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Close brush with death, says NRI
Chandigarh, April 10 Navneet, a Canada-based NRI, went missing from his Sector 18 residence yesterday afternoon. His brother informed the police that he had received a ransom call demanding Rs 1 crore. Navneet had entered into a deal to purchase property in Durala village in Kurukshetra. He had gone to finalise the deal with Anil Kumar, a property dealer and a proclaimed offender and a murder accused, who was there along with two others. The property dealer had changed his mind of striking a deal with him. Finding Navneet gullible, he thought of kidnapping him instead. “I went to Kurukshetra yesterday to meet Anil and sat in his farmhouse when, suddenly, five-six persons came and overpowered me,” he said. “With a gun on my forehead, I was asked to call my brother Gurneet in Canada asking him to arrange Rs 1 crore,” he said. “Since my tone was formal and I was scared, my brother sensed something was wrong. He got suspicious and asked why I needed to pay the full amount for the land. He then called my servant who informed him that I was missing,” Navneet said. Gurmeet then called the Chandigarh Police. With a swollen eye, a battered forehead and wounds on arms and other parts of his body, Navneet said he was beaten regularly. “They first took the Rs 25 lakh that I was carrying. Two of them went to my house in Chandigarh where I asked my servant to hand them whatever money was in the house,” he said. “I had come to India in January when I met Anil Kumar through a common friend and went with him to Kurukshetra a number of times to settle a property deal. I returned in April to finalise the deal,” he said. “I am fortunate to have been rescued. They were on the verge of killing me. I heaved a sigh of relief on hearing the sound of gunshots as I realised that the police had arrived. The UT police was very swift in its action. I want to join the police force in Canada,” he
said. Earlier cases in city
December 21, 2010: Five-year-old Khushpreet kidnapped for Rs 5-lakh ransom from his house in Kajheri. He was found murdered after a police trap failed. The kidnappers were later arrested February, 2011: Five-year-old Prince kidnapped for ransom from Bapu Dham Colony. The kidnappers were arrested and have been convicted this year Standard procedure followed
The rescue operation is an outstanding example of interstate coordination. The UT police got assistance from the Haryana Police as soon as the matter was brought to the notice of the Kurukshetra SP and the DGP, Haryana. We coordinated well with the Kurukshetra police, which provided us full cooperation. We had formulated a standard operating procedure for dealing with kidnapping for ransom cases and it was followed in full
spirit. — PK Srivastava, UT IGP
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A Bollywood thriller
Chandigarh, April 10 Having no idea how many kidnappers had kept the NRI hostage and how many weapons they possessed, 10 UT policemen reached the farmhouse in Kurukshetra at around 1.20 pm. In hiding outside the farmhouse spread over many acres, the UT police co-ordinated with the Krurukshetra police and asked it to provide additional force for the operation. As the UT police team waited for the Haryana Police, it intercepted the Swift Dezire car heading out of the farmhouse. Nitin, one of the accused, was on his way to get food for the kidnappers. He was taken into custody and questioned about his accomplices and their plan. Nitin gave wrong information to the police and said three persons were inside the farmhouse while they were actually five in
number.
Just as the police team of the UT and the Haryana Police advanced towards the farmhouse, one of the kidnappers, Pradeep Malik, opened fire from inside the room where the hostage was kept.
“There was only one way to enter the farmhouse and they saw our vehicles at some distance. They fired three shots and after a brief silence, we too fired shots into the air. We apprehended three accused guarding the place after a chase. The other two accused fled when they got to know that their accomplices had been arrested. They were also nabbed after a chase,” said the investigating officer, Inspector Amanjot Singh.
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DPI snubs PU students’ initiative
Chandigarh, April 10 Preeti Rawat, a second-year student of the department, said they had gone to meet DPI (Schools) Sandeep Hans for getting the children of migrants working on the PU campus admitted under the EWS quota, but they were surprised when they were asked not to act as mediators and leave it to the parents where they want their children to get admitted. “As students of the social work department, we are trying to help the education department as despite the child-mapping exercise conducted by the UT, the department has no information about these children. But we were treated like we had some vested interest in getting the students admitted,” she claimed. The students were even asked to show their university identity cards to establish their identity. Vinay Dhiman, another second-year student, said the DPI told them that they should have applied for the RTE seats when the advertisement was issued asking the candidates to apply for vacant seats. “It was disappointing,” he said. When contacted, the DPI said the students were nobody to decide in which schools the children should be admitted. “I have only asked the students to get the parents of the children as they are the ones to decide whether they want them to be admitted to a private or a government school,” he said. He said the students could come up with a list of all the students and the department would examine their case and get the students admitted to the nearest schools.
