12052022-JTR-01.qxd 5/11/2022 11:38 PM Page 1 c m y b Jalandhar TRIBUNE UNLOCK FUTURE WITH ROBOTICS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Various institutes across the region celebrated advances in science on the occasion of National Technology Day. FORECAST MAINLY CLEAR SKY INBRIEF 2 DRUG PEDDLERS HELD WITH PISTOL Jalandhar: The CIA-2 staff of the city police have arrested two drug peddlers and seized 3,000 intoxicating tablets and a country-made pistol with five live cartridges from their possession on Tuesday. The accused have been identified as Taran Kumar (29) and Sumit Kumar (32), both residents of Jalandhar Cantt. The police arrested Taran during their routine checking near Dusshera ground, while Sumit was arrested from Sansarpur village. As per police, Taran in his interrogation told the police that he was going to deliver the pistol to Sumit. Following which, the police conducted a raid at Sumit’s residence and seized 3,000 intoxicating tablets from his possession. A case under Sections 25, 54, 59 of the Arms Act and under various Sections of the NDPS Act has been registered against them. TNS 2 HELD WITH 3K DRUG TABLETS Jalandhar: The Special Operation Unit of the city police have arrested two drug peddlers and seized 3,000 intoxicating tablets from their possession on Tuesday. The accused has been identified as Daler Singh (52) and Jagjit Singh (50), both residents of Maan Singh Nagar in Laddhewali. The accused were arrested from a road near Laddhwali during a routine checking. The police party seized 2,520 Alprazolam tablets from Daler Singh, while 480 tablets of the same brand from Jagjit Singh. The police arrested them after registering a case under Sections 22, 61, 85 the NDPS Act at the Rama Mandi police station. TNS DC ASSUMES ADDL CHARGE OF JDA Jalandhar: DC Ghanshyam Thori on Monday assumed the additional charge as Chief Administrator of Jalandhar Development Authority, where he had an introductory meeting with the officials of the JDA. After taking charge, Thori said planned developments of the areas falling under the jurisdiction of JDA would be carried out with an aim to bringing about transparency and accountability into its day to day working. Due focus would be laid on all round development of the district besides by covering maximum area, he added. TNS TWO COVID CASES SURFACE IN DIST PAGE 2 BIG B, AKHTAR PAY HOMAGE TO PT SHIVKUMAR SHARMA PAGE 3 HINA’S COUNTRY OF BLIND ALL SET FOR A POSTER LAUNCH The late musician, along with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, had delivered several iconic compositions for Big B. MAX 43°C | MIN 27°C | YESTERDAY MAX 43°C | MIN 27°C SUNSET THURSDAY 7:14 PM PAGE 4 Hina Khan, who made her debut on the Cannes red carpet in 2019, is now set to return to the festival. SUNRISE FRIDAY 5:33 AM THURSDAY | 12 MAY 2022 | JALANDHAR Residents see red over encroachments in JP Nagar Many house owners in area have converted their properties into shops, restaurants, says the plaint to DC Avneet Kaur WHAT OFFICIALS HAVE TO SAY Tribune News Service Jalandhar, May 11 Residents of JP Nagar on Wednesday submitted a complaint letter to Deputy Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori against the Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT) and the Municipal Corporation (MC) for failing to provide promised facilities and removing encroachments from their area. In the complaint letter (a copy of which is in possession of Jalandhar Tribune), advocate Brijesh Chopra, a resident of the locality and former member of the JIT and the MC, said a large portion of the ‘government land’ in their locality had been encroached upon and despite repeated complaints the department concerned is not taking any action in this regard. He said many house own- ■ Mandeep Singh, Superintendent, Tehbazari Footpath space is encroached upon by some residents at JP Nagar in Jalandhar. TRIBUNE PHOTOS ers in their area have converted their properties into shops, restaurants and a hospital, etc, and are openly flouting building bylaws. He said after the beginning of commercial activities in the area, residents are facing traffic issues and other problems. He further said this residential area is spread in an area of 74.4 and 33 acres, which is also known as JP Nagar. It was sanctioned by the Punjab Government in 1978 and was later framed by the JIT in the same year. He said it was sanctioned as a residential scheme and as per the bylaws, the area cannot be used for commercial activities. “Besides, a commercial site was reserved in the scheme, but the same has not been allotted till date, causing a financial loss to the tune of crores of rupees to the allottees,” he added. Schools in a dilemma: To go online or postpone exams Deepkamal Kaur Tribune News Service Jalandhar, May 11 The decision of the state government to close down schools for offline classes from May 16 in view of the heatwave has affected the academic calendar of the schools, especially since examinations were to be held in the second half of this month. While some schools have announced that they would take online examination, others have chosen to put them off to July first week when the schools would resume. There are still others who have written to the district administration seeking its