Chandigarh, October 17
A multi-model logistics hub over 1,100 acres entailing an infrastructure cost of nearly Rs 3,000 crore and an industrial estate to boost investment, income and employment, besides a fortnight’s freight journey shrinking to 20 hours once the Delhi-Mumbai freight corridor is operational -- that is the roadmap for the miraculous transformation of Rewari-Mahendergarh which will impact three-fourths of Haryana.

However, in the debate in agriculture versus industrialisation, this ambitious project seems to be hanging by a thread at the mercy of land availability and politics. That is probably why, after a couple of meetings, talks for acquisition of 3,664 acres in Rewari have hit a roadblock.

The Bhoomi Adhigrahan Virodh Samiti, in talks with the Haryana Government, is not only reluctant but divided over parting with its “fertile land” and adamant that compensation be given as per provisions of the new land acquisition legislation.

More importantly, the samiti wants acquisition to be put to vote, a provision under the new policy when the land is being acquired by private players. Their idea in seeking a vote is that most farmers will go against it, the project will be derailed and their land will be saved.

The samiti also wants dropping of criminal cases registered against farmers in July 2012, when arson and violence broke out in protest against land acquisition.

While Ram Krishan Mehlawat, a member of the samiti, insists that the farmers are against giving up their fertile land for an industrial project, he says they can reconsider acquisition if the government agrees to play by the new rules of the game.

“We are unwilling partners in this development plan since it means forgoing our fertile land. Ahir leaders have neither been heard nor been involved in talks. We might still agree to acquisition proceedings if the government accepts our demands. So far, the chairman of the committee holding talks with us, Industries Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, has not yet agreed to this, stating the new legislation is yet to be notified. The ball is in the government’s court,” Mehlawat claims.

While this “doublespeak” of the samiti has left the government confused, sources attribute its flip-flop to intra-party politics. So far, a sulking Capt Ajay Yadav, Power Minister and a prominent Ahir leader, has chosen to distance himself from these talks.

Sources maintain that though the government had initially announced to associate him with the talks, it remained a mere announcement and nothing more. “He is definitely not going to volunteer his services,” an aide maintained.

Meanwhile, Surjewala, trying to bring the samiti members round to the government’s viewpoint, has fixed another meeting for October 22 though the demand for voting has been outrightly rejected since, under the new, yet-to-be-notified, legislation, the acquisition process can be put to vote when it is either for a public-private partnership project or for a private party, requiring 70 per cent and 80 per cent consent of landholders, respectively.

“The project will bring unprecedented stimulus to the area and open up opportunities for Haryana. The government is looking into their demands though voting is ruled out since this is a government project,” Surjewala said.

Combining rail and road linkages, this project in a landlocked state with no scope of a port also entails the development of the Manesar-Bawal region over 400 sq km. While a resolution on land acquisition is hanging fire, the Haryana Government is keen to expedite it since a delay could translate into a gain elsewhere.

“This economic driver is one of the eight nodes identified by the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor. While the funds are available for the takeoff and development, a delay will transfer resources to another node while Haryana shifts to the backburner,” sources said. 

Karnal, October 17
The district administration today succeeded in keeping the tempers under control after days of tension between rival farmers over land consolidation in the Gharonda area of Karnal.

Tension was brewing between rival groups of farmers of Kalram, Araipur, Bharatpur, Lalupur and Amritpur villages in the Gharonda area, which had made the situation “volatile” after womenfolk from the agitating group threatened to commit self-immolation. The district administration today held discussions with a seven-member team of the agitating farmers of the five affected villages in the presence of the Commissioner, Rohtak Division, Chander Prakash, and assured that amicable solution would be found to resolve the dispute and asked the villagers to maintain peace.

The aggrieved farmers would file an appeal with the Commissioner, who would examine the record and verify the facts and claims and possession would be given to the owners as per the canons of justice. Out of the total 3,471 acres of land, the dispute relates to 250-300 acres as possession of 80per cent of the land has already been given to the owners as per the April 1999 consolidation.

