Karnal, December 3
Panic gripped the local courts as a youth in an inebriated condition shot at Maninder Singh of Sector 13, who has been living in New Zealand for the past more than two years.

He had come here for the last rites of his father and was to return on December 5. He was in the court to preparing a general power of attorney (GPA) in the name of his brother Rupinder Singh.

While he was busy preparing the papers, he received a call. Soonafter, Kulvinder Singh, who also lives in New Zealand, reached there and fired two shots outside the court compound. One missed Maninder Singh while the other went through his hand. He was rushed to the trauma centre of the Civil Hospital.

The police has registered a case. The Karnal SSP, Rakesh Arya, said that it appeared to be a case of old rivalry but nothing definite could be said till the investigations were concluded. 

Gurgaon, December 3
Killers of Nargis Juneja, director of Kidzee Playschool in the city, clearly did not intend to loot. They did not take away cash, jewelry and other valuables.

The attackers carried out the crime with clinical precision. The in-laws of the victim present on the first floor of the house when the criminals struck got to know of the crime only when the maid raised the alarm. Police sources say an extra-marital affair could be the reason for the brutal murder. Nargis, they said, was upset over her husband Rakesh Juneja’s reported affair.

Also, the couple’s teenaged daughter, Parul, told the police that her father had called her up on Wednesday evening, instructing her to reach home soon.

But Rakesh Juneja, who runs a leather goods export business, told the police that he had told his daughter to rush home after he got a call from their security guard about the incident.

Investigators point to the slackness shown by security guards, particularly the one deployed at the Junejas’ house. Police Commissioner SS Deswal said the registration of security agencies who had applied for licence would be completed by December 15.“Thereafter, we will advise the residents as well as organisations not to avail the services of unregistered security agencies,” he maintained. More than a year ago, the state police had made it mandatory for all private security agencies to obtain a licence if they wanted to operate in the state.

However, thanks to the lukewarm response shown by the owners/managers of private security agencies and the red tape, no security firm in the city has got a licence till date.

Official sources say a mere 23 security agencies are in the process of getting a licence under the Private Security Agencies Regulation Act, 2009, as of now. This has evidently put the police on the backfoot .

Hisar, December 3
Justice Iqbal Singh (retd) heading the one-man judicial panel probing the April 21 violence against Dalits in Mirchpur village of this district, today recorded the evidence given by 10 persons.

The statement of Pradeep, son of Tara Chand who was killed in the violence, against whom bailable warrants were issued by the commission at its last hearing, was also recorded.

Pradeep said a mob of about 300 persons attacked the houses of Dalits in the village, chanting “kill them all today”.

They carried weapons, sticks and cans of petrol. He said he was outside his house when it was set afire.

Asked about the family income at the time of the incident, Pradeep said the family earned about Rs 20,000 per month. When asked whether he had disclosed the income while applying for a BPL card, he replied in the negative.

He said his family had so far received Rs 16 lakh as compensation in addition to jobs to all three brothers. He said he was satisfied with the relief measures, but wanted the guilty to be punished.

One of the witnesses, Jaswant, who had led the Dalit agitation after the violence, denied being a witness to the violence. He said he was on duty at his school in Delhi at the time of the incident.

Three other witnesses- Bani Singh, Aman and Binder- said they were not witness to the violence while Rajesh, Dilbagh, Sanjay, Satyavaan and Rajinder refused to identify any of the accused.

The commission has recorded the statements of 24 persons so far. All, except Pradeep, have turned hostile. The commission will record the statements of policemen, officers and doctors at its next hearing.

As many as 112 villagers belonging to the Jat community have been languishing in jail after the incident. Most of them had absconded but the police arrested them following the apex court’s order, saying all accused must be arrested by a certain date.

The commission was appointed on June 19 to probe the Mirchpur violence. The government has already extended its term by six months.

The commission was originally asked to submit its report in three months.

Two persons - Tara Chand and his daughter - were killed during the violence. 

