Chandigarh, August 28
The estate officer R.K. Rao today suspended four officials of the colony branch, Ashwani Thapar, Kuljeet Singh, Krishan Kumar and Harjit Singh, for their involvement in the fraudulent allotment of a plot to one Suresh Chand in the Sector 25 rehabilitation colony.

The suspension was ordered on the basis of a preliminary inquiry conducted by D.S. Balouria, tehsildar, colony branch. The estate office has written to the police to register an FIR against Suresh Chand, who connived with the colony branch officials to get the plot allotted on the basis of a wrong document.

An official said more heads in the estate office could roll in other cases under investigation. The case in question relates to the allotment of plot no. 1695 in July 2004. The erring officials tampered with the documents of the original allottee to benefit Suresh Chand.

While SI Ashwani Thapar filed a wrong report, Kuljeet Singh and Ram Krishan issued allotment letter to Suresh Chand, knowing well that the credentials of the allottee were false. The officials had procured a wrong affidavit from Suresh Chand. “ Since Suresh is also a partner in the crime, FIR would be registered against him,” said an official, adding that the inquiry against the erring officials would be completed within two weeks.

Meanwhile, the UT vigilance has opened an old case of allotment of a site in Ram Darbar.

Panchkula, August 28
A Chandigarh resident was allegedly beaten up by the Panchkula police for suspected theft after he was picked up from his residence in Sector 56 in the wee hours today.

Recounting the tale of horror, Deepak said there was a loud knock at his door this morning. “Before my mother could get up to unlatch the door, there were six cops in our bedroom. They had broken down the door and forced their entry into the house.”

Maintaining that the cops held him by his neck, Deepak alleged that they dragged him and kicked him down the staircase. “We tried to explain to them that we had a pre-arrest bail, but they were in no mood to listen. They turned abusive and violent with me and my mother. They tore my mother’s clothes in the ensuing struggle, forced me into a vehicle and drove away,” he said.

While he was repeatedly hit while being taken to the Sector 5 police station, he claims that the police beat him up with batons, which resulted in a broken wrist.

“I was beaten up at the police station, then thrown into a lock-up I was asked to scale a wall to escape the media.The police threatened me with dire consequences if I admitted before the media that I had fractured my wrist in custody.”

Stating that he was kept in a house in the police quarters for some time, he said the police “ tore the copy of the bail granted by the district court on August 25 in the theft case, where my name figured as an accused. I had worked with a private bank for one year and left the job in May.”

“My employer, in a complaint to the police in the first week of August, said six of his employees who had left the job in the last three months could be behind a theft of Rs 35,000 and a hard disk from his office. I secured a bail after my name figured in the FIR on August 25. We tried to show the papers to the cops, but they would not listen.”

He was released in the evening after his lawyer Onkar Singh Batalvi approach the court and apprised the judge of the developments. The court directed the police to submit the boy’s medical report and file a reply tomorrow.

“It has been a nightmare. I can’t wait to get back home. My sister is waiting for me with her rakhi,” he said after his medical examination late in the evening.

Police sources said the had not been shown the bail paperss. “Our personnel were not aware of the bail.The boy was released as soon as we got to know of the bail orders,” a senior police official said, emphasising the cops were not to be blamed for the boy’s fractured wrist.

Chandigarh, August 28
Aggrieved at judicial magistrate Sudhir Parmar’s refusal to grant police remand of two youths allegedly responsible for thrashing a constable near MCM DAV College in Sector 36 here, the UT police today pleaded before the High Court to quash the order.

There was no immediate answer to the UT police’s plea with Justice Pritam Pal seeking the call records of the mobile phone (in a sealed cover tomorrow from BSNL’s divisional manager) claimed to have been stolen by the youths, Preetkamal Singh and Jaskamal Singh.The next hearing is tomorrow.

The judge’s direction came in the wake of respondent’s counsel Onkar Singh Batalvi’s submission that the police theory that the youths had fled after stealing the mobile phone of constable Vijay Pal was nothing but wild imagination.

He averred that the record of calls made from the said mobile number would nail the police lie.There was no theft and the supplementary statement by the constable was an afterthought.

Batalvi also averred that since the youths had already been granted bail by the trial court, the petition filed by the UT had become infructuous.

“The only fault of the two youths are that they pushed the constable in the face of grave provocation as the constable used abusive language,” Batalvi said.

He submitted that the police plea for remand was ludicrous as there was no recovery to be made from the youths. Moreover, the video-film of the incident showed that the constable hit the car with his stick many times and his mobile phone was also with him.

