Dehradun, April 23
Conmen, who have been active in trains and buses, looting people by offering tempting things laced with a drug, have also become active in the streets and residential areas of Dehradun city.

Though the police is yet to ascertain the motive behind the Nathanpur locality poisoning incident, sources say that the conmen had come with the intention of luring adults and loot them.

With lax security, the conmen are finding it easy to lure people with sweets and then looting them. In the Nathanpur incident, children and adults were offered prasad, they were later admitted to a hospital, while one child died at the hospital.

Meanwhile, the police yesterday registered yet another similar case of a man being looted of money after having a samosa laced with a drug, at the Government Railway Police (GRP) police station.

“We have launched an awareness campaign for this. We keep announcing at railway stations not to have anything from strangers. And if need be, such awareness programmes will be held in the city also,” Ajay Joshi, Superintendent of Police (City), said.

“This was the first case that happened on Tuesday which killed a child in Dehradun. However, there should be awareness among people as incidents of this sort can happen again,” he added.

Last month also, the cops at the GRP had registered a case of a man who was looted after being offered poisonous boiled eggs by a fellow passenger in a train. Several such incidents occur in the train journey and now have started occurring outside as well.

“Many times cases are registered but the conmen don’t get caught as they are often outsiders. They board from places like Delhi and alight at some other station after doing their job. They are active at the railway station,” Joshi told The Tribune.

“They look for a soft target in the train among passengers and befriend him. They offer something to eat laced with a drug before the station draws near. The passenger falls asleep and the conmen take away the valuables which the person has,” the SP said.

The police sources said such conmen have never been arrested. Though some persons are rounded up after the incident, the real culprits manage to evade the police.

A resident of Bihar was looted of Rs 9,000 by a fellow passenger after being offered a drug-laced samosa at Bandikui railway station, Rishikesh, in Dehradun district.

According to the complaint of victim Ram Ashish with the police, an unidentified man came to him when his train stopped at the Bandikui railway station, Rishikesh. The man befriended him and later offered a samosa to him.

After having the samosa, he fell asleep and when he opened his eyes, he found his purse containing Rs 9,000 missing. Other important documents, which he had kept in the purse, were also stolen.

On reaching a station in Uttar Pradesh, he lodged a complaint with the police there on January 25. The Dehradun police registered a case yesterday after its counterpart in UP transferred the case to it. A case under Sections 328, 379 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered at the Government Railway Police (GRP) police station.

Dehradun, April 23
It is evident from the sampling reports that were out on Thursday that the milk we use in our daily routine is routinely adulterated. It is not for the first time that the reports of the dairy products have come out to be negative. Despite this, dairy owners are not paying any heed and carrying on buying loose milk and milk products from the vendors.

A municipal corporation team along with the Health Department had taken samples from a few trucks in the wee hours before Holi. Though one of the truck owners ran away from the site, the team was able to catch up with him at Dharampur Sabzi mandi.

The Health Department wants to file a complaint against the defaulting dairy owners, but due to lax laws, those who are caught go scot-free. Secondly, authorities become active during the festival season only. During the marriage season, lots of quantity of milk is required to make various products from but no checks are undertaken.

Nevertheless, the department claims that they keep on taking samples on a regular basis. The main problem is that samples taken are sent to the laboratory in Himachal Pradesh, which takes a lot of time to provide results. The laboratory to be started at Rudrapur has not been given the green signal by the government till now.

There are no rules which say that a shopkeeper needs to display the content of the product at the counter.

Talking to The Tribune, Dr Kailash Joshi, senior health officer, MC, said they were carrying out drives on a regular basis as adding water to milk is also a crime.

Chief Food Officer GC Kandwal said, “We do random checking with lactometer on the spot but to check other contents, we need a certificate from the laboratory only.” 

Dehradun, April 23
A residential home or hostel for mentally challenged children and another residence for street children announced two years ago have failed to take off due to the frequent change of guard in the Social Welfare Department.