Superintendent of Police Sushank Anand said the villagers had assured to abide by the law and peace committees with members of both the groups had been formed.

However, as far as the cancellation of the FIR registered against the villagers, who went on rampage on October 15, was concerned, the cases would be investigated, he added.

The issue of harvesting of the remaining paddy crop was also resolved as the agitating farmers admitted that the crop was sown by the rival group, who were owners as per the 1999 consolidation and not by them and therefore the present land owners would harvest the standing crop but no new crop would be sown on the land until further decision on allotment of land.

Pradeep Kalram said they had suspended the agitation after assurance from the administration and also allowed the rival group to harvest the crop sown on the disputed land.

The administration has also agreed to transfer patwaris who allegedly connived with the opposite party and became instrumental in altering the revenue entries and changing the ownership of land during April 1999 consolidation, he said.

Palwal/Faridabad, October 17
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) said today that the BJP would have to snap its ties with the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) to forge a possible electoral alliance with it.

Addressing party workers at Palwal, INLD president Ashok Arora said his party was open to forge an alliance with the BJP. “However, till the time BJP is in alliance with the HJC, the INLD will not form an alliance with it in Haryana,” he said.

Dushyant Singh, a grandson of INLD supremo and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, was present when Arora made his observations about the BJP.

Arora and Dushyant jointly held meetings of workers in Palwal and Faridabad to mobilise support for the INLD’s November 1 rally at Kurukshetra to observe Devi Lal’s birth anniversary.

Arora, however, made it clear that his party would support any non-Congress formation at the Centre after the next Lok Sabha elections.

Addressing party workers at Faridabad, the INLD leaders were critical of the Haryana Government. They charged it of having adopted a partisan approach in development of the state.

Arora was critical of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s recent announcement about his government’s decision to make 65,000 appointments.

Hisar, October 17
Claiming to have launched several schemes for the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes in the state, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today condemned the opposition parties for criticising the state government over the issue of welfare schemes for these sections.

Addressing a public meeting on the eve of Valmiki Jayanti here, the Chief Minister said the previous INLD-BJP alliance government had provided only Rs 49 crore during 2004-05, while his government had earmarked a budget of Rs 423 crore for various welfare schemes for these communities during 2013-14.

Striking a difference between the present and previous governments, Hooda said while there had been encroachments on the government land in every town during the previous regime, his government had been providing plots and affordable houses to the needy people.

Earlier, the Chief Minister announced a special ‘girdawari’ to assess the damage caused to paddy and cotton crops due to the recent rain.

After laying the foundation stone of a regional office of the Haryana State Seed Certification Agency, Hooda said this regional office would benefit farmers of the Hisar, Bhiwani and Mahendragarh districts.

Chandigarh, October 17
In Haryana, more than 19.14 lakh tonne of paddy has so far arrived in various mandis during the current procurement season as compared to 18.21 lakh tonne last year.

A spokesman of the Food and Supplies Department said Karnal district was leading in the paddy arrival where 5,92,781 tonne of paddy had arrived in the mandis, followed by Kurukshetra with 5,68,490 tonne. Kaithal district ranked third where 2,65,275 tonne of paddy had arrived, in Ambala district 2,22,545 tonne of paddy had arrived. — TNS

Chandigarh, October 17
Even as the Haryana Government has reportedly okayed a second charge sheet against whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka, there is some good news for the officer.

The CBI has decided to register a preliminary enquiry (PE) into the alleged wheat seed scam in Haryana after a nearly six-month probe following a complaint by Khemka. "For an indepth probe into the matter, the CBI is in the process of registering the preliminary enquiry within a day or two," CBI's Chandigarh unit SP Vineet Brij Lal said today.

A month before being shunted out of the Haryana Seed Development Corporation (HSDC), the whistleblower IAS officer had written to the CBI and sought the filing of a criminal case against officials of two government agencies for their alleged role in a seed scam and for causing loss to the public exchequer.