intervention to allow them to conduct exams in the early hours of the day and are hence awaiting a reply before announcing any schedule to the students and parents. Principal of Innocent Hearts School Rajeev Paliwal said: “We will definitely shut down schools from Monday onwards. But we are not changing any examination While some schools have announced that they would take online examination, others have chosen to put them off to the first week of July when the schools would resume schedule. The exams will be held as per the already declared datesheet and will be taken in online mode. These are unit tests and it will not really matter much even if students take these from home”. The authorities of St Joseph’s Convent School, Cantt Road, have announced that there would be online classes for the students for two weeks from May 16 to 30. They will have vacation till June 30 and offline examination have been postponed to July. Just ahead of the announcement of the state government to close down schools from May 16, the school had given a datesheet with exams scheduled from May 16 to 30. MGN Public School, Urban Estate, too has decided to postpone the examination to July. Principal Jatinder Singh said: “We will close down schools from Monday onwards. For one week, our teachers will take online classes. Summer vacation will start from May 23 to June 30. Examination will be now held after the schools will re-open.” Some schools like State Public School are yet to take a decision. President of the school management Dr Narotam Singh said: “Our principal has written to the district administration seeking that we be allowed to hold examination from 7.30 am to 10 am. By 10 am, the students will be free and can go home. There will not be much heat around that time and we will take adequate measures using power back up system and water dispensers. We will make an announcement only after we get a response from the administration”. Department, confirmed that complaints regarding the issue have been received by the MC in the past many times, but this matter comes under the jurisdiction of the Building and Roads Department, and they have to take action against the violators. ■ When contacted, Mayor Jagdish Raja said the matter had been brought to their knowledge in the past and he would ask the B&R Department to take action against the violators and clear all the encroachments at the earliest. ■ Say the footpath space alongside the road has been encroached by some residents for commercial purposes, who have set up their shops, restaurants etc on the govt land Another resident of the area said the JIT carved out roads of different width ranging from 30 ft, 40 ft and 60 ft under the scheme at various places as approved by the MC and the Punjab Government. “But only one road of width 40ft has been built for the use of residents and the second road earmarked in the scheme has not been carved out yet,” he added. He said they have only one road in the area, and now that too is being widely used for commercial purposes, therefore they are facing problems and even in Agri Dept notice to 30 seed dealers Tribune News Service Jalandhar, May 11 Show-cause notices have been issued to as many as 30 seed dealers in the district by the Agriculture Department. There are more than 190 dealers in Jalandhar. Ten teams were constituted by the department that conducted inspections in 10 blocks of the district. Some of the dealers could not show the licence for the seed they were selling, while others had either not maintained a proper stock register or were not giving bills to the farmers. These were the findings by the teams after which the officials issued showcause notices to the dealers. Now, they have been given two days to answer, or else their licence will be cancelled. When teams asked for the documents from these seed dealers, many of them could not produce them. Last year, the license of two dealers had got cancelled. The department made an appeal to the farmers that they should buy seeds from the trusted dealers and should Some of the dealers failed to show the licence for the seed they were selling, while others had either not maintained a proper stock register or were not giving bills to farmers not compromise the quality just to buy seeds at low prices. The officers have advised the farmers to buy the seeds from licensed dealers. Meanwhile, several steps are taken by the department to persuade farmers to adopt varieties that take less time to grow, but hardly any difference is seen on ground. But, now the department has approached the dealers to ask farms not to buy late paddy varieties such as PUSA 44, which is one of the most cultivated varieties by the farmers. Dr Naresh Gulati, Agriculture Officer, said the dealers have been asked to discourage the farmers from buying this variety. Camps are also organised from time to time to tell farmers why it was not right to sow the PUSA 44 variety of paddy. emergency it becomes difficult for them to cross the road. The residents alleged that many residents have encroached on the footpath as a result of which the width of the road has been decreased by 20 to 50%. “Some of them even amalgamated the road/footpath areas into their own ownership, but the authorities concerned have turned a blind eye to