Gurgaon, December 20
Public outburst and high drama rocked Nuh of the Mewat region today following an accident which left one dead and six critically injured.

The locals who gathered at the spot torched three vehicles and beat up around six policemen, holding their inaction as the key reason for the mishap.

They claimed that the administration and the police were hand in glove with dumper owners who despite a court’s directive were allowed inside the city. They were also generally overspeeding and overloaded.

The villagers demanded action against the authorities.

Drama started when an overloaded highway dumper rammed into a dozen vehicles at Hodal Chowk. The vehicles included an Alto car, four autorickshaws, a motor cycle, a taxi and another dumper.

The collision also led to the falling of an electricity pole.

While Aas Mohmad, a resident of Sudaka village, died, six others were critically injured. They were rushed to the local General Hospital and later referred to Gurgaon and Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi.

Meanwhile, as word about the accident spread, locals from the area reached the spot and started protesting when the police tried to load the dead body in its van. They thrashed the officials of the PCR van, including constable Krishan, Sanjay, PCR driver Vajid Khan and deputy superintendent of police Sukhbir Singh.

Holding the police responsible for the accident, the angry mob torched a police Gypsy, a cab and a Haryana Roadways bus.

Things worsened when Gurgaon Divisional Commissioner Chandar Prakash who was en route to Nuh district court reached the spot. Seeing his pilot vehicle, the protesters tried to block his way. Though he tried to convince them by assuring action, nothing worked and he had to leave via another route.

It was only when a group of other armed locals intervened and supported the police that things were sorted out.

The torched vehicles continued to fume as the fire brigade took a long time to come.

“It was a public outburst and we acted to ensure that not much damage is done. We will take action against the miscreants,” said Sukhbir Singh.

Sirsa, December 20
Additional District and Sessions Judge RP Goyal today sentenced a person to imprisonment of seven years for raping a minor girl from Shahidanwali village after enticing her from her home.

The victim’s father had lodged a complaint with the police that Gopal, alias Rohit, a resident of Begu had lured away his 14-year-old daughter.

The police had registered a case under Sections 363 and 366 of the IPC at Sirsa Sadar police station and begun investigations. The police caught Gopal and the girl from near the Sirsa bus stand on June 11, 2010.

During a medical examination of the victim conducted in General Hospital, Sirsa, it was confirmed that she was raped repeatedly. The police later added Section 376 of the IPC in the FIR.

The court found Gopal guilty of the crime and awarded him seven years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 11,000.

The accused will have to undergo a further imprisonment of three months if he failed to pay the fine. 

Rohtak, December 20
The Chaubisi khap panchayat of Meham has imposed social boycott of anyone accused or convicted in rape or molestation case in the region.

This was declared at the meeting of the panchayat members held at Meham town, 30 km from here today.

A spokesperson said the decision comes in view of the rising incidents of this nature.

He said the recent incident in New Delhi had shaken the society and it was time that all right thinking people vow to fight against such heinous crimes.

He said the two-hour long meeting was held under the chairmanship of Tulsi Grewal.

The khap panchayat is recognised by the residents of 24 villages of the area.

Heads of several tapas (cluster of some villages), including Surajmal of Meham tapa, Jaiveer of Samain tapa, Jagdish Rathi of Balamba tapa, Bhim Singh Nehra of Nindana, Satbir of Bhaini Chanderpal and several prominent residents of the Meham Chaubisi took part in the meeting.

The panchayat members expressed concern over the rising incidents of crime against women in the both the urban and rural areas and resolved to stick to the traditional system of imposing a ban or boycott those responsible for such crimes.

The Chaubisi khap panchayat also appealed to all the panchayats in the region to adopt a strict stance to check such incidents in their respective areas.

Rewari, December 20
The police has arrested Vijay Kumar, husband of Rekha Devi (32), who ended her life by setting herself on fire after sprinkling kerosene on her at Jarthal village, 14 km from here, on December 14.

Vijay was today produced in a local court, which remanded him in 14-day judicial custody.

Earlier on a complaint filed by Sanjay, younger brother of the deceased, the police had registered a case of abetment to suicide against her husband Vijay and four others.

Sanjay had alleged that when his sister failed to arrange Rs 2 lakh sought as dowry by her in-laws, she was treated badly, forcing her to take the extreme step.

Sirsa, December 20
The Sirsa units of the All-India Women Democratic Association (AIDWA) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) today took out a procession against the recent brutal gang rape of a physiotherapy student in Delhi.

