New Delhi, April 23
After the resounding success of its anti-obscene cell established around two years ago, the Delhi police has decided to start an anti-stalker cell.

“We would very soon start an anti-stalker cell which would provide relief to the thousands of women of the Capital who are stalked by strangers and sometimes even colleagues or neighbours, but cannot do anything about it,” said Y.S. Dadwal, commissioner of police, Delhi, while addressing a press conference at the police headquarters today evening.

The police chief added that it would take nearly a month to start the cell, which would comprise mainly women police officers.

Any women being stalked by anyone can call up on the listed telephone numbers and lodge a complaint.

The announcement comes as part of security preparations for the Commonwealth Games and the commissioner believes that the aim is not only to secure the Games, but also the city.

“If city is secure everything is secure,” said Dadwal, requesting the media to be careful about publishing news report citing Delhi unsafe for the Games.

“The news published here is picked up by the world press. Making the world anxious about security arrangements without any authenticity is not right. We are ready and secure for the Games,” claimed Dadwal.

Dismissing any apprehension about security issues regarding the Commonwealth Games scheduled in the city later this year, Delhi police commissioner Y.S. Dadwal today said there would be no compromise on such matters and assured an “absolutely safe” sporting event.  

He assured that the police was “totally prepared for the Games” and all necessary arrangements would be put in place to ensure that the Games was incident-free.

“There will be no compromise on security issues. We want the Games to progress without any hitch,” said Dadwal.

New Delhi, April 23
Two persons were charred to death in separate incidents in the national Capital today.

The first incident was reported from the K.N. Katju area of outer district. A 35-year-old businessman was burnt to death when his WagonR car caught fire this morning. The police believes that short-circuit in the wires could have led to the incident. Even the doors of the vehicle were jammed due to short-circuit.

“The deceased has been identified as R.S. Bhatia, a resident of Karol Bagh. It is being presumed that Bhatia was on his way home when the incident took place near a bus stop,” said a fire official adding that one fire engine was rushed to the spot. It took 20 minutes to douse the flames.

“But by then Bhatia had died. He suffered more than 95 per cent burn injuries,” said a fire official.

Bhatia stayed in Karol Bagh with his wife, Simrat Kaur, and two children. He used to run a CNG kit shop in the area.

The local police said that Bhatia had been missing from his house for the past two days.

“Two days ago, he had left his house. As he goes on business trips frequently, the family did not lodge a missing complaint. However, after the police found his wife’s driving license from the car and the address on it, the information about his death was conveyed to the family,” said a police official.  

In yet another case, a 40-year-old man died in his car when it caught fire in the Keshavpuram area of north-west district this afternoon.

A fire brigade officer said that the incident was reported around 3:20 pm from Kanhaiya Nagar Metro station.

“The deceased has been identified as Gulshan Malik, a resident of Nimri Colony, Ashok Vihar. Malik was going towards Keshavpuram. When his car reached near Kanhaiya Nagar Metro station, it caught fire,” said a fire brigade official.

The locals reported the matter to the police. The police rushed to Malik’s rescue and tried to open the car’s door but it was jammed.

New Delhi, April 23
The city government is likely to impose a new tax on industrialists from the next month when the new industrial policy is enforced in the national Capital.

Delhi industries minister Haroon Yusuf said that the government would levy maintenance charges on industrialists for repairing of roads, sewer lines, drains and parks in industrial areas. Besides this, industrialists would pay property tax. But it would be done after the new industrial policy is enforced.

The new industrial policy proposal that was tabled before the Assembly last month was passed unanimously. Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna has also cleared the proposal and, at present, it is in the court of Union home ministry.

Yusuf said that the home ministry would submit the proposal before President Pratibha Patil for the final nod. The process would take nearly a month to be completed.

He said once the proposal was passed and enforced, all government industries would come under the Delhi government. At present, some departments were being managed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and were not maintained properly. He alleged that many industrialists did not attend to their clients in offices. In stead they took them to restaurants and hotels as poor maintenance presents a wrong impression of the producer or manufacturer.

When asked about the Narela Industrial area which comes under the Delhi government, he said that the department concerned was making a policy to reconstruct roads and other infrastructure in the area. But the minister was quick to add that the other industrial areas of the city government were well-maintained.

Last month, some BJP activists had accompanied a team of journalists to Narela and shown to them the broken roads, sewer lines and drains.

Faridabad, April 23
A crowd led by BJP and Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) leaders today blocked the B. K. Chowk-Hardware Road in protest against the alleged police attempt to shield a relative of a minister of Haryana in connection with the death of a youth late last night.

The victim, Mohit Bhatia, a resident of NH-2 NIT area, was found dead under mysterious circumstances yesterday night.

