Panipat, November 12
The police is yet to make any headway in the case pertaining to the “suicide” by an HCS officer’s wife and kids.

Senior police officials said they were waiting for the post-mortem examination reports to proceed in the matter. Reports of handwriting experts examining the suicide note recovered from the crime spot and of forensic experts examining the revolver are also awaited.

The bodies of 35-year-old Anju, wife of Virender Singh Sherawat, general manager of the Haryana Roadways, and their two children, Meghna (12) and Paras (5), were recovered from the bedroom of their Samalkha residence on the morning of November 9.

The sources said Sherawat had so far not joined the police investigation, stating that he was in a state of shock and was not in a position to give a statement. The police has not registered a case in this regard so far.

Ever since the recovery of the three bodies, the police has been suspecting it to be a case of suicide. It had recovered a suicide note pasted on one of the bedroom walls that was supposedly written by Anju. The bodies of the children and Anju bore bullet injuries in their heads.

IG, State Crime Record Bureau, Karnal, Layak Ram Dabas, maternal uncle of Anju, who was one of the first ones to reach the crime spot after the matter was reported to the police, had ruled out the suicide theory. He had even asked the police to register a case of murder against Sherawat.

Anju’s relatives have written to the police to hasten the investigation to bring out the truth. The relatives have alleged that there was a cook and a guard at home, besides Sherawat, when the incident took place and contended that how was it possible that no one heard the shots.

The police is also looking into the role of a woman teacher, a resident of Ganaur in Sonepat district, who had accused Sherawat of having sexually exploited her for four years on the pretext of marrying her. In the suicide note, it had been mentioned that they were committing suicide because the woman teacher had made life hell for them and there was no other option left for them. 

Chandigarh, November 12
It is a campaign with a difference against child labour. Instead of securing the release of child labour from the clutches of “heartless employers” and leaving them to fend for themselves, this Children’s Day, the labour department has a plan.

Children rescued during the fortnight-long drive, which begins on November 14, will be rehabilitated instead of being left at the mercy of the employer who is obliged to “relieve” him of his duties and send him packing. Some of these children will even find a place in the first of its kind rehabilitation centre to be inaugurated in Yamunanagar with a capacity of 50 inmates while others will be “accommodated” at other suitable places in the districts.

Labour commissioner N.C. Wadhwa said eateries, dhabas along highways and automobile repair shops would continue to be the thrust area during the raids. Officials would also take up the case of child labour employed as domestic help from wherever there were complaints. While surprise checks were being carried out all over the state, the department had also launched an intensive awareness campaign against child labour.

“We have formed teams under senior officers and allotted five districts each to every team. These teams with carry out spot visits in the districts allotted to them and will be accompanied by a woman officer also,” he explained.

Though help from all quarters, particularly from the district administration, was welcome, the department was relying on its officers for the purpose of the drive since there had been poor participation in the past.

Also, unlike previous occasions of taxing the employer and closing the matter, this time the department is focusing on rehabilitating the children. “The centre in Yamunanagar will house these children who will be imparted vocational training during the course of their stay. This is to enable them to become self-sufficient and earn a living by the time they turn 14 and are ready to leave,” said the labour commissioner.

Realising that a home for 50 children may not be enough to accommodate all children, the department is working on getting a sanction for three more such centres at Rohtak, Hisar and Gurgaon. “We have rehabilitation centres functioning in Panipat, Faridabad and Yamunanagar, all industrial townships. However, these are only stopgap arrangements made in collaboration with the social welfare department. With our own centres, we will be able to handle such children better,” he said.

Further, after achieving success in minimising child labour in three districts of Haryana, three more district of the state stand to gain from the National Child Labour Development Project of the Government of India.

After the success of projects in Panipat, Gurgaon and Faridabad, the office of labour commissioner, Haryana, has sought an extension of this project to Jhajjar, Yamunanagar and Hisar. 

Chandigarh, November 12
The Haryana Transport Department is framing a new privatisation policy for bus services in the state.

The policy is being framed in pursuance of an order of a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court headed by the Chief Justice. The court had directed the department on September 9 last that it should take effective steps to ensure that adequate transport facilities were available to people living in the rural areas of the state.

The court had also directed the department to inform it from time to time about the progress made in the finalisation of the policy.

The department had first formulated a policy for the privatisation of public transport in the state in 1993. Over the years, it was found that the policy had many lacunae. Under the policy the number of permits to be given to private operators on particular routes was limited. With the growing population, it has become imperative that the transport system is strengthened.

