Amritsar, October 18
The kidnapping incident in which a woman working with the HDFC bank in the Lopoke branch was the victim was nothing but a high-level drama, if police officials are to be believed.

Manju Sharma, a resident of Katra Ahluwalia near the Golden Temple, was allegedly kidnapped by a couple of unidentified men from the Kachehri Chowk last night. She informed her husband, Gaurav, and brother, Ajay Sharma, about this in a text message. Both went immediately to the Civil Lines police station and lodged a complaint in this regard. The police traced her mobile phone, which showed the location towards Tarn Taran. A police party was despatched to recover the woman.

Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh said the woman was recovered from the Guruwali area in Tarn Tarn and the whole incident appeared to be a drama.

Manju is deputed as the manager of the HDFC bank at Lopoke branch. It was stated that she left her colleagues at Kachehari Chowk area. When she failed to return home, her family members contacted her on her mobile phone. However, she did not pick it and later sent a text message that she had been kidnapped by two unidentified persons near the Kachehari Chowk area. She said the unidentified persons signalled her to stop the car. When she stopped the car, they forcibly sat in her car and kidnapped her.

HS Brar, ADCP (special), who is heading the investigating team, said with the help of the cyber cell, the police team traced her location towards Tarn Taran. The police team later recovered her from the Guruwali area at around 1.30 am. He said the matter was suspicious and investigations were under progress. The alleged victim did not give any statement to the police in the night. Today, she gave a brief statement. During investigation, it was found that she had withdrew Rs 3,000 from an ATM in the Baba Budha Sahib area. Brar said though on the basis of the statements of her family members, a case under Section 365, IPC, had been registered, further investigations were under progress.

“Though the initial probe indicated that there was nothing like kidnapping in the case, we did not want to take any chance,” said the Police Commissioner. He said he had directed police officials to lodge a case against her for misleading the police, in case nothing came out in the probe. 

Amritsar, October 18
The police have beefed up the security arrangements at key locations like the Golden Temple, Durgiana Temple, railway station and the inter-state bus terminus in view of Diwali.

The Police Department is also on its toes in view of the forthcoming visit of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal ahead of Diwali for the inauguration of the Golden Temple Entrance Plaza, which will be opened to public on October 22.

Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh said the police force had been strengthened by about 500 additional policemen, including those from the Punjab Armed Police and other departments, due to the festive season. The policemen have been deputed at various important locations in the city for security reasons. At present, we have around 250 extra policemen, who would be deputed at various points for security.

“Elaborate security arrangements have been planned while a lot of stress is being put on traffic management and regulations. Because of this, there were negligible traffic jams and snarls in the city during the Dasehra festival,” said the Police Commissioner.

When asked about the recent revelations by the National Security Guard’s Director-General in which he said that terrorists had visited Amritsar long time ago to conduct a reccee, he said the Police Department was already on alert and they were prepared to meet any eventuality.

Amritsar, October 18
A large number of consumers are riled at the PSPCL for installing power meters on pillar boxes outside their houses, but not providing display screens for meter reading on their premises.

A city resident, Sarbjit Singh, said, “PowerCom employees pulled out the meters from inside their premises and installed these on the pillar boxes in the street. They are making our houses safe, but denying us the opportunity to monitor the power consumption and plan accordingly”.

The norms make it mandatory for the PSPCL to install display screens showing the meter reading within the premises of residential and commercial units, so that they can keep a tab on power consumption, but the PSPCL is not sticking to the norm.

A PSPCL official, on condition of anonymity, stated that pillar boxes were to be installed in the theft-prone areas on priority. For this, a survey was also carried out. For this, DDT meters were installed on transformers to assess the losses of the area.

Now, these pillar boxes have been installed even in the narrowest streets of the walled street without bothering about the traffic situation.

PSPCL Chief Engineer (border range) NK Gandhi said display screens inside the premises of consumers would be installed after directions were received from the head office. He said so far no directions in this regard had been intimated to his office. He said pillar boxes-mounted meters had been installed at half of the total consumers’ premises in the city.

Amritsar, October 18
Rash driving by school bus drivers once again came to light when a speeding school van crushed a four-year-old child to death near Abbusaid village in Ajnala.

Tarsem Singh, grandfather of the deceased, said his son, Baljit Singh, had gone to drop his daughter, Mahakpreet, outside the village where her school van picked her up. He said today his son, Tejinderpal Singh (4), also accompanied them.

