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Racket of club drugs busted, two held
Thousands of fasting women perform Karva Chauth puja
CBI probe of Noida land draw challenged in apex court
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HIV shadow looms large
over Delhi
Woman elopes with lover; husband gets son’s custody
10-yr RI to husband for dowry death
Man gets life imprisonment for wife’s murder
Two persons sentenced to RI for road rage
Proclaimed offender held in Tilak Nagar
Probe ordered into fake FDRs produced as bail amount
4,145 plots allotted under industries’ relocation scheme
They bite, steal and roam around freely
Airman commits suicide
Nine cable operators in police net
Re-possession of chambers of defaulting lawyers ordered
Kanshi Ram supporters protest outside Mayawati’s residence
‘Suhagyawati Mela’ organised
Professor honoured
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Racket of club drugs busted, two held
New Delhi, October 20 The two accused, Raj Kumar Gupta (31) and Pradeep Singh (25), were picked up from Dwarka area in south-west Delhi yesterday on the basis of specific information, said Assistant Commissioner of Police (Narcotics Branch) Meher Singh. The police seized 43 tablets of ‘ecstasy’ worth Rs 43,000 and 10 grams cocaine worth nearly Rs 50,000 from them. This was the first time that ‘ecstasy’ was recovered in Delhi. But the arrest ran into controversy after it emerged that one of the accused Raj Kumar, brother of a notorious pimp murdered two years ago, had a policemen designated as his personal security officer (PSO), who was absent at the time of arrest. Both drugs are allegedly in high demand at clubs and farmhouse parties in Delhi. Raj is the younger brother of Sanjay Gupta, who was one of the city’s top pimps till he was murdered in 2003. Pradeep was his associate. The ACP said it was likely that Raj was also running a prostitution racket and was supplying the drugs along with women to customers. As Raj was a witness in Sanjay’s murder case and apprehended threat to his life, he had been provided with a constable as PSO. However, the constable was not present with the accused when they were arrested, ACP Singh said. The police are still to find out the possibility of the involvement of the PSO in the supply of drugs. The accused Raj and Sanjay had accumulated property worth crores of rupees through their alleged illegal activities and efforts would be made to attach these, said Mehar Singh. Recently, Sanjay’s wife Ritu was arrested for allegedly running a prostitution racket. Singh said Raj, a college drop-out, was involved in drug trafficking for nearly five years and procured his ‘supplies’ from Mumbai. This year, the Delhi Police alone seized 140 grams of cocaine in six incidents. Last month, the Narcotics Control Branch had arrested one Dev Chopra with 10 grams of cocaine from a posh bar in south Delhi.
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Thousands of fasting women perform Karva Chauth puja
New Delhi, October 20 Sitting in a circle, they passed on their puja thalis among themselves as they listened to the story of Veeravati, the sister of seven brothers, who broke her fast by mistake and almost lost her husband. She however, got him back after diligently observing the fast. The festival, reflecting the unique devotion of the wife to her husband, also caught media attention with television channels vyiing with each others in beaming special features showing women political leaders waxing eloquent about the importance of the day. In a bid to encash on the “gender-equality” scenario, gift shops have been exhorting men to buy expensive and beautiful gifts from jewellery to durables for their spouses who go without water and food for their sake and restaurants have been prompting them to treat their wives to sumptuous feasts prepared specially for the occasion. Many couples, specially from the nuclear families, have bitten the bait and booked seats in advance, a survey of food joints has revealed. The buying spree on the occasion is expected to earn the market an estimated Rs 90 crore of sales as the business community, cashing in on the growing spending power of the Indian consumers, unleashed an advertising blitzkrieg to promote the event once considered a close family affair. Henna artists, bangle-vendors, sweet shops, earthern potmakers, gift shops and beauty parlours raked in moolah hand over fist this past week as women thronged markets to get ready for the big occasion. Special packages were offered on products related to the fair sex — be it sarees and dresses, jewellery or beauty products and packages. Beauty parlours were booked in advance as women decided to indulge themselves. On the eve of the festival, traffic snarls were commonplace throughout the city’s markets, choc-a-bloc with special roadside stands of henna artists and bangle-sellers, which remained open till late last night. The festival was a veritable bonanza for Rama, a henna artist at the Delhi Haat, who made as much as Rs 200 for decorating a palm as the occasion drew nearer. Hasina Begum, at Hanuman Mandir in Cannaught Place, did brisk business as her stock of special red n’gold Karva Chauth bangle sets, was in great demand. The henna decoration and bangles were part of the adornments that
married women, who dressed themselves in finery reminiscent of their wedding day, donned on the fourth day of the Hindu month of Kartik. The day began well before the break of dawn for them today as they woke up early to partake of ‘Sargi’, consisting of the traditional sweets offered by the mother-in-law. However, the fast will be broken only after seeing the moon and offering water to it from the Karva, the earthen pot with a spout, now available in a variety of fancy adornings and taking the food offered by the husband.