The department has set up two committees to assess the additional demand for buses in various districts.

Meanwhile, a legal hitch is holding up the framing of the policy. Legal opinion is divided over the issue whether the government has the power under the Motor Vehicles Act to fix the number of permits on a particular route. The department feels that if the number of permits is not fixed on a particular route, it would lead to chaos as anybody would start plying buses on that route, once it was opened to private operators. This would affect the viability of the operators also.

The other view is that under the Act, the government has no power to specify the number of permits on those routes which are opened to private operators.

A bill for amending the Act, to give the power to specify the number of permits on a particular route, has already been passed by the Rajya Sabha. Now it is be deliberated upon by a committee of the Lok Sabha. If this bill is passed and comes into effect before the next date of hearing before the high court, a major problem of the government will be resolved.

Gurgaon, November 12
The Haryana Yuva Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, which is agitating against the non-completion of the Hansi-Butana canal, has threatened to stop Punjab buses from plying through Haryana if the neighbouring state government does not open the channel of water flow for the canal.

Naresh Yadav, Independent MLA, who heads the samiti and is spearheading the Jaladesh Padyatra, said here that the yatra would culminate at Rashtrapati Bhawan on November 14 where they would submit a memorandum regarding the completion of the SYL and Hansi-Butana canals.

He claimed that the work was pending due to the attitude of the Punjab government which was creating hurdles in starting work on the link canal.

The samiti has been undertaking the padyatra since November 1 from God Balawa village in Narnaul district to focus on the plight of villagers in southern Haryana where the watertable has dropped from 800 ft to 1,200 ft.

Speaking to The Tribune, Yadav said, "The water level has been going down since 1990.Now we can see many villages where we don't have a bit of water and the villagers have to travel long distances to get water."

Yadav said Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had stated on Feburary 17 that he would provide us with canal water before the coming Lok Sabha poll and had also spent crores of rupees to join the links of ponds to the river but till now nothing had moved on the Hansi-Butana canal front.

Yadav said domestic animals were the biggest source of income of villagers but due to the shortage of water they had stopped keeping them and were now just depending on good rain for their crops.

Chandigarh, November 12
Trainings on foreign shores for officers in Haryana may not be all fun after all if the recommendations of the Administrative Reforms Commission holds any weight.

Concerned about the “frittering away” of government money on the training of IAS and IPS officers, these will come with the rider of submitting a feedback report on the training capsule within a stipulated time period.

The commission is learnt to be strongly recommending to the government that a “defunct” practice of giving feedback reports after attending expensive off-ashore training capsules should be revived in the “interest of the state”. Sources said in a communication to the office of the chief secretary, the commission had sought a list of all officers who had been on foreign training since 1970 and not submitted their feedback, as was laid down in the rules, on their return.

While the government is yet to provide the names of all such bureaucrats, names of 25 officers, including DGP Ranjiv Dalal, DG (Prisons) Dr John V. George, ADG R.K. Vachher, IGs K.K. Sharma and B.S. Sandhu figure in the list of “defaulting” cops supplied by the home department, Haryana.

While they are “violators” from the late 1980s and early 90s, the recent additions include Mohd Akil, A.S. Chawla, Saurabh Singh, DIG R.C. Mishra and two HPS officers, Kulwinder Singh and Smiti Chaudhary.

They have all been on different training courses for different durations to Italy in the past two years.

Senior police officers, however, are of the opinion that the commission should not rake up the past trainings and seeks answers.

“Instead, we can take feedbacks from those who were away on such programmes recently and share it with the rest of them.

The practice of giving written feedback somehow got dropped and some of the officers did give oral presentations to colleagues and seniors after their return,” an officer justified.

However, the commission is clearly not convinced. “There is no reason for doing away with the feedback. The state has spent lakhs on the training of these cops and the training has continued to remain with them. Instead of giving a feedback so that the state can put it to good use, the officers have chosen to take it easy. They must realise that the trainings are more than just paid holidays,” commented chairman of the commission Karan Dalal, reacting to the information.

On the issue of the trainings of IAS officers, the commission has been sent a copy of the letter written to all administrative secretaries to give their replies in view of the requirement. 

Rohtak, November 12
As many as four villages of the district- Sundana, Ballam, Masoodpur and Timarpur- are facing an acute shortage of drinking water for the past 10 days.

