NEIGHBOURHOOD

Motorcyclist killed in mishap
Our Correspondent

Councillor succumbs to injuries
Our Correspondent

Kalka, August 11
Municipal councillor Surjit Singh succumbed to his injuries at a private hospital in Panchkula late last night. The councillor from ward number 5 of Pinjore had sustained serious injuries in a road accident recently and was admitted to the Panchkula hospital.

Local MLA Pardeep Chaudhary has expressed sorrow on the death of Surjit Singh.

Dera Bassi, August 11
Residents of the Dera Bassi area and leaders of different parties opposed the expansion of a chemical plant in Bhagwanpur during a public hearing on Tuesday. They alleged that the area was already facing problems of air and water pollution. “The new unit would only aggravate these problems. We would not allow anymore establishment that risks the health of local people,” said a resident of Dera Bassi.

Gee Gee Chemicals has planned to add up a new chemical unit in the same factory premises. Before its approval, a public hearing was organised at Bhagwanpur in which Additional Deputy Commissioner JS Brar, PPCB Xen RK Ratra, SDM Rajesh Tripathi and other officials were present.

Residents of nearby villages, along with PPCC member Amritpal Singh and zila parishad chairman Satnam Singh, complained that dozens of chemical units, poultry farms and meat plants had already taken the water and air pollution to a dangerous extent.

With the opening of new chemical project, the problem of pollution would further aggravate, they added. Though company officials assured of eco-friendly project and job avenues to local youths, agitators remained adamant against the new project.

Panel officials said the project would be approved after considering claims of both the parties.

Youth ends life

Patiala: A 24-year-old Delight Colony resident allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself up here at his residence this evening. According to the police, the victim has been identified as Jasminder Singh, who had completed his studies and was presently unemployed.

SHO, Civil Lines, Kuldeep Singh said the victim was an introvert and usually stayed at home. “Though it seems to be a case of suicide, we would wait for the forensic and medical reports to ascertain the case,” he said.

Canteen contractor attacked

Ambala: A canteen contractor at Ambala Cantt bus stand, Randip Rana, son of a Sub-Inspector, was shot at and hit by a steel rod on his head outside his residence in Mahesh Nagar by some motorcycle-borne youths.

According to eyewitnesses, one of the youths fired a shot at Rana from a pistol, which missed its target, and another person hit at his head with a steel rod. The assailants fled from the spot, leaving Rana bleeding profusely. He was rushed to the Civil Hospital and was later referred to the PGI, Chandigarh.

DSP Baljinder Singh, who reached at the spot along with the SHO, Mahesh Nagar, said old rivalry was the reason behind the attack over Rana. A case has been registered and further investigations were on.

Four held for chain snatching

The Ambala police has arrested two persons who had allegedly snatched a gold chain from the neck of a girl near the busy Indira Chowk in Ambala Cantt late last evening.

The victim had visited the market with her family members for shopping. She raised the alarm when two motorcycle-borne youths snatched her gold chain. Both were, however, caught at a small distance by the shopkeepers when they tried to flee. A police patrolling party in the Sadar Bazar area reached the spot and took them in custody.

In another case, five students on two motorcycles stopped Rahul, a resident of Bengali Mohalla, Ambala Cantt, near Gandhi Ground, and snatched the gold chain he was wearing after assaulting him. The scene attracted the attention of people passing through the Ambala-Jagadhri highway. Two of the youths were caught and handed over to the police, while the rest managed to flee.

Chandigarh, August 11
The Punjab and Haryana High Court wants to know from the UT Administration whether any rules have been framed for the transportation of schoolchildren.

The High Court has also asked the administration to specify if there were any rules for ferrying students studying in urban and rural areas and whether the rules would be applicable to vehicles carrying students to institutes outside the city limits.

Justice Bhalla asserted: “The counsel for the UT states that the government schools under the control of the Chandigarh Administration are transporting children to and from schools with the help of independent contractors and are charging Rs 500 per child.”

“The respondents are directed to file their affidavit and to inform the court whether any rules and regulations have been notified for transportation of schoolchildren and the students studying in the institutions in rural and urban areas. The Chandigarh Administration shall also consider whether its rules apply to the vehicles that transport students to schools and colleges situated outside the limits of Chandigarh,” Justice Bhalla asserted.

The case will now come up for further hearing on August 23. The directions came after Justice Rajive Bhalla heard amicus curiae Vaibhav Sharma and Munisha Gandhi, along with Haryana Additional AG DK Khanna, Punjab Additional AG Puneet Gupta, UT senior standing counsel Sanjay Kaushal and advocate Inderjit Kaushal for the UT Independent Schools Association.

Justice Bhalla also questioned private schools in the city and the UT Administration about the mode and conditions of transportation provided to schoolchildren.

The directions came after details of traffic violations made it evident that the school buses were still zipping away from the rules and regulations.

The details produced before the court pertain to the challans issued by the Chandigarh Police for violations by school buses between January 1 and July 19, 2011. The total number of buses challaned during the period was 431, for as many as 684 violations.

