Panel comes to aid of acid attack victims

The Punjab State Scheduled Caste Commission has come to the aid of an acid attack victim family of Ahemadpur village in Tarn Taran. About two weeks back, five members of the SC family were not only injured badly in the attack but also four members of the family and 11 of their other associates were booked by the police. The family approached the state SC commission against the police’s indifference. Following this, Raj Kumar Hans of the SC commission visited the local civil hospital to investigate the matter and took a note of the incident and the police action into the case.

The commission instructed the district police to register a criminal case under the SC/ST Act-1989 against the attackers. The panel also asked the police to arrest the accused immediately. In the attack, Darshan Singh (60), head of the family, besides his seven-year-old grandson, his daughter-in-law, an expectant mother, and two sons were injured. Darshan is still under treatment at the district civil hospital in Tarn Taran. The victim family was not given medical treatment at the community health centre of Sursingh, alleged Anwar Singh, son of Darshan Singh. The incident was reported in The Tribune on March 17. It is pertinent to mention that the incident was a post-poll clash.

Despite promises No end to drug menace in state

Despite various announcements and promises made to curb the drug menace, the rate of addiction among youths is increasing continuously in the district. More people are consuming opioids and other drugs. Addicts abuse drugs through various methods such as sniffing, chasing (inhaling the smoke) and intra-venous injections of smack (impure heroine). These injections have serious consequences, including overdose deaths, transmission of deadly diseases such as HIV and HCV. Recently, drug addicts are facing side effects such as gangrene and diseases related to limbs and their mutilation. Such cases (as shown in pictures), where some youths, who have been consuming drugs for a long time, lost a part of their fingers after developing gangrene. The cause behind this has been attributed to multiple injections and repeated infections at injection site. A comprehensive plan and its committed implementation is the need of the hour rather than just lip service. Experts had suggested that drug addiction should be treated as a disease and addicts should be treated with sympathy and as victims rather than criminals. It is a hard fact that though the state government had opened a number of de-addiction centres for the rehabilitation of the addicts, not even a single addict had been rehabilitated in the past decade. The Health Department revealed that there are about 21,000 substance abuse patients taking treatment at various OOAT centres since the last about five years. The number of patients who had stopped taking drugs following the treatment is just 20. The department needs to take a note of the situation and make effective measures to check the menace.

Muskandeep aiming to realising her dreams

Despite odd situations, Muskandeep Kaur, a Class XII student of Government Girls Senior Secondary School in Aladinpur in Tarn Taran is facing all challenges with courage. She dreams of coming out the hardships by studying hard and achieving success in life. The Class XII student says she sees herself sitting in the chair of a bureaucrat in the near future. Belonging to a Backward Class community, her father died when she was in Class V. Her mother, a homely lady, after the death her husband had no source of income to look after her three children — two daughters and a son. Muskandeep was sent to her mother’s parental house in Sheron village with her uncle, who is a daily worker. According to Muskan’s teachers, she is a sincere and hardworking student, whose understanding power is remarkable. Muskan said she was preparing herself for some competitive exam to become a bureaucrat. Her teachers said she visits school library daily and keeps herself busy in studying books.

(Contributed by Gurbaxpuri)