PARENTS MUST
I have only asked the students to get the parents of the children as they are the ones to decide whether they want their children to be admitted to a private or a government school. — Sandeep Hans, DPI (Schools)
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Hooda, Paes served snacks in dishes washed in toilet
Chandigarh, April 10 Around 4 pm, about an hour before tea was served to guests, including Leander Paes, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, All-India Tennis Association (AITA) secretary-general Anil Khanna and UT Adviser KK Sharma, the Tribune team saw mess workers washing the dishes in a washroom of the complex and serving the VVIPs and mediapersons snacks and tea in the same utensils. The utensils were placed in a blue basket which was lying on the floor of the washroom and visitors could be seen using the washroom frequently. “These are baseless allegations. When we have a separate mess with the facility of washing dishes, why will the mess workers or waiters wash the utensils in the washroom?” remarked Meghraj, chief operating officer of the CLTA. When told that the Tribune team had photographs as proof, he said: “You (the reporter) should have pointed this out when you saw the mess on the ground. I was there the whole time during the match and if anyone saw something wrong, it should have been pointed out to us.” Subsequently, he conceded that he was not aware of the incident. Meanwhile, only one washroom was open for students of various government schools who were called to see the exhibition match of their favourite star. “We saw the utensils being cleaned in the washroom when we went to use the toilet. The workers were openly using water from the washrooms to clean the dishes,” a student said requesting anonymity.
Baseless allegations
These are baseless allegations. When we have a separate mess with the facility of washing dishes, why will the mess workers or waiters wash the utensils in the washroom? —
Meghraj, chief operating officer of CLTA
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PDS kerosene quota for UT slashed
Chandigarh, April 10 This means that the families running their kitchen on kerosene will now get almost half of their allocated quota, varying between 5 litres and 15 litres, depending on the number of family members. The Joint Director, Food and Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Kavle V Parshuram, said the amount of kerosene to be supplied from April was being worked out. Against the earlier allocated quota of 1,752 kilo litre (KL) for January to March, the UT quota for April to June had been brought down to 948 KL, meaning a reduction of 804 KL. As far the city is concerned, other UTs like Puducherry and Daman and Diu had faced a high cut of 95 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively. Sources in the oil companies coordinating the supply of the PDS kerosene for the states in the northern region said a major reason why the kerosene quota had been slashed was a sharp increase in the consumer demand for gas. Those who moved to other sources of energy such as LPG cylinder or pipelined gas, did not get kerosene. There is a significant increase in the supply of LPG for domestic use over the last few years, which is suspected to be a major reason for the reduction in demand for kerosene and subsequently the quota, the sources said.
The possibility of pilferage of kerosene was also not being ruled out. The general secretary of the Chandigarh Kerosene Dealers Association said the cut would translate into financial losses to them. The association was taking up the matter with the UT Administration. Till now, per family quota of kerosene was 5 litres for a single member ration card, 10 for a three-member family, 15 for a family with more than three members and 3 for single gas users.
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Admn to penalise mobile operators
At present, there are more than 300 illegal mobile towers in the city. A senior official of the UT Administration said they would soon issue notices to the mobile operators. Regarding the amount of penalty, he added that they would soon hold a meeting with the Estate Office officials to decide the amount. But the official added that they were also mulling over allowing installation of mobile towers in residential areas of a few sectors where there was no commercial space available to install mobile towers. Recently, the administration had also issued directions to the architecture department to prepare a road map for the installation of mobile phone towers in the city. Recently, the UT Estate Office had issued notices to the owners of residential and commercial buildings for violation of the building bylaws. Earlier, the Deputy Commissioner, Brijendra Singh, in his report submitted to UT Finance Secretary VK Singh had pointed out that more than 300 mobile phone towers in the city were illegal. The UT Administration had asked for the report after receiving directions from the Punjab and Haryana High Court that it should notify its policy on mobile phone towers in the residential areas in two months. The High Court had made it clear that it wanted these towers to be shifted out of the residential areas in a phased manner. Sources in the Estate Office said there were 547 mobile phone towers in the city out of which around 300 were operating illegally. The Estate Office had conducted a survey in which it came to light that a majority of these towers were installed in violation of the building bylaws.
