Ambala, April 29
A staff nurse and his husband were shot dead here today. The deceased were identified as Inderjit Singh (50) and Neena Devi (45). Inderjit died on the spot while Neena succumbed to her injuries on the way to the PGI, Chandigarh.

The police has registered a case against Ramesh, his wife Veena, and one of his relatives Bala under Sections 302 (murder), 449 (house trespass in order to the commission of an offence punishable with death) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC and 25, 54 and 61 of the Arms Act. Two of the accused have been arrested while the third is absconding.

According to the information, Ramesh is running a shop just close to deceased’s house. There had been a dispute between the two over the ownership of a house. A case in this regard has also been pending in the court. The father-in-law of Inderjit alleged that his son-in-law was threatened by the assailant a few days back and the matter was reported to the police.

Ramesh went to Inderjit’s house this morning, who was going to take bath. According to the police, Ramesh fired several rounds at Inderjit and he died on the spot. Hospital sources confirmed that Inderjit was brought dead.

In the meanwhile Neena, the wife of the deceased, who was working as a staff nurse in Durana village close to Ambala was about to reach her house on an Activa after dropping her daughter to school, 
when Ramesh allegedly fired at her.

She sustained several bullet injuries in her stomach and back. She was rushed to local civil hospital from where she was referred to the PGI.

SP Ambala Shashank Anand and other senior police officers rushed at the site. The investigating agencies also reached at the site. The residents of the locality are in a state of panic after the incident.

A board of doctors conducted the postmortem of the bodies. Later, the agitated relatives put the body in the middle of the road to protest. They also ransacked the house and the shop of the assailant. 

Panipat, April 29
Perturbed over huge line losses incurred in 12 urban subdivisional areas during 2010-11, the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) has decided to launch a special 
loss-reduction campaign from May 1.

Official sources said 15 per cent losses were acceptable as some of the power was lost during transmission, but the losses in the 12 subdivisions were between 20 per cent and 36 per cent, the Model Town and City subdivisions of Panipat topping the list.

Besides, the industrial area subdivision of Sonepat, subdivision No 3 of Rohtak, city subdivision of Bahadurgarh, operation subdivision of Jind, Babyal, Jagadhri and Pehowa subdivisions, among others, have also incurred heavy losses.

The programme would be implemented in these 12 subdivisions in the first phase and it would later be extended to other parts of the state.

The sources said that it had been observed that most of these sub divisions were having mainly domestic, non domestic and LT industrial category consumers.

The sources said it had been decided to assign the responsibility of meter reading, bill distribution and bill collection to the Haryana Ex-services League, where-ever required and constitute special teams to check pilferage of power. It was also decided to check all permanently disconnected consumer premises.

It had been decided to erect aerial bunched cables in theft-prone areas, shift meters outside the consumer premises and replace electro-mechanical meters with electronic ones.

MD Arun Kumar said all-out efforts would be made to curb the losses. Strict instructions had been issued to the officials concerned and any laxity on their part in curbing power losses would invite stringent action. 

Chandigarh, April 29
Haryana Lokayukta Justice Pritam Pal (Retd) feels that the State Lokayukta Act is not as toothless as some tend to dub it as the Act confers enough powers on the incumbent to fight corruption by public servants.

The definition of a public servant as given in the Act includes Chief Minister, ministers and other public representatives along with government officers.

Skeptics read a lot of meaning in Section 8(1) of the Act, which says that “the Lokayukta may on receipt of a reference from the government proceed to inquire into the allegations or the grievances made against a public servant.”

Justice Pritam Pal says it does not mean that the Lokayukta cannot entertain a complaint made to him directly. He points out that Section 10 of the Act gives this power to the Lokayukta. A complaint can be an allegation regarding corruption or a grievance regarding injustice by a public servant.

However, he wants two amendments in the Act to make it more effective. He wants that the Lokayukta should have the power to launch contempt proceedings as well as the power to take notice of a misdemeanour by a public servant.

Justice Pritam Pal, who seems to take upon himself the role of a proactive Lokayukta, is visiting various districts to interact with officials, advocates and general public these days.

He says action on many a complaint is delayed because of deficiencies like absence of the mandatory affidavit, absence of non-judicial stamp papers worth Rs 1000 as fee, complaint being unsigned or absence of supporting documents.

If a person cannot pay Rs 1000, he should apply for its exemption but must attach a copy of his BPL card with the application.

While the Act gives power to the Lokayukta to summon anyone to give information, Section 14 of the Act has a clause that says that “no person, without the prior permission of the appropriate government, shall be required or authorised by virtue of the provisions contained in this Act to furnish any such information or answer any such question or produce so much of any document as might involve the disclosure of any information or production of any document which is punishable under the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923.”

The skeptics says this provision can be misused by a government of the day to prevent any information potentially harmful to it from reaching the Lokayukta.

Another issue highlighted by the skeptics is the recommendatory nature of the Lokayukta’s report. It is for the government to act on his recommendations. If no action is taken on his recommendation, he can only mention it in his mandatory annual report to the Governor, which is placed before the Assembly. The matter ends there.

To make the institution of Lokayukta more effective, his recommendations should have some legal force. 

Chandigarh, April 29
A year after an undertrial died in a Gurgaon jail, a civil judge-cum-Judicial Magistrate has recommended thorough investigation by an independent agency as “there seems to be indulgence of senior political boss, superior police officers, jail authorities, doctors and others”.

The report also brings under scanner the role of a minister, “Sukhbir Singh”, in Krishan’s custodial death case.

The magistrate, in his 15-page inquiry report, quotes Krishan’s brother Om Parkash as saying that the victim had “made various complaints against Sukhbir Singh, a minister in the Haryana Government, regarding bogus votes 
and preparation of bogus ration cards”.

