Jalandhar, April 10
Having received 34 nomination papers till yesterday, the District Election Office (DEO) today rejected eight papers during the scrutiny process.

This leaves 26 candidates in the fray. The candidature of a SAD (Amritsar) candidate Sukhpuran Singh from Kotli Than Singh village was rejected, as he has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment in a criminal case. The candidate had mentioned the details in his affidavit while adding that he had filed an appeal in the matter in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Another candidate of the party Nirmal Singh of Bolina village, who holds double post-graduation degrees, still is in the fray.

The second candidature has been rejected of Asha, an independent candidate, on the grounds that the proposers had not signed her nomination forms. The candidate created much ruckus before SDM-2 Paramjit Singh on hearing the news that her papers had been rejected. A complainant Varinder Kaur had yesterday objected to Asha’s nomination, saying an inquiry against her was pending.

The papers of Ganga Ram, a Samajwadi Party candidate, were rejected as her papers had not been signed by 10 proposers as per the requisite norms. The nomination papers of Vikramjit Chaudhary, PYC chief and son of Congress candidate Chaudhary Santokh Singh, were rejected as he was only a covering candidate. The papers of Manjit Kaur were also rejected on the same grounds. The second additional sets of papers of three candidates, including Tarsem Peter, Tara Singh and Vijay Hans were also rejected.

The 26 candidates who are now in the fray include Chaudhary Santokh Singh of Congress, Pawan Kumar Tinu of SAD, Sukhwinder Singh Kotli of BSP, Jyoti Mann of AAP, Tarsem Peter and Hans Raj of CPI (ML) New Democracy, Vijay Hans of Democratic Bhartiya Samaj Party, Paramjit Kumar of Bahujan Mukti Morcha, Subhash Goria of Shiv Sena, Jarnail Singh of Bharti Jan Suraksha, Tara Singh of BSP (Ambedkar), Kamal Thapar of Democratic Party of India (Ambedkar), independent candidates including Jagan Nath Bajwa, Manjit Kaur, Vijay Kumar, Darshan, Luv Kishore, Kewal Krishan, Ajay Kumar Bhagat, Amit Jassi, Vivek, Mela Singh, Dharminder and Kuldeep Kumar.

Jalandhar, April 10
Started about two months ago with hopes that it will bring reforms to the struggling mid-day meal in the district, the mid-day meal being started on a contractual basis, has just done the opposite. The quality of the mid-day meal has stooped to never-witnessed lows and the food at some places, staff say, is so bad that it either has to be dumped or the students are force fed.

A month ago, a Suranussi-based government school dumped all its mid-day meal out in the open.The dal was drained for many days. A number of schools have been repeatedly preparing fresh food (out of the leftover mid-day meal stock in the kitchen) since the food provided by the contractor was very ‘foul’.

Ever since the contractual mid-day meal was started in February in the district, complaints had been coming time and again but neither the Education nor the Health Department has done a thing. In the past few days, both the frequency and the seriousness of complaints has increased manifold. A few days ago, a local aided-school served gooey, smelly rice to students, which most of them abstained from eating. The dal often turns out sour and even the rotis are dry and unpalatable.

Yesterday, students at the Government Elementary School, Ravidas Nagar received such a bad food that they refused to touch it and instead had to make do with the biscuits arranged by the school in charge.

Staff at the SD Phullarwan Girls Senior Secondary School said they had been getting very bad rice which is smelly and which children refused to eat and had to make their own food.

Staff members of various schools said their students were being force fed by teachers when they complained that the food was unpalatable.

Staff at a school in Harnamdaspura said, “Students have started bringing food from home. Their parents complain that they are getting sick after eating this food. There have been occasions when the dal is sour and bubbles. This is rotten food. Ever since the new scheme started, the quality of the food served is going from bad to worse.”

Sources at many of the schools said teachers were forcibly making students eat the food rather than lodging complaints. While elsewhere, both aided and government schools have brought the issue to the notice to the DEO.

