Mohali, August 23
Rage over parking turned ugly today when a man fired two shots at his neighbour’s vehicle with his licensed revolver and flattened its tyres when it was parked in front of his house at Phase VI here today.

The incident took place at 6.15 am on Thursday. The accused, 45-year-old Tajinder Singh, who his mother claimed is suffering from depression, flattened tyres of a Toyota Innova belonging to Gurpreet Singh, a tenant of Tajinder’s neighbour, by firing two shots.

Tajinder, who is said to be an immigration agent, has been absconding after the incident. Tajinder was seen running towards his house by two women, including Manjit Kaur, owner of the house in which Gurpreet lives, after firing shots at the vehicle.

“We were strolling in a park when we heard a gunshot. We saw Tajinder running towards his house after firing the second shot,” Manjit Kaur told the police.

Tajinder and his family are not in talking terms with their neighbours. Gurpreet Singh said he, too, had heard the gunshots. “I was going to drop my daughter to her school. When I returned, tyres of the vehicle were flat,” said Gurpreet.

He added that he too was not in talking terms with Tajinder who would nag him over the parking issue. “Few days ago, Tajinder asked me not to park my vehicle in front of his house. Today, the vehicle was not parked in front of his house, so there was no provocation behind the incident,” said Gurpreet.

Manjit Kaur said that after the incident, she went to Tajinder’s house. “Despite repeated calls, nobody came out,” she said.

The police said that Tajinder’s mother claimed that he was under depression. The police has registered a case under Section 336 of the IPC and Sections 25, 54, 59 of the Arms Act against Tajinder at the Phase 1 police station.

DSP RS Sohal said the police was investigating the matter. “The accused would be nabbed soon,” he added. 

Chandigarh, August 23
Did Mehak conceive before her marriage? The answer is in the negative going by the technicalities of calculation of weeks of pregnancy. While the Panchkula police has been casting aspersions on her character, claiming Mehak, who died due to strangulation on August 20, was five-month pregnant and she was married only four months ago, medical experts today stated that she could have conceived after the marriage only.

A senior gynaecologist from the PGI said, “Going by the technicalities, the pregnancy period of a woman is to be calculated from the date of her last menstrual cycle, which can under all circumstances be noted ahead of the wedding day. There is no question of the disparity between the date of marriage and date of conception.”

A board consisting of three doctors had conducted the post-mortem on Mehak’s body on August 21. One of the medical experts ascertained that Mehak must have conceived after the marriage. There should not be any questions on her pre-marital pregnancy, said one of the medical experts.

The police said the exact cause of her death could be ascertained after the receipt of viscera report.

The deceased’s family has been alleging that the police was not taking due action and all four suspects in the case were roaming free.

Chandigarh, August 23
The UT Administration and the UT police are yet to identify the youngsters who had participated in the pool party at Lake Club on Sunday.

Sources reveal that the list of 60 guests with the UT police and the administration only mentioned the names as Rita, Sonu, Rocky…etc, without their surname, mobile numbers and address. As there are no contact details of youngsters, the police and the administration failed to record their statements.

Till now, only 15 guests have been questioned by the UT police and they too have given statements in the favour of the organisers. Sources reveal that the inquiry committee constituted by the UT Administration and the police is dependent on the organisers to identity of guests. There is no record of the remaining 150 guests neither with the organisers, nor with the police.

A senior official of the UT Administration said the list had only the first name of the guest. It is difficult to identify the youngsters by their first name. He said the authorities were trying to get more details of youngsters who had participated in the party from the organisers.

Lake Sports Complex better known for high-profile parties
Rajinder Nagarkoti
Tribune News Service

Oldest sports Club

This complex was earlier known as Lake Club and was set up in 1961, making it one of the oldest sporting clubs of the city. In 2005, it was renamed as Lake Sports Complex. The Lake Sports Complex rowing course was the venue of 1989 Senior Asian Rowing Championship and 1994 Junior Asian Rowing Championship. A hi-tech gym having imported machines has also been established at the complex.

Checking of records

After the pool party incident, the UT Administration is also checking the record of past few months to ascertain that how many parties were organised in the club and who had booked those parties. The idea behind checking of records is to check which member had used his membership for organising commercial parties in the name of social get-together. 

Chandigarh, August 23
More than the injury, it’s the shock of betrayal by her neighbour’s son that is not allowing 60-year-old Hira Devi to come to terms with the reality.

Hira, who was attacked by her neighbour yesterday, could not muster up the courage to go back to her house after she was discharged from a hospital today. “She is completely shaken. Her trust in neighbours has been shattered. She used to feel safe in that neighbourhood where we stayed for 40 years. But not any more,” said Rekha, Hira’s daughter as the latter lay mute on a bed at her house.

“More than the injuries, it is her mind that has been scarred forever. She will not be able to come to terms with it. How could our neighbour’s son, whom my mother treated as her own, do that to her?” she asked while looking at her mother lying bandaged.

Her next-door neighbour, Sandeep, had attacked her repeatedly with a hammer after she found him committing theft at her residence in the quarters in Panjab University yesterday.

