Sirsa, May 7
Over 25 villages and a paper mill were engulfed in flames last evening perishing livestock and destroying crop.

A strong windstorm that hit the area last night spread the fire. The fire affected some adjoining villages like Mooriwala, Sikandpur, Rusulpur, Kasimkhera, Vaidwala, Salarpur, Saowalaof.

However, the fire department, woefully short of modern gadgets and staff, was found wanting. They had a tough time in responding to calls for dousing the fire.

Two buffaloes were perished at Madho Singhana village. Attempts of villagers to evacuate them failed as they had been tethered in a hut of straw full of dry fodder. Flames rapidly engulfed the place giving no chance for rescue.

Lakshmi Paper Mill on the Hisar road caught fire last evening. However, owing to non-availability of fire tenders, fire could not be extinguished with in time.

As per the last available report, two fire tenders have been trying to douse the fire till noon. The mill’s owner, Murari Bansal, said he suffered a loss of about Rs 12 lakh.

Ram Kumar and his son Dinesh received injuries when the roof of their house at the Railway Colony collapsed after windstorm struck their place.

Deputy commissioner V. Umashankar said the windstorm struck last evening and incidents of sporadic fires in at least 25 villages was reported.

Meanwhile, one more victim of fire that had struck Dabwali on May 1 succumbed to his injuries taking the death toll to two. The DC said the fire at Dabwali had destroyed standing wheat crop spread over 110 acres.

After the death of Geeto Devi, her husband, Veer Singh, also succumbed to his injuries. The next to kin was given Rs 4 lakh as compensation. He said 7,000 acres were affected due to fire, which had crossed over from Punjab.

However, he said the government had not yet announced compensation to farmers due to the code of conduct of the election commission.

Fatehabad, May 7
A woman was burnt alive, eight head of cattle perished and 100 houses were gutted in an inferno that hit the Ratia area of this district last evening.

The fire, which spread to agriculture fields of over 100 villages, could not be controlled throughout the night and the flames could be seen in the fields even today.

Less than a dozen fire engines at the disposal of the district authorities proved woefully short in extinguishing the fire. Strong winds blew throughout the night, spreading the fire fast.

Bhari Devi (60), a migrant Bihari labourer, was burnt alive when she got trapped in the fire in Shekhupur Sottar village.

She tried to run to safety, but was trapped in the fire and smoke, and fell unconscious.

She was taken to the local general hospital, where she was declared brought dead.

Her daughter-in-law Poonam, who was sitting near Bhari Devi when the fire appeared all of a sudden, jumped into a water tank near their tubewell, with her four-year-old son in her lap.

Both had a miraculous escape as the area surrounding them remained under fire for quite some time.

Shehnal, a village near Ratia, was the worst hit by last night’s inferno.

As many as 50 houses have been gutted in the fire here while hundreds of people have been rendered homeless.

Residents of Shehnal and some other villages had to flee from their homes during the night.

The residents have taken shelter in a gurdwara at Ratia town.

Kalandargarh, Jallopur, Shekhupur, Bhatha Dhani and Chando Kalan are some other villages where residents have been rendered homeless after their belongings as well as tenements were burnt in the fire.

Fire broke out in the Ratia area of Fatehabad district last evening, engulfing agriculture fields.

A continuous fire has been raging in agriculture fields of villages in Haryana and neighbouring Punjab, and fields of over 100 villages came in its grip.

Mercifully, most of the farmers had already harvested their crops, and only the straw and cow dung cakes were burnt in the fields.

Fire engines of the district proved too inadequate to control the fire.

Deputy commissioner O.P. Sheoran, while confirming the loss, said the District Red Cross Society had been providing food to those whose houses had been burnt.

He said he had asked revenue officers to assess the loss and added that every possible help would be provided to the victims.

Parliamentary Secretary Dura Ram visited the affected families today and assured them that he would take up the issue of providing financial help to the victims with the government. 

Indri (Karnal), May 7
The byelection in this rural belt has started showing its “side effects”.

