Gurgaon, July 6
Residents of Hayatpur and several adjoining villages held a mahapanchayat to discuss the future course of action over the police inaction in the murder case of Hayatpur sarpanch Rakesh several days ago.

The villagers had also invited the district administrative officials to the mahapanchayat, but nobody from their side went to the mahapanchayat.

Annoyed at the “police inaction” as well as the failure of administrative officials to turn up at the mahapanchayat, the villagers decided to block the railway track.

Following this, the protesters went to Garhi Harsaru railway station and blocked the railway track, affecting the movement of trains originating from and going towards Delhi.

Later, on being assured of prompt action by the Deputy Commissioner, the villagers lifted the blockade and the rail traffic resumed.

The Hayatpur sarpanch, Rakesh, had been shot by contract killers. The villagers had alleged that another Rakesh of the same village was behind the murder.

However, after about two weeks of the murder, the police has failed to arrest Rakesh, which led to today’s protest by the villagers.

JD (U) MP Sharad Yadav also attended today’s mahapanchayat and decried the law and order situation in the state.

Chandigarh, July 6
Exactly a month after the Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker sought the “correction” of the June 2 order recording an undertaking on his behalf to fix at least four dates of hearing a month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today dismissed the plea.

The petition against the Division Bench’s order was filed during the summer break. As the plea came up for hearing, it failed to find favour with the Bench headed by Justice MM Kumar.

The Speaker had earlier submitted that "no such statement was made by the senior counsel. Rather, it was the observation of the Bench that the Speaker should fix at least four dates of hearing in one month".

His plea read: "The Speaker is a constitutional functionary and it is for the Speaker to make every possible endeavour to decide the disqualification petitions at the earliest. This has already been so expressed by the Speaker….

“It seems that some typographical mistake has occurred while recording the order dated June 2 which needs to be corrected."

The development is significant as on the face of it, the Speaker will now have to stick to the undertaking of fixing at least four dates of hearing a month.

The Solicitor-General of India, Gopal Subramanium, on behalf of the Speaker, on April 29 had expressed an inclination towards “drawing a timetable after conferring with the parties and in order to dispose of the petition expeditiously”.

Subramanium, on that day, had also asserted that the Speaker had made every endeavour to dispose of the petition as expeditiously as possible.

As the case came up for hearing on June 2, the Bench had taken on record the alleged assurance on the Speaker’s behalf that at least four dates of hearing would be fixed in a month. The Bench had added that keeping this in view, the timetable would also be fixed.

The hearing before the Speaker was also advanced to June 6. The high court had earlier also expressed hope and trust that Kuldip Bishnoi’s plea in the defection matter would be decided expeditiously. The “defecting” MLAs — Satpal Sangwan, Vinod Bhyana, Narender Singh, Zileram and Dharam Singh — had joined the Congress in November 2009.

Sirsa, July 6
The government has made modifications to its earlier orders on deputation of school lecturers to Aarohi Model Senior Secondary Schools in the state.

The Tribune had published a news item “Lecturers resent being shifted to ‘far-off’ Aarohi schools” in these columns on July 3 after the state government sent 295 school lecturers from Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Jind, Kaithal, Panipat, Mewat, Palwal and Mahendragarh to the newly setup Aarohi Model Senior Secondary Schools on June 30. These school lecturers had alleged that many of them have been sent to far-off places without taking their consent.

In his orders issued yesterday, the Director-General of School Education (DGSE) has cancelled the orders of deputation for teachers belonging to priority categories i.e. widows, divorcees, differently abled and visually impaired.

The Director-General has also clarified that the deputation of school lecturers was temporary in nature and only a stopgap arrangement till recruitments were made for Aarohi schools .

The orders clarify that the deputation orders shall continue till July 31 and further extension, if any, would be made only as a “last resort”.

The DG has clarified that the salaries of the deputed officials would be drawn from their present places of posting and their stations shall not be treated as vacant for the purpose of transfers.

Fatehabad, July 6
The police today arrested Mamta Kataria, a zila parishad member from Ratia in Fatehabad, for using fake documents to contest poll.

She was produced in a local court which sent her to judicial custody for 14 days.

Earlier, the police had registered a case under Sections 411 and 420, IPC, against Mamta and her husband, Ashok Kataria, on the orders of a court in Ratia.