Kurukshetra, December 3
After a brief lull, tension again mounted the holy city of Kurukshetra as Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (ad hoc) president Jagdish Singh Jhinda announced “path” at Gurdwara Chhevin Patshahi here tomorrow.

Sensing trouble, the police rounded up HSGPC leaders, including Jhinda and president of the youth wing Kanwaljit Singh. All these leaders were detained at Thanesar police station. Gurdwara Chhevin Patshai is under control of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), Amritsar, and HSGPC volunteers, led by Jhindha, had tried to take control over the gurdwara twice in the past.

One such attempt was foiled in September last year while another attempt was thwarted in September this year. Later, the HSGPC resorted to the “jail bharo” agitation.

Kanwaljit Singh, who was rounded up on way to Kurukshetra, described his detention as interference in religion and said it was unfortunate that the HSGPC members, spearheading the agitation for a separate gurdwara committee, were now being denied the right to peacefully perform “path” in the gurdwara.

Accusing the government of acting under pressure of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, he said such repressive measures would not deter them from marching towards their goal.

Last month, Jhinda had indicated that he along with other HSGPC leaders might hold a meeting with SGPC leaders, but the response was “cool” and the SGPC was not willing to give any concession on the issue of a separate gurdwara committee. 

Sirsa, December 3
Membership of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) will now remain open for youths between 18 and 35 years of age throughout the year from today.

All-India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary and in charge of IYC affairs Bhanwar Jitender Singh today launched the open membership drive as a pilot project from Sirsa.

Later, the drive would be started throughout the country, said Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar, who presided over the function.

Addressing mediapersons, Jitender Singh, who represents Alwar parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha, said the work of setting up a democratically elected structure of the Youth Congress that began from Punjab had now been completed in 16 states of the country.

He claimed that in the next few months, the membership of the IYC would reach 2 crore.

Jitender Singh lauded the efforts of Amit Sihag, president of the Sirsa parliamentary unit of the Youth Congress, for making 54,000 members, which, he said, were the highest in the country.

Tanwar said the efforts of AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi had borne fruits and now the Youth Congress had emerged as one of the strongest organisations in the country.

He said the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Leadership opened in the national capital with the efforts of Gandhi had been proving very useful for youths.

Giving details of the concept of open membership drive, Usha Naidu, a secretary of the IYC, who holds the charge of Haryana, said that unlike past, the membership of the youth congress would now be open throughout the year and those applying for the membership would be issued identity cards at the district level itself.

Naidu said that the submission of the membership application would become online within the next three months.

Bhiwani, December 3
Congress is the only party in the country that follows democratic values by connecting people directly and those who work with dedication will be given respect and their future will be secured.

This was stated by Bhanwar Jitender Singh, Alwar (Rajasthan) MP and political secretary to AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a panchayat sammelan organised by the Youth Congress Hisar parliamentary area president Gaurav Sampat Singh at Dhanana village here today.

Bhanwar Singh said Rahul had implemented such a system that any youth could rise to a higher post by working hard.

Addressing “Panchayat ki Aur” programme, which concluded here today, he launched a new programme of the party “Aaiyee Pahachaanein”, under which the party would identify its dedicated workers.

Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar said the Congress had been working in the interest of farmers, labourers, traders, Backward and the Scheduled Castes.

State Youth Congress in charge Usha Naidu and state president Rao Chiranjiv said the “Chalo Panchayat” programme, which started a month ago, covered 6,200 villages.

Gaurav tied “pagri” on Bhanwar Singh and Lal Singh and Manish Chauhan presented sword to him.

Gurgaon, December 3
The Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) has adopted a novel method to ensure cleanliness in the area under its jurisdiction. This method is being implemented at Mullahera village on an experimental basis.

Under the new method, the work of maintaining cleanliness in a particular area will be allotted to a contractor, who will be solely responsible for sanitation in that area. The attendance of all employees of the contractor would be marked on a biometric machine.