In a letter on March 4, Khemka alleged that National Cooperative Consumers' Federation and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation officials had supplied seeds at higher rates to the HSDC, causing a loss of Rs 5 crore to the state exchequer.

However, officials of both agencies had maintained that no rules had been bent and due procedures were followed in the supply to the HSDC.

Meanwhile, the Haryana Government is reportedly preparing to serve a second charge sheet against Khemka for the alleged low sale of wheat seed during his tenure in HSDC as its Managing Director from October 15, 2012, to April 4 this year.

About three weeks back, the Haryana Government had decided to charge sheet Khemka, who claims to have been transferred around 44 times during his career so far, for alleged administrative misconduct in cancelling the mutation of the land deal between businessman Robert Vadra and real estate major DLF in Gurgaon.

The 1991-batch IAS officer has been held liable for alleged administrative misconduct for overstepping jurisdiction in passing orders to cancel the mutation of 3.5 acres in Gurgaon's Shikohpur village.The land was sold by Vadra to the DLF. 

Gurgaon, October 17
Usually, its gold, silver, clothes, sweets etc which make it to the shopping list of Diwali, but there are some areas in Rajasthan and Haryana which mark the occasion by buying girls to be used as bonded wives or ‘molkis’ as they are popularly called.

Teenaged girls are reportedly sold much below the price of a cow in the areas of Mewat, Palwal, Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur.

Girls are bought before the festival of Diwali and married to older men on the occasion of "Dev Uthani Ekadashi", considered to be an auspicious day, which falls on November 13 this year.

Girls from the North-East are much in demand now, as 80 per cent of the girls rescued by NGOs like Bachpan Bachao and Empower India are from the area.

“Today, every second ‘molki’ is from the North-East. These girls are more submissive than the local ones. They are not prostitutes but properly wedded,” said the sarpanch of a village in Alwar district.

According to the latest report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which covered over 92 villages in Haryana, nearly 9,000 women had been brought from Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha over the last few years.

Middlemen bring these girls with a promise to get jobs for them, but are sold off to older widowers or simply as bonded labourers to work and earn money for the family.

The price of a girl is determined by her age, virginity and physical strength. While teenagers from 13-18 years of age are costly ‘items’, a woman who looks beyond 25 barely gets any takers.

Sakina, who was recently rescued, was sold to a family at Pignod village this year for just Rs 13,000. She cooked food for this family of 12 and took care of the cattle and was sexually exploited by four men, including her husband, her father-in-law’s brother and two brothers-in-law.

“The girls bear the brunt of skewed sex ration here. The authorities continue to sleep over the rampant human trafficking in the area. Right from local sarpanch to MLA, everybody knows about a girl being bought or harassed. While its takes more than Rs 20,000 to get a good cow here, you can get a bride of your choice with as little as Rs 10,000. While villagers call it a marriage, these girls have no legal rights or even existence. Come Diwali and you can find these villages bustling with excitement over getting new girls,” said Sahfiq R Khan of Empower India.

Mewat Superintendent of Police Anil Dhawan said, “The police has taken action wherever required. We cannot be held responsible for lack of complaints. There has been no case where we got a complaint and evaded action.”

Chandigarh, October 17
Four love letters, penned down before emotions of love turned into allegations of lust, have saved a man from serving a 10-year sentence. Satish would have been behind bars but for those four love letters written by the “victim” to him after their “first encounter”.

A chemist, Satish, was convicted for rape and criminal intimidation under Section 376 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code before being sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and a fine of Rs 30,000.

The prosecution had claimed that the “victim” was studying in class VIII in 2005, when her mother went to the chemist shop for getting medicines to treat her daughter’s fever.

Satish promised to treat the “victim” after visiting the house. When he reached there, she was all alone as her mother had left for collecting fodder for animals. He then raped her after making her lose consciousness by administering an injection.

