Amritsar, November 9
It was not cash but petrol and deisel also known as black gold which was looted at gunpoint by several unidentified persons from a petrol filling station falling under Khalchian area here today. The accused locked the employees of the petrol pump at gunpoint and took away 455 litres of petrol, 221 litres of diesel and a five-litre box of grease from the petrol station. Clearly the fuel was more valuable for the accused as they did not touch any cash lying at the filling station.

The incident has also put a question mark over the security of these vulnerable petrol stations as unscrupulous persons are devising new ways to rob them. The petrol pump dealers association is mulling to close the filling stations at 10 pm. The Khalchian police has registered a case against four unidentified persons under Section 382 of the IPC and 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act.

Ramesh Kumar, owner of the petrol pump in his complaint to the police, said unidentified persons entered the petrol pump in a Quails vehicle on the pretext of filling petrol. "The accused took out a gun and locked all the employees in the washrooms," he said. The accused then stole 455 litres of diesel and 221 litres of petrol in huge cans besides a five-litre box of grease worth Rs 44,702.

JP Khanna, president, Punjab Petroleum Dealers Association has said this is one of its kind incident. Such crime is on the rise he alleged. “Even after writing several times to the state police authorities, nothing has been done so far. We have also asked them to provide weapons as per norms to the petrol pump owners on preference basis, but to no avail,” said Khanna. "I will take up the issue in the executive meeting for shutdown of petrol pumps by 10 pm. If our employees left for other safer jobs, it would be impossible for us to run the filling stations under such fearful situation," he said.

Amritsar, November 9
The District Food and Civil Supplies department has suspended the licences of four ration depots. Show-cause notices have also been issued to five other depots in view of the alleged discrepancies in their records. The department has also issued notices to two inspectors under whose jurisdictions these ration depots fall.

Dr Rakesh Singla, District Food and Civil Supplies officer (DFCS) said the department was receiving reports of alleged irregularities in the records of wheat, kerosene oil and other stocks.

The department constituted two special teams to check the records of the nine depots at Jawahar Nagar, Putlighar, Guru Nanak Dev University and Joshipura etc.

"After verifying the records, we have suspended the licences of four ration depots having the numbers 1432, 1426, 1565 and another deport at Putlighar area while issued show cause notices have been issued to five other depots-1182, 1490, 1137, 1149 and 1454 - where irregularities have been confirmed," he said.

Two youths who were injured in a clash between two groups in Ram Tirath temple in Amritsar on Wednesday. Tribune photo: sameer sehgal

The ancient Ram Teerath temple is believed to be the birthplace of Luv and Kush, twin sons of Lord Rama. The temple has been a bone of contention between two communities who are fighting a legal battle over its possession and right to its maintenance.

Malkeet Nath alleged that Sanjiv was trying to set up a temporary shop in the parikarma after demolishing a wall which was actually a place to conduct a 'havan'. He alleged that it was first the followers of Mahant Baldev Giri who threw stones and bricks on his followers, who merely retaliated. Baldev Giri and his son, Manjit alleged that 20-25 persons led by Gabbar, Anok Bhatti, Balwant Nath and Virsa Nath, followers of Malkeet Nath attacked Sanjiv and demolished his shop besides injuring four persons, including Tarsem, son of Baldev Giri. The injured were taken to a government hospital in Lopoke.

"We will lodge a complaint against the accused who attacked the followers of Mahant (Baldev Giri) and ransacked all the material, including Parsad, pictures of Lord Ram and Sita," said Manjit.

He said earlier too a case had been registered against Gabbar and his accomplices for disturbing law and order and attacking our followers.

Rajinderpal Singh, Sub Divisional Magistrate, who has been entrusted with the task of conducting the fair, said action will be taken against whoever is responsible for the incident.

"We are going to register a case in this connection. Those found responsible will not be spared. Police parties have been asked to intensify patrolling and the number of policemen has also been increased to maintain law and order situation at the fair," said SDM.

Amritsar, November 9
Sheer ill-preparedness on part of the administration and the police led to a major traffic jam on roads leading to Bhandari Bridge. Children belonging to Sikh educational institutions took out a nagar kirtan to mark Guru Nanak Dev's birth anniversary today.

The upshot of this four-km long procession, which started at 8.30 am, was the refuse and discarded disposable utensils that was left behind. The garbage remained piled up on the road dividers till evening and the civic authorities had turned a blind eye towards the menace.

Apparently, the police didn't have any diversion plan to facilitate traffic and no prior information was given to the public about the procession by either the administration or the police.

In the wake of unmanned enter and exit points of the main elevated road, which connects the Bhandari bridge from the Alpha One mall, the commuters were stuck for a long time as it is a one-way route. Even as the school managements had intimated the police department about their programme, yet due to an apparent lack of coordination, the information could not be given to the police authorities in other areas.