The total number of challans for drivers without proper uniform and nameplates were 285, while challan for attendants without proper uniform and nameplate were 96. As many as 292 challans were issued for miscellaneous offences.

Chandigarh, August 11
Mohali Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Raka Ghirra and her reader Manmohan Singh today filed a regular bail application before the special CBI court in a graft case.

On July 24, the CBI had arrested Ghirra for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a property dealer, KK Malhotra.

Meanwhile in another matter, Ghirra filed another bail application in connection with an FIR registered against her by the UT Police under Excise Act. The court has issued notice to the UT Police to file a reply on the bail application.

In her bail plea, DSP Ghirra, presently lodged in Burail Jail, has stated that she had filed income tax return from the year 2000 in which she had already mentioned about her jewellery, cash and property. Moreover the CBI failed to recover any illegal property document from her Sector-15 residence.

The DSP had pleaded that she had cooperated with the investigating agency and it was after completion of her police remand that the CBI had demanded her judicial custody. She pleaded that as investigation would take more time and there is nothing to recover from her, the court should grant her a regular bail.

Following a complaint by Mohali-based property dealer KK Malhotra, the CBI had laid a trap and had arrested Raka Ghirra from her residence. She was allegedly demanding money for favouring Malhotra in a case registered against him at Mohali.

On July 24, the CBI had recovered ammunition from Ghirra’s house, included 1,237 cartridges, a revolver and a double-barrel gun made in West Germany. Besides, a total of 43 live cartridges of .32 bore, 22 empty cartridges of .32 bore, 14 S&W live cartridges (small), another 18 (.22 bore) live cartridges, a total of 114 .38 bore live cartridges, 76 AK-47 live cartridges, another 114 (7.62 SLR) live cartridges, two 7.72 sniper live cartridges, five carbine cal 30 live cartridges and 831 (12 bore) live cartridges.

Later the UT Police had also registered two cases under the Arms Act and the Excise Act against the DSP at the Sector 11 police station.

Chandigarh, August 11
Acting on a petition filed by Fortis Healthcare (India) Limited, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the operation of an order passed by the State Information Commission bringing the hospital within the ambit of the Right to Information Act.

The commission had held the hospital was a public authority “within the meaning of Section 2 (h) of the RTI Act”. It had also directed the hospital to appoint a public information officer.

The hospital asserted that the provisions of the RTI Act were not applicable to it; and the commission erroneously held that the petitioner was substantially funded by the state authorities as it was allotted land allegedly at concessional rates.

The petitioner contended that the commission had, rather, wrongly held that “since the land was allotted to Fortis for the setting up of a super-speciality hospital in Sector 62, Mohali, at concessional rate, it was a public authority”.

The counsel said the order was contrary to the records “in as much as the petitioner is not funded by state, whether substantially or otherwise, and purchased the land at the then prevailing market rate”.

He insisted that the hospital was not covered by the definition of “public authority”. The counsel said: “The intention of Parliament by using the term ‘public authority’ was to exclude entities/limited companies that are not funded by the government from the scope and ambit of the RTI Act.”

Fortis added that the order passed by the commission on May 12 was “arbitrary, unconstitutional, without jurisdiction”. It was also against the legislative intent; and was liable to be set aside as it completely ignored the fact that Fortis Healthcare was a public-listed company incorporated under the Companies Act.

Seeking directions for setting aside the impugned orders, Fortis further added that the hospital was not an authority, institution or self-government established or constituted by or under the Constitution or by any other law made by Parliament or by any other law made by the state legislature.

The matter had reached the commission after Vice-Chancellor of MM University, Mullanna, had sought information under the RTI Act on surgery undergone by his daughter Dhanashree Damle. After the hospital declined the information, the complainant moved the commission.

Mohali, August 11
Devinder Singh, a resident of Sector 19, Chandigarh, was booked and arrested for clicking objectionable photographs of a Delhi-based woman and blackmailing her. The accused was produced in the court today and sent to judicial custody.

In her complaint to the police, the woman from Hari Nagar, Delhi, stated that the accused had called her to Maan hotel at Sector 51 in Chandigarh. The victim said she was accompanied with her friend to the hotel where the accused told her that he wanted to talk her in private.

She alleged that the accused took her in the room and clicked her objectionable pictures. Later, the accused started blackmailing her and asked for Rs 50,000.

The investigating officer stated that after getting the complaint from the victim, a trap was laid in Phase VII market where the accused was arrested while he had come for collecting money.

Panchkula, August 11
In a three-month-old Simran murder case, a student of the International Institute of Fashion Design, (INIFD), Chandigarh, the Panchkula Police has finally filed a detailed chargesheet against the accused, Tanmay before the Panchkula district court.

In the chargesheet, the police has dropped Section 364 for kidnapping from the accused. Earlier, it was included in the FIR.

Recently, Simran’s parents had written to the Haryana DGP demanding speedy probe in the case.