He said when Baljit was making Mehakpreet board the bus, another school van, belonging to Sant Sabesten, arrived and crushed his son, leaving him fatally injured. The driver of the bus, identified as Jagroop Singh of Gaggomahal village, sped away from the spot.

Tejinderpal was taken to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The police have initiated action against the bus driver.

Amritsar, October 18
With kabaddi getting a lot of attention as a popular sport, Bollywood is now set to release a feature film on the game. Set to release on November 7, “Badlapur Boys” is produced by Karrm Movie. The star cast of the movie visited the Golden Temple here yesterday.

The movie revolves around a group of boys from a fictional Badlapur village, who breathe and live kabaddi and aspire to make a name in playing the game, not only for themselves, but also for their village. However, the protagonist’s dream is slightly different and it binds the film right till the end. The film has a new face, Nishan, who was previously seen in a film, “David”, and many Malayalam films. The female lead is southern actor Sharanya Mohan, others in the cast are Puja Gupta, Aman Verma and Annu Kapoor, who plays the kabbadi coach.

The film is a directorial debut of Shailesh Verma, who has written scripts for various soaps and movies, including the Salman Khan-starrer, “Veer”. The music of the film has been composed by Shamir Tandon and Sachin Gupta.

“Badlapur Boys” is the official remake of Tamil hit “Veenila Kabadi”, which was directed by Susindran in 2009.

Amritsar, October 18
With only a few days left for the festival of Diwali, the Health Department has planned an aggressive campaign and inspection programme to counter the problem of adulteration and sale of substandard food. The department has issued an advisory to the general public to check quality of sweets before making any purchases.

District Health Officer, Dr Shivkaran Singh Kahlon, said, “It is advisable that people only buy good quality sweets, whose demand is at its peak during Diwali season. It has been noticed that a few unscrupulous elements are out to make huge profits by selling substandard sweets.”

The department had recently seized over 100 quintal of substandard sweets from an illegal manufacturing unit in the Mustafabad area. Earlier, the department seized five quintal of substandard khoya.

The Health Department, which usually collects around 50 to 60 samples in the entire month, has so far collected 61 samples. “Efforts to check the sale of substandard food have been increased in view of the festive season,” he said adding that all the employees had been assigned duties and their progress was being monitored daily.

Kahlon said instead of purchasing sweets from the market, the residents should prepare sweets at their homes. “At least sweets made at home will not have any harmful effects,” he added.

He said the department had also warned shopkeepers against selling substandard sweets. The general public could bring any such act of omission to the notice of the department on which action would be taken immediately, said Kahlon.

Amritsar, October 18
Increasing incidents of adulteration in sweets during the festive season are forcing the people to opt for other options like namkeen, petha, chocolates and dry fruit, which have minimum chances of impurity.

Ahead of the festive season, there are often reports of adulteration, which holds back the people from indulging in pampering their sweet tooth.

Many city-based sweetmeat businesses are venturing into manufacturing other products like namkeen and selling dry fruit to attract the customers ahead of Diwali. Though rise in prices of key ingredients used in Diwali has burnt a hole in people’s pocket, yet it has not dampened their festive spirit as they have evolved a novel ways to celebrate the occasion with non-khoya sweetmeats. A resident of Ranjit Avenue, Parminder Singh, said he would be buying petha and chocolates in sweets, besides dry fruit and namkeen as they have a long shelf life.

A wholesale dry fruit merchant, Surinder Kumar, said undoubtedly the sale of dry fruits had seen an uptrend in the past five years. It forced big traders to float their own brands to sell dry fruits in beautiful gift packs.

The demand of petha goes up during the festive season as there is a little chance of adulteration in it.

Made from white pumpkin, also called ‘chitta petha’ in common parlance, expert artisans from generations have been making petha in the narrow lanes of the centuries-old Pethewala Bazaar, situated in the walled city.

A petha manufacturer, Harjinder Singh, said apart from its delicious taste, petha also provided nutritional value to consumers, which could hardly be matched by other sweets. White pumpkin contains sulphur, iron, phosphorus, vitamin A, B, C and E, besides protein, he added.

Amritsar, October 18
The Amritsar rural police today claimed to have solved the blind murder case of Gulab Singh (21), a resident of Sarangra village, whose body was found in the fields on October 7.

The Lopoke police have arrested his cousin Balbir Singh, a resident of Kusaska village, for the murder. During investigations it was found that Gulab Singh had developed illicit relations with Balbir’s wife, which was the main cause behind his murder.