Irked over the situation, villagers have alleged that the department concerned was busy draining out floodwater from the surrounding that had got accumulated due to rains in the previous months.

They said they were now forced to make their own arrangements. They have sought the intervention of the Chief Minister.

Manoj Kumar, a resident of Sundana village, rued it had become trouble for them as the villagers were forced to bring water from neighbouring villages. He alleged officials of the water supply department had been avoiding queries from them and providing no information in this regard.

Executive engineer of the water supply department B.R. Bhankhar admitted that there had been no supply of water in these four villages of Rohtak subdivision and said this was due to the use of the existing canal for draining out flood and storm water from these villages. He said the supply would be restored as soon as the minor used for draining process got free.

Sirsa, November 12
To free farmers from private moneylenders, Debt Conciliation Board has been constituted under the chairmanship of the additional district commissioners in all districts of the state.

Giving this information here today, deputy commissioner S.K. Goyal said a revenue officer, representative of the leading bank and two non-official members would be appointed in each district-level board.

Partap Singh Khod and Ranjit Singh have been appointed as the non-officio members of the board at Sirsa. Goyal said all those borrowers who had deposited double or more of the principal amount were eligible to apply for loan concession to the district-level board.

He said those borrowers who had already paid more or actual principal loan amount to moneylenders and were still not free from the loan would be helped by this board.

A spokesperson said the state government had taken up this step to improve the economic condition of poor farmers. Earlier, the state government in 1989 had implemented the same rule.

He said according to the directions of the state government, a monthly meeting would be held to discuss the cases registered with the board.

He said these boards would specially focus to settle agriculture-based employment cases and other matters related to farmers. Both moneylender agencies and borrowers would be invited in the meetings. 

Karnal, November 12
Rwanda will adopt dairy technology developed by the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, and send its scientists, students and researchers to India for training and skill development, Rwandan agriculture minister Christophe Bazivamo said yesterday.

Christophe, who was here on a visit to the NDRI, said Rwanda's economy was primarily agrarian in which tea and coffee were mainly cultivated and contributed about 8 per cent to the GDP.

Milk producing cattle like buffaloes had virtually become extinct in Rwanda and efforts would be made to regenerate buffalo breeds by adopting the artificial insemination technique and importing semen from the NDRI, he added.

The minister evinced keen interest in research and development activities at the NDRI and visited laboratories, cattle farms, the milk plant and the milk extraction unit.

Director of the NDRI A.K. Srivastav said he had offered admission to five students each in BTech, MTech and PhD, subject to the signing of an MoU between the two governments.

Sirsa, November 12
Hundreds of persons participated in a nagar kirtan organised here today on the eve of the parkash utsav of Guru Nanak Dev.

The nagar kirtan  started from Gurdwara Chila Sahib situated  on the Rania road and after passing through Rania Bazar, Chandni Chowk, Hisaria Bazar, Arya Samaj  Road, Sadar Bazar, Suratgarhia Bazar  and other markets, culminated again  at the gurdwara.

Fatehabad: A nagar kirtan was organised on Wednesday.

Hundreds of men and women participated in the nagar kirtan, which started from the main gurdwara and passed through various markets of the town.

Reports of the holding of nagar kirtan were also received from Tohana  and Ratia.

Karnal, November 12
While political parties and watchdog agencies have failed to make campaign against corruption and social evils, yoga guru Swami Ramdev has announced to form Bharat Swabhiman Sangathan (BSS) to eradicate corruption.

Ramdev was here for the inauguration of Sri Krishan Gaushala. He said new outfit would be in place next year with the enrolment of about 3 crore volunteers drawn from 5 lakh from each of the 600 odd districts.

Expressing anguish over the growing corruption, he said the organisation would take up the issues of national interest and launch a campaign against corruption and corrupt people.

He hoped the BSS would become a people movement in the next five years and tackle most of the burning problems being faced by the country.

Ramdev also expressed grief over the global warming and said it was biggest threat to mankind. 

Ambala, November 12
Swami Avdheshanand Giri, Mahamandleshwar of Joona Akhara, has said that he had given “deeksha” (religious process of conversion into sadhvi) to Pragya Singh Thakur at a Kumbh Mela a few years ago in Allahabad. Pragya Thakur has been arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra for her alleged involvement in the Malegaon blasts.

Rumours were doing the rounds that a team of the ATS was coming today at the ashram of Avdheshanand Giri at Ambala Cantonment to quiz him about Pragya Thakur. Mediapersons had gathered at the ashram since morning, but no ATS team came here.

