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Politicians fail residents

Chandigarh, May 10
Instead of the rooster’s crows, children of Mazdoor, Pandit, Kuldeep, Khajheri and Nehru colonies today woke up to rattling sounds of JCBs that had come to demolish their houses.

Present tense, future imperfect: A view of Nehru Colony, Chandigarh, which was demolished by the UT Administration on Saturday

A woman, carrying her child, walks her way over the rubble

Priya is at loss as her house at Pandit Colony in Sector 52, Chandigarh, which was granted stay by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, was partially grounded during the drive

Residents of the colony protest against the UT Administration while the drive is under way. Tribune photos: Parvesh Chauhan and S Chandan

The children along with their families witnessed a mass demolition. They helplessly saw their houses being razed to the ground.

Rukshana, a mother of six young daughters, while collecting her belongings buried under broken bricks, said, “All the money I had collected to marry off my elder daughter Rasiya will now be used to pay rent. Though the UT Administration has demolished our house, it did not allot us any accommodation in the rehabilitation colony.”

She cried, “Where will I take my six daughters? Who will take responsibility of their security?”

Sharing the similar plight was Sudesh, who had been living in the colony for the past over 30 years. Sitting outside her demolished house with her belongings scattered all over the place and her dog tied to a broken bed, she said, “For the past five years, I have been running around the courts to save my dwelling but all my complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Today, neither I have a roof over my family members’ heads nor any hope of getting it in future.”

Dilip Kumar, 25, who was born and brought up in the colony, alleged, “Before the Lok Sabha elections, all the candidates for the Chandigarh seat approached us and made tall promises of taking care of us. But today, when we are being forced out of our houses, none of them even came to even enquire about us.”

Colony residents alleged that the Administration had allotted houses in the rehabilitation colony only to a few while most displaced families were rendered homeless.

Manu, a daily wage earner, said, “For the past one month, instead of working, I have been running from pillar to post looking for a house for my children and requesting the officials concerned to allot me a house. However, all my efforts went down the drain. Neither I was allotted a house nor could I find a rented accommodation which I can afford.”

With the rising mercury all that one could spot was an ugly dance of humanity, as women got into cat fights over tin sheet scrap and children, instead of studying, gathered the remains of their houses, broken wooden doors, windowpanes and iron pieces.

Mohali, May 10
The removal of Nehru Colony by the Chandigarh authorities has come as a big relief to residents of Phase III-A here who say they had been living a miserable life for a long time due to the proximity of their houses to the slum.

Petty thefts, quarrels, road accidents and unhygienic conditions had become the bane of the Phase III-A residents over the past many years.

Manjit Singh Sethi, a former municipal councillor, said today it was an unauthorised colony, which had grown quite big over time due to political patronage extended to slum dwellers.

The colony, he said, had made life miserable for the residents of Phase III-A, especially those living close to the area. A wall was got constructed to cut off the jhuggi area but parts of it were later broken to make passages through it.

Sethi said residents in the phase often faced power trippings because of kundi connections made by persons living in the colony. When the kundis were got removed, certain slum dwellers attacked residents of Phase III-A and even protests were organised.

President of the Residents Welfare Association of Phase IIIA Harbhajan Singh said the removal of the colony had come as a big relief. Women and children living in the illegal colony often used to roam around in the residential area here leading to road accidents. Petty thefts had become a part of life of the residents, he added.

Harbhajan Singh said there was so much of filth and garbage all along the colony that those living nearby in Mohali often used to curse their fate that they had no option but to live in such unhygienic surroundings.

Chandigarh, May 10
Students of Panjab University (PU) came out to express their anger against the demolition drive held in five colonies here today.

The drive left over 20,000 families homeless. The Students for Society (SFS) burnt an effigy of the UT Administration, at Student Centre on the PU campus.

SFS president Arishdeep Singh said his organisation strongly condemned the action of the UT Administration, which was desperately carrying out demolition drives ignoring the rights and condition of the people and putting their lives and employment at stake.

Raminder Singh, a member, said big promises of rehabilitating dwellers of these colonies under a 2006 scheme proved as a sham as only a few displaced families could avail of the benefit.