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CBI probe of Noida land draw challenged in apex court
Noida, October 20 All the influential people who had benefited from the draw are reported to be at the back of this petition. Even the less influential who had secured the costly allotments with the connivance of some officials are known to be supporting the petition. Significantly, the fact as to who had ordered the decision to file the writ plea or who had prepared the writ plea is still a mystery, as the Chairman and the CEO of Noida Authority are on a foreign tour. Some higher-ups in the state bureaucracy or political bosses are understood to have given the go-ahead as it is feared that many people would be unmasked and several heads would roll if the CBI was to give its findings on all the points mentioned by the Allahabad High Court in its order of October 4, 2005. People who matter here would not like this scam to slip out of their hands and go to the apex court. It may be mentioned that the Allahabad High Court had also ordered the CBI to probe the nexus between Noida authority, state government and the agency which conducted the draw. That was why the Noida authority officials had reportedly removed some telltale documents from the related files of the scam on the “directions” of their bosses. The court had brought the action of these Noida authority officials into the ambit of the CBI inquiry. There is considerable insecurity in the state government and Noida officials who had gone out of their briefs at the behest of their “bosses”. The state government has not yet sent the formal letter to the CBI for initiating inquiry into the matter as ordered by the High Court, it is learnt. The fact that the court had ordered the CBI inquiry to be completed within 90 days, it is gathered, has not been found palatable by the state government. Dy CEO Tanveer Zafar Ali and Legal Consultant Harmath Singh have expressed ignorance about the special leave petition being filed in the apex court when Chairman Rakesh Bahadur and CEO Sanjeev Saran are still abroad. Who had then prepared the writ plea is quite a mystery. Was it the senior officer who had been removed from Authority after the rigged draw? The officer concerned had reportedly called some Noida officials at a “private meeting” in Delhi on Tuesday. The meeting was held to prepare the legal papers for filing a petition in the apex court so that the CBI’s noose could be kept off. UPDESCO and state government are also understood to be getting ready to file separate pleas on the case in the Supreme Court.