DEO Kuldep Sharma (secondary education) said, “I wasn’t aware of the issue. They must have told the mid-day meal manager. I just got to know now. We will be looking into the matter and taking care that sub-standard food is not delivered to children.”

Jalandhar, April 10
After an expenditure observer and a general observer, it was the turn of police observer to visit Jalandhar today.

AK Murthy, IPS officer from Karnataka, was received by Commissioner Police Ishwar Singh and SSP Rural Jasprit Singh Sidhu. The officer would be shuttling between various constituencies, including Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Khadur Sahib and Anandpur Sahib.

At a meeting with the observer, Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer Varun Roojam said 1,814 polling booths had been set up, of which 449 were hyper-sensitive and 1,234 sensitive, for which more security personnel would have to be deployed. He told him that the process of depositing licensed weapons was on.

Ishwar Singh told him that 23 checking teams had been deputed in the commissionerate area, which included 14 by the 14 police stations and nine additional for entry points to the city. He said the teams would work 24 hours, which would include surveillance, static and flying squad teams.

SSP (Rural) said 30 teams had been constituted to check carrying of unaccounted cash, liquor or weapons. He said night checking had been stepped up.

Yesterday, general observer Ateek Ahmed had joined his duties for the Jalandhar parliamentary constituency. His stay has been arranged at Circuit House. He gave landline numbers 0181-2237813 and 99153-32056 and email ID generalobserverjalandhar@gmail.com to voters to contact him directly for any election-related complaint.

He said barring a few days when he would be in field, he would even be available in the District Administrative Complex from 11 am to 1 pm. He said he would even be going around in the city to check preparations for the conduct of elections.

The expenditure observer Dharinder Lal had started his working in Jalandhar on April 3. He has been supervising the functioning of the expenditure monitoring cell, media certification and monitoring cell, complaint cell and single-window system permission cell.

Jalandhar, April 10
In defiance of the model code of conduct, a busy road in the Model House area was blocked for more than an hour as an election rally of the SAD candidate from Jalandhar (Reserve) parliamentary constituency Pawan Kumar Tinu was on.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, along with other senior party leaders, addressed the rally. Barricades were there on the road, leaving the commuters high and dry. In another violation of the code, loudspeakers, along with the election hoarding of Tinu, were put up on several electricity poles in the vicinity of the rally venue.

It is pertinent to mention here that it is not the first time in the recent past when the Akali-BJP had violated the model code of conduct.

Jalandhar, April 10
City BJP circle president Gurmeet Chouhan’s daughter died in a hit-and-run accident near HMV College here today. His elder daughter sustained minor injuries in the mishap.

Divya Chouhan

The deceased was identified as Divya Chouhan (16), while her sister, who sustained injuries, was identified as Bharti Chouhan (22). Divya was riding pillion on an Activa scooter.

Gurmeet said his daughters were going to get admission form from HMV College and the moment they reached near the college, a speeding truck hit their scooter from behind.

Divya sustained serious injuries on her head and died on the spot, while his elder daughter Bharti escaped with minor injuries.

A case of negligent driving was registered at the police station concerned and efforts were on to nab the errant truck driver.

Jalandhar, April 10
Alleging that the Akali leaders had been resorting to vendetta politics right at the peak time of the Lok Sabha polls, Sukhpal Khaira, Congress spokesperson, said three of his partymen had been booked under Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act last week.

The case pertains to cutting of a fig tree worth Rs 7,000 in the compound of Government Veterinary Hospital, Dhaliwal Bet, at Dhilwan. Complainant in the case is Dr Manpreet Singh of the hospital. The three party workers booked in the case include Kuldeep Singh, a prominent youth leader of the area, Dyal Singh and Gurdev Singh.

Khaira said the administration had made all efforts to ensure that the case was registered against Congress leaders of the area, who were instrumental in giving the village land to the department for starting the hospital. He said he had lodged a complaint with the Chief Election Officer, Punjab, against ADC (D) Mohammad Iqbal Bhatti for working at the behest of former minister Bibi Jagir Kaur, whose son-in-law Yuvraj Bhupinder Singh is Zila Parishad (ZP) chairman. With the ZP falling under the ambit of ADC (D), Bibi and her son-in-law were using the officer to settle their personal scores, he alleged.

