Panchkula, October 22
Three persons, two of them fraudsters and residents of Dera Bassi, who sought to cash in on a kidnapping by placing a Rs 10-lakh ransom call to the parents of the missing 10-month-old baby, were arrested by the Panchkula police this morning. The child, who belongs to residents of Pinjore, meanwhile, remains missing.

The two fraudsters had hatched a conspiracy after reading an advertisement in a newspaper announcing a reward of Rs 50,000 for information leading to the recovery Nishant, the 10-month-old infant who has been missing since he was kidnapped over three weeks ago on September 29. The advertisement was published on October 12, two weeks after the infant had gone missing and a day before the police had finally registered an FIR. The third person to be arrested is Jitender, an owner of a shop in Barwala, who had sold a SIM card to the two fraudsters, identified as Ravi and Pradeep, on the basis of fake documents.

Initial interrogation revealed that Ravi and Pradeep hit upon the plan to demand Rs 10 lakh after seeing the advertisement. The police said they conceived the ransom amount, thinking if the family was willing to pay Rs 50,000, it could possibly afford to pay Rs 10 lakh. However, the fraudsters did not seem to be aware of the background of the family, the father a daily wager earning a pittance.

The duo then arranged fake identify proofs and bought a prepaid Idea mobile SIM card in the name of Yaqoob, who was shown as a resident of Bihar from a shop in Barwala. The police said the duo made the first ransom call just half an hour after purchasing the new SIM to Ashu, the kidnapped infant’s maternal uncle whose number was published in the advertisement.

The family had immediately informed the police, following which an FIR of kidnapping was registered at the Mansa Devi police station.

Pinjore residents Anil and his wife Sarita lost their son Nishant during their visit to the Mata Mansa Devi Temple when Sarita had handed her son to a couple standing in a queue, saying she needed to drink water. While handing the baby, she took the couple’s contact number, which turned out to be fake. On returning five minutes later, Sarita was shocked to find that the couple had vanished with her baby.

The police said it was able to detect Ravi as he had used the same mobile instrument to make personal calls from his personal SIM and ransom calls from the SIM bought on a different name on the basis of false documents. The police had detected the IEMI number of the mobile set, which led to his arrest followed by that of the second fraudster and the shop owner.

Panchkula, October 22
Refusal to give Rs 50 had cost her her life. On October 8, Bhagwati was set on fire by her paramour in Rajiv Colony of Panchkula. The gruesome act of victim’s paramour, Dhirpal, alias Neta, came to light when the woman in her dying declaration named him for setting her on fire after pouring kerosene on her.

Leaving the woman to die at her house in Rajiv Colony, the accused fled to his native Bhangpur village in Uttar Pradesh. The victim later succumbed to her injuries.

On being arrested by the police, Dhirpal told the police that being an alcoholic, he needed money to meet his daily requirement for liquor.

On the day of the incident, he got enraged at being denied the money and doused her with kerosene. On seeing Bhagwati cry for help, he fled the scene.

The accused was arrested from his native village, where he had hidden himself in the sugarcane fields. One of Dhirpal’s brothers also had criminal past, said SHO Aman Kumar.

Dhirpal was today produced in a local court, which remanded him in judicial custody and sent him to the Central Jail, Ambala.

Chandigarh, October 22
A week after a 12-year-old boy was injured when an iron rod, carried by the occupants of a scooter hit him, the child died at the PGI today. The police today registered a case and arrested the two occupants of the scooter in a case of causing death due to negligence under Section 304-A of the IPC.

The mishap occurred on October 15 when Vikas, who was riding a bicycle, was hit by the iron rod on the Old Ropar road in Mani Majra. A pillion rider on a scooter coming from the opposite direction was carrying the iron rod, which pierced through the child’s head. Vikas got severe head injuries and was rushed to the PGI, where he underwent a surgery. His parents work as painters in Indira Colony. The child was a student of Government School in Indira Colony.

The police arrested Mohan Singh, who was riding the scooter and Lotori Ram, the pillion rider, in the case. The accused are residents of Kishangarh village.

“We have arrested both occupants of the scooter, as they were responsible for carrying the iron rod, which endangered the lives of others. The boy died due to their negligence,” said inspector Rajesh Shukla, SHO, Manimajra police station.

Chandigarh, October 22
Once bitten twice shy, over 15,000 MBA aspirants endorsed the proverb, as only 200 candidates appeared on the first day of the Common Admission Test (CAT) to be held till November 18.

While over 150 students appeared at the Global College of Engineering centre in Abhipur village, Mohali, only 50 did so at the Everonn Education Limited centre in Sector 14, Panchkula.

Given the changed format of the examination this year, the students chose to play it safe to avoid a situation like in the year 2008 when technical glitches marred the conduct of the examination, leaving thousands hassled.