The petition said that respondents accompaned by one of their associates (yet to be identified) came to a barricade near the college at 12.30 pm in a Maruti Zen car. They were stopped by constable Vijay Pal who asked them to park the vehicle in the parking area.

This, the petition alleged, infuriated the respondents who manhandled the constable, snatched his stick and thrashed him in public view. Thereafter, the respondents allegedly fled after snatching his mobile phone.

Subsequently, an FIR was registered on the statement of Vijay Pal immediately after the incident.

Chandigarh, August 28
In five months, more than 534 queries regarding missing children have been received by a special project which the Chandigarh administration is all set to institutionalise. Part of a Unicef-supported nationwide network to reunite lost children with their families, the project -- missing child search (MCS) -- works by identifying unaccompanied children leading a life of risk on the streets, and then restoring them to their guardians.

Come August 30, Chandigarh will join this network which is, at present, handling a whopping 67,000 queries of missing children from across India. Once the UT administrator, Gen S.F. Rodrigues (retd), launches the programme, Chandigarh will join the network called Homelink (HLK), which contains information on missing children.

Father Sebastian from Don Bosco, Chandigarh, which has been since February this year, manning MCS unofficially in the city, explains: “We need to acknowledge that we do not have a system to search for a child on the basis of the complaints lodged at police stations. Nithari is a proof of this. We also do not have a centre to coordinate the information available and link it to untraced children and their families. Often, police complaints remain alive even when children have returned.

“In Chandigarh, we have received 534 queries since February.” MCS is an answer to the confusing systems in place. It is a web-based application (www.missingchildsearch.net <http://www.missingchildsearch.net>)

Chandigarh, August 28
The registration of commercial property for the payment of service tax has failed to catch the fancy of city landlords.

In an alarming trend which may lead to the evasion of service tax by unscrupulous landlords, only 160 landlords have come forward for the registration of commercial property with the excise and customs department.

With hundreds of commercial properties in the city fetching rent of over Rs 8 lakh per annum, the registration figure was "too low", sources said.The service tax was levied on that commercial property whose annual rent was more than Rs 8 lakh.The commercial property owners were responsible for the payment of the service tax even for the rented property.

It is an open secret that hundreds of commercial properties, particularly in Sector 17, 22,7,8,9,26,34 and the hotel lane in Sector 35, fetched more than Rs 8 lakh rent per annum.Interestingly, in several sectors, including Sector 17, several MNCs and other big companies have taken showrooms on lease for opening of franchisees.

It is a common knowledge that the owners were being paid lakhs of rupees as lease or "minimum guarantee" amounts per month by these corporate houses. However, this figure was yet to be reflected in the registration of the commercial property with the department.

D.S. Sra, chief commissioner of excise and customs, Chandigarh zone, while giving this figure at a workshop on service tax organised by the PHDCCI here recently conceded that the response to the registration of commercial property was not very encouraging.

Member of the central board of excise and customs C.P. Jha had also regretted that in Chandigarh the full potential of the collection of service was yet to be realised.

Now apparently alarmed at the "low registration", the department had issued advisory for the landlords to get themselves registered for the payment of 12.5 per cent service tax.

After exhausting all lawful means,the department will get tough with the defaulters for the collection of the service tax, the sources added.

For cordial department-trader relations, the landowners should pay the service tax on time, president of the Chandigarh Beopar Mandal Charanjiv Singh said.

The mandal would cooperate with the department to create awareness about the need for the payment of the tax, he added.

Chandigarh, August 28
The Chandigarh municipal corporation, at its upcoming house meeting this month, will discuss the improvement of infrastructure facilities in the city center, sector 17, and the issue of multi-level parking.

The ll&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation has submitted its technical evaluation report for constructing the parking in the Sahib Singh parking on BoT basis.

The parking has been proposed to house 1200 cars. According to the proposal, the parking fee for two wheelers has been fixed at Rs 5 for up to five hours, and Rs 10 for more than five hours, while the monthly pass will cost Rs 300.

The house will also dwell on the draft dog bylaws. Here it has been proposed that dogs owned by armed forces will have to be also registered. A dog will have to be registered by four months of age, and if a resident keeps more than two dogs, he will have to pay Rs 1000 per year as dog tax. It has also been proposed that the owner will have to submit every year proof of vaccination of the dog to the MC.

The house will also discuss the framing of recruitment rules of fire and emergency services, revise estimates of installation of bio-methenation plant from waste of slaughter house and sabji mandi waste and improvement and upgradation of existing infrastructure and regulation of vehicular traffic flow at motor market Mani Majra.