As all 147 villages in this constituency are reportedly getting an enhanced supply of power, scores of farmers are steadily resorting to sowing saathi, an “objectionable” water consuming paddy variety, to get “double paddy crops”.

Experts said there should be a strict check on the availability of power for tubewells to put an end to saathi irrigation. This paddy variety takes 60 days to mature.

A visit by The Tribune team today observed that the paddy variety was being sown in several villages of the Indri area.

Claiming unofficial patronage from different quarters, farmers claimed that none of the officials would visit their fields due to the election fever.

As water from tubewells is reportedly being “misused” throughout the day to irrigate the saathi-sown fields, the agriculture department is facing a tough time in tackling the crisis.

Karnal is one of the worst affected districts in the state which is facing a dilapidated water table.

According to the department, a kg of rice requires about 4,000 litres of water whereas several parts of the state are experiencing a dilapidated water table. Other varieties, including Govinda, require a whooping 4,700 litres of water for a kg of rice.

The department is making a statewide serious effort to motivate farmers not to sow saathi.

“We are making the fullest use of an unofficial election sop of uninterrupted power supply to run tubewells. After harvesting it in about 60 days, we will be ready to sow basmati or other varieties by the the mid of July,” said a sarpanch.

S.S. Dahiya, deputy director, agriculture, claimed that there was no major saathi plantation in the Indri area. He said farmers were actually sowing the hybrid RH-16 and PUSA- 64, which had a longer ripening time.

He said though these varieties were sown after May 15, farmers seemed to be ignorant on the matter.

New Delhi, May 7
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) is viewing with seriousness the matter of non-provision of burial sites to Muslims in Haryana. For two years now, the commission has been receiving complaints from Muslims residing in Panipat, Kaithal, Sonepat and Karnal, where the dearth of land for burial has become a huge concern for the community.

In a bid to settle the outstanding demand, a two-member team of the commission will head for Haryana tomorrow, where a meeting of the deputy commissioners of different districts has been called. The team will comprise commission chairperson Shafi Qureishi and member Harcharan Singh Josh.

“We have come across several cases of minority disputes from Haryana, including the demand for a state minorities’ commission. The primary issue to be addressed, however, is the lack of burial grounds for Muslims. We have written letters to the state chief secretary and the home secretary but there has been no progress on the issue. It has become imperative to go to Haryana to settle the cases,” said Josh. The meeting will be held tomorrow in Panipat and attended by the DCs of Panipat, Karnal, Sonepat, Sirsa, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Kaithal.

Muslims in the state have long been complaining that the state government is not providing them with land to bury their dead. People of the Chika area in Kaithal recently wrote to the commission, saying the district authorities did not four-wall their burial site, allotted next to a cremation ground. The representation mentions: “Whereas the cremation ground was four-walled, our burial ground was left as it is. More often than not, it remains water-logged and can’t be used.”

Josh said the issue needed to be tackled at the earliest to avoid heartburn among members of any minority community. The commission is also taking a stern view on another representation moved by the Weavers’ Colony of Panipat. About 1,000 persons of this colony wrote to the commission saying they had deposited Rs 1,000 each with the district authorities in anticipation of allotment of land. They have alleged that they received no reply from the authorities.

Chandigarh, May 7
Officers of the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian Forest Service(IFS), who are agitated over the “injustice” meted out to them by the Sixth Pay Commission, have found an unexpected supporter in Haryana minister of state for tourism and forests Kiran Choudhry.

She has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently that there are several anomalies in the pay scales of the IFS officers as suggested by the commission. The most glaring ones are in respect of the proposed pay scales of the conservator of forests (CF) and the principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF).

Choudhry wrote that the existing pay scale of the CF was Rs 16,400-20,000, which was proposed to be revised to Rs 15,600-39,200, a lower starting pay of Rs 800. She pointed out that this was the only pay scale the commission had proposed to start at a lower salary as compared to the existing scale.

Similarly, she said, in the existing scale the PCCFs reached in three years the level of Rs 26,000 (fixed), which is equivalent to the pay of the chief secretary of a state.

The same is the case with an IPS officer who occupied the post of director-general of police (DGP) in a state.

