), done directly by the Health Department, bypassing the PPSC, in 2010 when Laxmi Kanta Chawla was the Health Minister, was even more scandalous than the one done by the PPSC earlier.

Dr Sharma alleged the state government is illegally and unauthorised filling up the posts of PCMS-I medical officers, by specialist doctors, as there are no separate sanctioned posts of specialists in the State Health Department (PCMS-I) cadre.

Instead of creating a specialist cadre with higher pay scales, the Punjab Government is exploiting the specialist doctors by making them work on lower pay scales meant for medical officers (general).

There are 3,142 posts of medical officers (in a cadre of 3561 of PCMS-I, the remaining 419 posts being those of senior medical officers & above) for which the basic qualification is MBBS and not the post graduation.

He said, “How can you debar the MBBS for the recruitment to these posts when the government has failed to create a separate specialists cadre in the state health services? It was a recommendation of the 1986 Punjab Pay Commission, to create a specialists cadre. Even a notification to this effect was issued. But the bureaucracy manipulated to stall the creation of the specialists cadre till date and the specialists are made to work on the much lesser pay scales unlike their counterparts in the Central Government Health Services, who enjoy an edge of at least 4 years, over the medical officers (general).”

“That is why the Punjab Government is finding it difficult to find the required number of specialist doctors to join government service though they are available in plenty. The PCMS-I Association has been demanding the creation of a specialist cadre in Punjab Health Department since long,” he added.

Nawanshahr, June 15
The police has booked four persons - Jaspal Singh, panchayat member of Kulam village, Bhupinder Singh, Ashok Kumar and Harwinder Singh - under Sections 419, 120 B and 420 of the IPC for producing fake sureties in the court.

The case was registered on the basis of the statement of the CJM, S.K. Sachdeva.

Ashok Kumar, an accused in a case, appeared in the court along with his advocate for getting bail. As the offence was bailable, he was ordered to be released on bail on furnishing bail bonds of Rs 40,000 with one surety of the like amount. The bail bonds were furnished and when the same were in the process of checking, it was brought to the notice of the court that the surety in the case was Bhupinder Singh, who had been identified by Jaspal Singh, panchayat member, Kulam.

The Reader made a report that during the checking of the bail application register, it came to light that Bhupinder Singh had already stood surety for some other person - Harwinder Singh - where he showed himself as Sarabjit Singh and was identified by Jaspal Singh.

During this process, the accused Ashok Kumar and the surety Bhupinder Singh slipped away from the court and Jaspal Singh, identifier, remained present in the court. In his statement, Jaspal Singh said the surety was in fact Bhupinder Singh and he had identified him as Sarabjit Singh in a previous case. Having recording the statement of the identifier, the CJM ordered to take him into custody and produce him before the city SHO to lodge a case and investigate the matter thoroughly. The case be got registered against surety Bhupinder Singh and the accused persons in both cases, he ordered.