26092024-CT-01.qxd 9/26/2024 12:14 AM Page 1 c m y b Chandigarh tribune CHANDER MOHAN ROLLS OUT 121-POINT MANIFESTO GUPTA TRASHES FORMER DEPUTY CM’S PROMISES STARS SET TO DAZZLE AT INT'L INDIAN FILM ACADEMY EVENT Highlights need for development and changes across the Panchkula constituency. P2 Gupta says BJP govt has completed many of the works Chander Mohan had promised earlier. P2 Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar, Ram Charan, Rana Dagubatti to add sparkle to the glitzy affair. P4 » » PARTLY CLOUDY MAX 36°C | MIN 28°C YESTERDAY MAX 36.2°C | MIN 27.4°C SUNSET THURSDY 6.14 PM SUNRISE FRIDAY 6.13 AM » THURSDAY | 26 SEPTEMBER 2024 | CHANDIGARH FORECAST TWITTER/THETRIBUNECHD FACEBOOK/CHANDIGARHTRIBUNE 31.4 mm rain, parts of City Beautiful sink Tribune News Service WHAT’S ON CHANDIGARH SPICMACAY presents Sufiyana Qawwali: By Shah Sami Niyazi and group, September 26, 6:30 pm, CoVeda, The New Public School, Sector 18 Painting competition: By Chandigarh Tourism to mark World Tourism Day, September 26, 11 am, Pierre Jeanneret Museum, Sector 5 Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi has organised a show of collages, titled ‘Contemplation Triveni Sangeet Sabha is organising a classical musical evening Musical show Sureela Safar-17 APNI MANDI Chandigarh: Sectors 34, 56 and Ram Darbar Mohali: Sector 76 Panchkula: Sector 5 Please send information about events in tricity at: whatson@tribunemail.com INBRIEF THREE HELD WITH 32.18 GRAM HEROIN Chandigarh: The UT police have arrested three drug peddlers and recovered 32.18 grams of heroin from their possession. The accused have been identified a Kshitiz, alias Cherry (25), a resident of Hallo Majra; Sudeep Pahal (27) of Kurukshetra and Ramdeep (26) of Hisar. They were arrested at a naka laid near the 3BRD road in Ram Darbar. A case under the NDPS Act has been registered at the Sector 31 police station. TNS Special casual leave for Hry poll on Oct 5 Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 25 In view of the Assembly elections in Haryana on October 5 (Saturday), the UT Administration has decided to grant a special casual leave to all registered voters/employees working under the Chandigarh Administration, its boards, corporations, institutions, industries, factories, private sectors and shops. This applies to individuals falling under the scope of Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, to facilitate their participation in the election. Daily-wage employees in industrial shops and commercial establishments will be entitled to a paid holiday under Section 135B(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, allowing them to exercise their right to vote. Chandigarh, September 25 Monsoon has again become active in the city with the local Meteorological Department recording 31.4 mm rainfall in more than an hour today. According to the department, 31.4 mm rainfall was recorded between 3.25 pm and 5.05 pm. The city has witnessed 130.4 mm rainfall this month so far. In the ongoing monsoon season, 743.6 mm rainfall has been recorded, which is 15.5 per cent less than normal. It is expected the season will have above-normal rainfall. Heavy rainfall caused flooding in low-lying areas in and around Nehru Hospital of the PGI. Sanitation and engineering teams of the PGI swung into action to remove the rainwater. While patient care was unaffected, a few hi-tech machines of the Departments of Radiotherapy and Radiodiagnosis were shut down as a precautionary measure. Acting Director RK Ratho and Medical Superintendent Vipin Koushal, along with various teams, inspected Nehru Hospital and other buildings to ensure uninterrupted patient care services. The Engineering Department of the PGI will investigate waterlogging of the complex. According to the forecast, rain is expected to continue over the next three days. Maximum temperature today was 36.2°C, which is four degrees above normal. Minimum temperature was 27.4°C, which is four degrees above normal. The temperatures are not expected to rise by a big margin in the coming days. PGI PANJAB UNIVERSITY Patients had a tough time at the Nehru Hospital in the PGI and commuters got stuck on waterlogged roads in northern parts of Chandigarh due to heavy rain on Wednesday. PHOTOS: PRADEEP TEWARI/VICKY SECTOR 36 PU UT to pay ~500 per day for connection delay Five months on, Mumbai ethical Panel tells Power Dept to release connection within 7 days, instead of 16 hacker rescued from kidnappers Dushyant Singh Pundir Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 25 Now, the UT Electricity Department will have to pay a fine of Rs 500 per day for the delay in releasing an electricity connection. Taking a tough stand against a lackadaisical attitude of officials, the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has directed the Electricity Department to release the electric connection within a period of seven days of application completed in all respect instead of 16 days earlier as per prevailing rules for new connections. Moreover, the commission has also applied the condition that “if the department fails to supply electricity within the time limit of seven days, it will be liable to a penalty not exceeding Rs 500 for each day of default.” The JERC has also given relief with regard to EV charging stations. Now, connection exceeding 100 KW to 150 KW for EV charging stations can be given on low tension (LT) three-phase supply instead of high tension (HT) supply as per the prevailing rules. The directions were issued by the commission in the third amendment to Supply Code, 2018, notified recently after repeated objections raised by Indian Citizens’ Forum (ICF) during the ‘public hearing’ held here on June 24. Forum president SK Nayar stated that it was a welcome step as there were delays in getting power connection. “The JERC has now made the necessary amendments in the interests of consumers of Chandigarh,” he said. The commission had recently approved an increase of 9.40% in the power tariff. The Electricity Department had proposed an average increase of nearly 19.44% in the existing power tariff of all