“We demand that the present demolition drive, under which the Administration has decided to raze down 18 colonies, be stopped immediately. Proper arrangements should be made to rehabilitate those who have already been displaced. The criteria for allotment of houses should be relaxed. If the Administration sincerely thinks about rehabilitation of displaced people, methods like in situ rehabilitation or regularisation of colonies should be adopted, as it had been done at some other places,” he said.

Mohali, May 10
A family residing in Sector 70 here experienced alleged highhandedness by an "unauthorised” in-charge of a local cremation ground when the latter did not allow them to perform the last rites of their kin. The family of Arwinder Singh, who lost the head of their family Tara Singh yesterday at 11.30am, faced trouble as they were not allowed to perform his last rites after 4.30 pm, the deadline to bring the bodies to the cremation ground.

“The self-styled in-charge of the cremation ground, Narendra Pandey, who is a son of a Mohali Municipal Corporation official, Ram Bilas Pandey, who has been assigned with the duty at the ground, clearly told us not to turn up after 4.30pm. No last rites would be performed after that,” alleged Manjit Singh Bhatia, the immediate neighbour of the family.

Interestingly, the Mohali MC authorities have no idea of such a “deadline”.

Terming the behaviour of the official in question ridiculous, MC Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta said he would look into the matter and take strict action against him, if found guilty. “How he could behave in such an irresponsible manner,” said Gupta while talking to Chandigarh Tribune today.

Bhatia said the deceased’s family had requested to permit them to perform the last rites at 5 to 5.30 pm as their several relatives, including two sons of Tara Singh, had to come from outside the city.

“He (Narendra Pandey) did not budge,” alleged Bhatia, adding that the family had to keep the body at their house for the entire night. The last rites took place today at 10.30am.

Panchkula, May 10
Panchkula Mayor Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia exchanged heated arguments with the executive officer of the Municipal Corporation (MC), OP Sihag, over the quality of material to be used for the recarpeting of roads in Sector 6, here yesterday.

Infuriated Ahluwalia said she won’t allow MC officials to take commission in the road repairs. She added, “There is a particular temperature at which the material is heated and the same is being over-heated. Due to over-heating, the road appears dark in colour but starts cracking in five-six days, I am not a layman but still have some technical knowledge.”

Ahluwalia asked as to why no junior engineer (JE) from the MC was present at the time of recarpeting which was mandatory to keep a check on the material used.

Meanwhile, seeing the Mayor flare up, OP Sihag said, “These things should not be discussed publicly.” Regarding poor quality, Sihag added, “We all are laymen. How a Mayor or I can know whether it is of poor quality or not? We send the samples to a third party agency and then make payments.”

Sihag said, “Officials who point out such irregularity should also see how much staff we have. We just have six JEs out of which three are already retired and working as extension.”

Ahluwalia walked out after pointing out the discrepancies.

The work of recarpeting that started in Sector 6 was estimated of Rs 40 lakh. Though, a total of Rs 97 lakh will be spent in the sector, but the stretch which is badly potholed will be repaired first.

Panchkula, May 10
Goods worth lakhs were gutted after a fire broke out at an agarbatti factory (incense stick) in Barwala this evening.

According to the police, short circuit was the reason behind the fire. The police said a short circuit took place in the power switch in the front of the factory that was being run by Mahavir Industry.

Owner of the factory Gautam Jain said the fire broke out at the front side, so the staff was evacuated from the back. Fire was so huge that two fire tenders had to be called from Naraingarh while two others from Panchkula were also roped in to control it.

The fire was controlled after a span of six hours.

Panchkula, May 10
The police probe into the mysterious death of Panchkula-based lawyer Saman Dhanak has taken a U-turn with serious contradictions surfacing today in the statement made by the girl about the timings of the mishap and the victim’s mobile locations.

Saman Dhanak

While the girl, who was accompanying the boy at the time of the incident, has been stating that the accident took place near Mandana, in Morni, on April 19 at 10.30pm, the mobile location of the victim revealed that he was at Mubarakpur in Punjab, at 10.30pm.

Interestingly, both locations are located around 40 km apart.

