Gurgaon, November 8
Parents and relatives of those killed by the maxicab gang in Gurgaon along with people in general have put forth the demand that a fast track court must handle the culprits who had allegedly murdered 27 persons after giving them a lift.

Sunil Jain, father of Sachin Jain, aged 19, who was allegedly murdered by the gang on the night of October 29, said the administration must ensure that all culprits were convicted soon. This would work as a deterrent for others.

A 10-member gang used to operate maxicabs illegally between Dhaula Kuan in Delhi and Jaipur. They used to ferry passengers waiting on the roadside. At night, a member of the gang, posing as the conductor, would lure a lone passenger to sit in the cab. Five to six others sitting in the cab, all belonging to the gang, would pretend to be co-passengers.

The lone passenger was allegedly strangled to death with the aid of a belt, a power cable or a rope while the others caught hold of his hands and legs. After killing him, the criminals emptied his pockets and divested him of his baggage. The body was then thrown into a gutter, behind a bush or at some remote place.

The gang, led by 20-year-old Pramod, had made a confession before the police that they had committed at least 27 murders in one year. They killed 12 persons in October alone.

The criminals told the police they had once recovered a paltry amount of Rs 2 from a passenger after murdering him. The maximum amount was Rs 40,000.

Sunil Jain suggested the police must handle the case very carefully as there was no eyewitness “except the criminals themselves”.

The accused were in the age group of 13 to 25 years and had studied maximum up to class X.

Another 23-year-old youth, Ashish, a resident of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, was allegedly also murdered by them on October 29. Ashish’s brother Ashok, while talking to The Tribune, said the police must ensure a speedy trial of the case. The culprits should be given the death penalty so that no other criminal dared to commit such a barbaric act.

Senior Superintendent of Police Hanif Qureshi said the criminals murdered three youths on the night of October 29. Such gruesome and macabre crimes had never been reported in the past, lamented the officer.

The SSP further added the local police would also suggest to the District and Session Judge to hand over the case to a fast track court so that the case could be decided on priority basis.

The SSP added the police had arrested eight gang members while two had absconded.

He further added the police of Delhi and Rajasthan had also demanded their custody as a lot of similar incidents had occurred in areas under their jurisdiction too.

The number of persons murdered by the gang could be 40 after a through investigation was carried out by all police stations concerned, felt the SSP.

A lot of residents belonging to Bhodakala village, near Manesar, on National Highway 8 expressed their anguish over the murders.

Noida, November 8
A software engineer, Deepak Bannerjee, fed up with being unemployed, and a food inspector, Virender Kumar, committed suicide yesterday.

The engineer hanged himself from a fan in his flat in Sector 50 while food inspector Virender Kumar swallowed sulphas in his house in Sector Pie in Greater Noida. The latter died at Kailash Hospital.

The software engineer, in his suicide note, said he was taking his life as he was fed up with being unemployed. Deepak Bannerjee, 39, resided with his wife and five-year-old daughter in Kailash Apartments, Sector 50. His body was found hanging from a fan in the morning. He had used his wife’s dupatta for hanging himself.

The deceased had worked for about six months at a call centre in Sector 62. He had been upset after losing his job. His wife was working as an officer somewhere.

CO R. K. Bhartiya said the software engineer, in his suicide note, requested his wife to bring up their daughter Alpana well and give her good education.

The second person to have committed suicide here, Narinder Kumar, 62, a resident of Sector 98, had been under stress for a long time. He was working as a food inspector in Gwalior. He was suspended after a departmental probe and was, thus, depressed. He ended his life by swallowing sulphas tablets.

New Delhi, November 8
A week-long training programme on ‘Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development’ designed for IAS officers was inaugurated at Amity University here yesterday.

Twenty-five senior IAS officers will attend the one-week in-service training programme being organised by the Amity School of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development. The specialised programme is designed to spread awareness about the judicial use of natural resources, which are depleting at a rapid pace, to the people who are at the decision-making level.

Inaugurating the training programme, Mr B.K.P Sinha, Director of the school, provided a bird’s eye view of the training programme.