The agitators gave a memorandum addressed to the Union Home Minister to the Deputy Commissioner.

Maya Devi, president of the AIDWA led the demonstrators.

Sirsa AIDWA secretary Balbir Kaur Gandhi alleged that crime against women were on the rise but the government had been doing little to safeguard them.

The AIDWA demanded stern punishment for the perpetrators of the Delhi gang rape, besides seeking fast track courts for such cases.

Chandigarh, December 20
“Kurukshetra — Timeless Sanctity,” a book by author-bureaucrat Vijai Vardhan, tracing the historical and spiritual journey of the city of Kurukshetra, was released by Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda here this evening.

Congratulating Vijai Vardhan, a senior IAS officer of the Haryana government, Hooda hoped the book would prove to be trailblazer in introducing Kurukshetra’s timeless sanctity to the world.

Earlier, Vijai Vardhan said how as an IAS probationer he fell in love with the legendary town famous for the great battle of Mahabharata. He complimented his wife Sangita for suggesting the title of the book.

Saying that the book was the result of six years’ research, he asserted that penning the book had been a spiritually uplifting experience for him and his photographer friend Atul Sharma, who provided visual support to the book.

Shobit Arya from the publishing house, The Wisdom Tree, which has brought out the book, said the book would marketed in all English-speaking countries.

Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Mr Justice Ajay Tewari, Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, senior advocate ML Sarin, art historian BN Goswamy, Atul Sharma, Alok Dutt and Sangita Vardhan.

Chandigarh, December 20
Rakesh Gupta, Mission Director of the National Rural Health Mision, Haryana, has stressed the need for a more effective implementation of the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) in the state.

Gupta was presiding over a state-level third quarter review meeting of the deputy chief medical officers (TB) today. He laid stress on a more aggressive approach towards intensive education and communication activities under the RNTCP with more dissemination of information.

He also directed them to involve the Indian Medical Association and private practitioners regarding the notification of TB cases in the private sector. He also proposed a one-day workshop of all TB Officers of districts, central TB division officers, WHO consultants and medical college faculty for strengthening of the RNTCP and capacity-building of all stakeholders.

Meanwhile, a performa in consultation with state TB cell officials and WHO consultants on supportive supervision has been devised in the state. It consists of a questionnaire for health institutions at different levels. It would be dully filled in by the officials concerned and sent to the state TB cell on a monthly basis.

State TB Officer Rakesh Sehl impressed upon the involvement of other sectors in order to achieve the goal of universal access to the programme.

He said about 40,000 TB patients were treated under DOTS every year in Haryana. At present, 230 TB patients were under treatment in the DOTS Plus Site at the PGIMS, Rohtak. The success rate of patients treated in DOTS was more than 85 per cent.

Kurukshetra December 20
On the occasion of Kurukshetra Utsav-Geeta Jayanti Samaroh-2012, the marriages of 51 poor couples, including one Muslim couple, were performed here today.

These mass marriages were solemnised in accordance with the religious and cultural rites of the individual couples under the patronage of the Sara Devi Charitable Trust, New Delhi.

District police chief Rakesh Kumar Arya, was the chief guest on this occasion.

Each couple was provided with household articles, including double bed, bicycle, colour TV, sewing machine, boxes, 31 utensils, make-up box, two wrist watches, chairs and blankets, along with kanyadaan of Rs 1,100. 

Fatehabad, December 20
A team of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) comprising officials from several districts of Haryana today raided medical shops at Ratia in Fatehabad.

GL Singal, State Drug Controller-cum-Joint Commissioner, FDA, said the raids were conducted in view of the dubious history of some chemists in Ratia who have been in the past been found selling intoxicants.

A team comprising two assistant state drug controllers from Panchkula MP Gupta and Adarsh Goyal, senior drug control officer Nripen Goyal and Drug Control Officers -- Rajnish Dhaliwal from Mewat, Gurcharan Singh from Panipat, Parwinder Malik from Yamunanagar, Amandeep Singh from Rewari and Sandeep Hooda from Sonepat -- reached Ratia in the morning and started checking shops in eight teams.

“The officers have taken samples of 18 drugs, seized 22 types of allopathic drugs from a quack who was using these without licence and seized 12 bottles of a cough syrup used for a kick by addicts,” said Singal.

The Ratia area is notorious for the sale of narcotics and medicines used by addicts.

The FDA had raided several shops at Ratia earlier this year and a criminal case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) had been registered against one chemist.

