Rohtak, May 29
With the main accused still missing, the police has arrested four more persons, including a woman, in connection with the acid attack on an 18-year-old girl, who is a district-level volleyball player, here on Saturday. There have been a total of six arrests in this case so far. The accused have been remanded in 14 days’ judicial custody.

The police had already
arrested two youths on Sunday, who had allegedly thrown acid on the victim, Ritu Saini. While she suffered around 20 per cent burns, the police made a breakthrough within 48 hours of the incident by arresting the two suspects, who admitted to their involvement in the incident. The youths, identified as Neeraj and Pradeep, both hailing from Jamni village, had been hired by Ram Niwas, the main accused, to throw acid on the girl. Ram Niwas, also a resident of Jamni village and a cousin of the victim, had reportedly resorted to the acid attack after he was frustrated in his “affair” with the victim.

The four persons arrested by the police and produced in the local court today have been identified as Sohan, Sanjay, Manjit and Rajwanti, all residents of Jamni village of Jind district. The police said while these persons had knowledge of the conspiracy and had been involved in an indirect manner in the incident, it was Manjit’s motorcycle that was used by the two youths to throw acid on the victim. The police claims that it was closing in on the main accused, Ram Niwas, and could be arresting him any time as it had got important clues after the arrest of six persons so far. The issue attained prominence due to the visit of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to the district. The police said Ram Niwas had given the contract for throwing acid on the girl to two youths who were paid Rs 25,000 as advance. 

Sirsa, May 29
After lying low for nearly four months, former minister and senior Congress leader Jagdish Nehra has once again opened a front against the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in the state.

Nehra, who has been touring villages located in the Rania Assembly seat of Sirsa for the past four days, alleged that Congress workers were an ignored lot in the present regime.

“Posts of chairmen and vice-chairmen of various bodies like market committees, improvement trusts and others, where the office-bearers come through nominations, have been lying vacant ever since the Hooda government came to power,” Nehra says during his village meetings.

“Over 8,000 party workers, who have worked hard to bring the Congress to power twice in succession, can be accommodated if the state government makes nominations for these posts,” the Congress leader adds.

Nehra, who has served as minister twice during the Congress regime in the eighties and the nineties, alleges during his meetings that bureaucracy has been given a long rope in the present government, rendering the committed party workers ineffective in the dispensation.

Talking to The Tribune, Nehra said he along with Rao Inderjit Singh and Ved Parkash Vidrohi had given a memorandum in this regard to the AICC secretary for Haryana, BK Hariprasad, some time back.

Known for his proximity to Union Minister Selja, Nehra, who aspires to contest the next Assembly elections from Rania, had launched a tirade against the Hooda government during his village tour in January this year.

Later, in his “Nav Nirman Rally” at Rania in March this year, Hooda gave a loud and clear message to people that he stood with Ranjit Singh, a known detractor of Nehra in the Congress, who contested the seat unsuccessfully in 2009.

“So what if Ranjit Singh lost the last election for some reason, as long as I am the Chief Minister, he will be your MLA for me,” Hooda told a huge gathering that had assembled to listen to him.

He also gave an indirect signal that he would field Ranjit Singh again from Rania in the coming election.

Fatehabad, May 29
With Haryana getting 500 MW additional power from the Central pool from June 1, people reeling under frequent power cuts may get some respite. However, the reprieve may not last long as the transplantation of paddy in Haryana begins on June 15, leading to more demand for power in the agricultural sector.

The power situation continues to be grim in both rural and urban areas of the district.

Scheduled and unscheduled power cuts leave residents sweating under the soaring temperature.

ML Kaushik, Deputy Commissioner, addressed a meeting of senior officers of the Dakshin Haryana Bijlee Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) today.

Kaushik told DHBVN officials to gear up their resources before paddy transplantation begins on June 15 .

Sirsa, May 29
Hundreds of villagers today locked the village primary school at Meerpur in Sirsa and staged a dharna demanding the transfer of a teacher.

The villagers alleged that the teacher had molested a mid-day meal worker when she was preparing food on Monday. Surender Sharma, Block Division Education Officer, said an inquiry would be held against the teacher.

Bhiwani, May 29
Haryana Public Health Engineering Minister Kiran Chaudhary said today that Rs. 89 crore would be spent by the Public Health Engineering Department on implementation of sewerage and drinking water projects in the Dadri assembly constituency.