Tanmay, the accused in the Simran murder case, had reached Simran’s residence on April 30 in Panchkula, where he found her in the company of three youths he did not know, the police said. After they left, Tanmay started questioning the victim about who the youths were, sources said.

In a fit of rage, he allegedly attacked her and hit her head against the bathroom wall and subsequently strangulating her, the sources added. Later, he allegedly dumped her body in a vacant plot near Lidhran village on the Jalandhar-Amritsar National Highway, the sources said.

Tanmay had surrendered before the Panchkula Police on the night of May 13.

Simran, who belongs to Amritsar, had been living in Sector 15 from 2010. In 2004, she married Karan but got divorced on April 26 this year. Cops had found Simran's car abandoned in the Sector 16 market, Panchkula, on May 1. They came to know about her Amritsar address from the documents that they found in the car.

It was on her father’s complaint that the Panchkula Police had lodged a missing person’s complaint at the Sector 15 police post in Panchkula. But after recovering her body, the cops had converted missing complaint in the murder case and registered against her ex-husband Karan Mehra and her close friend, Tanmay under Sections 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the IPC.

But during investigations, the cops had given clean chit to ex-husband Karan Mehra.

Chandigarh, August 11
In an anti-piracy operation against illegal download and sale of copyrighted songs, the Indian Music Industry (IMI) with the help of the Chandigarh police raided six shops in the city today.

Articles used in piracy like PCs, card readers, mobile chips and DVD writers were seized during these raids.

The police arrested six accused and booked them under Sections 51, 52(A), 63, and 65 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Acting on IMI investigation officer Satwant Singh’s complaint, the police arrested Hardeep Singh, a resident of Sector 22, for downloading songs for customers without a valid licence. He was operating from booth No. 130, Bijwara Market, Sector 22-D. The police recovered a CPU, an LCD with lead, keyboard, mouse, a card reader, two GB recorded chip from him. A case under Sections 51, 52-A, 63 and 65 of the Copyright Act has been registered.

The police also arrested Rohit Narang in a similar case. He was operating from the Attari Market basement, Sector 22-B. Besides, the police arrested Mohhammad Hazib and Sajid Ali of Mani Majra, and Dhatramvir and Shiv Shah of Sector 45 on the same grounds.

Savio D’souza, secretary general, IMI, said: “This is a message to all shopkeepers involved in the illegal download and sale of songs to opt for a music mobile exchange (MMX) licence. Six months’ RI and a fine of Rs 50, 000 can be imposed on ghuilty shopkeepers.”

Chandigarh, August 11
The directorate of sports, Panjab University (PU), has decided to start inter-college tournaments under various events from September.

According to CS Gerwal, director sports department, all tournaments will be held at various centres and ground of the campus and players who will win top spots in the tournaments will be selected for the upcoming north zone and all-India inter-universities tournaments.

In the men’s category, the authorities has decided to schedule the inter-college tournaments of football, cross country swimming, water polo and netball in the first week of September; shooting (air pistol and .177 air rife peep sight) and tae-kwon-do are schedule in the second week of September, whereas cycling, badminton, chess, archery and boxing are schedule in the third and fourth week of the next month, respectively.

In October, the department will organise canoeing, kayaking, yachting, judo, kho-kho, kabaddi, korf ball, baseball, tennis, hockey, wrestling, handball, gymnastics and athletics events, while in November, organisers will organise softball, table tennis, cricket and basketball events.

In the last month of the year, the inter-college tournament for fencing, best physique, powerlifting, weightlifting, squash and ball badminton will be held, whereas in January, 2012, the competition of volleyball, rowing and yogasanas will be held.

In the women category, cross country, kabaddi, netball, swimming, kho-kho, shooting (air pistol and .177 air rife peep sight), tae-kwon-do, basketball, cycling, badminton, chess, volleyball, cricket, archery and boxing will be held in September, while kayaking, yatching, judo, tennis, football, korfball, baseball, hockey, wrestling, handball, gymnastics and rhythm gymnastics will be held in October.

In November, competition in athletics, softball and table tennis will be organised, while fencing, powerlifting, weightlifting and ball badminton events will be held in the last month. In the first month of next year, the inter-college competition of rowing and yogasanas will be organised.

Chandigarh, August 11
The Chandigarh Amateur Cycling Association will organise a Chandigarh Road Cycling Race in senior, junior and sub-junior categories of boys and girls at Lake Club on August 14.

Those interested should report at the venue at 6 am with their proof-of-age certificates.

The organisers will select a team, based on the participants’ performance in the race, for the upcoming National Cycling Championships.

Chandigarh, August 11
Budding chess player Simranjeet Kaur overcame Alexander Pearson from the United States of America (USA) in a challenging match held at Saupin’s School, Sector 32, here today.

According to organisers, Alexander Pearson, who won the chess (U-15) competition in the USA, gave an open challenge and the local girl defeated him by two sets after they drew four sets.