The minister in question represents an assembly constituency in Faridabad district. No body from the minister’s side was available for comments.

Apparently, the youth died due to injuries sustained in an accident involving a Tata Safari car near the auditorium of the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF). The youth died on the spot. The car belonged to a relative of the minister.

The police has registered a case of road accident and has attributed the death to it.

It is learnt that the police registered the case on the basis of a statement of a relative of the deceased.

The relatives of the deceased, however, have cried foul, as they say that no one from their side has given any version on the basis of which the police is trying to dismiss the case as an accident.

According to them, the police made Ved Bhatia, uncle of the youth, sign a standard proforma which was a computer printout. The signature was obtained to merely confirm the identification of the deceased. The police treated this as a statement and recorded the matter as death on account of accident, the relatives allege.

The relatives alleged that the victim had been murdered.

According to Ved Bhatia, Mohit was taken away by three of his friends, including the relative of the minister, from his house yesterday night in a Tata Safari car. Later, the same vehicle met with the accident.

The ACP, NIT, Ram Pal, whom the relatives met today, was not available for comments. However, as told to the relatives of the deceased by the police, two of the youths, who were in the vehicle at the time of the accident, have been arrested. But the police has not disclosed their names.

However, the relatives have found a number of loopholes in the version of the police. First, the relatives are perplexed as to why the police was not revealing the names of the arrested persons. They want to know the basis on which the police attributed the death to road accident.

According to them, if it was an accident, how come only one person in the vehicle got injured. Also, the relatives are surprised that the friends of Mohit did not inform the family members about the accident. The relatives are also agitated on the “alacrity” shown by the police in removing the vehicle from the site of accident and then informing them about the incident. Also, the injury marks on the body suggested of murder.

Those who participated in the agitation, include Chander Bhatia, a former BJP MLA and now a HJC leader and four BJP coucillors of the MCF along with residents of NH-2 and relatives of the deceased.

The relatives demanded registration of a case of murder and action against the police officials who are alleged to have played partisan role in the case.

Ghaziabad/ Noida, April 23
Two Ghaziabad policemen have been suspended and arrested and five others have been suspended after police teams on two patrolling Jeeps were caught on camera taking bribes from commuters during a sting operation carried out by a leading television news channel.

Besides, an inspector in-charge of a police station and a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) with the Uttar Pradesh police were also taken off duty.

SP (city) A.K. Vijaita said that the reporters of STAR News conducted a sting operation in the Loni area after complaints that people were being harassed with false charges of traffic violation.

The video clips showed the policemen taking money from commuters after implicating them in false cases of transgressions.

The compact disc (CD) of the operation was produced before SSP Raghuvir Lal, who ordered registration of criminal cases against the constables driving the patrolling vehicles.

Cases were registered against two constables— Yogendra and Sarvesh—who were later arrested.

The DSP (border) and the inspector in-charge of the Loni police station were sent off duty after they were found lax in their duties.

Head constable Dharmendra Kumar, constables— Munish Kumar, Asha Ram, Naresh and Kirpal Singh— were suspended.

New Delhi, April 23
The Delhi High Court today dismissed as withdrawn a plea of one Gaurav Garg from Propaganda Media and Marketing, an event management company, which had alleged that it was denied credit for the Indian Premier League (IPL) award function which it had conceptualised.

Denying to issue stay orders on the award function, which is scheduled to start later in the evening, Justice Rajiv Shakdher said that the event management company approached the court very late.

However, the court agreed to adjudicate the petition and issued notice to IPL and BCCI and asked them to file their response by May 12.

Counsel for the company, Abhishek Malhotra, submitted before the court that the IPL management had not given the company due credit for conceptualising the function, for which the company had spent time and money.

The event management company had claimed that even though it conceptualised the event, the IPL management was giving credit to another company, Cineyug Worldwide. “It seems that the real intention behind such denial of credit and remuneration has been to illegally usurp the creative concept proposed by the company, thereby depriving it of the financial and monetary benefits accruing from the execution of the said concept,” Malhotra submitted.

New Delhi, April 23
A city court today granted bail to Uphaar theatre owners, Sushil and Gopal Ansal, after they surrendered before it in a case of destruction of evidence relating to the 1997 fire tragedy that claimed 59 lives.

Metropolitan magistrate Geetanjali Goel released the duo on bail after they furnished a personal and surety bond of Rs 1 lakh.

Besides Ansals, four other accused—H.S. Panwar, Anup Singh, Dharamveer Malhotra and Prem Prakash Batra, also surrendered in court and were granted bail.