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HIV shadow looms large
over Delhi
New Delhi, October 20 This truckers’ haunt, strewn with dhabas, tyre repair shops, workshops, offices of transport companies, rag pickers and beggars from the nearby slums, is home to not only some of the biggest transport companies but also the bedrock from where lethal diseases proliferate. Over 400-500 trucks move through this junction daily to different parts of the nation but they also bring with them lonely, tired men, often stricken with STI’s and HIV. Take the case of Ram Yadav, currently a middle-aged driver, but formerly, a trucker. Yadav has been to hell and back, as it were. Till early this year, he had been working as a trucker and keeping poor health. He was very weak, losing weight daily, and also suffered from a persistent cough. Yadav, as is the habit with truckers, was prone to having unsafe sex on the highways. After being advised by a fellow trucker, he went in for counselling and medical help at the Apollo Tyre Health Care Centre. Later, he was diagnosed as HIV positive, also suffering from tuberculosis. After extensive counselling, Yadav has come to terms with life. He has been cured of tuberculosis and is in much better shape today. He has since changed his profession. At Transport Nagar, Yadav’s story is but one among many. Names change but the story remains the same essentially, though some are more tragic. The shadow of HIV looms large over Delhi and the nation, with some 5.134 million people living with HIV/AIDS (NACO data), India is currently being projected as the next “wave country” after South Africa. The danger is of the disease assuming epidemic scale over the next few years, with HIV set to spread quickly across the country. Currently, HIV/AIDS prevalence in India already represents approximately 72% of the HIV prevalence in South/South-East Asia and some 13% of the global prevalence of the fatal disease. Some of the worst affected states are Manipur, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra as also metropolises. The situation is particularly grave in Delhi where an expanding migratory population (14 million), massive slum population, some 10,000 intravenous drug users, street children, sex workers and over 32,000 truckers are causing the disease to strengthen in the Capital. “Ram Yadav’s story cannot be taken in isolation,” says Vijay Shankar, counsellor with the Apollo Tyre Health Care Centre. “Take the case of Pradeep, a typical Haryanvi Jat. I interacted with this character at a field counselling session where Pradeep swore that no matter what, he would not use a condom. By God’s grace we are five brothers and if one of us dies so what. This is the attitude.” Shankar later informs. “In Pradeep case, I was persistent. After the session I followed him to a dhaba where I had tea with him and chatted with him to soften him down. I gave him five clear advantages of safe sex and finally got him to see my point.” Later, Pradeep came to the clinic, got himself counselled and follows safe sex practices. At present, Pradeep is championing Shankar’s cause with the trucker community at large bringing colleagues to the clinic to get them treated. The Apollo Tyre Health Care Centre has a team of two dedicated doctors one of whom left a lucrative job at Safdarjung Hospital to take up this humble assignment at Transport Nagar. There are also four health educators and a vast network of some 40 peer educators who are drawn from within the community at Transport Nagar and include concerned dhaba shop owners, PCO booth owners, barbers, paan shop owners and the occasional trucker. The clinic is a result of a collaboration between Care India and Apollo Hospital. On an average they get some 350-450 patients every month. The majority of them are truckers. About 80-100 patients come with cases of STI diseases and to date, the centre has diagnosed 17 patients as HIV+. This entire initiative is a result of the Chayan project which promotes prevention of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and STI’s and is active in five states, 45 districts and 21 cities.
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Woman elopes with lover; husband gets son’s custody
Noida, October 20 In Auloda village, a man had walked into the house of his sister and brother-in-law with a 28-year-old woman carrying a three-year-old son. He told his sister and brother-in-law Triloki that he was in love with that woman and she had eloped with him leaving her husband behind in Aligarh. Later, the Panchayat gave the custody of the son to his father.
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10-yr RI to husband for dowry death
Noida, October 20 The Addl District and
Session Judge Anuradh Singh in his 55-page judgement had held husband Neeraj, an engineer, responsible for the murder of his wife, Sonu. Neeraj was sent to jail after the judgement had been pronounced. Greater Noida police had arrested Neeraj Gupta, a native of Hissar district in Haryana, from a bus stand in Greater Noida a day after Sonu’s murder. Sonu, 22, daughter of a steel merchant, Dayanand of Hissar, was married to Neeraj, son of Kishore in House No. 13-B, Staff Colony of Jindal Steel, Hissar on 22 February 2004. Since Neeraj was employed as an engineer in Greater Noida’s L.G. company, Sonu had come to live with her husband in Greater Noida. Neeraj had been pestering his wife for dowry worth Rs 2 lakh after marriage. According to Sonu’s father, though they had paid Rs 50,000, Neeraj had still been torturing his daughter, beating her up quite often. Dayanand had asked for six months to pay a balance Rs 1.50 lakh. But Neeraj did not change his attitude with the result that on 17 November 2004, Sonu was found dead in her LG Colony flat. Neeraj was nabbed on 18 November by the Kasna police, but was later released on bail. The court found Neeraj guilty under IPC Section 304-B, and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Act and sentenced him to 10, 5, and one-year rigorous imprisonments. He was also sentenced to pay a penalty of Rs 1.10 lakh for the non-payment of which Neeraj will have to undergo one year of additional imprisonment.