the issue,” they added. They demanded that all the shops, restaurants, and the hospital operating in the residential area be sealed or demolished immediately and the width of the road be restored as approved in the scheme. Besides, they also appealed to the DC to order MC officials to remove all encroachments on footpath not only in their area but from markets and other places too as these have become a major issue for traffic congestion. Fight over dinner bill claims life Tribune News Service Jalandhar, May 11 A railway contractor was allegedly murdered over splitting dinner bill on Tuesday night in Kapurthala. An electricity contractor with the Railways, Sukhvir was found murdered outside his house at government quarters at the railway station. The complainant, Ravi, told Kapurthala police that on Tuesday he, along with Anil and Pal Singh, had gone to meet his brother-in-law Sukhvir and decided to go out for dinner. After having the meal, they returned to Sukhvir’s place at 11 pm to drop him. After reaching the house, Anil started asking money from Sukhvir for the food they ate. Sukhvir promised him to pay his share tomorrow but Anil didn’t relent and the duo entered into a scuffle. However, all of them returned and Sukhvir went to his quarters to sleep. After sometime, Ravi began receiving repeated calls that continued on page 2 Drug peddler, aide arrested Man who foiled carjacking attempt Was already booked in 28 criminal cases filed against him receives appreciation letter from CP Tribune News Service Jalandhar: Two new cases of Covid were reported from Jalandhar on Wednesday, taking the Covid tally to 78,362 cases. As many as 76,771 people have recovered from the disease in the district while the number of active cases has reached 13. No deaths were reported, keeping the deceased tally at 1578. Meanwhile, the Kapurthala district reported one new case of Covid today, taking the tally to 23,892. The new patient was a 24-year-old woman resident of Nangal Lubana village in Kapurthala. No new death was reported. The total deceased tally stands at 583. TNS Jalandhar, May 11 To check the sale of drugs and illicit liquor supplies in the city, the Jalandhar Police Commissionerate arrested a drug peddler and his aide from Aman Nagar here on Tuesday. It turned out that the drug peddler was already booked in 28 criminal cases registered under the Excise and NDPS Acts at different police stations in the city. Divulging the details, Commissioner of Police Gurpreet Singh Toor said on a tip-off, joint teams of CIA-1 and Special Operation unit got a search warrant issued from the court against Arvinder Kumar, alias Thutha, and raided his residence in Aman Nagar Jalandhar. He said during the search a plastic packet containing 330 grams of drugs was recovered Accused is a drug-addict & had four criminal cases registered against him Tribune News Service Drug peddlers in the custody of Jalandhar police on Wednesday. from a shoe rack in his store and subsequently the accused was arrested on the spot. He also mentioned that during a preliminary investigation it was found that the accused was already booked in 28 criminal cases registered under the Excise Act, the NDPS Act and sections of the IPC. Accompanied by DCP Jaski- ran Singh Teja, Toor stated that the accused revealed that he was carrying out this illegal activity with the help of his aide, Manish Kumar of the same locality, who was also then arrested by the police. Toor said his arrest would lead to snapping of the supply line of drugs and illicit liquor continued on page 2 c m y b Jalandhar, May 11 Commissioner of Police Gurpreet Singh Toor on Wednesday honoured Ankit Chopra, a resident of Kot Pakshian, for his act of bravery by foiling a car snatching incident that occurred at Nakodar Chowk last night. He also handed over appreciation letter to police constable Barinderjit Singh for his quick response by nabbing the accused after a short chase. Divulging the details, the CP said Ankit along with his wife Navita Chopra was coming out from a restaurant at Nakodar Chowk when an armed snatcher tried to rob them of their car. He said Ankit confronted the accused Ankit Chopra receives an appreciation letter from CP in Jalandhar. with bravery and managed to take his gun away, which later was found to be a toy-gun. He said after getting informed about the incident, constable Barinderjit Singh quickly reached on the spot and started chasing the accused namely Lavdeep Singh of New Model House and took him into custody. Toor said during preliminary investigation it was found that the accused was a drug-addict and was already booked in four criminal cases registered under various Sections of the NDPS Act and the IPC. He lauded the efforts of Chopra couple and constable Barinderjit Singh in foiling this attempt by exhibiting such extraordinary valour. He said the Commissionerate Police have already intensified its patrolling in the city by increasing mobile patrolling parties and solicited people’s support and cooperation in making Jalandhar a crime free city. Meanwhile, complainant Ankit Chopra also hailed the efforts of the Commissionerate Police, which made prompt action upon his information with police team reaching on the spot within a couple of minutes and arresting the accused.