The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Cong flays CM on Sadique issue
Party’s MLAs from Malwa say singer fell into Badal’s trap
Megha Mann
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, July 2
The six Congress MLAs of Malwa today accused chief minister Prakash Singh Badal of enticing Congress MLA from Bhadaur, Mohammad Sadique, to sing in Vidhan Sabha and then making fun of him.

Addressing media persons, MLA, Bhucho, Ajaib Singh Bhatti said, "Mohammad Sadique is a novice and a first-timer, an innocent person who fell into Badal's trap. The kind of language Badal used after Sadique's song ended is unbecoming of his age and experience. Badal is the senior most politicians with 53 years of experience in Vidhan Sabha and is supposed to make others feel at ease and not pull his leg."

In a bid to reach out to the common man, the Congress MLAs declared that they would partner the aggrieved people in all kinds of protests and dharnas, provided the issues are genuine.

Elaborating on the budget presented in Vidhan Sabha, Bhatti said the budget has nothing to satiate the parched treasury of the state. "Our loans are mounting high and we are getting more loans to pay the interest of the previous one. In this scenario, one can well imagine how the principal amount would be paid back. Such is the situation that every new-born baby of Punjab is a debtor of Rs 81,000," he added.

Gidderbaha MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Jaito MLA Joginder Singh Panjgrain, former MLA Gurpreet Singh Kangar, former MLA Ajit Singh Shant and Congress (rural) president Narinder Singh Bhuleria and general secretary Rupinder Bindra accompanied Bhatti.

Accusing Badal of indulging in vendetta politics, Kangar said all cases on Congress workers are politically motivated. He trashed the reports of the Punjab police, which claim otherwise, stating that the Punjab police was a government machinery and cannot depose against the ruling party.

Gidderbaha MLA Warring said that reverting from its poll promise, the Punjab government has now started collecting Abiana — water rate charged on the area irrigated by the canal.

"People in areas of Abohar are being asked to deposit cess as back as that for four years," he said while dwelling on the poll promises the SAD-BJP government made and did not fulfill.

Demolition drive halted midway in Moga
Kulwinder Sandhu
Tribune News Service

Officials try to figure out the confusion that arose during the demolition drive in Moga on Monday. A Tribune photograph

Moga, July 2
In an unexpected turn of events, the authorities of the Moga Municipal Corporation stopped the demolition drive to remove the encroachments from the national highway within the local body limits minutes after the JCB machines were set into motion on Monday morning.

District Magistrate of Moga, Arshdeep Singh Thind, who is also the municipal commissioner, ordered a probe by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Jeram Beda. The report would be submitted to the DM within 24 hours.

The demolition squad led by Raman Kumar, an official of the MC, along with the SHOs of Moga City-I and City-II police stations, and other employees, reached the highway and started demolishing the encroachments from the Ludhiana road side.

However, when they were about to remove an encroachment, the local tehsildar-cum-duty magistrate Arvind Kumar rushed to the spot and ordered that the demolition drive be stopped. The duty magistrate claimed that the MC officials did not follow the rules and regulations while launching the demolition drive.

"Everything was in place and suddenly, when we reached the spot this morning, we were told by the duty magistrate that no work would be undertaken," said a senior official of the local body.

Thind claimed there was no political pressure. "I am not sure what happened, whether there was any political pressure or a procedural lapse. That is why I have asked the ADC to look into the matter and report within 24 hours," he said.

Employee unions sore over move to shift MAGSIPA office
Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, July 2
Accusing the state government of giving step-motherly treatment to this border district, various employee unions and local NGOs are up in arms against the move to relocate the regional centre of the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration (MAGSIPA), which was successfully functioning here for the last three years. The regional centre is to be shifted to Bathinda.

Vijay Behal, president, Punjab State Ministerial Staff Union,

Ferozepur, while strongly condemning the move, said the shifting of the centre to Bathinda has caused resentment among the employees of various government departments in Ferozepur and adjoining districts.

Behal said the MAGSIPA regional centre had started several programmes to provide the latest information and training to the employees because of which, work culture and efficiency in the offices, especially those dealing directly with the members of the public, had seen an improvement.

Bajraj Singh, state president, Soil Conservation Department Employees Union, also ridiculed the decision. Bhupinder Kaur, president of the Education Department Ministerial Staff Union, said the move has drawn flak from various employees' federation here.