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Man gets life imprisonment for wife’s murder
New Delhi, October 20 The court further slapped a fine of Rs 2000 on Gian Chand. According to the prosecution, on March 6, 2003, Gian Chand, a garage owner in Sangam Vihar, took his wife Meena to a nearby forest shooting range Road and choked her to death with a string. Her body was recovered from a forest near Sangam Vihar. “It was a pre-meditated act. However, the motive behind this murder was not known. The circumstances of the case convincingly prove the involvement of the convict in the murder. The prosecution totally relied on circumstantial evidence and found that Gian Chand had murdered his wife brutally,” the judge said in his 30-page judgement. Gian Chand was convicted under sections 302 (Murder) and 201 (Destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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Two persons sentenced to RI for road rage
New Delhi, October 20 Additional Sessions Judge S C Rajan sentenced one Balram, a cleaner in a city bus, to four years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000 for attacking a conductor of another bus Ravinder Kumar with an iron rod. In a typical instance of road rivalry, on November 21, 2003, Balram was annoyed when Ravinder’s bus overtook his vehicle on the Janakpuri-Shahbad route. On reaching Mangolpuri, the convict’s bus was stopped right in front of Ravinder Kumar’s and an enraged Balram entered the other’s bus and attacked him with an iron rod in full view of the passengers and other road-users. In a similar case, the court sentenced a taxi driver to five years RI and slapped a fine of Rs 2,000 for attacking a scooterist with his ‘kirpan’ after they had collided at a T-Point near Ashok Vihar.
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Proclaimed offender held in Tilak Nagar
New Delhi, October 20 The Crime Branch of the Delhi Police got the information that the accused was hiding in the area of Tilak Nagar. A raid was conducted and she was arrested from there. The police said that the accused along with her husband, Dr Sanjay Srivastava, and her brothers Chandan and Kundan, had allegedly cheated Dr P.N Shrivastava and his wife Maya Shrivastava (both NRIs) by forging papers of their property situated in Vaishali, Gurgaon and Palam
area. — TNS
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Probe ordered into fake FDRs produced as bail amount
New Delhi, October 20 The court has also sought details from the Canara Bank, which had allegedly issued the FDRs (Fixed Deposit Receipts). In compliance with a Delhi High Court order, accused Kunal Chopra today produced before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Reena Singh Nag FDRs valued at Rs 12,000 as the amount of bail in the cheating case. As the FDRs appeared to be fake, the court decided to seek details from the Canara Bank and also ordered an inquiry into the matter.
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4,145 plots allotted under industries’ relocation scheme
New Delhi, October 20 Mr Singhal assured the entrepreneurs that all those who had been running factories prior to 1996 would be in principle considered for the allotment. He also said that efforts were being made by the government to acquire more land so that entrepreneurs, who had opted out of the relocation scheme, could be accommodated. At the same time, Mr Singhal warned the entrepreneurs that the plots allotted under the relocation scheme were not for sale and non-transferable under the GPA. Hence, he urged them to immediately start construction works on the allotted plots.
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They bite, steal and roam around freely
Noida, October 20 The worse-hit areas are Sectors 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 22, 20, 26, 33 and 55. People fear to go out of their houses during the day. The monkeys who are multiplying fast have grown from a bunch to a full-scale gang of rowdies. They bite, steal, roam around freely in houses they get access to and are quite destructive. When challenged, they charge back and terrify the residents, especially the children no end, says a resident of Sector-33. “So, we have hired ‘langurs’ on a contractual basis but this rids us of the problem only temporarily as the monkeys return after a few days.” “It is high time action is taken against them as they create a nuisance. Nobody cares about our safety?” says another harried resident of Sector-12. “Our sector has reported many monkey bites, but it seems that neither the district administration nor the Noida Authority is concerned about the menace. “I wonder if the authorities are waiting for a major mishap and only then we will see some action being taken,” says another resident of Sector-26. According to Col Bansal of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), an NGO in the city, “The strategy to fight the simians, revolves around increasing the natural food base in forests, creating awareness among the public and controlling the monkey population by sterilising the males of the monkey groups. We have made a provision for a habitat to accommodate monkeys on our premises in the next phase of the development of our SPCA facility located in Sector-94, but presently we cannot take care of them.” A Noida Authority official says, “We are not responsible for controlling the monkey menace. It is duty of the forest department of the district administration to catch them.” Even as the buck is passed around, the menace threatens to spiral out of control with the residents gasping, “Can we expect some action soon.”
