Vanamahotsav: The Lions Club Mandi-Abohar and the Fellows Club, led by presidents G. S. Jassal and Jagdish Juneja, respectively, planted saplings on Tuesday as part of the vanamahotsav campaign. Dr Jaswant Singh, D. K. Arora and Dr H. S. Popli spoke about the importance of tree plantation. The students pledged to take care of the plants.

Purse snatched: Two motorcycle-borne men snatched the purse of a government schoolteacher on Wednesday. Five teachers posted at Government Senior Secondary School, Jhurarkhera village, boarded a three-wheeler at Major Surinder Chowk at 7 am. As the tempo neared the Sahitya Sadan complex, the miscreants struck and snatched the purse of Chand Sunila, a Hindi teacher.

Harassment: A resident of Panniwala Fatta village, Muktsar district, Chidiya, on Wednesday alleged that her in-laws, based at Panjawa village, shaved her head after her parents failed to give Rs 10,000 as dowry. Daughter of Parbhati Ram, Gudiya told the police that her in-laws locked her in a room and tortured her before shaving her head.

Protest: Vishu Rani, a resident of Shyam Vihar Colony, on Wednesday threatened to go on a fast to protest the police inaction in arresting her in-laws who had been harassing her. She alleged that her husband turned her and her baby out in November 2006. The police had registered a case, but nobody was arrested. During sangat darshan at Malout, even the Chief Minister had asked the police to act, but to no avail.

HOSHIARPUR
Rape charge: Satwinder Singh, a resident of Milap Nagar, was booked on Tuesday evening for allegedly raping a girl, a resident of Fatehgarh, on the promise of marriage. The girl alleged the accused had been raping her for the past about two years on the promise of marriage. The mother of the accused, who came here from abroad, also met the girl and assured her that she would get their marriage fixed. The girl complained to the police after she came to know about the engagement of Satwinder Singh with someone else. When she contacted him, Satwinder Singh refused to marry her and threatened her with dire consequences if she reported the matter to anyone, the girl alleged. 

Mother, son booked for dowry: The Sadar police has booked a mother-son duo for allegedly harassing Rajwinder Kaur for dowry. Rajwinder was married to Sukhdial Singh in 2002. Rajwinder Kaur alleged that her husband and mother-in-law harassed her to bring more dowry. They forcibly took articles of dowry given to her by her relatives at the time of her wedding. She was allegedly tortured and beaten up for bringing more dowry and a car, she alleged. She also stated that she gave her in-laws Rs 2.5 lakh twice after arranging it from her parents to meet their demands. Later the son and the mother demanded to transfer one acre land of her parents to the name of Sukhdial Singh or pay Rs 7 lakh to them which she refused.

Fake travel agent: On the complaint of Onkar Singh, a resident of Dhakkowal (Mehtiana), the police has booked fake travel agent Balbir Singh, a resident of Bharoli (Nawanshahar), for duping him of Rs 2 lakh in the name of sending him to the UK.

Man found unconscious: Balbir Singh, owner of a shoe shop, here was found unconscious at Jalandhar bus stand on Monday evening. He had gone to Jalandhar to purchase shoes and had Rs 15,000 which was found missing from his pocket, according to his family members. Balbir is yet to regain consciousness and has been referred to a private hospital in Jalandhar from the civil hospital in Hoshiarpur.

Jagraon
Learning licences: Press Club, Jagraon, today organised a camp for the issuance of learning licences on the Municipal Council Town Hall premises in collaboration with a local administration. More than 600 applicants seeking learning licences came to the camp. Two-hundred applicants were issued learning licences. The other applicants have been invited tomorrow to get their applications processed.

Khamano
Pen down strike: The employees of Block Development and Panchayat Office, Khamano, today held a pen down strike and also locked the office in protest against the attack on DDPO Gurdaspur Ranbir Singh Mudhal and demanded stern action against the accused. The employees raised slogans against the Punjab government. The employees sat in dharna in front of BDPO office from 9 am to 4 pm. 

Man injured: A youth of Khant village was seriously injured in an accident on Chandigarh-Ludhiana road near village Sanghol, near here. According to sources Rajinder Singh had dropped his relative at a bus stop in Sanghol. When he turned on his motor cycle bearing registration number PB-49-5044, he was hit by a speeding Indica bearing registration number PB-37-6970 that was coming by the Ludhiana side. A police patrolling van took him Civil Hospital, Khamano, and he was rushed to PGI after being administered first aid. Khamano police is looking into the matter.

