Jalandhar, December 6
Prisoners suffering from various ailments are subjected to inhuman treatment at the Civil Hospital here. What to talk of their treatment, they are not even provided nutritious food in the prisoners' ward located on the second floor of the Civil Hospital. They are provided food twice a day which is served to prisoners lodged in the modern jail at Theh Kanjla in Kapurthala. Prisoners get their breakfast in the afternoon as the food is brought from the modern jail, nearly 40 km from the hospital.

None of the prisoners, including those suffering from serious diseases, is allowed to keep attendants with them.

When The Tribune team visited the Civil Hospital around 12.30 pm, one of the 10 prisoners admitted to the Civil Hospital, Surinder Singh of Goraya, stated: "I am still waiting for the breakfast."

Corroborating his statement, another prisoner, Hardeep Singh of Talwan, said: "Most of the times, we are not served breakfast."

Another prisoner Rajesh Kumar said: "What to talk of nutritious food, we have to pay for even a cup of tea."

Sagar of Nagra, whose right leg is fractured, said: "I am not even allowed to keep an attendant. I have to urinated and pass stool in the bedpan in the presence of nine other patients in the small ward."

Jalandhar, December 6
The city police today arrested a member of an auto-lifter gang and recovered two SUVs and a car from his possession. The police is expecting more recoveries of stolen vehicles with his arrest.

The accused has been identified as 25-year-old Yadwinder Singh, a resident of Baowal village of Tarn Taran district. Additional Deputy Commissioner RK Sharma and Assistant Commissioner of Police NK Dogra said that acting on a tip-off that one of the members of the vehicle lifters’ gang was travelling in a stolen Balero jeep, the Division No. 4 police erected a barricade at Nakodar Chowk. The police signalled the vehicle to pull over and immediately arrested the accused along with the SUV (PB-41-C-0528).

During preliminary investigation, accused revealed that he had stolen two more vehicles, including a Ford Fiesta and a Bolero. The police also recovered these vehicles, Sharma said.

The accused confessed that the gang had been operational across the state and they had recently stolen vehicles from Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchukula and Ludhiana. The police said after stealing vehicles, the gang used to sell them at cheaper rates.

To escape the police net, the gang members used to fix fake number plates on stolen vehicles.

A case under Sections 379, 411 and 465 of the IPC has been registered against the accused and further investigations were on to nab the other members of the gang. The police said the accused was also booked by Patti police in a theft case recently.

Jalandhar, December 6
One of the most congested and polluted areas of the city - PAP Chowk - has claimed three lives in a week. Courtesy the district administration, as it failed to bring down the number of accidents on one of the earmarked “black spots” of the city.

The rising number of accidents at this spot has also raised a question mark of the implementation of “Road Safety -10”, a WHO-sponsored pilot project, launched by the city police. The prestigious RS-10 project has been launched with an aim to save precious lives. Even though there is a police post at the spot, the “killer” chowk is turning out to be a death trap for commuters.

A Slowak national, Dushan Simko, died on the spot while his girlfriend, Yana, received serious head injuries in an accident on PAP Chowk on November 25. The couple was heading to the Golden Temple on a motorcycle when they met with an accident on the GT Road at the PAP Traffic light point.

On December 2, a girl from Charke village near Bhogpur, Pooja, met with an accident and was crushed under an oil tanker. Her cousin, Gurdeep Kaur, also sustained injuries in the mishap. The girls were riding pillion on a motorcycle when the mishap took place.

In another incident, four occupants of a car had a miraculous escape when the vehicle they were travelling in fell off a railway overbridge near PAP Chowk on Monday morning. The family was on their way to Reru village near here. A survey conducted by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) reveals that the PAP Chowk is the most polluted spots in the city and the pollution level here can only be controlled if the work on an under construction flyover is completed.

Though the city police has set up a permanent traffic police cell on this busy spot to regulate vehicles, the untamed motorists hardy bother to follow their guidelines, a policeman on duty said. Drivers of VVIPs, VIPs and bureaucrats use their influence and violate the traffic rules by jumping red lights, another policeman added.

Jalandhar, December 6
It’s a sad tale of 120 kanal and 19 marla greenbelt of the MC being rendered useless in the heart of the city for over two years. Chances are bleak of any headway in the much-publicised Rs 3.27 crore renovation project of Nehru Garden, the foundation stone of which was laid by the Chief Minister in September 2009.

While some civil work, including boundary wall and path, have been completed, work on landscaping, installation of fountains, new lights and food joints is yet to begin.

Ever since the MC contractor, who had been assigned the job, was blacklisted by the Finance and Contracts Committee of the MC in July this year for slow pace of work, officials took too long to float fresh tenders, claiming delay owing to the SGPC elections.

MC Executive Engineer (XEN) Gurcharan Singh said: “The e-tenders for the purpose are to be opened in 10 days.” Even if there is a response, its endorsement by the F&CC, approvals from the state government and work orders for the same may not come before the election code comes into force, said a member of the Opposition in the MC.

The chances are that the garden remains half-done with parts of it dug up for at least another four to five months. People who have been coming for a stroll or to enjoy the sun in the afternoon are also unable to do it, for there is hardly any properly maintained green area where they can sit and relax.

MC insiders also charge officials with giving the contract in wrong hands. “The contractor should have been a landscapist or a horticulturist, but he is actually an interior designer,” they had been saying.

