Hoshiarpur on high alert

The district administration is on high alert as the 7-day ultimatum given by the Youth Congress to the government to remove chief minister Parkash Singh Badal's photos from '108' ambulances ended on November 28.

Drivers of the ambulances have been asked to park in the nearest police stations, to avoid being targeted by Congress workers.

On Friday, all the 14 ambulances in the district remained on the move, whether with or without patients.

Senior superintendent of police Sukhchain Singh Gill could not be contacted, but civil surgeon Dr Surinder Gangar confirmed that they had been asked to be vigilant for some time. Sources revealed that police parties checked the security of the ambulances in the morning and passed 'necessary' instructions to the health authorities.

State youth Congress president Vikramjit Chaudhary and local leaders had pasted Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's photo right beside the chief minister's on an ambulance parked in the civil hospital.

They had threatened to replace the CM's pictures with those of Dr Singh throughout the state, if the PM's photo was pasted beside Badal's. The Congress said that the PM's photo deserved to be there as the ambulances were purchased with state funds, while the SAD claimed that as Badal also deserved the honour as he was the state head.

Photos pasted in Ludhiana, Mittal terms incident as 'atrocity'

Congress workers in the district managed to paste photos of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 108 ambulances at Ludhiana civil hospital, Jodhewal Basti Chowk, Machhiwara and Rara Sahib. The police then decided to give police protection to these vehicles.

Commenting on the incident, state health and family welfare minister Madan Mohan Mittal said that the pasting of photographs amounted to committing an atrocity and the action was totally unjustified. Mittal was in town to inaugurate a hospital.