MOGA
Man kills father : Balbir Singh of Dala village,10 km from here, allegedly killed his father following a heated altercation late Tuesday night. A case has been registered at Mehna police station on the basis of a complaint registered by the accused’s mother Surjit Kaur. She said her son, who was residing separately, came to their house and entered into an argument with his father. Subsequently, he lost his cool and attacked the old man, thereby ending up killing him, she added. The deceased owned 16 acres land and his son had been claiming his share.

NAWANSHAHR
Rouri elected president: The elections for the office-bearers of the district unit of the panchayati raj elementary teachers union took place on Tuesday. Rakesh Kumar Rouri was elected president; Kuldip Singh Boothgarh and Arun Kumar senior vice-presidents.

PHAGWARA 
Theft in temple: Thieves entered the Shiv Mandir situated on the Bhanoki road, here on Tuesday and took away an inverter and a cash box containing Rs. 6,000. On the complaint of priest Kishan Murari, a case has been registered. However, no arrest has been made so far.

Office-bearers: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Chandigarh Senior Citizens Brotherhood, Sector 37: president — J.R. Gupta; vice-president — M.L. Vohra; secretary — O.P. Dhingra; joint secretary — Sohan Singh Chopra; finance secretary — M.S. Walia; and governing body members — Kundan Singh, Jagdish Gur, O.P. Garg, R.N. Moudgil, L.C. Bajaj and H.S. Chawla.

LAUNCHED: A US-based company on Wednesday launched three products that it claimed would enable persons to stay healthy and fit.

BHARMOUR
Case registered: The police has registered a case against eight students on a complaint lodged by the father of another student Anoop Kumar, who was seriously injured after he was beaten up by the eight students on Tuesday. No arrest has been made so far. Anoop is undergoing treatment in the local civil hospital.

BILASPUR
Beopar Mandal: The Himachal Pradesh State Beopar Mandal has expressed concern regarding the government’s indifference towards the trading community in the past four -and-half years and its failure to solve the problems of shopkeepers despite repeated attempts of the beopar mandal to get relief on several issues. Addressing mediapersons here on Wednesday, state Beopar Mandal president Hem Chand Sood said to cap it all, the government had recently passed a unilateral order-making amendment in VAT rules which had put the trading community in to great difficulties and which had brought storm of protests from them.

Development: Hamirpur MP Prem Kumar Dhumal has urged all district officers to ensure time bound and quality constructions of all development works being implemented with the MP LAD funds in the district. He asserted that it was essential that all constructions and schemes under the funds were properly monitored regularly and officers took personal interest to finish the works within the time frame so that the targeted population got benefits at the earliest.

CHAMBA
‘Revive orders’: The All-India Senior Citizens Forum has urged the district administration to revive the previous orders pertaining to traffic regulation in the town during the peak hours of school timings to avoid any occurrence of mishap. As per the previous orders the road leading from Sapri Bazaar to Main Bazaar via Degree College was sealed during the opening and closing hours of the schools.

Dharamsala
Condemned: The state NSUI president Kewal Singh Pathania lashed out at the Congress dissidents, claiming that they would stand nowhere after the forthcoming Assembly elections. It would not matter much to the Congress if one or two leaders quit the party. Without naming Major Vijay Singh Mankotia, Pathania said that the former had ruined his political career by leaving the organisation.

KUMARHATTI
Bus service: Direct daily bus service from Nalagarh to New Delhi has been started. Congress MLA from Doon Lajja Ram inaugurated the service on Tuesday evening. The bus would leave Nalagarh at 7 pm and reach New Delhi by 2.30 pm. It will start return journey from New Delhi at 10.30 am.

Mandi
Body found: The police on Wednesday found 65-year-old woman, a resident of Dabhan, Kotli in Mandi Sadar, dead near her house.SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased used to live alone in her house as she was not on cordial terms with her daughter-in-law, who lived in a portion of the same house. She died after she slipped from a steep slope. The body has been sent for a post-mortem and a case registered. The police has ruled out foul play.