Ironically, while the regional centre in the border district is being closed, the government has proposed to open a new regional centre in adjoining Amritsar. Officials in MAGSIPA said earlier, the government employees of various offices in Ferozepur and adjoining districts of Fazilka, Moga and Muktsar used to get training here itself. However, they will now have to go to either Bathinda or Chandigarh to hone their skills. "The sarpanches, municipal councillors and other public representatives who were being trained here, will not like to go out for training," said another MAGSIPA official here.

"It is sheer injustice to this border district," lamented Chander Mohan, adding that "it was not the first time that any office is being shifted from Ferozepur to Bathinda. Already several offices like the regional office of the Punjab National Bank, Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board, besides a few others, have moved to Bathinda, apparently to please the political bosses," he added. The services of the staff members posted at the MAGSIPA centre here have also been reportedly terminated with immediate effect.

Raminder Singh, Commissioner, Ferozepur Division, also termed the move as irrational. The commissioner said the border district should not be divested of such an important institution regarding which he has already written a letter to the higher authorities.

Another MAGSIPA official said the government should review its decision as the centre functions under the chairmanship of the commissioner whereas in both Bathinda and Amritsar, where the regional offices were being opened, the commissioner's office does not exist.

Traffic cops resort to ingenuity in Abohar
Put concrete blocks to serve as dividers on main roads
Raj Sadosh

Abohar, July 2
Even as the yellow lines on the roads have failed to create awareness among the public about the rules of parking vehicles, the police here has tried to be ingenuous in its approach towards controlling traffic woes.

Concrete blocks have been put outside the main bus stand, near the railway overbridge and at other important places. This will serve as a substitute for road dividers, the officials said.

The officials maintained that such blocks were earlier put in some congested lanes also in the heart of this sub-divisional town that has got the highest number of vehicles and weapons in the district.

"Nowhere else have I seen such nuisance in traffic control exercise," said Baldev Singh, the driver of a Punjab Roadways bus that operates on inter-state routes. Many a time, not only the buses but luxury cars too ram into these concrete blocks, said another driver, Gurdarshan Singh, adding that the president of the local Municipal Council, Shiv Raj Goyal, was among those affected.

An employee at the municipal general bus stand pointed out that streetlights normally don't work at night and vehicles ram in to the "dividers" put up by the police. Intriguingly, the council had allegedly chosen to divert funds meant to give a synthetic coat to the dividers on the circular road, instead of making them technically sound, observed the chairman of the Consumers Movement, Satpal Khariwal.

Patron of the Senior Citizens Association, Captain SK Dutta (retd), questioned the propriety of fixing huge concrete blocks in the middle of the roads instead of opting for modernized gadgets to control the traffic.

The traffic police has not been able to check mishaps even after fixing huge concrete blocks on the Sunder Nagari side of the railway overbridge, Dutta pointed out.

Six booked for Ferozepur youth’s murder

Ferozepur, July 2
The Ferozepur police has booked six persons in connection with the murder of a local youth, identified as Amandeep aka Happy Deora, on the basis of the statement of his father, Desh Raj. No arrests have, however, been made so far.

Happy Deora was shot dead at point blank range yesterday in the evening when he had gone to buy a gift from one of the shops in the cantonment. Eyewitnesses said while Happy was making the purchases, some youths, who came in a Gypsy, entered the shop and pumped bullets inside Happy's chest following which he died on the spot.

Involved in over 18 criminal cases himself, Happy was currently out on bail. His close friends revealed that he had left the world of crime and wanted to lead a normal life. He recently got married to a girl in Mamdot.

Ferozepur SSP Hardial Singh Mann said the police has rounded up a few suspects in the case. Mann said that according to the statements of Happy's father, it was a case of contract killing. However, the police was working on other theories as well, he added.

Dabir Singh, SHO, Cantonment police station, said a case has been registered against six persons including Gurshahid alias Sheera, Manna, Ajit Lal Sharma, Kamal Kishore, Johny and Babbu Khullar. "Till the time the police comes up with any significant evidence against those named in the FIR, we cannot arrest them," said the SHO.

Meanwhile, a large number of relatives and friends attended his cremation today. — OC