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PCA barricading, a traffic hazard
Mohali, April 10 Motorists coming from Chandigarh who have to turn right from the traffic light point are blinded by the seven-foot-high barricades, which are a part of security arrangements for an IPL match. “We cannot see the traffic coming from the right. This can lead to a major accident,” said Sanjeev Sharma, who was going from Sector 48 of Chandigarh to Phase VIII of Mohali. “The authorities should leave a patch near the traffic light point and put up the barricades only on the day of the match,” said Vijayinder Singh, a local resident. “What is the point in putting the lives of people in danger by putting up the barricading near traffic light point three or four days before the event,” he asked. PCA joint secretary GS Walia said the barricading had been done as per Mohali police guidelines. It had been on road dividers around the stadium to stop unauthorised persons from entering the stadium during matches, he added. “If there is some problem, we will talk to the police and request it to remove the barricades to facilitate motorists. We do not want to cause any inconvenience to the common man,” he added.
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Mercury to dip further in next 24 hours
Chandigarh, April 10 The Met office has predicted partly cloudy sky with possibility of thundery development. The maximum temperature on Wednesday will be around 35 degrees Celsius and minimum temperature on Thursday will be around 22 degrees Celsius. Met director Surinder Pal said such conditions would prevail for the next 24 hours. Maximum temperatures are also likely to fall and thereafter the conditions will improve. Meanwhile, maximum temperature on Tuesday was 34.9 degrees Celsius while the minimum temperature was 22.4°C. The maximum relative humidity was 55 per cent while the minimum was recorded at 25 per cent. In Haryana, Narnaul recorded the maximum temperature of 40.3 degrees Celsius followed by Rohtak and Hissar where the maximum temperature was recorded at 40.3 and 38.4 degrees Celsius, respectively. In Punjab, Patiala recorded the maximum temperature of 36.2 degrees Celsius followed by Amritsar and Ludhiana where the maximum temperature was recorded at 31.6 and 31.5 degrees Celsius, respectively.
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Panchkula police gets more teeth
Panchkula, April 10 As per information, Adarshdeep and Nupur Bishnoi have been posted as Assistant Commissioners of Police (ACP) taking the total number of ACPs in the district to five. At present, there are three ACPs Krishan Hooda, Dheeraj Setia and Iqbal Kaur. Vijay Kumar and Naveen have been posted as Inspectors in the district. The police department in the district has been demanding additional force to check the crime rate for the past several years keeping in view the large area, including the hilly terrains of Morni and Kalka and the district, that shares boundary with two states and a Union Territory. The posting of seven new police officials is in addition to the 75 police personnel provided by the state police department in December, last year. Presently, there are 1,095 police personnel in the district providing round-the-clock security to residents here, including towns like Kalka, Pinjore, Raipur Rani and Barwala. Sources said about 400 police officials were put on the VVIP duty in the town and at Chandigarh while 80 police officials were deployed with the 16 PCRs. Earlier, the shortage of police personnel had made Panchkula an easy target for criminals. All efforts of the police to curb crime in the town seem futile. Be it jewellery shops or banks, robbers had left no place safe and there have been kidnapping cases, too, in the 898 sq km area that shares its boundary with Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. The city has only 1,000 police personnel to guard the 5.5 lakh population in the district spread over 898 sq km while the neighbouring Chandigarh has around 7,000 police personnel to guard over 10.5 lakh population.
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Dengue case surfaces
Panchkula, April 10 Dr Kulshreshtha of Happy Family Hospital said the patient had been running fever for the past couple of days and was advised to undergo
certain tests. He said the patient tested positive for dengue. He said they would report the matter to the Civil Surgeon who would further inform the health authorities at Mohali so that necessary steps could be taken on time to check the spread of dengue.
Symptoms
Precautions
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A fare of mouth-watering dishes
Creative director of the event Prof Bansi Kaul said people would relish traditional food items from 29 states of the country, including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Prof Kaul said the detectable palate of Tamil Nadu, “Makki di Roti” and “Sarson Ka Saag”, “Dalbhati” and “Churma” of Rajasthan and Mughlai food from Uttar Pradesh would be some of the delicacies that would be prepared and served to people visiting the venue during the event. Director of the North Zone Cultural Centre DS Saroya said the Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCCs) were set up 25 years ago and conceptualised to preserve, innovate and promote the projections and dissemination of folk arts cutting across regional cultural borders and bring about unity through culture. The seven overlapping zones comprising the Zonal Cultural Centres have promoted, cross-promoted and created opportunities for cultural exposure and awareness among people of different states and regions. With the philosophical implication that the number seven has, the ZCCs epitomise celebration of cosmic time and space. He said seven ZCCs comprises North Zone Cultural Centre, Patiala, South Zone
Cultural Centre, Thanjavur, Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Kolkata, West Zone Cultural Centre, Udaipur, North East Zone Cultural Centre, Dimapur, North Central Zone Cultural Centre, Allahabad, and South Central Zone Cultural Centre, Nagpur. “These are autonomous registered bodies under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, with the Governors of the host state as chairperson of each ZCC,” he added. He added that the youth had always remained a major focus area of these seven centres. Besides, novel schemes like “Guru-Shishya Parampara”, periodic training programmes and workshops for rural children and youngsters were organised on a regular basis to ensure their holistic development. “Women-oriented programmes and special programmes for the physically challenged are organised by the ZCCs,” he added.