“We first went to her residence, but she was too scared to enter the same house where she has been so ruthlessly attacked. She is not even talking to us and the scene of crime is haunting her,” said Rekha.

“We had friendly relations with our neighbours since the last over five years. Sandeep’s two children and my grandchildren play together at my 
home. I could never imagine that he could commit such a gruesome act,” 
she added.

Hira Devi had posed a brave front and resisted the attack on her as Sandeep threw chilly powder into her eyes on being identified. She had raised the alarm and her neighbours had then gathered and caught hold of the thief.

“I always treated him (the accused) as my son. We have a common wall attached to our houses and are on very good terms,” said Hira Devi. 

Chandigarh, August 23
Most of the bank ATMs ran out of cash on the second day of the bank strike today. The ATMs of private sector banks, which were operational, witnessed long queues of people waiting to withdraw money.

At an ATM booth at Sector 28, a notice was pasted advising people not to withdraw more than Rs 10,000 as currency notes could get stuck in the machine. Some people were also seen involved in heated arguments at a few ATMs.

Vineet Sharma, a manager with a city-based food chain, said he tried to withdraw Rs 10,000 from an ATM of Sector 32, but it didn’t work and he finally withdrew money from a private bank ATM in Sector 45 D.

Chandigarh, August 23
Ironically, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC), which has Rs 1.5 crore in its kitty for the construction of community parking in residential areas of the city, has no proposal in the pipeline for their execution for the time being.

Surprisingly, the authorities are depending on the UT chief architecture department to chalk out the proposal for construction of community parking in the residential areas and send it to MC for execution.

In the last two years, the demand for community parking in Sectors 27, 34, 35, 44, 45 and 47 were made by area councillors and the authorities had assured them that a proposal will be chalked out and will be got approved from the architecture department.

But the ground reality is that in the last seven months not even a single proposal has been mooted by the authorities in any area of the city. Except community parking in Sector 19, no other project has been proposed and approved till date.

When contacted, MC Chief Engineer SS Bidda said no proposal of the community parking had been chalked out by the corporation, as the chief architecture department has been empowered to recommend it and the MC will only execute it after the survey of the area.

Records of the corporation revealed that for the last two years, the proposal of three community parkings in Sectors 34 and 44 has been lying pending with the chief architecture department. Neither the corporation nor UT chief architecture department is taking any initiative to speed up the approval process and execute it to provide some relief to the public.

Area councillor Harjinder Kaur expressed surprise and said it was strange that the MC was not bothered to take any initiative to chalk out community parking proposals as recommended by the councillors after getting requests from the residents, but was solely depending on the UT Administration to propose the site for it.

As per the MC report, due to lack of parking space in the city, the residents are parking their vehicles in front of their houses and creating problems for public in general. Officials recommended in their report that in order to ease the traffic congestion, need of the hour is to go in for community parking as well as underground parking in the city. Interestingly, for the proposal of underground parking, the MC authorities are also depending on the UT chief architecture department.

Pankaj Soni, a resident of Sector 44, said from the last two years, they had been requesting the administration and corporation to make some provision of community parking in their sector, but nothing has been done till date. He said during night hours, it became a competition among residents to get the parking space for their vehicles and many a times these results in quarrels among them. The situation is similar in other sectors also where the roads are congested and most of the open spaces have been converted into small parks.

Chandigarh, August 23
Loud cries of the 28-year-old woman, Jaswinder Kaur, who was rescued from her house after being found detained in a dingy room for months, rocked the PGI’s emergency ward yesterday.

While Jaswinder Kaur has been found to be suffering from maniac depression and is in dire need of emotional security, her family has allegedly been perceiving her to be “possessed by a ghost” since many months.

Offering her initial counselling, though medical officers at the emergency wing tried to help her calm down, her cries could not be controlled by them for long and she was sent to the psychiatry OPD today.

Found to be suffering from bipolar affective disorder, a rare disease, Jaswinder was administered treatment and after being provided suitable medication, she had been sent back to the emergency wing.

“Bipolar disorder is a condition in which people go back and forth between periods of a good or irritable mood and depression. Under such a situation, family support and emotional security can help them best in recovering,” said a PGI official.

“It took the officials long to control her situation. She was deeply agonised. They tried to ask her as to why was she crying, but she could not speak anything,” said an attendant and eyewitness to the situation.

She has been kept under observation for a while. “The doctors are likely to shift her to the psychiatry ward. Her condition is being monitored at the medical emergency ward at present,” said an official at the emergency ward.

Jaswinder was taken to the PGI yesterday by police officials and volunteers of an NGO after being rescued from her house in Balongi village.

A neighbour, meanwhile, said, “The woman was undergoing treatment in UP. She had fallen unwell after returning from a wedding three months ago. The family had kept her away from the public view since they did not want anybody to know about her ailment.”

A member of the Anti-Corruption and Human Rights Association said her room was locked from outside, as the family members did not want anybody to know about her.

The volunteers and police acted on the complaint of the neighbours.

