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Hope for revival of golden rail track rekindled
Three ousted BJP MLAs to contest polls: Ashwini
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780 EVMs received in Fazilka
Cop murdered in Moga village
Jail inmates try to escape, held
Four held in murder case
Bodies found in canal
BKU dharna deferred to Nov 28
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Hope for revival of golden rail track rekindled
Fazilka, November 20 The British rulers enjoyed the fruitful performance and earned a huge revenue from this rail link in the pre-partition days. Hence, it was called a "golden track" in the railway parlance. "The container service, transporting goods from the business hub of Ludhiana to Karachi dry port via the Fazilka railway junction not only offered a short route to Karachi (about 900 kms away), but also gave the railway a huge revenue from this route during the pre-partition days," says Fazilka-based veteran scholar and retired professor at IIT Roorkee, Dr Bhupinder Singh. As per the history traced by the experts and this correspondent, during the 98 years of British rule in united Punjab from 1849 to 1947, they made the best use of the resources of the land of the five rivers. Queen Victoria brought several schemes after 1858 when the whole of the fertile sub-continent came under the British control. For transporting the British manufactured goods and export of raw material from India to England, their trade agencies and instincts made them lay the trunk line from Ludhiana to Karachi along the Sutlej river via Ferozepur-Fazilka -Minchnabad-Samarsatta-Bahawalpur-Hyderabad-Karachi in 1900. This was a short route and first freight corridor for the movement of goods from North India to the seaport of Karachi. Hence, the railway department earned money worth trillions through the transportation of goods. The trading community did not lack in gifting a college, a clock tower and schools from their personal funds to this upcoming town in the 1860s. But with the partition of the sub-continent, the prosperity withered away. The freight corridor was truncated at the Radcliff line with Chananwala railway station on this side and the Amruka railway station, 7 km from the international border on the Pakistan side. After 1947, the track has been lying unused. Convener of the NGO, Indo-Pak Trade Opening Front, Lila Dhar Sharma says there is a need to relay only 7 km of the dismantled track between Fazilka in India to Amruka in Pakistan. The retrofit of the rail track will possibly not cost much and can help in relaying of the golden track from Ludhiana to Karachi. Moreover, granting the district headquarters status to Fazilka recently has provided extra impetus to the trade activities. The container services, transporting goods from the far-flung areas in India, can reach the markets in the Middle-East, Iran, Africa and Europe through this short route. "The cost per tonne per km transported by rail is about one-fourth of that of the road system," claimed engineer Navdeep Asija, a road safety expert of the Punjab government. "I shall take up the issue with the Union Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi for laying a small piece of track and the re-opening of the rail route for the development of this border belt where the people have to face the wrath of war and other natural calamities like floods frequently," said CWC member Jagmeet Singh Brar. |
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Three ousted BJP MLAs to contest polls: Ashwini
BJP state president Ashwini Sharma said that none of the three MLAs including Chaudhary Swarna Ram, Manoranjan Kalia and Master Mohan Lal would be barred from contesting the forthcoming assembly elections. “The BJP will contest on all the 23 seats in Punjab. By the end of this month, we would decided on the seats that would be swapped with the alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal,” Sharma said. Claiming that LK Advani's yatra in Punjab was a success, Sharma said the yatra was not only successful but will also reap dividends for the SAD in the state. "We do not have seats in Malwa, but the kind of response we got was overwhelming. At every junction, we had a gathering of more than 3000 waiting for us," he said. The BJP is now gearing itself to hold its national officer-bearers' meet at Jalandhar on November 23 followed by a mega rally where BJP stalwarts like Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will participate. Sharma said that from Monday onwards, preparations for the event would start. Sharma claimed that in the last one year, the BJP had tried to reach even to its booth level party workers. "After all, the fight would be at the booth level and every party worker is important for us," he said. Talking about the frequent incidents of differences with SAD alliance partner in state coming to light, Sharma said that SAD and BJP were like two big families living together. "There are differences in families, which are later ironed out. Similar things happen with us. Sporadic incidents do not mean that we are not one," he claimed. He agreed that the state BJP needed to be more aggressive towards raising cause of Punjab farmers. |
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780 EVMs received in Fazilka
Fazilka, November 20 The administration has decided to store 1200 votes against the capacity of 1300 votes during the polling in the machines. The DC said the administration has started making arrangements for the coming assembly election which would be completed shortly. The DC also conducted a meeting with the representatives of different political parties to ensure fair polls. |
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Cop murdered in Moga village