Chandigarh, August 28
The Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT) in Sector 43 here, which caters to over 250 long-route buses for Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, is virtually crying for attention of the authorities.

Broken marble floor, pot-holed roads, over-grown grass all around, scattered filth, non-functional public address system, unhygienic conditions at drinking water points, lack of seating arrangements speak volumes about the pitiable conditions prevailing at the place.

The free movement of private vehicles inside the terminus adds to the woes of those visiting the bus stand.

“I think the place needs a visit of the UT administrator to set the conditions right here,” said Amardeep Singh, a local commuter.

Another local resident Kuldeep Bhatia said the bus-stand lacked even the basic facilities. “The authorities should visit the site regularly to see the requirements of the public. This is the only way to improve the conditions here,” added Bhatia.

On the issue, director, CTU, P.S.Shergill said, “I am not aware of the actual status at the bus stand. Actually a new building is coming up here and most of the routes would be shifted here from the ISBT-17.”

On the maintenance of the existing infrastructure, Shergill said, “We are concerned with public problems. I would definitely check the site to improve its maintenance. Within the next week the conditions will be much improved”.

According to the sources, it will take another 10 to 12 months to complete the new building.

Chandigarh, August 28
Ace mountaineer and trainer Gurdial Singh has again done the city proud by becoming the recipient of the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award for 2006. He has earlier received the Arjuna Award, the Padma Shri and the President’s Gold Medal.

President Pratibha Patil will present the award to Singh, who has won it for his outstanding contribution to mountaineering. The ceremony will take place at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 30. Singh has, however, left the city for the rehearsals scheduled to take place tomorrow.

For Singh, celebrity is not new, considering he led umpteen expeditions to the tricky mountainous stretches across India. Born in 1924, Singh studied at Government College, Lahore, and Aligarh Muslim University before joining Doon School as assistant master in 1945. From here, he retired as deputy headmaster in 1979.

At the time, Singh had no idea his romance with the mountains would take him places. His affair with the Himalayas began in 1948 with a four-week high altitude trek with Willi Unsoeld, later of the Everest West Ridge fame. In 1950, he joined Jack Gibson’s successful expedition to Bandarpunch to initiate his mountaineering career. Alone, he vanquished the peak in 1975.

In 1951, Singh led a small team to Trisul and became the first Indian to climb a major Himalayan peak. The following year, he became a member of the unsuccessful Bengal Engineer Group’s expedition (BEG) to Kamet, in which he climbed to over 24,600 feet.

Continuing his dangerous missions, Singh joined a BEG team to Kamet and Abi Gamin in 1953. In the final expedition in 1955, the group captured Kamet; Gurdial even captured Abi Gamin.

Soon, Singh led the ill-fated expedition to Mrigthuni which withdrew when a member was lost, but in 1958 he repeated the attempt when the first ascent of the peak was accomplished.

In his outstanding career as a mountaineer, Singh has climbed Devistan I (21,910 ft.) and Maiktoli (22,320 ft.) in 1961. In 1962 and 1965, he was a member of the Indian expeditions to the Everest.

Having gratified his passion for the peaks, Singh went on to accompany training groups from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering at Uttarkashi, the IMA and Indian Artillery. His love for the mountains made him the first Indian member of the Alpine Club.

Chandigarh, August 28
Members of the local Nari Jagriti Manch yesterday staged a protest march here against the Hyderabad bomb blasts.

Expressing grief over the killing of innocents, Neena Tiwari, president of the manch, condemned the dastardly act. Urging the state and central governments to take firm steps to curb the menace of terrorism, the members of the manch demanded that the killers should be hanged.

They demanded that the UT administration guaranteed the security of the residents. The protesters also burnt an effigy of terrorism.

Chandigarh, August 28
India worships its trees, especially the devout India. Trees are the keepers of shrines, holy spirits, folklore and tradition and holy men who have found their peace under the leafy awnings, since time immemorial. It is no surprise then that sacred trees now find expression in an unusual exhibition mounted at the Rock Garden, Phase III.

‘The Sacred Trees of India’, photographed by German artist and filmmaker Deidi von Schaeven, celebrates this remarkable facet of Indian existence. Ritualistic embodiments like red flags, vermillion, marigolds, coconuts, red threads and lamps clustered around trees mark them as special, indeed exotic to the foreigner’s eye. So what seems mundane to us, suddenly acquires a special life when seen through these life-size vinyl prints hung up at the Rock Garden.