SHO of the Lopoke police station, Harminder Singh, said his body had marks of strangulation and sharp-edged weapons. On the basis of the complaint filed by his grandfather Beant Singh, the police have booked five persons of the family of Gulab’s in-laws. Beant stated that the deceased had married a girl against the wishes of her family and he suspected that his in-laws might had killed him.

Among those booked include Subeg Singh, his sons Gurlal Singh and Ajaib Singh, all residents of Sarangra village, Dara Singh of Bhangwan village and Mastan Singh of Chak Mishri Khan village.

The SHO said investigations revealed that Gulab and Balbir had a quarrel around two months ago as Balbir had objected to his illicit relationship with his wife. He said on October 7, the accused called him and took him to Attari. Balbir was accompanied by his cousin Satnam Singh of Kusaska village and brother-in-law Gursharan Singh of Jodh Singh Wala village (Tarn Taran).

After consuming liquor together they strangulated him near Shahura village while returning to Kusaska. They later took his body to an isolated place, near a rest house of the Canal Department, in Lopoke. They slit his throat and stabbed him to make it look like a case of robbery.

The SHO said Balbir was repeatedly accusing Gulab’s in-laws of his murder. On suspicion, the police investigated his role. During interrogation, Balbir confessed to the crime. The police have recovered the motorcycle and arms used for killing Gulab Singh. All the accused had been arrested, added the SHO.

Amritsar, October 18
The Municipal Corporation’s efforts to install municipal solid waste management plant in the holy city has suffered a setback once again. The six firms which had showed interest for setting up the much sought after project have backed out.

Ironically, on the deadline of application date, officials of the MC were puzzled when they found that the pre-bid online e-tender slot was empty as none of the firm had applied to take up the project. As many as six companies, including one from the UK, had participated in pre-bids for solid waste management project, which has been delayed for the past many years. These pre-bids were opened in the presence of Mayor Bakshi Ram Arora and MC Commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal on September 8.

The MC had floated re-tenders for the project on September 1 after scrapping the earlier received bids, which were on the higher side. In response to these new pre-qualification bids, six companies participated in the process including the UK-based Eco Worldwide company, Jindal Urban Infrastructure, Ess Ell Infrastructure, Ramoki Engineers, Suneel Hi-Tech Infra Pvt Ltd and Jyoti Company.

The representatives of these companies had a personal meeting with officials of the MC to inquire about the project. Looking at their interest, the MC authorities had even extended the final date of the project from September 15 to 30 and then to October 15.

The MC officials had given them a presentation of the proposed solid waste management plant to be established at Bhagtanwala. Twenty five acres had already been demarcated on which this plant would come up on lease basis.

According to the original plan, this plant sanctioned under the JNNURM, was designed to handle 600 to 700 metric tonne of garbage, being generated daily by the residents and the small-scale industry in the city.

Amritsar, October 18
The regional passport office organised a passport mela to make the issuance process easier for the general public here today. A total of 500 appointments were booked for the event.

Regional Passport Officer JS Sodhi said for 460 applicants, who had booked the appointments earlier, attended the event today. He said as many as 430 files were approved for the grant of passports.

Around 20 applicants were refused passports as they failed to fulfil the necessary criteria for the same, he added. He said 10 applicants had been put on hold for want of more documents. The Passport Office has organised seven passport melas this year to speed up the passport issuance process. Sodhi said, “Saturdays and Sundays are public holidays at passport offices. However, the employees have worked overtime to cater to the increased rush of applicants.” 

Amritsar, October 18
A faction of the Power Corporation Engineers Association has came out in the support of its chairman and managing director (MD) KD Chaudhri and demanded from the association to stop all efforts to oppose him.

Around 81 members of the faction, including chief engineer border zone SK Gandhi, deputy chief engineer, Tarn Taran, Jagjit Singh Suchu, deputy chief engineer, Gurdaspur, Jasvir Singh, all the three deputy chief engineers in Amritsar, Narinder Singh Bal, Balbir Singh, LK Chawla, and various other officials have supported Chaudhri.

The faction accused the association of creating hurdles in the way of the working of the department and demanded that all such efforts should be stopped. In a statement issued after the meeting today, the faction said as the Punjab and Haryana High Court had raised no objection to the grant of extension of service to Chaudhri, the association representatives should stop all efforts to create bottle necks for him.

The engineers have also demanded from the association to make public the expenses incurred on filing writ petitions against Chaudhri. The association had earlier filed petitions challenging extension to Chaudhri. The engineers also demanded from the association to work for strengthening of public services.