Neetu Odh, who contested the poll against Mamta, had filed a criminal complaint against both of them.

Neetu had alleged that Mamta, a resident of Tohana, had used the residential ID and voter number of a namesake, Mamta, wife of Kataria from Jakhal town to become eligible to contest poll. She also alleged that Mamta’s husband, a lecturer, misused his position to attest the fake documents of his wife. 

Unn (Bhiwani)/Rohtak, July 6
In another case of suspected ‘atta-satta’ (barter) marriage, a young married girl died mysteriously at her parental village, Unn, in Bhiwani district recently. While no formal complaint has been lodged against anyone so far, the postmortem report has lent credence to the theory of alleged murder. The police has been awaiting the viscera- examination report from the Forensic Science Laboratory at Karnal.

The victim identified as Nirmala (23), a resident of Unn and married to Takdeer of Mangalpuri locality in Rohtak last year, died at her parental house on June 17. The police took the body into custody and got a postmortem examination conducted after a complaint from her in-laws, who were suspicious about the cause of the death of their daughter-in-law. She had gone to her parents’ house about two months ago, claims Dharam Chand, father-in-law of the deceased. “She had given birth to a baby boy a few days before she died, but her kin did not tell us the exact cause of the death. This made us inform the police,” he said, adding that the village panchayat persuaded him not to lodge a formal complaint. While the deceased was cremated at Rohtak on June 18, her baby fell ill and died at the PGIMS here a few days later. However, sources in Unn village claimed that the girl had allegedly been murdered after relations between the girl and her father got strained as the girl wanted to return to her in-laws’ house and her father opposed this. It was also said that Nirmala could have been married to Takdeer under the ‘atta- satta’ system through a middleman, who helped Mahavir (Nirmala’s father) to get a bride for one of his sons. The girl’s family’s move to get married one of their sons, who had been mentally challenged, got thwarted after the bride’s family at Dujana (Jhajjar) refused to marry off their daughter to him. The family had to marry one of the minor sons (16) to the girl at the last moment. The situation turned murkier after the girl found her groom much younger and decided to return to her family. This made Mahavir’s family upset and he asked his daughter, Nirmala, to return to her family though she wanted to return to her husband’s house, said local residents. Mahavir may have been infuriated with the broken marriage of his son and this resulted in the return of her married daughter to her family. The local panchayat forced us to keep silent, claimed Man Singh, a kin of the victim’s husband. Ashwin Sanvi, SSP, Bhiwani, said though the postmortem report had revealed injuries, he added that the police had not registered a case of murder.

Chandigarh, July 6
A month after an ex-sarpanch in Karnal district was “brutally murdered”, his son today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court for a probe by the CBI or some independent agency as “no action has been taken by the police” due to the alleged involvement of two influential politicians.

Taking up the petition filed by Rajender, Karam Singh’s son, Justice Mahesh Grover not only put MLAs, Jile Ram Sharma and Om Parkash Jain, on notice along with other respondents, but also directed the state DGP to ensure protection to the petitioner and the witnesses. The case will now come up for further hearing on August 2.

The petitioner also sought directions to the police to take appropriate action against the MLAs and “their accomplices” “who killed not only the petitioner’s father, but also Chamel Singh, a key witness, and his relative”.

The petition has alleged that Om Parkash Jain, the then Transport Minister, demanded Rs 5 lakh for the recruitment of Karam Singh’s nephew, Sandeep, as a clerk.

The petitioner said he too had applied for the post of conductor. Initially Rs 6.5 lakh was demanded but Jain later agreed to accept Rs 6 lakh. He added Rs 5 lakh was demanded by Sharma for helping a relative, Sunil, in his recruitment in the Haryana Police.

Gurgaon, July 6
Municipal Councillor Virender, alias Binder Gujjar, who was arrested yesterday in connection with a double murder case, was sent to two-day police custody by a local court today.

Two persons travelling in a car had been gunned down at Rithoj village,near Bhondsi, a few days ago.

According to police sources, they had got a clue that Binder had some dispute with Dharmi, one of the murdered persons.

Meanwhile, Naveen Kasana and Udayvir, who were arrested earlier in connection with the Bhondsi double murder case, have been sent to judicial custody.

The Delhi police had arrested the two contract killers who had allegedly been hired for the double murder. The police claims that these killers were allegedly hired by Binder Gujjar.