Talking to the mediapersons, Avdheshanand Giri said thousands of men and woman were converted into sadhus and sadhvis on the occasion of Kumbh every time and in the routine process, Pragya was also given “deeksha”. He said she was accompanied by her family members when she came to Allahabad to take “deeksha”.

To a question, he said after the “deeksha” he had hardly met her once or twice in Madhya Pradesh in “mahayagya” for a few minutes.

Defending the sadhvi, he said it was not appropriate to call her a terrorist until the charges were proved against her. He said he had full faith in the judiciary and its verdict should be acceptable to everyone.

He said he was ready to meet the ATS team if it wanted to seek some information from him.

Rohtak, November 12
Several prominent leaders of the state unit of the Congress have been directed to campaign for the party candidates in the coming Assembly elections in the neighbouring states of Delhi and Rajasthan.

Besides Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, some of the state Congress leaders, including some MPs, MLAs and ministers, have been deputed for the legislative Assembly elections in Delhi and Rajasthan.

According to sources in the HPCC, the state Congress office has intimated the leaders about their duties. The Chief Minister will address election rallies in all six states facing the poll. The party workers and leaders have been instructed to use all means available to facilitate the election campaign and stay in the states till the end of the elections. The election campaign material has been made available at the party’s central office at 24 Akbar Road and 9 Pandit Pant Marg.

The leaders and workers have been asked to propagate the welfare policies and achievements of the state government in the past few years.

Meanwhile, according to a spokesperson of the HPCC, the leaders and workers of the party had been fully prepared to take part in the exercise.He said it was time that the workers and leaders also started interaction with people at the ground level.

Sirsa, November 12
In an interesting case registered in the Chautala police station in the district in February this year, the police today claimed to have arrested three persons who duped the government by drawing salary from the state exchequer posing as teachers.

The accused are Ramesh Kumar, Sudhir Kumar and Rajesh Kumar and had joined Government Senior Secondary School in Kaluana village in this district as school lecturers on the basis of fake transfer orders.

The school was upgraded in February 2004, when Ramesh Kumar, son of Balbir Singh, armed with transfer orders from Ambala to Kaluana, came to the then school principal and joined as lecturer in history on February 24, 2004.

A few days later, Sudhir Kumar, son of Mam Raj, came to the school posing as a lecturer in Hindi and he was in possession of his transfer orders from Gurgaon. He joined duties on March 11, 2004.

Then came Rajesh Kumar, son of Mahabir, and he joined as lecturer in political science in the school a few days later.

He had with him his transfer orders from Panchkula.

The three left the school for their summer vacations and never came back.

During this period, they were able to draw salaries for three to four months.

When they did not return for long, the principal got suspicious and informed his higher-up regarding the sudden disappearance of the teachers.

However, surprisingly, it took the education department about four years to wake from slumber and realise that the three had duped the government.

As it turned out to be later, Ramesh, Rajesh and Sudhir were not employed anywhere before joining Kaluana school on the basis of fake transfer orders.

The police registered an FIR against the three on February 11, 2008, and has been able to arrest the three now. 

Karnal, November 12
Two persons were killed in two separate road accidents in Assand in Karnal district today. Kamlesh, wife of Balbir, a resident of Jalwana, was knocked down by a bus (HR 45-6957) near her village. She died on the spot.

The driver of the bus, Dharamvir, fled from the spot.

Rash driving led to the death of Kamlesh, eye-witnesses said. In another accident, Satyan, son of Ishwar, a resident of Mundgaon, was hit by a biker on the Assand-Jind road. The victim died on the spot. The police has registered a case. 

Chandigarh, November 12
The Bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Nawab Singh has ordered judicial probe into the alleged custodial death of 16-year-old artiste Virender Kumar of Manana villahge in Panipat district. The Bench has asked the sessions judge concerned to get the probe conducted.

Virender Kumar had died on August 13, 2007, two days after he was picked up from his house by the station house officer (SHO) of Pundri district Kaithal and other policemen.

In the writ petition, parents Hawa Singh and Kailasho Devi have alleged merciless beating of Virender Kumar while he was in custody. The parents claimed they were not even informed till August 14 about the detention. They stated on August 13, last year, Virender Kumar was brought to PGI, Chandigarh, where he expired. According to the PGI doctors, Virender Kumar died due to consumption of sulphos tablets.