Deidi started the project on sacred trees 15 years ago when she was approached by the Association Francaise d'Actions Artistique (AFAA) to create a database of these images from around India. Although the project is done, Deidi continues to travel all around India and click pictures of temples around trees. She has stuck to her interest in unusual places of worship and has made 35 trips to India. Her unusual collection of sacred trees covers the length and breadth of the country.

The exhibition, a part of the ‘Tree of Life Festival’ in Chennai, is now being showcased at the Rock Garden. Most of the pictures are from her road trip from Pondicherry to Madurai where, impressed with this spiritual aspect of India, she found the eye to appreciate their inherent aesthetic value as well.

Deidi currently lives and works in Paris, though she was born in Berlin. She is a renowned international filmmaker on travel, design and interiors. She has also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Berlin and having opted for photography, Deidi has since done work for many books such as ‘Inside Africa’ and ‘Interiors of India’.

The exhibition, organised by the Alliance Française de Chandigarh and the French Embassy in India, will be up for viewing from August 27 to September 4 at the Rock Garden, Phase III.

Mohali, August 28
A huge pothole on the road opposite the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), Phase VIII, is not just a nuisance for commuters but it has become a safety hazard that could cause substantial damage to vehicles and even lead to loss of life.

The authorities concerned, however, have turned a blind eye to the huge hole in the road, and shockingly, neither the Municipal Council nor the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) is even ready to take responsibility of repairing it.

The accumulation of rainwater on the roads during the past couple of days seems to have led to the cave in here. During a visit to the spot, this correspondent found that the area is visited by hundreds of people daily and many vehicles are parked around this spot. And what makes it double scary is that the pothole is so big that even a car could fall into it. Though it is visible during the day, the absence of streetlights and sign boards makes it a high-risk zone during night.

While the authorities continue to pass the buck, it seems only a major mishap would wake them up from their slumber.

Rajiv Pandit, a resident of Sector 70, complains, “I am shocked over the callous attitude of the authorities. It seems as if they are waiting for something to go drastically wrong before acting.”

This refers to the news item “Students keep tab on mates” that appeared in the Chandigarh Tribune on July 20, 2007. The story is about three students of Government Model High School, Sector 41, who ran away during school hours. Now, students have been assigned the job to keep a vigil on other students and visitors. This has not only happened in one school, but in other government schools as well. I completely agree with the views expressed in the article that the students who are deployed at the entrance gate of the school are suffering as they have to skip classes. They have come to the school to study and not to keep a watch on the visitors. It is the duty of the school authorities to deploy more staff for such purposes.

Vikram Singla, Chandigarh

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Chandigarh, August 28
An advocate’s assistant was caught red-handed while stealing files of some lawyers from the district courts in Sector 17 here today. The police said the accused, said to be a drug addict, had been stealing files and was selling these to junk dealers.

Sources in the Sector 17 police station said the accused, Rohit Kumar (23) of Maloya was caught stealing in the court by advocate Arun Sharma.

Two stolen files belonging to Sharma were recovered from him. Later during a raid at his residence, the police recovered several files belonging to other advocates.

Sources said Rohit was employed by Munish Kumar, an advocate in the district courts, a few days ago. More complaints from other advocates are also pouring in regarding their missing files.

The accused told the police that he had been stealing files and selling them to junk dealers to make money. The police said he would be produced before a local court for police remand on Wednesday.

Chandigarh, August 28
Six persons, including a minor boy, were injured in different accident that occurred in various parts of the city.

Jatinder Singh of Colony No. 4, a cyclist, suffered injuries after being hit by a car (CH-01-X-2470) near Poultry Farm Chowk on August 22.

He was admitted to the Sector 32 Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). In another incident, Rohit (12) of Sector 52 sustained injuries after being knocked down by a motorcycle (CH-04-3144) near a bridge in the same sector on Monday. The motorcyclists sped away after the mishap.

The victim was admitted to the Sector 16 Government Multi-Speciality Hospital.

Similarly, four persons were injured after being hit by an unidentified vehicle near the Sector 38-West traffic lights point on Monday morning.

The victims have been identified as Sunder Singh, Sukhwinder Singh, Mandeep Kaur and Kulwant Kaur; all residents of Dadu Majra Colony. They were admitted to the PGI, here.

Zirakpur, August 28
The local police yesterday arrested 11 persons on charges of gambling. Over Rs 1,27,300 has been recovered from them.

The arrested include Arun Kumar Sharma, Rajiv Kumar, Rikas Moti Ram, Arun Sharma, Daljit Singh, Brij Mohan, Arun Kumar and Amrit Kumar. They have been arrested under Sections 13A/3/67 of the Gambling Act. — TNS