Every employee engaged for sanitation will have to register his/her presence by fingerprint. The contractor will be asked to provide fingerprints of all employees engaged by him.

The biometric attendance will be sent to the MCG office daily and the contractor will be paid half of the total contract amount on the basis of attendance of his employees, while the other half will be paid for cleanliness.

This was stated by Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Khullar during a weekly meeting of corporation officials at the village yesterday.

He said a new trend of organising the weekly official meetings in the villages falling in the corporation area had been started so that problems of the local residents were heard and redressed on the spot.

The Municipal Commissioner said any resident could lodge a complaint about insanitation in his/her locality by uploading a corroborating photograph on the MCG website and assured that the contractor would be immediately told to get the garbage lifted from that place.

He maintained that if the contractor did not pay heed to the message and the garbage was not lifted, he would have to pay penalty for every hour of delay.

Khullar said the system of door-to-door collection of garbage would also be implemented at Mullahera village.

Earlier, Badshahpur MLA Rao Dharampal laid the foundation of a sewer line and a tubewell at Mullahera village.

The Municipal Commissioner and the MLA also heard grievances of the villagers. 

Kaithal, December 3
In view of the announcement made by the State Election Commission for holding elections to the local municipal council, necessary guidelines have been issued regarding the use of loudspeakers on vehicles and pasting of posters and other election-related material on government and private buildings and other properties.

Giving this information to mediapersons here today, District Election Officer Amneet P Kumar said candidates, standing for the elections to the municipal council, would not be allowed to paste posters and install hoardings, cutouts and flags on government buildings.

She said for the purpose public places would be notified.

The candidates would also not be allowed to write slogans, paste posters, banners and flags on private buildings except with the prior consent of the owners of such buildings.

No building owner could be pressurised to seek permission for the purpose.

The photocopy of the consent letter obtained from the building owner should be submitted to the returning officer within three days of obtaining any such consent.

She said the provisions existed for taking action against any candidate found involved in defacement of any public or private property and expense to undo defacement would be recovered from the candidate concerned.

Kumar further said candidates should obtain prior permission from the returning officer for use of loudspeakers on vehicles or at any other place and such permission should be pasted on the vehicle in use for the election purpose. 

Jind, December 3
The sugarcane production in the district is likely to go up sharply this year, with an increase in the sowing area of the crop this year.

While the local cooperative sugar mill has formally started crushing operations, the increase in sugarcane production this season will boost sugar production, which had been a cause of concern last year.The mill here could operate for just about three weeks last year.

“The production of sugarcane last year had dipped abysmally which made the sugar mill to wind up operations in just a few days,” claimed a mill employee. He said the results this year would be different as the mill was likely to continue crushing for over a month.

The sugar mill here proposes to crush around 18 lakh quintals of cane to produce about 1.70 lakh quintals of sugar this season, claimed the authorities.

“The crushing and production target will be more than double of what was last year,” claimed DC Abhay Singh Yadav, who is also president of the mill. He said the mill would supply about 18 lakh quintals of cane this year, including five lakh quintals from the sugar mill at Panipat.

The mill would be functional for three months.The total area under the crop was likely to go up to 10,000 acres next season while it was less than 4000 acres last year, he said. “Good sugar production is required to combat the problem of short supply and black marketing. It was, perhaps, the failure of the government to give proper support to cane growers in the past few years which led to a severe dip in the production of the crop in the region,” claimed Deep Chand, a farmer from Intel Kalan village.

The state government has announced to hike the share of profit of farmers in the sugar mills to 75 per cent.

Hisar, December 3
The World Bank has approved a Rs 136.83 crore project to enable the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam to install an advance metering infrastructure (AMI) system on all non- high tension consumers, except tubewells, with a connected 10 kw to 50 kw load.

Sudhir Rajpal, Managing Director, DHBVN, said here today that the system would be first implemented as a pilot project to monitor its implications and after a successful run of the pilot project, it would be rolled out all across the nigam’s area of operation.