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Villagers allege police inaction, block highway
Mohali, April 10 They added that they had lodged a complaint with the Sohana Police, but it had failed to trace the youth so far. The blockade put commuters to inconvenience. To pacify the agitators, SP (headquarters) Maninder Singh reached the spot. He directed the officials to trace the youth in two days following which villagers agreed to lift the blockade. The agitators said they would block all roads and rail traffic if the police failed to do anything.
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Guest houses at UT villages may not get fresh permission
Chandigarh, April 10 The draft was approved during a meeting preside over by Finance Secretary VK Singh today. The draft would be sent to UT Administrator Shivraj Patil for approval. It was recommended in the draft that no basement would be allowed at villages of the city. In the past, a number of cases of building collapse had been reported. From now on, converting a 100 per cent residential area into a commercial one would not be allowed either by the Administration or the municipal corporation. In case of conversion, only the ground floor of a building would be allowed to be converted from residential to commercial. As per rules, permission for conversion would not be allowed if there was not any parking space near or around the building. An official said the decision was taken as there was shortage of parking space at villages. There was also a proposal to revise the penalty to be imposed on violators. The official said there were major flaws in village bylaws, 2006, and it was decided that revised bylaws for villages would be drafted.
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Decision to withdraw 60 CTU buses in abeyance
Chandigarh, April 10 The issue was discussed during a meeting of CTU officials chaired by Transport Secretary Anil Kumar. Officials with the transport department were asked to prepare a blueprint on the requirements of buses on local routes, according to which future plans would be made. Cited on the basis of low occupancy, the proposal to withdraw 60 ordinary buses, after 20 heating-ventilation and air-conditioned buses, from long routes had attracted a lot of criticism. The CTU Workers Union today staged a rally to protest against the move of the UT Administration to withdraw buses from long routes. The CTU had prepared a special booklet, detailing various local routes, the frequency of buses and the number of buses plying on the 65 local routes within the the tricity. The Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and local Member of Parliament, Pawan Kumar Bansal, had stressed on an organised and efficient local mass transport system as the top priority of the CTU, without ignoring the mutual agreement on long-route buses with neighbouring states.
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Panel meets on traffic flow
Chandigarh, April 10 They suggested anticlockwise adjustment of traffic lights, introduction of more minibuses by
the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking, an easy and viable public transport system, improvement in road designing, provision of slip roads to a proper distance from traffic lights and lane discipline at
traffic crossings. They also suggested plastic road dividers till 50 yards from slip
roads, proper level parking near ‘apni mandis’ and speed governors for commercial vehicles. The DIG assured them that the suggestions would be taken up with the departments concerned.
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F&CC meets tomorrow on no-vehicle zones at Sec 17
Chandigarh, April 10 During a meeting of the Administration and the municipal corporation (MC), Administrator Shivraj Patil directed the MC to submit it to the Administration. It was decided that the report would be prepared by the MC for submission to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on April 20.
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Car overturns on PU campus
Chandigarh, April 10 According to PU security personnel, the car rammed into another car near the PU market, hit a divider and overturned. Onlookers rushed to the spot to help the student out. Traffic was disrupted following the accident. The owner of the parked car which was hit arrived at the scene later. Both parties arrived at a compromise.