Khaira alleged that while the administration had not got any case registered against Bibi in the Rs 1,00 crore land usurping case at Bholath, a complaint of which is now pending with the Lokpal, it had shown a pro-active role in registering a case against Congress workers.

Jalandhar, April 10
Alleging police inaction even after the lodging of an FIR of a rape case against a Tanda-based youth, a 22-year-old girl from the Lamma Pind locality today came to seek the intervention of the DC in the matter.

The girl was found crying bitterly in front of the DC office. She was demanding action against the person concerned for sexually harassing her and was alleging that the police division No. 8 was not nabbing the accused for over a month.

DC Varun Roojam, who was busy in an election meeting, saw the girl weeping outside his room from his CCTV camera and immediately asked his ADC to look into the matter. Realising that it was a matter concerning the Commissionerate Police, he asked ADCP-I Naresh Dogra to look into the matter. Dogra came along with women constables and took the girl to the Commissionerate office.

The girl, who had lost her father who was working with the PSPCL some time ago, said the youth had physical relations with her for a year and a half, promising that he would marry her, but later backed out. She alleged that the police was in the process of transferring the case to Tanda or Bhogpur, which, she said, was being done due to the influence of the youth's family. She said that despite the fact that an FIR under Section 376 had been lodged at the division No. 8 police station, the cops had not taken any step to arrest the accused. The victim, who seemed to be much disturbed, said the accused, Kulwinder Singh, had been daily picking her from near Pathankot Chowk in Jalandhar on his bike to Bhogpur. She said she first met him during a pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi. "I was returning in my Swift car when its tyre got flat. He had helped me there and that is how we came into contact with one another. Our relationship got quite close and he even committed that he would marry me. But he used and dumped me bringing so much disgrace to me and my family," she alleged.

Naresh Dogra said as per her complaint, she was not sexually harassed in the city police jurisdiction, but in the jurisdiction of the rural police. Her case has now been transferred to the Bhogpur police station and falls in the rural police and SSP, Jalandhar, Rural Police, has also been given written intimation about the same.

Jalandhar, April 10
A man was beaten to death by two brothers after the former objected to the alleged ruckus being created by the two at Raipur village yesterday. Both accused are at large.

As per the complainant, Amandip, a nephew of the deceased Gurjit Singh (driver at HDFC Bank), his uncle was beaten to death by Manpreet and his brother Dharminder yesterday in the morning.

On Tuesday night, the alleged accused, who are also their neighbours, were reportedly creating ruckus on their rooftop in an inebriated state and despite several requests, the duo didn’t pay heed to them.

When the accused refused to budge, the victim's daughters also went to request the youths to stop making noises, but they misbehaved with them and also threatened them with dire consequences.

In the meantime, Gurjeet also arrived at the place and requested the duo not to create disturbance. Instead of paying heed to Gurjeet’s advice, the duo argued with him.

On Wednesday morning, when Gurjeet left for bank on his scooter from home, a few minutes later he called at home and said that he was severely beaten up by Manpreet and Dharminder.

The victim’s kin immediately reached the spot and rushed the victim to a nearby private hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead.

The Paragpur police post in-charge Ashwani Kumar said the police were conducting raids to nab the accused.

Phagwara, April 10
Community Health Centre, Bara Pind, organised a function to mark the World Health Day under the guidance of Senior Medical Officer Dr Balwinder Singh Kahlon today. School children, health officials, school children and locals were present to observe the day celebrated under the theme ‘Small bite big threat”. It was aimed at promoting awareness regarding the vector-borne diseases.

Dr Kahlon said diseases from mosquitoes including malaria and dengue could be prevented by removing collected water in open areas. He also stressed upon to give due importance to mental health. Block Extension Educator Preetinder Singh, Health Supervisor, Jagat Ram Bhatti, also spoke on the occasion. Students of the Government Senior Secondary School (Boys) displayed different posters on ‘World Health Day’.