The matter, Om Parkash claimed, was under investigation in the Gurgaon police station. “The administration did not provide information regarding the votes on demand and threat was also given to him and his property. Even construction of his house situated at Rajiv Nagar, Gurgaon, was stopped by the said minister by moving an application in this regard.

“The motive was to cause trouble and put pressure upon them by the said minister with collusion of higher police officials and other officers of the district,” the report adds, while quoting Om Parkash.

It also takes cognisance of the fact that the postmortem was conducted on January 13 last year, a day after the body was brought.

Krishan was taken into custody in connection with a criminal intimidation and injury case registered under Sections 324 and 506 of the IPC at Sector 5 Gurgaon police station on January 11 last. The report says: “Collusion of the jail authorities with the police and the pressure of politician Sukhbir Singh, present minister of the Haryana Government, is also visible from the circumstances apparent in the statement of Sahid Hussain, deputy superintendent, district jail, Bhondsi.

“He deposed that Ranbir and Desh Raj, officials of the jail, were on search duty on that day and search of the accused was conducted…. The postmortem examination was conducted by the doctors and Rs 138 in cash and yellow coloured metallic pendant was found, which shows that no search was ever conducted and only paper formalities were performed.”

The magistrate said: “The role of doctors that of the jail, Gurgaon general hospital and other officials of the jail and police officers/officials at every stage in this matter is full of suspicion.”

He added that: “The death Krishan, who was hale and hearty as per the statement of the witnesses and even at the time of arrest, does not seem to be in ordinary/natural course, but has been caused under suspicious circumstances.” 

Sirsa, April 29
A fire broke out in the Rania storehouse of Hafed shortly before noon today burning over 200 bags stacked there.Fire tenders from Sirsa and Ellenabad doused the fire after over half an hour .Suresh Jawa, Hafed district manager, maintained that there was no loss of foodgrains in the fire as only some gunny bags had been burnt.

He said the cause of the fire was not yet known.

It took quite some time for the fire tenders to reach Rania from Sirsa and Ellenabad as there is no fire service in the town.

Surprisingly, Hafed has a stock of 8 lakh bags (40,000 metric tonnes) in its storehouse at Rania but there is no in-house firefighting system there. The stack that caught fire had 3000 bags of wheat.

Chandigarh, April 29
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today expressed hope that MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi’s plea in the defection matter would be decided expeditiously.

Taking on record a statement made on behalf of the Haryana Speaker on prompt disposal of the matter, the Bench asserted it hoped that every endeavour would be made to dispose of the petition at the earliest.

The Bench also gave Bishnoi the liberty to approach the court again in case of unwarranted delay. Issuing the directions in an open court, the Bench of Justice MM Kumar and Justice TPS Mann asserted if there was an extra-ordinary delay to the disliking of the writ petitioner - Bishnoi, he could always move an appropriate application.

The Bench also made clear its decision to monitor the progress of the case by keeping the matter pending. In fact, Justice Kumar fixed June 2 as the next date of hearing and for “further consideration”.

The Bench also directed the continuation of orders staying the operation of the single Judge’s judgment fixing a four-month deadline for the Speaker to decide Bishnoi’s plea against “defection” by five members from his Haryana Janhit Congress party.

The “defecting” MLAs -Satpal Sangwan, Vinod Bhyana, Narender Singh, Zileram and Dharam Singh - had joined the Congress in November, 2009.

Sirsa, April 29
Mahender Partap Singh, Haryana Power Minister, today said the state would become self-sufficient in power generation by 2012.Talking to mediapersons here, the minister said during the past six years, the state government had added additional power generation capacity of 3,230 MW. This, he claimed, was more than double the power generation capacity of 1,587 MW achieved during the past 40 years.

He said 5,700 MW of power was being generated today in the state, adding that the state government had implemented an ambitious project to add additional power generation capacity of 5,000 MW.

Under the project, the Yamunanagar Thermal Plant, 1,500 MW Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power Plant at Jharli and 1,200 MW Thermal Power Plant at Khedar had already been commissioned and the construction work on 1,320 MW thermal plant at Khanpur village in Jhajjar was in progress.

The process to set up nuclear power plant of 2,800 MW power generating capacity at Gorakhpur in Fatehabad had also been started, he added.

The minister, who also holds the charge of technical education, said the number of technical institutes had been increased from six in 1966 to 596 during the tenure of the present state government.

Yamunanagar, April 29
Shopkeepers in the twin towns of Yamunanagar and Jagadhari today downed shutters for half a day today as a token of grief and sympathy with the families of 12 victims of yesterday’s Manakpur accident. All-party condolence meetings were also held at Yamunanagar and Jagadhari.

The bodies of 11 victims, including two faculty members of the Shree Ram Institutions, were cremated yesterday after after a post-mortem examination. The body of Joginder Singh, the truck driver, could not be cremated yesterday as his relatives had to come from Rohtak. Heart-rending scene were witnessed at the cremation ground in Yamunanagar and Jagadhari

Tributes were paid to the dead at condolence meetings held at various educational institutions.

SL Saini, Principal, said the institute had been closed till Satuday in view of the tragedy. He expressed profound sorrow on the demise of faculty members and students. A condolence meeting would be held at the institute tomorrow.

Meanwhile, two students, Sakshi and Meenakshi, have been shifted to the PGI, Chandigarh, while three are under treatment at private hospital in Yamunanagar.

Representatives of various political parties at the condolence meeting called upon the district administration to streamline traffic, particularly heavy vehicles loaded with construction material, which had become a major cause of accidents.