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PU postpones BCom paper
Chandigarh, April 10 The examination was postponed a few hours before the time fixed for conducting the examination. This caused inconvenience to over 8,000 students across the colleges of Chandigarh and Punjab. Controller Examination, PU, AK Bhandari said there were rumours of question paper being leaked, following which the university decided to postpone the examination. “We have verified from all the examination centres. There were no such reports, still we decided to hold back the examination as a preventive measure,” Bhandari said. PU officials said they were verifying if the question paper was leaked during the transit of papers from university to examination centres. The sudden postponement led to confusion in the examination centres where students had already reached to write the test. Mandeep Singh, one of the students, said he initially thought it was a joke but when he reached the centre he learnt that the examination has actually been postponed. Ankita, another BCom II student, said the incident would also affect her
performance in the other examinations. “Now we would have to prepare for the exam again
which would lead to more burden,” she said. The news of postponement spread among the students through SMS. Panjab University authorities are palnning to take the test in
first-week of May. “The tentative date fot the test is May 3 ,” said a PU official.
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Forgive expelled student, UICET appeals to PU
Chandigarh, April 10 The department in a communitarian sent to the Vice Chancellor has asked PU to end his expulsion from the hostel. Although no legal action was taken against him the university had barred him from availing the hostel for complete course. The punishment also included no scholarship and even barring the student from taking part in any of the university events, including youth festival. Official sources said the request for ending the punishment was move to Dean University Instruction (DUI) who further sent it to the Dean Student Welfare (DSW). The matter came to the fore on September 12 last year when Saksham Bhatnagar, a fresher, wrote a letter to his hostel warden informing him about his seniors urging him to accompany them to the mess. This was followed by a mail from his father to department officials stating that his son was being harassed ever since he joined the department and he thus detested going for classes or staying in the hostel. However, later the victim’s father took back his complaint. The student had also left the department after the incident. DSW AS Ahluwalia said we have decided to take up the matter with the Anti-ragging Committee in its next meeting. “We have just forwarded the case. The final decision will be taken by the committee only,” said
Ahluwalia.
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Education dept upholds decision to fail 30 students
Chandigarh, April 10 The parents of these students had approached the department a week ago against the school principal and teachers accusing them of not only intentionally failing their children but also misbehaving with them. Following the complaint, the department initiated an enquiry and got the papers reevaluated. The reevaluation results were put up today and the score of all students remained more or less the same. “The rechecking of papers proved that the school authorities did not deliberately fail the students. It was the students who did not perform well. The parents are free to see the papers and even can get them checked by subject experts or tuition teachers. The students were given 15 grace marks but they still failed,” said District Education Officer Ram Kumar. The parents blamed the teachers saying that such a staggering number of students of a single class failed as teachers are not doing their job correctly. “If 30 students in a class failed, is it not a reflection on teachers’ performance? The school is not functioning properly and the teachers don’t teach and it’s our children who have to face the brunt,” said a parent. The department however nullified the argument by saying the attendance record of the concerned students was short. “How can the teachers be blamed if students didn’t attend any class? These students and their parents were busy sending them to coaching centres and didn’t bother about school. This has lead to their failure. Many came asking for a retest but after giving 15 marks as grace there is no question of any retest,” said a senior official.
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SSA to introduce farm tour in curriculum
Chandigarh, April 10 The tour will introduce students to a variety of vocations pertaining to farm sector like horticulture, sericulture, bio-fuel, organic farming, apiculture, fisheries, poultry, vermicompost, rainwater harvesting, diary farming, kitchen gardening and others. The proposal of first-of-its kind programme has been sent to the Ministry of Human Resource Development for its approval. The state and UT units of the programme will get into action after the approval. According to the proposed plan, students from standard VIII and onwards will be taken on agri tours. The district and UT SSAs have been asked
to prepare a list of places where such tours can be conducted. The students will be selected from three categories girls’ education, urban deprived children (UDC) and minorities. A sum of Rs 150 would be allotted to each child. “It’s unfortunate but true that modern day students are clueless about our primary sector occupations. The tour will widen horizons of their knowledge and will also help them to review the sector as an entrepreneurial career option. The district and UT SSA units will be briefed soon and we will see if we can train teachers or outsource experts. According to plans, 75 per cent of children studying in VIII standard in government schools will be taken out on tours,” said a senior SSA official.
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Army equipment on display for school students
Chandigarh, April 10 Students from 15 schools in the tricity have been invited to the three-day exhibition, with about 600 students from seven schools turning up on the first day today. Infantry combat vehicles, bridge layers, artillery and air defence guns, small arms, tanks and communication and surveillance equipment used by the infantry were displayed. The employment of some equipment, including mortars, artillery guns and bridge layers, was demonstrated. The students got the opportunity to ride a tank. “The aim of this exercise is to provide the students an insight into the sense of accountability and the degree of professionalism required in the armed forces, besides acting as motivation for those who aspire to join the services,” an officer said.
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Chandigarh, April 10
Panchkula, April 10