categories. The new tariff became applicable from August 1. According to the order, in the domestic category, the JERC had approved a hike of fixed charge from Rs 15 to 30 per month. In the slab of 0-150 kWh (unit), the tariff per unit continued to remain Rs 2.75. But PENDENCY OF CASES UNDER NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS ACT HC for more special courts Saurabh Malik Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 25 The Punjab and Haryana High Court has called for the establishment of additional special courts in Punjab and Haryana, along with Chandigarh, to address the growing pendency of matters under the Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act, including cheque bounce cases. Taking note of the delay in trials across the region despite the existence of dedicated courts, the Bench asserted that the backlog was impeding the timely resolution of cases. The Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Sudeepti Sharma asserted it was essential to address the fact that there had been a significant increase in the pendency of cases, despite the establishment of special courts for the trial of matters under the NI Act. The backlog before the special courts, the Bench asserted, had resulted in delays in conducting expeditious trials for matters instituted under the Act. “Despite special courts being created for trial of cases under the NI Act, yet given the increased pendency of cases of the genre… there is a delay in the makings of expeditious trials qua cases instituted under the NI Act,” the Bench asserted, while underscoring the urgent need to address the backlog affecting the judicial process. The direction is significant as it calls for additional action to ensure timely justice in cheque-dishonour cases, enhancing in the process the efficacy of the legal framework governing negotiable instruments. In its detailed order, the Bench made it clear that the delay in trials might continued on page 3 c m y b in the slab of 151-400 kWh per month, the tariff has been increased from Rs 4.25 per unit to Rs 4.80 per unit. For the slab above 400 kWh per month, the tariff approved is from Rs 4.65 per kWh to Rs 5.40 per unit. In the HT domestic category, the tariff has been increased from Rs 4.30 per unit to Rs 4.90 per unit. For commercial and non-residential building category, the major tariff change has been in the slab above 400 kWh per month where the tariff has been approved from Rs 5 per unit to Rs 5.90 per unit. As per the proposal put up by UT, in the domestic category, the department had proposed a hike in fixed charge from Rs 15 per month to Rs 40 per month. Man arrested for killing wife Mohali, September 25 The police have arrested a Nepalese national, Ham Bahadur, who resides in Sector 71, for allegedly strangling his wife to death and then hanging her from the ceiling fan to pass it off as a suicide. Jamna was found hanging in her house on September 19 around 11:30 pm. The victim’s brother, Vijay complained to the police that Ham Bahadur used to beat her wife over domestic issues. Mataur SHO Amandeep Trikha said, “The postmortem report says the victim was strangled to death with a dupatta.”— TNS Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 25 An ethical hacker, Manish Bangale, who had hogged the limelight in 2016 after he accused a former Maharashtra minister of allegedly having links with Mumbai blast mastermind Dawood Ibrahim, was rescued by the UT police from his kidnappers after five months. According to UT SSP Kanwardeep Kaur, on Tuesday evening, a police patrol near Fragrance Garden noticed a man in a car signalling for help. As officers chased the car, the two suspects attempted to flee, but were apprehended near the ISBT, Sector 43. The victim, identified himself as Manish Bangale, a resident of Maharashtra. His kidnappers have been identified as Ranjit Singh (50) from Gurdaspur and Ravi Sharma (35) from Hoshiarpur. The victim revealed that his kidnappers reportedly contacted him through a WhatsApp group, claiming they wanted to hire him for data scrapping services. After being promised Rs 6 lakh, Bangale flew to Amritsar on April 26, where he was kidnapped the same day and held hostage. The kidnappers asked him to hack bank accounts and transfer money into their accounts. Bangale claimed he didn’t hack the accounts but was forced to carry out other illegal cyber activities by his kidnappers. He was tortured in the captivity. He made mul- Two kidnappers in custody of the UT police. HAD ACCESSED DAWOOD PHONE CALLS SENT HOAX MAIL TO LEAD COPS TO KIDNAPPERS In 2016, Bangale had claimed to have accessed the phone calls between Dawood and a politician by hacking into the authentication process of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), which allegedly gave him access to Dawood’s telephone records. Bangale was later booked by the Mumbai Police for allegedly defaming the minister. In August, while being in the kidnappers’ captivity in an industrial site of Ferozepur, Bangale managed to lay hands on the phone of one of the kidnappers and sent a hoax email to the Amritsar airport authorities. The email demanded Rs 1 crore and threatened to detonate six bombs at the airport if the money wasn’t delivered. The victim hoped his action would lead the police to his location. tiple attempts to escape, but was unsuccessful as the kidnappers frequently changed locations across Punjab. In August, while being in the kidnappers’ captivity in Ferozepur, Bangale managed to lay hands on the phone of one of the kidnappers and sent a hoax email to the Amritsar airport authorities. The email demanded Rs 1 crore and threatened to detonate six bombs at the airport if the money wasn’t deliv- ered. The victim hoped his action would lead the police to his location. Although one of the kidnappers was arrested, the group moved him to other place before police could reach to them. The police said since September 15, Bangale had been held captive in a hotel at Nayagaon. He was regularly brought to Chandigarh by his captors. Ranjit faces nine cases of cheating and forgery in Punjab and HP .