Dr Ashok K. Chauhan, Founder President of Ritnand Balved Education Foundation, said that management of natural resources was the frontline of the struggle for more sustainable and equitable development. All our actions ultimately have consequences on the quality and quantity of natural resources on the planet.

Ms Kusumjit Sidhu, Principal Secretary, Government of Punjab, who is part of the programme, said that for the survival of human beings, sustainable development of natural resources was quintessential. Ancient civilisations like Indus Valley Civilisation eventually collapsed because they could not anticipate the impending depletion of natural resources.

T.S. Sridhar, Special Commissioner of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu said, “This training will foster higher level of education and excellence in the participants. The rich and varied experience inculcated will definitely be put to use for the benefit of the country.”

In the week-long training, eminent speakers from industry will share their views in technical sessions on ‘Overview on Natural Resources’, issues related to community and interlinking of rivers, issues related to policies and governance, and forest resources, technology and legal issues.

New Delhi, November 8
The DMRC has announced that it will open the Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section to the public on November 11, 2006. The Barakhamba-Indraprastha Line 3 (Blueline) will now be 32 km long from Dwarka Sector 9 to Indraprastha with 31 stations.

The Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section that will be opened from 11.30 am has three stations–Mandi House, Pragati Maidan and Indraprastha. While the Mandi House station is underground, the other two are elevated.

The Commissioner for Metro Railway Safety (CMRS) Bhupinder Singh today inspected the 2.81 kms-long Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section of Delhi Metro from safety angle.

He carried out test checks of track, signalling, traction system, rolling stock, etc and gave the clearance for carriage of passengers on the section.

The Indraprastha station approach is on the Ring Road near the DTC bus depot and has entrances from both sides of the Ring Road and a special bus lane. The Pragati Maidan station is an elevated station at a height of 11.44 metres and will cater to the traffic during the Trade Fair.

The Mandi House station has a shallow depth of 8.1 metres as the Metro trains will travel from the underground to the elevated section over a 330 metres long ramp at Sikandra Road. This is the second ramp constructed by Delhi Metro. A total of nine escalators and eight lifts will be available for passengers at these stations.

New Delhi, November 8
A fake currency racket linked to Pakistan was today unearthed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence which arrested a government schoolteacher here and recovered counterfeit notes having a face value of Rs 20 lakh from him.

Nazar Abbas, a primary schoolteacher working in western Uttar Pradesh and a resident of Mustafabad in South Delhi locality, was arrested from Ajmeri Gate when he was waiting to deliver the consignment to someone, DRI sources said here. They said Abbas was a key member of a Pakistan-based racket involved in production and supply of fake Indian currency notes across North India, especially in the national Capital, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.

The notes, of the denomination of Rs 500, were hidden in the soles of ladies’ slippers and smuggled in from Pakistan through rail and bus passengers. Around Rs 25,000 were hidden in one slipper and there were about 40 such pairs.

DRI sources said the racket seemed to be very organised as packing of the consignment was done professionally. Smuggling of fake currency has gone up in the last two months with the DRI alone seizing counterfeit notes having a face value of Rs 1.2 crore from cities like Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai and arresting 11 persons.

The airports in Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai have of late emerged as key entry points besides the normal routes along the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bangladesh border. Fake currency also reaches India from Sri Lanka and Dubai.

New Delhi, November 8
In what is being perceived as fallout of the resumption of the sealing drive, 20 councillors belonging to the ruling Congress resigned from the MCD today to protest against the drive. Out of them, 13 were members in the MCD’s standing committee.

These councillors Ramesh Pandit, Prem Kumar, Deepika Khullar and Anil Kumar Vashisht sent in their resignations to Leader of House in MCD Jitender Kochar. They were later joined by standing committee members Sanjay Puri, Mukesh Goel, Mariam Kaur, Brij Mohan Sharma, Satbir Sharma and Jamil Ahmed Mulla.

Pandit, a councillor from Preet Vihar in East Delhi, who was the first to resign, said, “I am resigning from MCD in protest against the action taken against 44,000 law-abiding traders.”

He said if the government couldn’t save law-abiding traders, who had submitted affidavits to the court, there is no point in continuing as a councillor.