Chaudhary was addressing people after laying the foundation stone of a Rs 6.81 crore sewerage plant in Charkhi Dadri, 29 km from here — OC

Chandigarh, May 29
A four-km stretch that will ordinarily take not more than five minutes to cross in a car is a nearly 45-minute bone-rattling drive on the Yamunanagar-Indri-Karnal road because the contractor allotted the job of carpeting the road quit without completing it.

With mining banned in Haryana and around, the contractor, unable to meet the growing expenses of a shrinking material base, chose to leave it incomplete even at the cost of attracting a penalty.

In Ambala, work on repairing the roads damaged due to the floods of 2010 is progressing at a snail’s pace while work on the four-laning of a road in Kaithal city is yet to get under way. And these are not stray projects facing the heat for want of road-laying material.

As if closure of mining was not enough, the Public Works (Bridges and Roads) Department is now facing a contractor crunch, adversely impacting the road-construction programmes throughout the state.

In a double whammy, contractors are now shying away from bidding for new tenders while work has considerably slowed down in ongoing projects. Forced to recall road-repair and upgradation tenders with many a projects in limbo, the department has framed a policy that, it feels, will help them put these back on track.

Under the new policy, the department will allow bids higher than the regular cost of a project to compensate the contractor for the transportation of high-cost material from the nearest available source till mining re-opens in the state.

Sources in the department said to keep these bids from going through the roof, the department would draw up its own list of cost of material in the nearest quarries and transporting of the same.

The policy also lays down that once mining re-opens in the state, the material lying with the contractor would be assessed within 15 days for which the hiked rates would be paid. That done, the amount equal to the cost of material and transportation would be deducted from the quoted rates, given the climbdown of material prices due to opening of mining in Haryana.

Since the proposal of higher bidding cannot be extended to ongoing projects, the department has proposed to relax the time limit set for the completion of the projects. The sources said the progress in all ongoing projects was slow because mining was completely closed in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, it is only partially open in Uttarakhand and Rajasthan from where all material was coming.

The policy will be put up before the Chief Minister for approval. 

Jind, May 29
A team led by the Additional Secretary of the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj Bodies, Hrusikesh Panda, visited Bibipur village today regarding the launch of a drive aimed at improving the Child Sex Ratio (CSR) in the state.

The team hinted at showcasing the village as a model village at the national level regarding the programme. This is perhaps the first time the ministry has taken up such a drive and Bibipur is the first village from the state visited by its team for the drive.

“We have been in touch with the state and Union governments regarding the work being done by the gram panchayat on the issue and it was our campaign which attracted the attention of the Union Government,” claimed Sunil Jaglan, sarpanch of the village. Claiming that all activities of the village panchayat were being put online regularly, he said Bibipur was the first village of the state which had been online and had its own portal.

He said all information and activities of the village especially those connected with awareness on CSR and female foeticide were regularly updated on the website.

The panchayat members told the team that it was the first village in Haryana to announce a social boycott of the family of couple in case of female foeticide and the decision to honour the couple going in for the family planning after having one or two female children, he added.

Chandigarh, May 29
Focusing its attention on Haryana Government?s decision to permit the sale of 20 acres of shamlat land in Jhajjar district to Mukta Arts Limited, whose chairman is film director-producer Subhash Ghai, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today ordered the maintenance of status quo.

The directions came on a petition filed by Nafe Singh of Badsa village in Bahadurgarh. In his petition placed before the Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Alok Singh, Nafe Singh has sought directions to the state of Haryana and other respondents to “stop forthwith construction activities” undertaken by Mukta Arts and Whistling Woods International, whose chairman is also Subhash Ghai.

Directions have also been sought for ordering a high-level inquiry into the “entire transaction” and conclude the same within three months.

The petitioner contended that the government decision to grant permission to the panchayat to sell shamlat land to a private institute was in violation of the relevant rules; and was “liable to be treated as arbitrary, discriminatory and an act of favoritism”.

He said on January 6, 2010, the then sarpanch passed a resolution for entering into an agreement for sale of panchayat shamlat deh land measuring 20 acres to these companies.

Sonepat, May 29
Lambasting the Congress government in the state for allegedly perpetrating several scams and its “failure” on all fronts, the HJC-BJP combine said that people had been striving for a change in the state.

Addressing a joint workers’ meeting here, HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi said the Hooda government had crossed all limits of corruption as new scams were getting exposed every day. “Every section of society, including farmers, traders, employees and workers, is fed up with the ‘anti-people’ policies of the government and wants to uproot it when an opportunity came by.”

Bishnoi also accused the state government of being biased in recruitment in government jobs as youths from one particular constituency are being recruited.