With real-time data availability and remote load monitoring and control features for consumer and distribution transformer meters, the AMI forms the distribution-level backbone for the integrated grid. Rajpal said the new system was expected to yield monetary benefits through loss reduction and improvement in collection efficiency.

The AMI project was also aimed at providing benefits to the end consumer. The AMI feeders scheduled for power cuts would lower the end consumer demand in proportion to the demand and supply ratio.

This would be done through proper intimation to consumers through the display unit-cum-alarm device, attached to the consumer meter and installed at the consumer’s premises.

The system will enable the nigam to undertake network modifications so as to maintain service quality. It is expected that the enhanced supply will result in lesser supply-related consumer complaints.

Fatehabad, December 3
As the city prepares for the December 5 rally of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the vegetable market, venue for the meeting, has become out of bounds for vendors and farmers.

Located on the Hisar road, the market has been “closed” for three days, beginning today, by overzealous officials without any formal orders.

“I was informed by my commission agent that the vegetable market would remain closed on Sunday because of the rally. But when I brought my kinnows to the market this morning, I found the gates closed,” said a farmer.

He said the closure of the market for a day was understandable, but keeping it closed for three days was unjustified. KL Kakar, secretary of the Market Committee, said there were no orders to close the market today, but traders had been asked to discourage local farmers from bringing their produce till Sunday.

He said only thirty per cent of the vegetables and fruits in the market come from local farmers.

He maintained that the gates were closed in the morning to keep out stray animals and one gate was opened later.

When contacted, Chief Parliamentary Secretary PS Gillankhera said an alternative site had been provided to the traders within the market complex so that commercial activity in the market remained unaffected. Gillankhera, who is organizing the rally, took stock of the preparations at the venue today. He was accompanied by IG, Hisar Range, AK Dhull DC Vijay Singh Dahiya, SP Jagwant Singh Lamba and ADC Ashok Kumar Meena 

Faridabad, December 3
A large number of residents yesterday blocked Nangla Chowk in Jawahar Colony obstructing traffic movement for an hour in protest against the alleged failure of the police to arrest the three accused in the youth’s murder here on Wednesday. The protesters were also demanding suitable monetary compensation to the family of the deceased.

They lifted the blockade after they were assured justice and announced monetary compensation to the family. Deputy Mayor of the Municipal Corporation, Faridabad, Mukesh Sharam and the SDM visited the spot and made the announcement.

The police said several teams had been constituted and the accused would soon be arrested.

The youth, driver of a water tanker, was murdered following a scuffle between him and main accused Nafees, autorickshaw driver, here on Wednesday.

According to the SHO, the duo had reached a compromise after a scuffle. However, the accused along with his two friends, all armed with knives, attacked the deceased at Nangla Chowk a few hours after the compromise. 

Sirsa, December 3
In an effort to ensure entry into the Armed forces, a youth made some other person appear for him in the physical fitness test during the ongoing recruitments in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Stadium here.

The police has arrested Kuldeep of Keorad in Kaithal district. However, the youth identified as Sunder, who appeared in the physical test for him, managed to escape.

A case under Sections 419 and 420 of the IPC has been registered against the duo. During interrogation, Kuldeep named the owner of a Rohtak-based academy for acting as a go-between for the arrangement.

According to a police spokesperson, the military personnel, who were verifying documents of the candidates after the physical test, got suspicious about Kuldeep.

The army personnel on duty had painted a mark on the chest of all candidates before the test and they found the mark on Kuldeep’s chest different from what they had made.

When they quizzed him, he confessed that Sunder appeared for him in the physical test and immediately after the test, he sneaked out on the pretext of going to washroom.

The military personnel handed him over to the police, where Kuldeep said Jitesh, owner of a Rohtak-based academy, had struck a deal for Rs 2 lakh for ensuring his recruitment in the Army.