Chandigarh, August 23
As the impasse between CTU Workers’ Union and CTU’s general manager SP Parmar continues over the latter now allegedly making advance arrangement for bus tyres, the issue of shortage of spares for the ageing fleet of CTU buses has come to haunt officials. Because of the shortage of tyres alone, around 40 local and long route buses were stranded at the Phase 1 workshop.

If the situation continues, around 100 buses would come to a standstill in the comings days. The loss incurred by a long route bus comes to around Rs 15,000 per day, said Ranjit Singh, general secretary of the union.

Not only the tyres but also the shortage of spares for low-floor buses and blue coloured buses has been noticed. The union has been alleging that around 70 vehicles had been dumped at the CTU workshops for the last two months for want of tyres and spare parts.

The union is alleging that no funds had been allocated to replace the old tyres and spare parts of the buses.

Sources reveal that mechanical problems and severe shortage of spare parts for eight-year-old fleet of semi low-floor buses has been affecting the health of local bus service being run by the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU). The buses are detained at the CTU’s workshops for want of spares like accelerator bush, tie rod end, insulation tape and bulbs.

Chandigarh, August 23
Acting on the issue of shortage of regular doctors in government civil dispensaries in Chandigarh, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has pulled up the UT Administration for not deploying the doctors.

Based on the news report on the issue carried in these columns, Member of Parliament Avinash Rai Khanna had approached the NHRC.

Following the directions of the commission, a joint secretary in local government department, Chandigarh Administration, has sent his report. Now, additional doctors have been posted and 19 out of 20 dispensaries have regular doctors. Only the Civil Dispensary at Sector 26 is without a regular doctor, which would also be filled soon.

Chandigarh, August 23
Despite the Chandigarh Police preparing a list of 26 'troublemakers' who can disrupt peace during the forthcoming student council elections at Panjab University, following which the Sub-Divisional Magistrate gave a dressing down to eleven of them who appeared before him yesterday, the university authorities are yet to figure out as to who among these 26 are PU students. The outsiders, meanwhile, continue to participate in political activities on the campus that could lead to violence.

Although the police made the troublemakers furnish surety bonds before the SDM, the university has failed to take necessary measures to check the participation of outsiders in elections. Apart from a list of around 50 suspected troublemakers and 67 vehicles sent to the police department, the university has not made any effort to figure out who among them were PU students.

SDM (Central) Mahavir Kaushik while making the identified troublemakers furnish personal bonds, had said outsiders should be kept out of the student elections to maintain peace. Interestingly, the active leaders of various student organisations are not students of the university.

Dean Student Welfare (DSW) Prof AS Ahluwalia admitted that non-students participating in activities related to the elections were yet to be identified. "We would send the list of 26 students to all the departments to verify who all are presently studying here, and further ask the police to take necessary action," he said. The DSW further said it was physically tough to identify outsiders on the campus for which the police assistance would be sought.

Out of the 26 who were asked to fill surety bonds, 11 have already furnished the bonds stating that they would not indulge in violence.

Chandigarh, August 23
Demanding the facility of getting books issued from Panjab University's AC Joshi Library, students of the department of evening studies staged a protest outside the Vice-Chancellor's office here today.

Terming it as a step-motherly treatment, Jagatpal Brar, a student of the evening department who led the protest, said despite being students of the university, they did not have the right to get any book issued from the main library. He further complained that the students of the evening department could not avail the hostel facility at PU.

Students also claimed that the infrastructure provided to the evening department was not sufficient. There were no streetlights near the department and even the canteen was closed in the evening, they said. — TNS

Chandigarh, August 23
Apart from being the only two government school teachers selected from the city to receive this year's national award for teachers, Rajender Kumar Sharma and Priti Garg have another thing in common. Both the teachers have been popularising the Sanskrit language among school children for over 20 years.

"I feel proud of the fact that Sanskrit language, despite being an optional subject in our curriculum, has been given importance at the national level," said Priti Garg (49), a post graduate teacher at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 10. She along with Rajender Kumar Sharma (56), a trained graduate teacher at Government Model Secondary School, Sector 37, will be conferred the national award for their meritorious services in education by President of India Pranab Mukherjee on the occasion of Teachers’ Day on September 5.

Both the teachers said they took up the profession because of the values and cultural context attached with Sanskrit. Rajender Sharma, who has done PhD in Sanskrit, said there was no better language to teach moral values to students. He said the language had a cultural context that was deeply philosophical in tone. He said many of his students, who were troubled, ended up becoming successful in their respective careers.

Priti Garg, who completed her PhD from Panjab University, felt that the mental development that Sanskrit offered was unparallel. "Every 'shaloka' in this language imbibes great wisdom and mental strength. In my experience, whosoever opted for Sanskrit in my class, remained its student for ever," she said.

Both the teachers have excelled in other activities too. Rajender is the state secretary of Bharat Scouts and Guides. On the other hand, Priti has written several academic books and has also sensitised several students towards community services as a programme officer of National Service Scheme (NSS). Both have also won several state awards in their respective fields.