Moga, November 20 Identified as Lakhwinder Singh, he was posted as an assistant reader to the DSP at the Baghapurana sub-division. A criminal case of murder has been registered against unidentified persons at the Kot-ise-Khan police station and investigations have begun into the incident. The police, after recovering the body of the deceased cop brought it for the post-mortem examination at the district hospital here. The body was handed over to the family members in the afternoon for cremation. The doctors have found multiple injury marks on the body of the deceased cop, which indicates that he could have possibly been done to death with sharp-edged weapons. Preliminary investigations by the police revealed that Lakhwinder was sent by the DSP to deliver court summons in the Kot-ise-Khan area on Saturday evening but he did not return back either to the office or at home. When he did not even respond to the phone calls made on his mobile phone, a hunt was launched to trace him. His body was found lying near the Lohara village on the outskirts of the Moga town. His scooter, on which he was traveling, has also been recovered from the spot. The SHO of Kot-ise-Khan police station, Jasvir Singh said that investigations were on and soon the criminals would be nabbed by the police. |
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Jail inmates try to escape, held
Bathinda, November 20 Issar is a resident of Khadial village in Sangrur and is undergoing 20-year imprisonment on the charge of murdering his sister-in-law while Sandeep Kohli is a drug smuggler and is an undertrial. Authorities at the Bathinda Central Jail said that the accused were brought to jail today in the afternoon from the Civil Hospital where they were treated for minor injuries. |
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Four held in murder case
Ferozepur, November 20 As per the details, the father of the boy, Shamsher Singh, a resident of Valmiki Colony in Ferozepur Cantonment, had lodged a complaint with the police that four persons abducted his son while he was standing outside his house. DSP Jagjit Singh Saroya said that on the basis of the complaint lodged by the boy's father, the police started the investigations into the matter. Saroya said that in his compliant, the boy's father had given the names of four persons who he alleged had kidnapped his son and taken him away in a Maruti Zen car bearing the registration number HR 29 K 1650. Saroya said the police constituted a special investigation team and soon apprehended all the four persons, identified as Shiva, Aman, Vikas alias Billa and Amandeep. The police even recovered the car used by them in the crime. Saroya claimed that during the interrogation, the accused admitted to having abducted the boy and later killed him by hitting his head with bricks. The DSP (Sub-division) said that during the interrogation, it was revealed that the accused had taken the boy to the military driving range near village Satiawala in the cantonment where they killed him after hitting him repeatedly with bricks and then they bundled the body into a car and later dropped it in the Gang canal on the Ferozepur-Moga road. The DSP said the accused had tied bricks to the body of the boy so that it does not rise to the surface of the canal to evade the police. He further said that the police pressed expert divers into service to retrieve the body, which has not been traced yet. Meanwhile, the police have registered a case against the accused and efforts to find out the body were still on. When asked about the reason behind the crime, Saroya said that apparently, it seems that the accused wanted to take revenge on the boy's family over some old enmity, adding that the exact cause of the murder will be ascertained once the investigations are over. |
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Abohar, November 20 The bodies have been shifted to the Nehru Memorial Civil Hospital here for post-mortem. The police said as of now, a case under Sections 302 and 201 of the IPC has been registered, further investigation will be carried out after going through the post-mortem reports. Bhajan Singh's brother Makhan Singh said the victims were hired by a farmer Mehal Singh of village Jhurarkhera in the sub-division to pick cotton balls but all the three went missing. It was suspected that they had been kidnapped allegedly by Sukha Singh of Rukanpura village, Mohinder Singh and Rupinder Singh of Karnikhera, Chhinda Singh and Wazir Singh of village Fakhrukhera. Wahabwala SHO Kuldeep Sharma said investigation had been begun and the facts would be ascertained soon. — TNS |
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BKU dharna deferred to Nov 28
Bathinda, November 20 Ram Singh Bhainibagha, district president of BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan) said the 17-kisan unions had decided to hold dharna in Chandigarh to demand cancellation of power bills, irrigation bills, Rs 5 lakh and government job to family members of those farmers who committed suicide due to agricultural debt. Their demand also includes compensation and waiver of power bills for all the weaker sections of society, irrespective of their cast. He said the dharna has not been cancelled but postponed from November 22 to 28. "If the meeting with the government fails to bear any fruit, the dharna would be organised on November 28," Ram said. He said preparations for the dharna have been completed. Workers of all kisan unions are geared up, ration has been collected from the district and block-level for the indefinite dharna and all the pending agricultural and other works have been finished to participate in dharna. |
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Bathinda, November 20