“We kept today’s raids a closely guarded secret to ascertain whether our actions in the past have any impact on the chemists and we are satisfied that the situation is much better than what it used to be in the past,” said Singal. 

Sonepat, December 20
The process for preparing Aadhar cards for students who were beneficiaries under various scholarship schemes was started today at four places in the district to ensure that they were all issued these cards before December 31.

S.B.Lohia, Deputy Commissioner, who is the nodel officer for this project under different schemes, said 6,429 beneficiaries had been identified to be covered in the first phase in the district chosen for Aadhar card scheme.

The cards were being made at Geeta Vidya Mandir Girls College, Sonepat; Government Polytechnic, Sonepat; JK Polytechnic, Ratangarh; and Mukhi Polytechnic, Gohana’ in the district. Every educational institute had been allotted the particular centre for this purpose, he added

To cover beneficiaries under the Janani Suraksha Yojna, the Civil Surgeon had been directed to depute mobile vans with data collection machines and required staff to check pregnancy of the beneficiaries in their villages, he added.

Sonepat, December 20
The state spokesman of the INLD, Dr K.C. Bangar, today flayed the Congress for cutting a cruel joke with poor people by changing the definition of the poverty line every now and then.

He was addressing district-level workers meeting here in the party office.

He said about two years back, the daily income of a poor person was fixed at Rs 32 and it was revised to Rs 26 just after six months. Again after six months, it was pegged at Rs 22 and the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dixit astonished every one by assessing it at Rs 4 per day, he added.

“It reflects the thinking of Congress leaders towards the people living in poverty,” he said. He claimed the Congress had lost the sympathy of the poor people who were striving hard to arrange two meals in this time of increasing prices of essential commodities.

He also criticised the state government for not fulfilling the promise of providing the round-the-clock power supply. The units at Yamunanagar, Khedar and Jharli with Chinese machinery were producing only 9 per cent of the installed capacity, he said.

Chandigarh, December 20
The Haryana government has focused on cluster development as one of the strategies for industrial development and there is a proposal to set up common facility centres in partnership with the industry.

These centres would address common needs of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the areas of research and development, technology upgradation support, standardisation of products, quality testing, marking facilities and marketing initiatives with promotion of branding of products.

Stating this here today, a spokesman of Haryana Industries and Commerce Department said detailed project reports in case of four clusters had been prepared and out of which the Union Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME) had given approval in case of three clusters, namely footwear cluster, Bahadurgarh, print and pack cluster, Karnal, and home furnishing cluster, Panipat.

Diagnostic study reports in case of other eight clusters have also been prepared. Of these, work on the preparation of detailed project reports of four clusters was under way.

He said the detailed project reports in case of three clusters under the Industrial Infrastructure Upgradation Scheme (IIUS) of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India, has also been prepared and are currently under consideration of the Government of India.

He said the Department of Industries and Commerce, Haryana, had also undertaken a fresh survey of industrial units established and operating in the state. It was simultaneously intended to create a database of the number of existing and operating industrial units along with those in the process of being established.

Yamunanagar, December 20
Suresh Kumar, a tailor, and six others were injured in a blast at a scrap dealer’s shop in Ranjitpur village of the district. The explosion occurred when a truck-load of scrap was being unloaded at the shop.

The deceased, Suresh Kumar, worked as a tailor in the vicinity of the shop. Six persons present near the shop were injured in the blast. They were rushed to the Civil Hospital.

Rewari, December 20
A BSF jawan Raj Kumar, a resident of Pachgaon village of Gurgaon, and his partner have been booked for cheating and forgery.

The accused obtained a ‘fake’ decree of dissolution of his marriage with Sangeeta. On the basis of the fake document he allegedly married a young girl from West Bengal.

On the basis of a complaint filed by Sangeeta yesterday, Rampura police registered a case against Raj Kumar and his partner on Tuesday.

Sirsa, December 20
The police has booked a man after his wife Soma Rani, 30, died under mysterious circumstances at Panniwala Mota village in Sirsa yesterday.

In his complaint to the police, her father Shish Pal alleged that the deceased had married Raj Kumar from Mohammadpur Rohi village 10 years ago. The couple did not have any children because of which Raj Kumar allegedly quarrelled with his daughter, he alleged.

Raj Kumar worked as a contractor and lived in the HAFED godown near the sugar mills in Panniwala Mota.

Shish Pal alleged that last evening he was told over the phone that Soma had got injured. When he reached Panniwala Mota village, he found his daughter’s body lying burnt in the bathroom. Some bedding lying in the verandah was also found burnt.