The hostel for mentally challenged children was to come up in Haridwar while a hostel for street children was to be located in Dehradun to be run by a non-government organisation. But now no one seems to be willing to take up the projects.

Two years ago the Social Welfare Department had announced a residential home for destitute children suffering from different forms of mental disability. A government building in the possession of the Social Welfare Department at Roshanabad, Haridwar, was earmarked during the tenure of the Secretary, Social Welfare Department, Manisha Panwar.

Similarly, a home for street children to be located in Dehradun was also announced and the Social Welfare Department agreed to convert a building in its possession at Rispana Bridge into a residential complex.

The plan envisaged special facilities for girls who could be encouraged to study and supported financially by creating a corpus fund by the government. Later they could benefit from the government’s girl child scheme, the Kanya Dhan Yojana, but to this day the plan has not materialised.

Sources say that frequent transfers in the Social Welfare Department resulted in the projects remaining on paper. The department has been at the centre of several transfers. Recently, Vinita Kumar, Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Department, was moved and MH Khan, Secretary, Social Welfare Department, has now taken her place.

When contacted, Social Welfare Minister Matbar Singh Kandari said the delay in the projects might have occurred due to the lack of feasibility.

Mussoorie, April 23
With the onset of the summer season, a war of words has also begun over the issue of drawing water from the Hardy falls near Mussoorie. The visit of Mussoorie MLA Jot Singh Gunsola along with officials from the Jal Nigam and the Jal Sansthan to Hardy falls for assessing the possibilities of laying a water pipeline was met with stiff opposition on Thursday.

The villagers from the areas downstream such as Sigli gram panchayat, Rikholi gram panchayat, Purkul gram panchayat and Tea Garden opposed the laying of water pipeline to Mussoorie vehemently.

They also dared the officials to complete the inspection work. The villagers argued that the water from Hardy fall was being consumed by several thousand villagers downstream not only for drinking purpose but also for livestock. The water was also being used for irrigation of fields and with the proposed water pipeline, these areas would start facing water scarcity. Former president, Krishi Mandi Samiti, Upendar Thapli, supporting the villagers, said the issue of the Hardy fall was a sensitive one and pending since 2003.

He further said that the water from the Hardy fall was going to several Nyapanchayats and areas like Dakra, Garhii Cantonement and Arcadia areas. Already four projects were running on the same stream and seven more were in the pipeline and if the water is drawn from already receding water source of Hardy fall, the residents and the villagers downstream will be affected adversely. Upendar Thapli, being critical of the MLA, Jot Singh Gunsola, belonging to the Congress, said that Jot Singh was merely indulging in petty politics. 

Dehradun, April 23
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has reaffirmed his government’s commitment to work for the welfare of the minorities in the state.

Addressing the inaugural session of the BJP National Minorities’ Convention in Dehradun, Nishank said bodies like the State Minorities Commission, the Uttarakhand State Haj Committee, the Uttarakhand Muslim Education Mission and the Uttarakhand Minorities Welfare and Mutipurpose Finance Development Corporation were working for the betterment of the minorities.

He said scholarships of Rs 1465.28 lakh were provided to 1,52,717 students from the minority communities during 2010-2011.

Nishank said special schemes had been started to ensure employment opportunities and better education for the minorities. He said a Rs 2 lakh accident insurance scheme had been implemented for Hajis from 2008. No premium amount was being charged from Hajis and the entire amount would be borne by the government.

Nishank said that earlier there was a quota of 787 Hajis from Uttarakhand which had been increased to 1,228.

He said the government was also contemplating a plan for the modernisation of madrasas in the state. Uttarakhand BJP in charge Thawar Chand Gehlot reiterated the Uttarakhand BJP government’s concern for minorities in the state.

Uttarakhand Social Welfare Minister Matbar Singh Kandari, BJP minorities’ cell president Tanvir Ahmed, general secretary Azhar Shamshi and Uttarakhand BJP president Bisan Singh Chufal were among those who attended the convention.

