Peepli (Sirsa), October 1
A widow and her three sons were found dead on their beds under mysterious circumstances at Peepli village, 52 km from Sirsa, this morning, leaving villagers in a state of shock.

Though the postmortem report is yet to be filed, the doctors said they had found evidence that the four had been strangled to death.

The police has taken action under Sction 174 of the CrPC. “We cannot say anything till the report of the postmortem comes to us,” said SP Satinder Kumar Gupta, who rushed to the village after the incident.

The deceased have been identified as Hardev Kaur (55) and her three sons Jaspal Singh (26), Darshan Singh (23) and Hardeep Singh, alias Nikka (20).

The eldest of the three brothers was married.

His wife has been living with her parents for the past three months.

The youngest brother, Hardeep, said neighbours, ate at a religious congregation in a neighbouring village and had returned home late in the night. Surjeet Singh, an uncle of the three brothers, who lives in the adjacent house, said the three would rise early to work in their fields.

“When they did not come out till late in the morning, I went to my terrace and spotted the cots. I then went inside their house and to my horror found them all dead on their cots,” he said in his statement to the police.

The police has not been able to reach to any conclusion on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Babu Lal Yadav, DSP of Dabwali, said there were marks on the neck of the eldest brother, which did not appear fresh. There were no signs of vomiting in the house to suggest that the four had consumed poison.

Dr Pawan Kumar, Resident Medical Officer at the general hospital in Sirsa, said this evening that the postmortem of Jaspal Singh revealed that he had been killed throttled to death. A police source also said the four had been strangled to death with bare hands.

Jind, October 1
The Akhil Bharatiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti has suspended its programme to hold up traffic ( chakka jam) and halt all supplies to New Delhi on October 3 in support of its demand for quota for Jats in government jobs.

The stir has been put off to October 31. The national president of the samiti, Yashpal Malik, said the decision was taken at a meeting of the core committee of the samiti here today keeping in view the larger interests of the country.

He said the government had requested the samiti to halt the agitation in view of the Commonwealth Games. The samiti had decided to accept the plea of the Centre and the Congress party as the success of the Commonwealth Games was a matter of prestige of the country.

However, he emphasised that the agitation had been only suspended for now.

While no protest or demonstration would be held during the period, an awareness campaign termed as “Jat Jagriti Abhiyan” would be launched. The aim of the exercise was to ensure the participation of the maximum number of people in the pro-quota movement.

He claimed that a section of people within the community were trying to play spoilsport to undermine the campaign and further their own selfish interests

Warning such elements, Malik declared that the samiti would not backtrack from its demand under any circumstances.

Those who took part in the meeting today included Karnail Singh Bhamra from Punjab, Ran Singh Shokeen from Delhi, Satpal Singh from UP, Ram Karan Singh Hooda, Col(retd) Mehar Singh Dahiya, Ishwar Singh, president of the national women cell of the samiti Santosh Dahiya and Nirmala Dahiya, head of the Haryana unit of the samiti.

Gurgaon, October 1
More than two months after 24 youths of Baghnaki village in the district and other nearby villages died in a road mishap near Uttarkashi, their family members are making the rounds of the government offices to claim the financial compensation announced for them by the Chief Minister.

It may be pertinent to mention that after the tragic death of the youths, who had gone to bring kanwar from Gomukh, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had announced that a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the next of kin of each deceased.

According to village residents, family members of some of the deceased had got Rs 1 lakh compensation under the Rajiv Gandhi Insurance Scheme, under which an amount of Rs 1 lakh is given to the next of kin of a state resident between 18 and 60 years of age being killed in a mishap.

However, they are yet to receive the relief announced by the Chief Minister.

Baghnaki sarpanch Krishna Devi maintained that the hapless villagers had been making the rounds of the government offices to claim the compensation, but to no avail.

Even the Rs 1 lakh compensation has been provided to only seven bereaved families, while the others have been denied the amount, citing various reasons.

“Two families were denied compensation on the ground that their members killed in the mishap were below 18 years of age, while others were refused the benefit as the next of kin/beneficiaries were less than 60 years of age,” said Gajraj Singh, a resident of Baghnaki village, while talking to The Tribune today.

The Chief Minister, who had announced the Rs 2 lakh compensation soon after the mishap, had also visited Baghnaki village a few days after the tragedy and assured the villagers of all possible help and support from the state government.

The villagers rued that though they had furnished the death certificates and other requisite documents, they were being forced to make the rounds of government offices, which amounted to humiliating the grief-stricken families.

Hisar, October 1
Vaanprastha, a local organisation, today honoured 10 senior citizens on the occasion of Senior Citizen’s Day for their contribution to society. They were Jai Singh, O. P. Nain, R. P. Girdhar, Ved Khanna, Phholpati, Bimla Sharma, Vinod Shankar Gupta, NK Tiwari, YK Kaura and Inder Singh.

Addressing a gathering, DC Yudhvir Singh Khialiya said senior citizens had a wealth of experience and the younger generation should make use of that in becoming better individuals.

He said the government had taken a number of steps for the welfare of senior citizens.

They were entitled to allotment of flats on the ground floor, special counters had been set up for them in hospitals and courts had been requested to dispose of their cases on priority.

REWARI: Senior citizens participated in various competitions, including musical chairs, tug-of-war, recreation race and balloon busting, held here under the auspices of the district social welfare department to mark International Senior Citizens Day in the Old Age Home here on Friday. The SDM distributed prizes amongst the winning contestants.

Yamunanagar, October 1
Renowned filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan inaugurated the third Haryana International Film Festival with the lighting of the auspicious lamp at DAV Girls College here today.

