Pune Beat

Muslims call for homage to Kargil martyrsFive Muslim city organisations have called upon Puneites to participate at a meeting to pay homa...

Muslims call for homage to Kargil martyrs
Five Muslim city organisations have called upon Puneites to participate at a meeting to pay homage to the martyrs of Kargil at Abhinav chowk, Sanas Statue, Tilak Road, at 3 pm on Friday.

The Parvati Darshan Muslim Committee, Sabil Friend8217;s Circle, Ittephak Muslim Committee, Akhil Lohianagar Muslim Committee and the Dandekar Pul Muslim Committee stated in a press release o n Thursday that they would also burn an effigy of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to protest against the torture and killing of six Indian soldiers.

Highway divider work stopped; probe sought
Elected members of the Khadki Cantonment Board KCB on Thursday demanded a probe into the sudden halt in the construction of the road divider undertaken between Mariai Gate to Khadki Station on the Mumbai-Pune National highway.

Dubbed as the 8220;killer8221; stretch of the highway, this area has seen the maximum number of accidents in the last two years. The apathy shown by the National Highway authorities, however, left the board authorities with little option, but to undertake the work at their own cost. Despite pleas by the cantonment, the National Highway authorities washed their hands off the matter saying that they had no funds to widen the stretch. The board finally began work on the road divider on May 18 at an estimated cost of Rs 40 lakh.

As per the contract, divider was to be lined with shahabad tiles at a height of 2.5 feet and width of two feet. The builder, however, lined the divider with tiles of the height of two feet pleading the lack of availability of larger variety. The quality of work, as a result, suffered badly and the builder managed to complete only 10 per cent of the work and finally sought oral permission from the cantonment executive officer Ajay Kumar and work came to a total standstill.

Satish Tyagi demanded to know who had granted permission to the contractor to go ahead with the work with the smaller tiles and alleged the possibility of corruption in the contract. The cantonment executive officer, however, hastened to correct him and explained that he had not granted any permission to the contractor to go ahead with work with the smaller tiles.

Board president Brig Dr Mrinal Suman suggested that the board could pay the contractor for the amount of work completed but make it mandatory for him to comply with the conditions set by the board. The members agreed to the suggestion in order to avoid any further delay in the project.

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Camp for the displaced
A 8220;yuva sahayog shibir8221; will be organised from June 21 to 25 at Domkhedi and Nimgarhar, Akkalkuisa taluka, Nandurbar district, Mohandi. The camp is being organised to highlight the problems faced by the 2,500 families of 66 villages from Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat who have been affected by the Sardar Sarovar dam.