The school authorities, however, maintain that they were never given any guidelines to be followed while taking out the procession. "Despite the fact that we had informed the police department about our programme, the police did not respond to give us guidelines to be followed while taking out the children's procession on the occasion of Gurpurb. We seldom receive any response from the police or administration's side,” said Charanjit S Chadha, president of Chief Khalsa Diwan.

NS Gabria, a retired railway employee, who was caught in the jam while driving his grandson to the school said, "The administration should have planned traffic diversions and conveyed it to the public. Such negligence is common during any procession or VIP visits," he said. 

Amritsar, November 9
Residents and shopkeepers of Nawankot area are forced to live in the most unhygienic conditions these days. Open drains mostly overflow leaving roads in area full of sewage.

Even though the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board (PWSSB), in collaboration with Japan International Corporation Agency (JAICA), has conceptualised a plan to set up a sewerage system under the JNNURM programme, except for digging work nothing has been done.

Shopkeepers resent that these conditions hamper their business.

Dirty water gets accumulated on the entrances of their houses and shops exposing them to various diseases, they added.

Officials said once the pipes are laid, the major chunk of sullage would be diverted to the main drain and it would give relief to residents.

But there is no word on when would this project be executed. 

Amritsar, November 9
The Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers' Union (PCCTU) and the Private Colleges Non-Teaching Employees Union (PCNTEU) have formed a joint front to put pressure on the government to accept their long-pending demands.

The PCCTU general secretary Prof HS Walia said the decision was taken after a meeting of the representatives of the two unions today.

He said strikes will be observed everyday for three-hours from 10 am to 1 pm from November 9 to 15. On these days, rallies will also be organised in the college premises.

A complete 'education bandh' of 48 hours will be organized in all the non-government affiliated colleges of Punjab and Chandigarh from November 16. It has also been decided to organise district-level rallies on either November 16 or 17.

The demands of the agitating teachers include, inter-alia implementation of pension and gratuity scheme, lifting of the ban on recruitments imposed by the government since 2005, release of arrears from January 1, 2006, to March 31, 2010, due on account of revision of pay scales, regular disbursement of quarterly grant meant for salaries, pay fixations of non-teaching employees from January 1, 2006, on the pattern of the state government employees, relaxation in refresher courses as per the UGC guidelines, bringing teachers working against unaided posts in the ambit of Punjab Affiliated Colleges Security of Service Act, 1974, raising the retirement age to 65 years as per the Union government notification.

The PCCTU joined hands with the PCNTEU following the latter's unconditional support to the former's state-level rally held at Batala on November 8.

Amritsar, November 9
Students of Global Institute of Management and Emerging Technologies (GIMET) won the overall trophy in the inter-state ISTE-Tech Fest 'Minerva-2011' for the second time in a row. The fest concluded at Ropar on November 6.

According to a statement issued here today, Vishal Sareen, a student of B.Tech was declared the best student for the third time and he has been given a special prize for his performance in the fest.

A large number of teams from engineering colleges of Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Punjab came to take part in the fest. The ISTE conference and cultural events at the fest were devoted to the theme of 'Green engineering for sustainable development".

The broad spectrum of events included presentation of papers and debate on sub-themes as e-waste management, green building, global warming and non-conventional energy sources etc.

The technical section included events like '.NET Codebusters, Autocad, C++ Debugging, Mathematica, Mechnovation, Project Display and Web designing'. The students presented a number of cultural items.

The students of Global Institutes who won the first positions in various events are Poonam Soni, Yogesh, Navjot Kaur, Vishal Sareen, Kamaldeep Singh, Ramanpreet Singh, Abhinav Sharma and Abhishek.

Global Institute's teams also won in Mallvai giddha and giddha events.

Amritsar, November 9
The agitating Khalsa College students today submitted a memorandum with the college management to deliberate over the issue of their expulsion and deferred their protest till November 19.

Rajinder Singh, one of the three students of MSc (agriculture economics), said, “We have asked the management to let us continue our studies. We agree to pay the fee as has been described in the prospectus which amounted to Rs Rs 33,790 per annum per seat,” he said.

Rajinder Singh said they were fighting for a genuine cause and would ask the management to review our expulsion case on humanitarian grounds and should not deny our right to education.

Dejected by their denial to pay the “requisite fee”, the management barred the trio, which included a topper of the class for two consecutive semesters, from taking their in-house internal assessment exams and thus expelled them from the college.

On Wednesday, hundreds of students from different colleges lodged their protest and conducted a rally that commenced from the GND University gate to the main entrance of the college.