“If the government cannot save them, who can?” Mr Pandit said. With the MCD elections scheduled to be held early next year, the councillors belonging to the ruling Congress are apprehensive that the twin sealing and demolition drives can have a negative impact on the poll fortunes of the party.

New Delhi, November 8
Moving an adjournment motion in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, the BJP Delhi Pradesh president Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the Congress had created emergency-like situation in the Capital. Normal trade is hampered and schools are also closed. Capital has turned into a cantonment area. More than 200 trade leaders, including Praveen Khandelwal and Satish Garg have been taken into custody.

There is atmosphere of terror everywhere which reminded the days of Emergency. Such atrocities were not committed even during the British and Mughal rules, he said.

“We continued to demand detailed discussion on the adjournment motion, but the anti-trade and anti-people government did not allow discussion on the government terror in entire Delhi. The Delhi government is avoiding a transparent discussion on the fate of traders, Dr Vardhan added.

He further said that the hanging of the dreaded terrorist Afzal Guru had been deferred by the government without any justified reason.

New Delhi, November 8
The BSES has unearthed power theft being committed by a hotel in Paharganj. The BSES claims it took them three months to uncover the misdeed as all the electrical installations, including meters, otherwise seemed to be in order.

“The hotel had, however, not bargained for BSES’s state-of-the-art data analysing technology. The use of this intelligent technology which includes establishing consumption benchmarks, analysis of data stored in energy meters and conducting a post-mortem of billing database based on different logic, etc led to the hotel being caught red-handed,” a BSES release said.

“The hotel was clearly indulging in direct theft of electricity. A penalty of over Rs 17 lakh would be imposed on them,” said a BSES spokesperson while informing that the hotel management not only offered bribe to the raiding party but also threatened them with physical assault.

Greater Noida, November 8
At least 24 students were arrested by the Kasna police while consuming liquor in various public places here. The students were arrested while drinking liquor at Jagat Farms and other public places around it by the SO, Kasna police station, yesterday.

The police later freed the students after making them do sit-ups in the public park and extracting an apology from them.

Kasna SO Narinder Sharma went to Jagat Farms and other public places around 8 pm and rounded up 24 students. Another 12 students were nabbed near a liquor den the same evening. The students were released at about 11 pm after they apologised and proceeded to do sit-ups in the parks.

There are a large number of colleges here. Many students live in private houses in sectors here. After consuming liquor, the students often get rowdy and harass girls.

A few days ago, some drunk students had fired gunshots while indulging in hooliganism in a restaurant in the market of Sector Gama-I. Earlier, a student was murdered in a clash between two groups of students who were all drunk.

Noida, November 8
The son of an entrepreneur, who had come to Sector 9 here on a business trip four days ago, is feared to have been kidnapped under mysterious circumstances. The traders had expressed the apprehension that his son might have been abducted. The Sector 20 police have registered a missing person case.

Mohd Akeel has filed a report, saying that his 17-year-old son, Mohd Saqib, had gone from Nand Gram, Ghaziabad, to Noida for some work.

Mohd Akeel told the police Mohd Saqib had left Noida for Ghaziabad four days ago in the evening but had not reached home till date. Mohd Akeel had checked with his relatives and friends before going to the police.

He expressed the fear that his son may have been kidnapped. — OC

New Delhi, November 8
Schools in the national Capital will reopen tomorrow after remaining closed for two days following apprehension of law and order problem over the sealing issue.

Delhi government, that had instructed closure of the schools for two days, today ordered that schools reopen from tomorrow, an official spokesman told.

He said all schools run by Delhi government, MCD and NDMC in the Capital will remain open tomorrow.

The Delhi government order has also advised all private, aided and unaided schools in the city to reopen, the spokesman added.

Resumption of the sealing drive today did not witness any untoward incident.

New Delhi, November 8
The Delhi High Court today issued notices to the Centre, Delhi Government and DDA on a petition seeking directions to use surplus land available in the city to rehabilitate the traders affected by the sealing drive.

A bench directed them to file their reply within four weeks on the petition filed by ‘Saraansh’, a welfare association.