Referring to his film - “Shadow Kill” screened on the opening day, he said it was inspired by the true story of the last hangman in the erstwhile Kingdom of Travancore.

Gopalakrishnan, who is a recipient of the Dada Sahib Phalke award, said it was unfortunate that serious cinema was viewed as something not meant for everyone, particularly since it was this genre of cinema rather than the commercial cinema which was rooted in the reality of their culture.

However, it was unfortunate that it was the commercial cinema that had been attracting the average audience. Serious cinema had to be enjoyed at a deep level as a cultural exposure.

Guest of honour and renowned filmmaker K Bikram Singh said around 7.5 billion persons visit theatres in one year in India and this number could go up manifold if one was to consider those who saw films on television. Despite, it was regrettable that there were hardly any cinema studies or good research on meaningful and serious cinema.

For this reason, the film appreciation workshop was very relevant and he was happy that 250 students had signed up for the course.

He nostalgically recalled his association with Adoor, which began when they travelled to the Berlin Film Festival in late 70s.

Festival Director Ajit Rai said the festival had successfully proved that a good festival was possible even in a small town like Yamunanagar and was not the preserve of the metros. Small budget festivals had a charm of their own, he added.

The principal of the DAV College for Girls, Dr Sushma Arya, said organising a festival in a college was a real challenge without much assistance from the state. However, she had got a lot of support from the directors and various dignitaries, who agreed to come.

Hisar, October 1
Extension education specialists have underlined the need for strengthening Krishi Vigyan Kendras to help raise agricultural output. Extension educationists had gathered here at Haryana Agricultural University to deliberate on the future of extension education in the country.

The two day meet concluded yesterday.

In his inaugural address, Dr MS Gill, Director, Extension Education, Punjab Agricultural University, said to achieve the future targets of agricultural production, extension education infrastructure would have to be strengthened.

Noting that many Krishi Vigyan Kendras did not have adequate funds, personnel and machinery, he said these shortcomings had to be overcome as soon as possible.

HAU Director of Extension Education JS Dhankher said farmers were well aware now and were quick to adapt technology that helped them save costs and labour. Zero tillage and direct sowing of paddy had been quickly adapted by farmers because of this.

As many as 80 extension specialists from Haryana, Delhi and Punjab attended the two-day meet.

Chandigarh, October 1
Haryana law officers and the state advocate-general have collected Rs 2 lakh for the Ladakh relief fund.

Four demand drafts have been handed over to The Tribune for forwarding it to “The Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund”.

In all, 126 law officers in the advocate-general’s office have collected Rs 1,89,000. Advocate-general Hawa Singh Hooda has contributed Rs 11,000 for the fund. The High Court, the Bar Association, and the Judges too have contributed to the relief fund. In fact, two truck-loads of relief material has already been sent for the flood victims.

Kurukshetra, October 1
Faced with the problem of a large number of BEd and technical colleges virtually running teaching shops and indulging in malpractices, Kurukshetra University, entrusted with the task of filling 60,000 BEd seats, has evolved a mechanism to check malpractices and ensure that the quality of education is not compromised with.

The university has taken a number of steps to improve the standard of education in 184 colleges of education and 113 technical colleges affiliated to it and evolved a mechanism to curb malpractices in admissions, check the practice of showing fake teachers on rolls and ensuring that adequate infrastructure and qualified faculty is in place in self-financing colleges and institutes.

The university has decided to assign unique ID numbers to the approved faculty of the self-financing colleges and institutes to check “fake teachers” and has devised an exhaustive pro forma to deal with “human resource and physical infrastructure facilities,” the Vice-Chancellor, Lt-Gen DDS Sandhu, said.

The unique ID would effectively curb the practice of showing the same faculty at different places while the pro forma with Part A, dealing with human resource, and Part B, taking care of infrastructure facilities, would ensure that the mandatory provisions and norms were not violated, he added.

A special grievance committee had also been set up to resolve the problems of students seeking admission, he said.

Faridabad, October 1
In a major embarrassment to the Haryana police, a pick- pocket today stole a mobile phone of BJP party president Nitin Gadkari during his visit here.

The thief was nabbed and the cell recovered from him. It was handed over to the staff of the BJP president before he left for Delhi. Gadkari was here to inaugurate a three-day meeting of the national executive of the Bharatiya Kisan Morcha, a frontal wing of the BJP.

Just after Gadkari’s cavalcade reached Bata Chowk on the Delhi-Mathura highway, a large number of party leaders and workers crowded around him. As he got down from his vehicle, the din increased as people jostled with one another amid the beating of drums. It was at this point that Gadkari’s pocket was picked. BJP leader Sandip Joshi said a BJP leader in the crowd was robbed of Rs 5,000.

Sirsa, October 1
Sarita, a plus one student of Kendriya Vidyalaya 2 (KV-2) here, hanged herself to death at her residence last evening. Sarita, whose father is in the Indian Air Force, was upset after she was rebuked at school for not bringing her parents to a parent-teacher meeting.

Sarita had scored poor marks in her internal exams.

Her father Ram Dev Yadav is posted at the Udhampur IAF station.

Principal RBL Sant, however, denied that any teacher had admonished the girl.

“She informed her teacher that her mother was ill. She looked normal when she left the school around noon. I cannot say why she took the extreme step,” the principal said.

Bhiwani, October 1
At least 15 schoolchildren had a narrow escape when the school bus they were travelling in collided with a tractor-trailer near Hansi crossing at Buwani Khera village, 18 km from here, today.

The incident took place when the school bus of DPS, Hisar, was on its way to Baliali village.

The driver of the tractor-trailer lost control over the vehicle when the school bus was trying to overtake the vehicle.

However, all 15 students escaped unhurt and the tractor driver fled away during the rescue operations.