With the call details of Saman emerging out today, his family said it was a clear-cut murder. At 10.30pm, Saman’s mother spoke to him and he said he would come home soon and then the call got disconnected and later his phone went not reachable.

The call details of Saman’s phone recovered from the girl, sought by the Special Investigation team (SIT), showed his location at 2.45pm at his residence in the Mansa Devi Complex, Sector 4, when the girl claimed that they visited Tikar Taal in Morni at 12pm on April 19. At 3.30pm, his mobile location was traced near Sectors 11/14 roads in Panchkula.

Surprisingly, according to the police and the family who were shown the details, his mobile phone did not show any mobile location from 3.30pm to 10.30pm and no call was made between this period.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Jagtar Singh, who is heading the SIT, said as no call was made between this period, may be the phone was switched off as it did not show any location.

Rajender Dhanak, father of the deceased, said: "We were shown the call details. My son would never keep his phone switched off. At 10.30pm, when the girl is claiming to have fallen into the gorge, his mobile location is showing Mubarakpur that is in the Punjab circle. My son has been taken to Morni after 10.30pm".

"Why don’t they check the call details of all three phones of the girl. Why are they seeking details from the Cyber Cell for only one phone given by her,” Rajender said.

The SIT also visited the spot at Morni today and went deep inside the gorge to check whether mobile phone network is available there or not. The SIT found that in the gorge it was impossible to operate the Internet, which the girl did for 25 minutes as per her phone records.

Commissioner of Police Ajay Singhal said: "I am waiting for the final report. We are working on all theories."

On the intervening night of April 19 and 20, Saman Dhanak, grandson of a former Haryana Minister, died when his car fell into a 60-foot-deep gorge at the Morni hills. His female friend suffered serious injuries. It was after the family raised several missing links in the police investigation that a SIT was formed in the case.

Mohali, May 10
The bundhs of various rivulets/ water channels passing through Mohali district should be strengthened before the onset of the monsoon to avoid flooding.

This was stated by Deputy Commissioner Tejinder Pal Singh Sidhu while addressing a meeting with the officials of various departments here yesterday.

He said encroachments should be removed from the rivulets and the beds should be cleaned to ensure the proper flow of rainwater.

Officials of the Drainage Department were asked to coordinate with the SDMs concerned and get videography and still photography done of weak areas of the bandhs. Reports in this regard should be sent to the government for the release of funds for the repair work.

Members of the District Disaster Management Cell were asked to prepare a flood-management plan.

Chandigarh, May 10
Taking no lessons from the yesterday’s firing incident at Panjab University, security officers deployed at different gates of the campus today did not bother to take any precautions to avoid such incidents in future.

During a visit to the campus today, it was found that the security personnel deployed at all five gates, which include the main and southern campus, neither checked the vehicles of outsiders nor noted down the registration numbers of the vehicles entering the campus.

A security guard on the condition of anonymity said it would not be possible for them to check every "outside" vehicle plying on the campus. The practice was followed a few years ago. However, it led to huge traffic jams outside the campus due to which the authorities discontinued it. Even if security guards checked the vehicles, they could not detect the weapons carried by strangers.

After taking over the additional charge of PU chief security officer, the assistant professor, University School of Open Learning (USOL), Dr Jatinder Grover, held a meeting with all security officers. In the meeting, he instructed the officers to start checking of “outside” vehicles on all gates to avoid any such incident in future.

Grover said he had written to the police about the firing incident, which took place in the university yesterday. Police officials said they were yet to trace the accused, Karan Sharma, who was involved in the firing incident in the campus and tried to harm Surjit Singh, a student of the university.

The security officers were also asked to come up with a plan to tighten the security by the next week so that the safety on the campus could be improved. During the meeting, the problems faced by the security staff and the students were also discussed.

Mohali, May 10
As many as 50 students of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) received MTech degrees in the first-ever convocation of the institute here today.

At a brief function, chief guest Professor Arun Kumar Grover, Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University, Chandigarh, gave away the degrees to pass-out students.

Dr Sukhleen Bindra Narang, Dean for Faculty of Engineering and Technology, GNDU, Amritsar, and Dr Rajesh Khanna, HoD, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Thapar University, Patiala, were the guests of honour on the occasion.