Dehradun, April 23
It was her sheer love for teaching that made Archana Dandriyal stay far off from her family for over a decade. She had a tough time managing family affairs along with her professional commitments, but she didn’t give up. Archana, a teacher in a primary government school since 1997, had started her career from Pauri district. She has recently been transferred to her hometown of Dehradun as head mistress of Rajkiya Prarthmik Vidhyalay, Guniyalgaon.

“This was tough for me to work in Pauri when my husband and three daughters were in Dehradun. I had to travel several times to the Doon valley to see them while at times I took them with me to Pauri,” Archana says.

“I continued teaching only because my husband supported me throughout. He had assured me that he along with my mother-in-law would take care of our daughters. He never let my daughters feel the absence of their mother and took good care of the family,” she asserted.

Archana feels that she and her daughters share a good relationship and never blames her career to have barricaded the motherly love from them.

“Yes, my youngest daughter, who is in Class II, sometimes says that why don’t I leave this job whenever she sees me hurriedly doing the mornings chores,” she says.

A graduate from HNB Garhwal University and Masters in Economics, Archana also yearns for some spare time for her. Being the head mistress of the school, she has to look over the administration of the school as well as teach students.

“There are only two teachers in the school. At times I have to miss the classes in order to get other works done like repairing of the school building, student scholarships, material required for mid-day meals, etc,” she complains. Archana maintains that major crisis in the school crops up when the teachers are asked to do surveys for census, participate in pulse polio drive and social welfare schemes.

“The government should ease the burden of the teachers of government schools so that proper and undivided attention can be given to the students,” she opines.

Dehradun, April 23
BJP national vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has termed senior Gujarat IPS officer blaming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for riots as nothing new but part of a Congress conspiracy.

Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the BJP’s National Minorities Convention in Dehradun, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the sudden surfacing of contents of Senior Gujarat IPS officer’s affidavit filed in the Supreme Court was a calculated leak done at the behest of Congress to yet again defame the Gujarat Government. He said the Congress seeing its “hypocritical” secular policy getting exposed has now resorted to such tactics and particularly after social activist Anna Hazare lauded the governance of Modi.

On the BJP prospects in the ongoing Assembly elections in the five states, Naqvi hoped for a BJP government in Assam even as he asserted that the saffron party would be performing exceedingly well in all five states where Assembly elections were in process. He said the minorities’ support for the BJP had been growing over the years.

The BJP leader pointed out that it was for the first time that black money to the tune of Rs 150 crore had been seized during the poll process. He pointed out that both Congress and Left were rampantly using black money during the poll. “The BJP after conclusion of elections will be demanding a probe from the Election Commission into the use of black money in the current Assembly elections,” Naqvi said.

Earlier, addressing the national minorities convention of the BJP, Naqvi called upon the minorities to work to ensure success to the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly elections particularly in Uttarakhand.

Dehradun, April 23
Moravian Institute got past Church of North India (CNI) Inter College, Rajpur, 2-1 in a league match of the Welhams’ Invitational School Hockey Tournament

Stanzin (20th) and Riya (48th) scored a goal each for the winning team. For the CNI, Seema Negi (42nd) stuck a goal but no other goal came for the team.

In anther league match played today, Mahadevi Kanya Pathshala (PG) College beat St Agnes 8-0. Neena (10th), Pooja (20th, 32nd), Kavita (21st, 26th), Varsha (23rd ,45th) and Ranjana (37th) contributed for their team.

Dehradun, April 23
Quarterfinals of the 25th All-India Golden Jubilee Basketball Tournament will be held here tomorrow at Welham Boys School.

Welham Boys School (Blue) today got the better of Yadavindra Public School (YPS), Patiala, 63-36 while Woodstock School beat Lawrence School, Sanawar, 36-23 in another match.

While Doon School defeated Wynberg Allen School, Mussoorie, 39-18, Woodstock School, Mussoorie, thrashed Welham Boys (White) 45-14. YPS, Patiala, edged past Wynberg Allen School, Mussoorie, 37-35.