Dinesh Chandra Sharma, former record-keeper of the court, who had allegedly helped the Ansal brothers in destroying crucial judicial documents, is already out on bail. He has been removed from his job.

The court fixed May 17 as the day for supplying the copy of the chargesheet.

In 2008, the police had filed a chargesheet before the court against Ansal brothers for tampering with judicial records of the fire in the south Delhi cinema theatre. The chargesheet states that the documents which were tampered with included a police memo giving details of recoveries made after the incident, Delhi fire services records pertaining to repair of transformer installed inside Uphaar, details of managing director’s meetings and four cheques.

Greater Noida, April 23
An SSI in the Kasna police station has been entrusted to probe the payment of Rs 2.10 crore land compensation to an imposter.

The enquiry officer has seized important documents from the bank in a raid. SDM Sadar has demanded a copy of the enquiry report from the SSI. According to sources, officers and employees in the office of the additional district magistrate (land) are also being quizzed.

The accused persons are reportedly absconding.

One Yashpal, a resident of Nalini Mizapur village in Rabupura, had lodged a complaint on April 14 alleging that a person used his identity and fraudulently usurped the Rs 2.10 compensation pertaining to his land.

After SDM Sadar Vishal Singh’s probe, Sushil Kumar, land assistant in the office of Yamuna Authority additional district magistrate (land), lodged a report on April 19 against property dealer Yogesh, his uncle Chanderpal, former pradhan Mugni of Kherli Bhav and Krishen Pal of Rampur Bhagar.

SSI Manoj Pathak of Kasna Kotwali had seized important documents from the bank. It was learnt that a fake account was opened and the compensation amount was deposited in the name of the man posing as Yashpal. For opening the bank account in Yashpal’s name, former pradhan Mugni had allegedly signed the imposter’s verification papers.

Faridabad, April 23
The parents of the students of private schools today demonstrated outside the mini-secretariat to protest the alleged failure of the government in making schools function as per the norms.

The parents, who were agitating under the banner of the Haryana School Abhibhavak Ekta Manch, submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda through the office of the deputy commissioner of Faridabad, urging for his immediate intervention against the “whimsical” functioning of the schools.

In the memorandum, the parents have urged the Chief Minister to get the July 6, 2009 order of the commissioner-cum-director general, school education, implemented.

The order directs the schools to meet the additional expenses like increased salaries of teachers from their own “surplus fund”. However, it makes an exception for the schools which are financially in the red. For such schools, the order said that they could raise the fee by only 20 per cent of the tuition fee of academic session 2007-2008. The permission, however, is based on a condition. Only the schools which have submitted their yearly statement of income and expenditure on Form 6 can increase the fees.

The parents allege that the schools are not following the order and the government authorities are not taking effective action to enforce the rule.

The memorandum urged that the order of the director general should be implemented and the increased fees be collected by the schools in academic session 2008-09 be adjusted. Also, the schools should be restrained from increasing fees this year.

The memorandum also alleges that the conditions on which the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) allotted land to schools at peanut prices were not honoured by their managements. These conditions include reservation of 20 per sent seats for children from the scheduled and backward castes as well as brilliant but poor students of other castes.

The memorandum also alleges that the schools are violating the building plans.

The leaders of the parents’ body said the demonstration was part of the state-wide agitation staged by parents at all the district headquarters.

On April 16, the parents had held demonstrations at 12 district headquarters of the state. Today, the remaining headquarters, including Faridabad, were covered.

The leaders of the body cautioned that in case the government did not act as per the satisfaction of the parents, a dharna will be staged outside the office of the commissioner-cum-director general, school education, Haryana, at Chandigarh on May 20. Parents from all over the state will take part in this agitation.

The parents’ body has also decided to organise a rally at Rohtak, the home district of the Chief Minister, on June 25.

New Delhi, April 23
A Naxalite, allegedly involved in many violent activities in the Taryani area of Bihar and the recent burning of a Jeep of a local police station on March 23, has been arrested by the Delhi police.

According to H.G.S. Dhaliwal, DCP (south), Ajay Kumar Singh (32), a resident of Jagdishpur Kothia, Bihar, was arrested in the wee hours of yesterday from the Lodhi Colony area after the police received a tip-off about his movement.

“We had information that a few Naxalites would visit the Safal Dairy in Lodhi Colony. The police team rushed to the place and around midnight, picked up two persons— Ajay Kumar Singh and Dinbandhu. 

During questioning, it was learnt that Singh is a wanted criminal and was involved in the Naxal activities reported last month from the area of Taryani,” said Dhaliwal, adding that Ajay had escaped to Delhi after the incident and took shelter with Dinbandhu, who runs a Safal Dairy shop in the Govindpuri area.