Prof Grover said arrangements would be made for C-DAC Mohali and Panjab University, Chandigarh, working together for the better technical education programme in the future.

While sharing the remarkable achievements of the students of his institute, Director of the C-DAC DK Jain said C-DAC had become a big name in the computer technology arena and was well known as “supercomputing” now.

Dr Jain said a placement cell was being created in the institute to look after the employment prospects of the students.

He said: “The institute provides short-term training programmes as well as MTech in VLSI design, embedded systems and electronic product design technology (full-time) and information technology (part-time)”.

Chandigarh, May 10
A seminar on communication skills was organised at Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute (AFPI), Mohali.

It was held to hone the communication proficiency of students of 10 local schools - Shivalik Public School, Gian Jyoti, The British School, St Stephens, Shemrock, Ryan International, Lawerance Public School, YPS Patiala, Doon International Punjab Public School, Nabha, besides the cadets of the AFPI.

In his inaugural address, Maj Gen KS Bajwa (retd), who was commissioned in 1945, shared his personal experiences in the Army and also narrated interesting anecdotes about Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw. He also inaugurated a 18-ft wide mural of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Durbar. Names of the AFPI achievers will be embossed on the walls of the Durbar.

AFPI Director Maj Gen BS Grewal (retd) spoke on the art of public speaking. A talk on the awareness of body language was delivered by Col HS Chauhan. Brig KD Singh highlighted the skills of appearing in an interview, while a talk on written expression was delivered by P Sohal, head mistress of Shemrock Senior Secondary School.

Guest students also delivered brief talks on the topics given to them.

Mohali, May 10
With a topic of the economic agenda of the next government of the country, a panel discussion was organised by the Oxford University Press India (OUPI) in collaboration with the Indian School of Business (ISB) here today.

Apart from discussing various economic aspects of the country in coming days, the OUPI also released its publishing work, “the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy in the 21st Century”, on the occasion.

The book delves into the unique features of India’s growth path and debates the relative importance of external factors compared to domestic reforms such as improved governance.

Rajesh Chakrabarti, clinical associate professor of Public Policy, executive director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, ISB; Rajesh Chadha from NCAER; Dr Amir Khan, Gates Foundation and Glocal University; Professor Deepak Lal, UCLA; and Subhomoy Bhattacharya, Deputy Editor, Economic Times; were some of the key speakers at the panel discussion.

Chandigarh, May 10
The Sahayta Cancer Sahyog conducted an awareness programme on the harmful effects of tobacco, pan masala, bidi, cigarette, hukka and gutka for students.

The organisers said they held a series of interactive sessions/programmes on the subject throughout April and May, followed by an inter-school declamation contest on the harmful effects of tobacco on Saturday at St Stephen’s School, Sector 45, Chandigarh.

The function was presided over by Brig Keshav Chandra, former president of the Chandigarh Senior Citizens Association.

Renu Saigal, president of the organisation, said the schools were asked to hold declamation contests under the supervision of teachers and send them the best two entries in each category by April 30. Around 76 entries were received.

Mohali, May 10
Harshdeep Singh Sohi of Shemrock Senior Secondary School, Mohali, bagged the first rank in the International Olympiad of English Language (iOEL-2014, second level). Students of the school had participated in the iOEL-2014, second level, at the international level and one of its Class 12 students, Harshdeep, won the first rank. He scored 83.222 marks and won a prize of Rs 51,000, which will be awarded to him in Delhi.

He has also become eligible to participate in the third-level competition to be held in Delhi. The winners of the third level will be sent for an educational excursion abroad. Besides Harshdeep, Aalampreet Singh, Aseem Malhotra, Nivandeep Singh Dhillon and Aashish Goyal also won positions among the first 10 students at the state-level in this competition. — OC

Chandigarh, May 10
A workshop on basic and advanced cardiac life support concluded at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, here.

It aimed at enhancing knowledge and strengthening life-saving skills of various delegates who are working in various medical colleges and hospitals of the northern India.

The workshop was conducted with the help of Prof Atul Sachdev, Director-Principal, GMCH-32, and Prof Satinder Gombar, Head of the Department (HOD), Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. Prof S Gombar inaugurated the workshop. — TNS