The pay panel, she said, had recommended the revision of the chief secretary’s pay to Rs 80,000 per month fixed. On the other hand, the commission had suggested the scale of Rs 39,200-67,000, with the grade pay of Rs 13,000 for the PCCFs and the DGPs. If this recommendation is accepted, the DGPs and the PCCFs would get Rs 71,270. It would take them more than six years to reach the level of Rs 80,000 per month, which normally is unattainable because by that time these officers would retire.

Urging the Prime Minister to intervene personally for the rectification of these anomalies, Choudhry said otherwise members of the IFS and the IPS would be demoralised.

Ambala, May 7
The bail applications of three of the accused in the kidney scam will be heard on May 9. Ramesh, Suresh and Umesh had filed their bail applications in the court of CBI Special Magistrate Abdul Majid a few days ago. The court heard the bail pleas today and adjourned the hearing to May 9.

The counsel for Pooja filed an application in the court today for exemption from personal appearance to his client. The court issued a notice to the CBI for May 9 in this regard. Pooja is the wife of Dr Jeevan and the court had granted her interim bail for a specific period. The CBI also filed the relevant documents of the scam in the court today. The CBI had mentioned the list of the documents in the interim chargesheet, but the documents were not attached with it.

The documents include the inquiry report of a team of doctors who had inspected and searched the premises of Dr Amit in Gurgaon and Faridabad, disclosure statements of Dr Saraj Kovind, Dr K.K. Aggarwal, Dr Jeevan Kumar and Dr Upender. The details of the bank accounts of Dr Amit were also attached with the documents.

Meanwhile, the interim chargesheet reveals that Dr Amit Kumar and his brother Dr Jeevan Kumar were not qualified surgeons as required under the TOHO rules. In fact, they hatched a criminal conspiracy with other accomplices as aforesaid and in pursuance thereof allured many innocent poor people and fraudulently removed their kidneys through surgical operations and planted these in the bodies of recipients for huge money.

They, with the help of accomplices, were running a regular operating theatre in Palam Vihar, Gurgaon. A laboratory for human leukocyte antigen (HLA) cross-matching test, essential for any kidney transplant, was established in the hospital. Dr Jeevan normally used to remain present inside the operating theatre during the course of a kidney transplant performed by his brother Dr Amit. In some cases, he stitched the abdomen of the victims after the removal of their kidneys. 

Ambala, May 7
Fear of rude behaviour, long minutes of waiting period and constant engage tones are a few of the reasons the Indian passenger stays away from calling up the Indian Railways enquiry number. And if one does get through, the tone of the operator really makes one wonder if the information provided is correct.

In a bid to become more professional, the Indian Railways has handed over the functioning of all queries to a private call centre and introduced a new enquiry number - 139.

This new enquiry number, though about a year old, is yet to gain popularity among the masses.

Officials felt that disappointed with the earlier method of functioning, the passengers were not too keen to try this number, while many others were completely unaware of it.

This enquiry number is, however, handled by call centre employees, who are not only polite but also helpful. And to make things simpler, one does not even need to bother about specific details like train number.

Divisional railway manager, Ambala division, H.K. Jaggi said: “The call centre has access to the centralised server, which has all details like seat reservation, train number etc. They will also get updates of train delays thus answering all queries.”

To popularise this new enquiry number, the Ambala division has decided to advertise at some of their major railway stations, apart from advertising in the print media.

“We are trying to change how the passenger views the process of enquiry,” said Jaggi.

The enquiry numbers - 131 and 1331 - of the Indian Railways also exist. There was a proposal to change over the number 131, which is manually operated to 139.

A passenger could also know their train status by sending an SMS to 56677 or 55888. But for this query, one would need to know their train and PNR number.

Karnal, May 7
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today held over a dozen village-level meetings in Indri.

Accompanied by a battery of MLAs and ministers to campaign for Congress nominee Bhim Sain Mehta, Hooda listed out the state government’s achievements.

He assured to speed up development activities in this rural constituency.

Addressing the public meetings, Hooda said his government had waived electricity bills amounting to Rs 1,600 crore and interest of co-operative loans amounting to Rs 830 crore. He said his government was giving the highest minimum wages of Rs 3,510 to labourers in the state.