Taking up his appeal against the State of Haryana, Justice M Jeyapaul asserted, “It is her version that the accused used to call her at different places. She had been raped not only at her house, but also in the house of the accused. To top it all, she had come out with a damaging version which lethally shakes the very foundation laid by her that she had written four love letters to the accused. But very conveniently, she would state that those love letters were got written by the accused under threat.

“Under threat, one letter might have been written by her, but it is quite unbelievable that four love letters had been written by her to the accused. The very fact that four love letters had emanated from the prosecutrix completely demolishes the case of the prosecution.

“In my considered view, the admission of the fact that she had written four love letters to the accused would unambiguously establish that she continued to have consensual sex with accused Satish, as otherwise she would not have gone at the calling of the accused to various places to have sex with him. She would not have preferred to go to the house of the accused to have sex with him.”

Justice Jeyapaul added, “The admission of the prosecutrix would disclose that within about 15 to 20 days of the first encounter in the year 2005, she wrote the first love letter to the accused. No victim of such a rape would have chosen to shoot off any love letter within a span of about 15 to 20 days to the assailant. The subsequent conduct of the prosecutrix would go to demonstrate that the case of the prosecution that the prosecutrix was made unconscious by administering some injection and thereafter raped by the accused is totally false.”

Ambala, October 17
The court has extended for two days the police remand of three officials of the Ambala police in the detainee death case.

The in charge of police post 2, Satbir Hooda, and two other police personnel were arrested after the recovery from the rail track of the body of Ram Kumar, who was illegally detained in the police post. The court remanded them to police custody for one day on Wednesday.

Ram Kumar was cremated this morning in Ambala City soon after his body reached here from the PGI in Rohtak, where the post-mortem examination was conducted.

HPCC chief Phool Chand Mulana, local MLA Venod Sharma, Commissioner of Police Rajbir Deswal, Deputy Commissioner KM Pandurang and Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Vinod Kaushik were present.

Sharma said the Chief Minister had announced Rs 5 lakh for the victim’s family. Later, Mulana told the DCP that the Chief Minister had taken up the matter seriously and justice should be given at every cost.

Vikram, who sustained some injuries, was still admitted to the Civil Hospital. His family said his wedding, scheduled this month, would now be solemnised on November 10.

The cuff tied to Vikram's leg could not be removed. Kaushik said a judicial magistrate had been probing the matter and the cuff would be removed after the recording of his statement in court. The court had issued summons for Friday to Vikram for recording his statement.

Meanwhile, the local police handed over all documents related to the case to the state crime bureau, which would investigate the case.

Union minister Selja visited the houses of Ram Kumar and Vikram to express her condolences to the aggrieved families. Talking to mediapersons, she said the state government should take up the matter seriously.

She said that the death of a Dalit youth in police custody was a serious matter and a CBI probe should be conducted. She said the incident indicated that the crime graph had not reduced.

She said the officers responsible for this incident should be booked. She said the compensation of Rs 5 lakh was not sufficient.

She said the state government should provide a government job to the next of kin of Ram Kumar and to Vikram. She said relevant sections of the SC/ST Atrocity Act should be added in the FIR.

Ambala, October 17
As many as three persons, including a father-son duo, were killed when their motorcycles collided with each other near Kesri railway station last evening.

The deceased were identified as Gurdeep Singh (19), a resident of Dinarpur village in Ambala district, Ashwani Kumar (23) and his father Rameswar Singh (52), both residents of Pipli in Kurukshetra district.

Sources said the accident took place when the motorcycles of Ashwani and Gurdeep collided with each other near Nagla bridge. Gurdeep was accompanied by Dharmbir Singh and the two were returning to their native village, while Ashwani and Rameswar were on their way to Saha from Pipli.

Both Gurdeep and Ashwani died on the spot, while Rameswar and Dharambir were rushed to the Civil Hospital, Ambala Cantt, from where they were referred to the PGI, Chandigarh. While Rameswer died on the way to the PGI, condition of Dharambir was stated to be critical.