Jalandhar, December 6
It is not only residents, but also the Horticulture Department of the Municipal Corporation (MC) that have been violating the Indian Forest Act blatantly by harming trees in the city in some way or another.

The residents have been endangering the green cover in front of their residential areas or commercial establishments on the internal roads, and the civic body is suffocating trees by converting the roadside “kutcha” areas into “pucca” pavements in and around the city.

A survey by The Tribune team revealed that scores of trees standing on government land and in front of the residences and business establishments of city residents are dying a slow death. Residents have been using different techniques to get rid of them. It was also found that the bark of some trees was peeled off at their stems and a chemical administered into their roots to dry them.

Magnificent eucalyptus trees on the pavement along Ladowali Road, on the back of the District Administrative Complex and on many other roads are slowly being suffocated to death as the concrete pavement around their trunks have virtually left them no space to grow.

The Act is also being violated by the NRI Sabha, which is constructing a concrete approach road to its newly constructed complex in which three trees fall. The complex is hardly 20 yards from the office of the Divisional Commissioner, Anurag Verma.

Sources revealed that the sabha had constructed a metalled approach road leaving no breathing space for the trees. Moreover, the sabha did not sought any permission from the authorities for the removal of theses trees before constructing the concrete approach road.

Howerver, NRI Sabha’s president Kanwaljit Singh Hayre claimed that the sabha had sought permission for removing the trees from the Forest Department as well as from the MC. “The trees will be uprooted as soon as we get permission,” he added.

Jalandhar, December 6
Demanding that the Election Commission (EC) of India should make arrangements for NRIs to cast vote at the Indian High Commission offices overseas, UK parliamentarian Virendra Sharma said this would encourage the NRIs to become voters and strengthen their relationship with their native country.

Sharma said, “We are not asking for online or postal ballot for we know that there can be certain objections to that. We are simply asking the EC to give us polling stations close by for our convenience the way they do it in India.”

“There is simple economics to it. An NRI needs to shell out at least 1,000 pounds to board a plane and land here to cast his vote. Why would somebody take two-three days off his busy job and do it? Instead he needs to be given the facility to cast his vote in the country he presently resides in,” claimed MP of Ealing Southall.

Virendra Sharma said he met Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal yesterday and demanded that the NRI Sabha president be vested with the financial and decision-making powers of the sabha and not the Divisional Commissioner, Jalandhar, who is Chairman of the sabha.

Regarding a question on poor response to the 25:75 matching grant scheme for development works in Punjab, Virendra Sharma said the first reason was unnecessary delays due to red tape and the second one was that the state government was taking a lot of time in pooling its share of three-fourth of the amount.

Virendra Sharma said, “Clearly there is much reluctance in the minds of the NRIs on initiating projects in India. There is a total lack of confidence on which the state government needs to really work hard.”

Sharma said he was demanding from the British Government that hundreds of Indian students who had come to the UK on valid study visas and had later found the colleges they had enrolled in to be fake ones be either compensated or given admission in some other colleges. He said licences of over 250 colleges had been cancelled by the government.

On the issue of hundreds of illegal immigrants from India, he said he was pressing the government to expedite their cases for deporting them.

Sabha president Hayre said an annual general meeting of the NRI Sabha was being planned in Jalandhar on January 15 and 16. The members said they had been long demanding that the NRI Sabha office-bearers be given representation in the NRI Commission.

Jalandhar, December 6
A female sambar strayed into Shitla Devi Temple in Mai Heeran Gate early this morning. As the sambar entered the temple premises, pandits and devotees left their prayers and rushed to have a glimpse of the wild beast.

Scores of area residents and temple sewadars managed to trap the sambhar. The animal was kept in a room and subsequently Forest and Wildlife Department officials and People for Animals (PFA) men were called to take the beast away.

Teams, led by Forest Range Officer Rajinder Kumar and Chander Bhushan of the PFA, reached the temple and took the animal to a rescue and rehabilitation centre of the PFA, located in the Police Lines. The animal was later released in a forest after vaccination, claimed Bhushan.

Another sambar was spotted in Soochi Pind. The animals strayed into the residential area and then entered a rubber factory after being chased by residents.

The wild animal jumped over the boundary wall of the factory and escaped in the thickets. Employees of the the Forest Department and a team of the PFA, however, had to return disappointed.

Jalandhar, December 6
An eight-year-old girl was severally injured in a road accident when a speeding car hit a scooter from the rear near Model House this afternoon.

The girl’s aunt also sustained a fracture in her right leg. The girl, identified as Salma, on her way to a market along with her aunt, Amrit Kaur, and uncle, Jaspal Singh, both residents of Deol Nagar, on a scooter.

Amrit Kaur said a speeding white colour car suddenly hit the scooter they were riding and they fell on the road.

The girl, who was admitted to trauma centre at the local Civil Hospital, sustained severe injuries on her head and lips, while her aunt sustained a fracture in her leg and was also undergoing treatment at the hospital.

The victim said the car driver sped away but her husband noted down the registration number of the vehicle.

The police said the statements of the victims were yet to be recorded.

Jalandhar, December 6
A mentally challenged person committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree at Beant Singh Park today.

The victim has been identified as 32-year-old Vinod Kumar, who used to reside in Sheetal Colony. Vinod is survived by his wife and two children.

Vinod’s brother Sonu said Vinod went outside without informing the family members and was found hanging from a tree. The police has initiated inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the CrPc. — TNS