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Airman commits suicide
New Delhi, October 20 He was apparently depressed for some time because of family problems. In a suicide note, he wrote that no one should be held responsible for his death, the police said. A few weeks ago, a jawan had shot himself in the Rashtrapati Bhawan premises while another armyman had killed himself in the house of Union Minister Dayanidhi
Maran. — TNS
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Nine cable operators in police net
Ghaziabad, October 20 Tax penalties at the rate of Rs 20,000 per month will also be recovered from them. A large number of cable operators have been operating in the district without a licence for the last many years. They do not pay any entertainment tax to the government. Entertainment tax authorities nabbed eight such operators recently. Some operators have been nabbed in Loni, Dasna and Vaishali also. A penalty of Rs 1.73 lakh was slapped on Promod Kumar in Bhovapur Vaishali, while Mukesh Kumar of Loni will have to pay Rs 1.32 lakh. Devraj of Dasna will have to shell out Rs 73,000 for his cable operations, while Kiran Pal of Chirodi, Loni, will pay Rs 43,000, among others. The Dy Commissioner Entertainment tax said, authorities will try to locate other such operators who function clandestinely without licence or paying entertainment tax. Those arrested have been given a fortnight’s time to deposit the tax arrears and penalties failing which their networks will be seized and they could also be prosecuted, the Dy Commissioner said.
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Re-possession of chambers of defaulting lawyers ordered
New Delhi, October 20 In an order, DJ S N Dhingra directed the Administrative Judge-in-charge of Karkardooma court complex, Kamini Lau to verify the claim of Shahdra Bar Association, that defaulting advocates have paid their dues, and asked her to take steps to re-possess the chambers of erring lawyers immediately. “These chambers are government property and have been allotted to advocates on licence basis for using it during court hours as their office and non-payment of rental is a gross violence of terms and conditions,: said Judge Dhingra. Re-possession of chambers of defaulting lawyers
ordered Meanwhile, after the receipt of a report against an advocate who allegedly altered the structure of his chamber, Judge Dhingra has asked the administrative judge to serve him the show cause notice. Elaborating further, Dhingra said that as per the terms of the licence no structural alterations in chambers can be made without the permission of the District Judge. The chambers were allotted to advocates for a sum of Rs 550 per month.
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Kanshi Ram supporters protest outside Mayawati’s residence
New Delhi, October 20 The activists alleged that Ms Mayawati “had kept Mr Kanshi Ram under confinement in her house on the pretext that he was sick”. Mr Heera Lal Jawaddi, general secretary of the Punjab unit of Sangarsh Committee, said that police had put barricades to prevent their going near Ms Mayawati’s residence. He alleged that the police had acted at behest of Ms Mayawati. Mr Jawaddi said they had not been able to meet Mr Kanshi Ram for nearly two years. Mr Sikandar Singh Sidhu and Mr Resham Singh Kaka, activists of the committee said they would send a memorandum to the President and the Prime Minister about their not being allowed to meet Mr Kanshi Ram. They said followers of Mr Kanshi Ram had come from Punjab and Haryana besides Delhi to meet their leader.
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‘Suhagyawati Mela’ organised
New Delhi, October 20 The students of the Khazani Women Polytechnic organised a “Mehndi competition” at the college campus on this occasion in which more than 500 students from various institutions participated.
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Professor honoured
New Delhi, October 20 Incidently, it is only the second time that an Indian has been chosen directly as an expatriate head of a school. The first one was Dr I. G. Patel, who headed the London School of Economics in the 1980s. Dr Ashok Chauhan, Founder President of Amity Institutions, Col S. C. Mohan and Mr Kamal Singh, Directors, All India Management Association (AIMA), Prof Ashok Kapoor, Prof Gita Bajaj and many distinguished faculty of MDI, Gurgaon, were among those present on the occasion.
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