Fatehabad, October 17
A 72-year-old man was arrested today on the charge of raping a 56-year-old relative at Tohana in Fatehabad. The victim is a resident of Bhiwani and her son is married to accused Sita Ram's daughter.

In her complaint, the woman reported that she came to Tohana to meet her daughter-in-law, after which Sita Ram took her to the Ratia road on on his motorcycle on some pretext and raped her in the fields.

The accused allegedly threatened her of dire consequences if she reported the incident to anyone. The police registered a case and arrested Sita Ram this morning.

Sources said the victim's daughter-in-law had been living with her father at Tohana after she had a dispute with her in-laws.

Gurgaon, October 17
The Gurgaon police has identified six of the 12 men who allegedly thrashed workers at the toll plaza on the Pataudi road and fled with Rs 1.85 lakh.

They reportedly belong to Garhi Harsaru and have no criminal background. They reportedly had a fight with the toll plaza operator in the morning and came at night to settle scores.

“We have identified six of them and traced their native areas. Raids are being conducted and they will be nabbed soon,” said Police Commissioner Alok Mittal.

Sources said the accused and their families had got in touch with the victims and were trying to arrive at a compromise with the assurance that they would return the money.

The assailants thrashed the toll plaza staff on October 14 and fled with the cash. The incident was over within two minutes. Toll plaza employees rang up the Gurgaon police, which took half an hour to reach the spot. 

Karnal, October 17
The State Vigilance Bureau has registered a case against a contractor and three employees of the Karnal Municipal Corporation (MC) for causing loss of crores to the state exchequer by clearing bogus bills.

During preliminary inquiry, the Vigilance Bureau had found the contractor’s firm, Friends Associates, Panchkula, MC Chief Sanitary Inspector VS Kataria, Sanitary Inspector Chaman Lal and Mahabir Singh prima facie guilty of conspiracy and cheating and causing loss to the government by preparing bogus bills and making payments to the contractor.

The accused were booked under Sections 420,467,468,471,120-B of the IPC and Section 13(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act after getting approval from the government, a spokesman for the Vigilance Bureau said.

The accused allegedly cheated the government by passing fake bills amounting lakhs of rupees every month for sanitation and garbage collection work, which the bureau said was not done at all.

Ambala, October 17
Sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have arrested a commercial officer of the Railways accepting a bribe of Rs 20,000 which he demanded from a Chandigarh-based contractor to clear his bills for the work he had executed for the Railways.

A CBI team from Chandigarh raided the residence of VK Shrivastava at the Railway Colony last night and caught him red-handed accepting the bribe from the contractor, who had filed a complaint with the CBI. The CBI raid continued for over one hour, during which sleuths of the bureau inspected several documents at the officer’s residence.

Sirsa, October 17
The police here arrested six persons for gambling during the second one-dayer between India and Australia yesterday.

The accused have been identified as Amar Nath, a resident of Khairpur, Amit, Pawan and Arun, all residents of MC Colony, Ram Niwas from Jandiwali Gali, Khairpur and Mukesh from Gobind Nagar, Sirsa. A police team raided a finance company office near Khairpur on the Hisar road and arrested these persons red-handed while they were organising the gambling. The police recovered 10 mobile sets, a LCD TV, three gambling slips and an amount of Rs 27,600 from their possession.

They have been booked under Sections 13-A, 3 and 67 of the Gambling Act. – TNS

Jhajjar, October 17
A foetus was today found in a canal near Sector 6 in Bahadurgarh, located on the Delhi border. The police started an investigation after registering a DDR in this regard.

The incident came to light this morning when some people spotted the foetus in the canal and informed other residents of the area.

As the news spread in the area, scores of people assembled at the spot, following which someone informed the Police Control Room.

The police reached to the spot and recovered the foetus from the canal. It was sent to the Civil Hospital for post-mortem examination so as to determine its sex and age.

“The foetus seems to be between three and four months old and may have been dumped in the canal around a week ago,” said a police official.