Jalandhar, August 30
The top police authorities are seemingly dilly-dallying over the registration of a case against former Bhogpur SHO Sukha Singh, from whose local New Baradari house alleged poppy husk smuggler Bakhshinder Singh Bhinda was arrested by sleuths of the Amritsar special anti-narcotics cell on July 13.

Sub-inspector Sukha Singh, who is said to be close to two Congress leaders and a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA, however, has been saying in his defence that Bhinda was his “source” and that he was not aware that Bhinda was wanted in some police case.

The anti-narcotics cell sleuths had been after Bhinda since June 26, when they had recovered as many as 17 bags of poppy husk from a truck at Jandiala Guru in Amritsar district. Bhinda, it was learnt, had escaped, but the investigation had pointed out that it was he who was allegedly smuggling the contraband.

The sleuths of the anti-narcotics cell, headed by Tulsi Ram, had, however, trailed Bhinda and nabbed him from the official New Baradari residence of Sukha on July 13, despite Bhinda’s unsuccessful bid to escape.

Bhinda, police sources said, had been one of the top operative of the poppy-husk trade in the Doaba and Majha regions of Punjab and he was said to be the one on whose information Sukha Singh had recovered 12 bags of the contraband from Karnail Singh at Pachranga village of Jalandhar district on May 27.

The arrest of an alleged poppy husk smuggler from the residence of a police official made the top police authorities launch an investigation into the matter by a senior police official of the rank of an SP. The police authorities had also asserted that the investigation would be completed within a period of 10 days and that if found guilty the police official would be duly booked.

Ironically, no case has formally been registered and nothing has moved beyond the usual “ongoing investigation stage,” despite the fact that over a month and a half has lapsed.

“We are investigating the matter”, said a senior police official.

Jalandhar, August 30
The three-day inter-departmental cultural fest organised by the CCA (co-curriculum activities) department of DAV College concluded here on Thursday. The prize distribution ceremony was presided over by the former student and assistant commissioner (general). The overall trophy for the fest was won by the commerce and management department, while basic sciences department was declared as runner-up.

Around 500 students, including 150 girls, participated in the event, which was held on the college premises. The fest was inaugurated by college principal A.J. Bahl.

For the competitions, the college had divided itself into five faculties - life science, commerce and management, languages and social sciences, computer sciences and basic sciences. The various competitions, which were part of the event, included folk song, western solo, classical vocal, instrumental, poetical symposium, elocution, quiz, painting, solo dance, etc, were held.

Jalandhar, August 30
Blaming SAD working president Sukhbir Badal for misleading the masses by making false promises, Congress MLA from Bholath Sukhpal Khaira today said he should rather act responsibly and make realistic statements.

Talking to mediapersons he said, “Badal has been saying he would make the state power surplus in three years by increasing electricity production by 6000 MW. It will be a moment of pride for the Punjabis if this happens that way but it rather seems to be a distant dream.”

Making his calculations, Khaira said, “On an average, production of 1 MW power costs Rs 8 crore. Thus, the state needs to spend as much as Rs 48,000 crore to reach the target, which is far higher from the actual budgetary allocation.”

Khaira pointed out that perhaps Badal was talking about the production from the ongoing power projects at Talwandi Sabo, Lehran Mohabattan and Shahpur Kandi.

He pointed out that the yet-to-be-completed 250-MW Shahpur Kandi project that began 27 years back was now estimated at Rs 1,945 crore but its allocation was far low at Rs 98 crore. He said instead of building castles in the air, the Akali leadership should spell out its proposals clearly and start working on these for their one-tenth period of the term was already over. The Bholath MLA said while budgetary allocation for irrigation was Rs 100 crore, Sukhbir had pointed out that Rs 4,000 crore would be spent for the purpose. “From where will he spend the remaining amount?” he asked. Even if the government plans to undertake projects on BOT basis, it should clearly outline as to which companies it was planning to roll in, how much money would be spent and for how long the contract would continue, he said.

Khaira said he and other Congress MLAs were also upset over the false cases that had been registered by the police against them or their supporters in the past six months. He said there were nearly 111 such cases with 28 from Begowal, 28 from Beas and other places like Majitha and Sardulgarh.

He alleged that he had tried to present the case in the Vidhan Sabha but he was not allowed to do it and neither the administration nor the police was ready to ensure justice to them. “I am now planning to file a PIL on the matter in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.” He said he would also bring the matter in the next CLP meeting and float an idea to disrupt all public functions of the Akalis in case atrocities against them are not stopped.

Phagwara, August 30
Anti-Terrorists Front National president Maninderjit Singh Bitta has appealed to all the political parties to leave their political differences and work as a unit against the terrorism inspired by Pakistan.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday evening, Bitta demanded formation of an anti-terrorist military code and stressed on the need for the necessary constitutional amendments so that a terrorist could be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

Expressing concern over the Dera Sacha Sauda row, he described the dera chief as a rapist and killer. He reiterated his allegations that former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was favouring the dera chief.

Bitta said he was working only for terrorist victims, but would remain loyal to the Congress. He said he would file a PIL in the SC next month for amendments in the constitution so that convicted terrorists could not appeal to the President of India against any decision of the SC.

In his edit page article, “Suicides in the Army”, published in The Tribune (August 17), V.S. Jafa, a former secretary (finance), ministry of defence, has shown a palpable bias towards the armed forces. Some of the issues brought out by him in his article lack factual accuracy, besides bordering on misconstrued facts. While rest of the issues will be discussed later, in this piece, we bring out the aspect of his bias.

Never has the Army service been so unattractive as it is today. In a bid to attract the youth to it, the defence minister has recommended a substantial increase in its package.

Jafa, however, is against the armed forces getting a better deal. He states in the article: “The established relativities in the government pay system are not easy to be overlooked. Moreover, in the government, including the armed forces, salaries are uniformly given to all, irrespective of the nature of job or individual performance. Neither is any difference made in the salary level on account of differing hardships, importance or the stress level involved in different jobs”. In other words, Jafa does not want the soldiers serving at Siachen to get any high-altitude allowance.

Jalandhar, August 30
Bank of Baroda (BoB) would soon enter the insurance sector as well as the field of estate management for which it would join hand with foreign companies.

“For insurance, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) is being finalised with UK-based company Legal and General, and for the estate management, a joint venture with Italy-based Pioneer Group is planned,” chairman-cum-managing director Anil Kumar Khandelwal said without mentioning the firms’ names.

Celebrating its centenary in the current year, Khandelwal said the bank had planned to open as many as 100 new branches, of which 10 would be opened in Punjab. The BoB is a western Indian-based bank with branches mostly in the western and eastern sectors, but now it plans to strengthen the bank in northern and southern India as well and a majority of the planned new branches would be in these parts of the country only.

On the overseas expansion, he said that in the current financial year itself it had planned to open at least 10 branches abroad, besides strengthening the existing overseas branches. Regarding the policy of merger of banks, Khandelwal although advocated such mergers to meet the global challenges in the banking sector, said for a concrete policy on merger, the union government would have to chalk out a road map.

He added currently the bank was operating 1,100 branches with the total business of Rs 2,09,000 crore in the previous financial year with the target to achieve a figure of Rs 2,60,000 crore in the current financial year. As far as non-performing assets were concerned, the bank had reduced it to mere 0.68 per cent, he said. — PTI