The waiving of loans amounting to Rs 60,000 crore by the centre had given relief to the farming community of the country. He said to boost the development activities, a sum of Rs 10 lakh had been granted to all villages.

Rewari, May 7
Senior BJP leader and manager of the party poll campaign in the Gohana constituency Veer Kumar Yadav has asserted that there is going to be a direct fight between BJP nominee Pradeep Sangwan and Congress candidate Jagbir Singh Malik in the byelection to the Gohana constituency.

Addressing a press conference here today, he claimed that the electorate in Gohana was rapidly veering to resolve to give a chance to the BJP in disregard of the Congress in particular.

While the failure of the Congress-led UPA government to curb prices of essential commodities and the Hooda government’s dereliction in providing relief to the people of Haryana against the worsening power crisis were the BJP’s poll planks, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was resorting to emotive issues to garner the voters’ support for the Congress nominee in Gohana, asserted Yadav.

Sonepat, May 7
Squarely blaming MP Kuldeep Bishnoi, son of former CM Bhajan Lal, for imposing byelections in three assembly constituencies of the state, Prof Virender Singh, political advisor to Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, today claimed that the Congress would retain all these seats in these byelections.

Talking to mediapersons here in the Congress office, he strongly refuted the allegations of Kuldeep Bishnoi against the Congress leadership and Chief Minister and said when Bishnoi started levelling baseless allegations, he himself was the Congress MP, his father was the MLA and HPCC president, his elder brother, Chander Mohan, was the deputy Chief Minister and his cousin Dura Ram, MLA, was elevated as parliamentary secretary.

“As stated by Kuldeep Bisnoi, Bhajan Lal was even offered the Governorship by the party high command,” he said and asked what else a party could do for a family.

Besides, Bhajan Lal also remained the Congress Chief Minister for around 10 years in the state.

The Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) was a directionless party and the people had not yet forgotten the autocratic regime of the INLD, Prof Virender said, adding that the HJC and the INLD would fight the elections for the second and third positions on all three seats.

In reply to a question about Adampur constituency, he said this seat had traditionally been the Congress seat and this time also the Congress candidate would win from this seat. Moreover, it was for the first time that Bhajan Lal was contesting the election as non-claimant to the post of the Chief Minister, he added.

When asked about the opposition of some dissidents in Gohana, he said such resentment were common in a democratic set up of the Congress party. He hoped that as Congressmen they would realise their responsibilities for the party and its candidate.

Faridabad, May 7
Three days after the incident, the police is still clueless on the identity of the killers of Ajay Sharma, nephew of Congress stalwart Chiranji Lal Sharma, and his business manager.

Director-general of police Ranjeev Singh Dalal, who was here last evening, said the incident relating to the murder of Ajay Sharma and his business manager and the subsequent taking away of Rs 18 lakh from them was similar to an incident that occurred in Nehru Ground around 10 days ago in which two persons looted about Rs 22 lakh from two employees of a private firm.

The police feels there may be a new gang which has come up in Faridabad and which may have been involved in both cases.

Family members of the deceased feel that the assasins’ prime motive was not to take away the money. Had that been the case, they would not have pumped three bullets and two bullets in the bodies of Ajay Sharma and his manager, respectively. No gun shot had been fired in the case involving the loot of about Rs 22 lakh in Nehru Ground.

The family members feel that the criminals fired from a point-blank range and took the money only after they were sure that the two had died in the car. According to them, no criminal would have taken such a risk and lost time in pumping five bullets and ensuring the death of the victims in a busy place like Sector 3 where the incident occurred.

The incident had occurred at a stone’s throw from the petrol station of Ajay Sharma. 

Sonepat, May 7
Three bodies were recovered from two villages of Gohana subdivision today.

Two teenaged boys reportedly committed suicide by consuming celphos tablets in Joli village of the district. They have been identified as Mahesh and Arun.

In another incident, the body of a youth, Dharmabir, of Kasandi village was found in bushes on the outskirts of the nearby Kasanda village today. — OC