Even the examination authorities were extra-cautious on the first day, as they had allotted fewer seats. “Everything is online so technical glitches can never be ruled out. We just didn’t want thousands being affected by any glitch, so had allotted fewer seats on the first day. Now that things are better, we will have 700 students attempting the paper on an average,” said an official.

As the test will be conducted over 20 days, each set of students is bound to have different question papers.

“The difficulty levels of question papers in the morning and evening sessions were at par. Unlike the past few years, the CAT question paper was without any surprises. Some students found the verbal section a little tricky,” said a coaching expert.

The CAT has undergone a sea change this year, as it has only two sections instead of the customary three sections. The examination duration is 140 minutes and the two sections are implemented sequentially with separate time limits of 70 minutes each.

The stakes run high for students this year as two national-level MBA entrance exams, JMET & FMS, have been scrapped and the corresponding institutes would be using CAT scores for admission purposes.

Chandigarh, October 22
The tussle among general ward Congress sitting councillors to retain their wards for contesting the forthcoming Municipal Corporation (MC) elections has started, as a few of the party senior leaders have lost the opportunity to contest the elections from their respective wards after its reservation among 12 reserve wards.

In fact, there are a few wards in which the clash between candidates has been over, as it has been reserved for women or SC candidates.

Party sources said there were some of the wards for which there would be major fight among senior Congress leaders to contest the elections. The main fight will be for ward number 18 where the sitting Congress councillor is Devinder Singh Babla but the party might ask sitting MC Mayor Ravinder Pal Singh to contest from this ward.

The tussle is also going on for the candidate of ward number 2 where the sitting Congress candidate is Anu Chatrath but as ward number 1, which belongs to senior leader Chander Mukhi Sharma has been reserved for women, the party is planning to ask Anu Chatrath to contest elections from some other ward.

Party sources said even though the draft of candidature list had been prepared, final decision had yet to be taken by the party high command. Sources said a core committee meeting would be held tomorrow to take decision on the finalisation of the candidature.

Chandigarh, October 22
With Diwali round the corner, Chinese crackers have made inroads into shops selling fireworks in Chandigarh. Different varieties of Chinese crackers are more in demand this time. The Chinese crackers are cheap as compared to the Indian ones and are said to make louder noise than the locally made crackers. A firework stall owner said that people were asking for Chinese crackers, as they were cheaper in cost. “Although the demand of the locally made crackers are equally good yet the customers are prefering to buy the Chinese ones”, he said.

Crackers such as Chinese guns are available, and other items like magic match stick, pop-up, bomb bag and poppers are available at a very nominal rate.

Although the Chinese crackers are available in the market yet the firework sellers claim that they are risky to use.

One of the stall owners in Sector 26 said that, a huge cache of firecrackers have been produced locally, and are being sold under the name of Chinese brands. Since their quality is suspect, the traders have warned against their use. The covers of these fireworks have names written in Chinese, English and Hindi as well.

Chandigarh, October 22
The Chandigarh Administration has not issued any new licence for sale of crackers in the city for the past five years. Only the old licences are being renewed by the administration thus preventing the new players to enter the business.

“We do not entertain fresh applications for grant of licences for the sale of crackers,” said an official in the UT Estate Office. When asked the reason behind not issuing of licences to the new players, UT Additional Deputy Commissioner ML Sharma said that the administration did not want to increase the pollution level in the city.

The administration used to issue around 500 licences every year but now the number has decreased as many license holders are said to have left the city or the business.

“So far, we have received only 407 applications for the renewal of licences,” said the official.

Miffed over the administration’s decision, a local resident, Sarabjeet Singh, said, “It is ridiculous as they (the administration) have flatly refused to issue the licences to the new players”.

“If they want to restrict the number of licences, then they should adopt lottery system in issuing of licenses so that new persons also get a chance”, he added. On the other hand, the official said that the number of persons, who want to enter the business, is very less. “This year, only five or six such persons have come to me for the purpose,” he added.

Chandigarh, October 22
The winter season is likely to be harsher this year as the tricity has been experiencing decline in the minimum temperature by about two degrees as compared to the temperature recorded in October last year.

Met officials said the minimum temperature in the region had decreased by about 3 degrees Celsius during the last week and the same was registered at 17.7 degrees Celsius as compared to 22 degrees Celsius recorded during the same period last year.

The weather officials further said there would be gradual decline in the night temperature, which would lead to colder winters.

Surinder Paul, an official at the met department, Chandigarh, said it was too early to predict the winters. He said it was likely to take a few days to forecast exactly about winters. He, however, confirmed that minimum temperature is down by two degrees in October compared to what it was during the same period last year.

Notably, the Indian meteorological department had earlier predicted warm winters this year as it had failed to observe La Nina or its cousin El Nino.

However, around August, La Nina conditions suddenly became favourable, resulting in the country getting rainfall that was 101 per cent of its long period average (LPA).

The met officials were now expecting less than normal temperatures because of prevailing La Nina conditions, a weather phenomenon that results from lower ocean temperatures.