New Delhi, May 6
A dust storm with scattered rain lashed the National Capital Territory of Delhi this afternoon, bringing much needed relief to the residents sweltering under intense heat wave conditions.

The Met Office said the storm which lashed the Capital had a wind speed of 72 kilometres per hour and it brought down several trees in some parts of the city.

As a result of the storm and scattered rains, the temperature dropped by as much as five degree Celsius.

The minimum temperature this morning was recorded at 24.8 degree Celsius and the mercury had climbed up to the 40 degree mark by 2. 30 p.m. But suddenly around 3 pm, clouds started building up and it turned dark as the wind picked up speed and raised dust clouds.

According to the Met Office, the afternoon storm was the result of some westerly disturbances and local factors.

New Delhi, May 6
All eyes of Delhi traders are now fixed on tomorrow when the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the sealing case where the Master Plan 2021 has been put to legal scrutiny.

Traders are anticipating relief from the ongoing sealing of business establishments in the Capital which has “immensely destroyed centuries-old distributive character of Delhi trade”.

According to the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the unstable atmosphere coupled with uncertainty has forced upcountry traders to divert their business from Delhi to other states whereas big companies and traders of producing states are refraining from credit dealings with the traders in Delhi as they feel that the ongoing sealing at one point may result into non-recovery of their money.

The Confederation of All India Traders, which has spearheaded the traders’ movement on sealing, regretted that thousands of Delhi shops have been closed for months due to sealing and so far the Government has not taken any cognizance of such shopkeepers and their employees.

The CAIT has urged for a ‘compensation package’ for such traders and their employees and till such time they are suitably relocated, they should also be allowed to carry business activities.

The CAIT has sought a thorough survey to assess the requirements of commercial space for the traders who are liable to wind up their business.

In the meantime, the sealed business establishments should be allowed to re-start their commercial operations.

New Delhi, May 6
Ahead of a crucial meeting of AIIMS’ governing body, an official committee has slammed the institute’s administration for playing a pro-active role in last year’s anti-quota protests.

The committee, set up to look into alleged harassment of SC/ST students in AIIMS during the anti-quota stir in September 2006, submitted its report to health minister Anbumani Ramadoss yesterday ahead of the governing body meeting tomorrow.Members are expected to demand a report from AIIMS director P. Venugopal on the implementation of earlier recommendations at tomorrow’s meeting.

Chaired by Ramadoss, the 11-member body will meet in Nirman Bhavan to take up this issue and other administrative matters.

There will be a review of action taken on recommendations made by members in the last governing body meeting. The director would be asked about this, a health ministry official said.

With the committee headed by UGC chairman S. K. Thorat criticising the AIIMS administration, the meeting was set to be stormy, the official said.

The panel said there was sufficient evidence to support the view that the administration of AIIMS headed by director Venugopal played a proactive role in the organisation of the (anti-quota) agitation .

A battle is on between Ramadoss, who is president of the premier institute, and Venugopal since last year when AIIMS’ apex body recommended the dismissal of the director, which was stayed by court.—PTI

New Delhi, May 6
Residents and representatives of various civil society groups yesterday met the members of the Delhi High Court appointed monitoring committee headed by B. L. Vohra and R. S. Gupta and expressed their concern over growing incidents of encroachment on government land in the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

D. B. Sood of East of Kailash RWA exhibited documentary evidence of illegal occupation of government land in the area while Shiv Kumar Gupta of Safdarjung development area raised the issue of non-action on complaints by local MCD officials and threats to people who complained. It was precisely because of these that few residents chose to complain.

In the two-hour-long meeting, it was decided RWAs and NGOs would work closely with the monitoring committee to remove encroachments from public land.

Keeping in view the threats by the mafia to people who complained, the monitoring committee also decided to look into anonymous complaints sent to it either through e-mail or through SMS.—TNS

New Delhi, May 6
Concerned over the Delhi University’s reported plan to fell 1,000 old trees to make way for a rugby field for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the student and teaching fraternity have urged authorities to reconsider their decision.

In a letter to DU vice-chancellor Deepak Pental, students and academicians said, “We could accept the sacrifice of some trees for a project of great importance, but felling so many for a one-time sports event is unjustified.”

Suggesting an alternative site near the police lines in Vijay Nagar for the rugby field, the green-lovers stressed the need to save the trees that create a continuous green belt between the university and the Ridge, a forested area.

Concerned that the decision would have an impact on the ecological habitat sheltering diverse bird species, the students and teachers said the campus would not be the same without these trees.

Brushing aside assurances that compensatory afforestation and transplantation would be ensured, they argued that young saplings planted elsewhere cannot compensate for neighbourhood trees of great age, beauty and diversity.

New Delhi, May 6
The parents of a 26-year-old electronics engineer who was crushed to death here by a DTC bus in 2002 have been awarded Rs 5.25 lakh as compensation by an accident claims tribunal.

The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) asked the DTC, Mahavir Singh, the driver of the bus, and the National Insurance Company to jointly pay the compensation within a month to the parents of late Brijesh Pal.

A precious life had been lost, MACT judge V. U. Maheshwari said, rejecting the insurance company’s plea that the compensation was on the higher side.

Allowing the claim petition of Pal’s parents Gayatri Devi and Gopal Dass Pal, who hail from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, the tribunal asked the DTC and the others to pay interest at the rate of seven per cent on the compensation.

Pal, an employee of Gurgaon-based Concon Services Private Ltd, was hit by the DTC bus on the morning of March 19, 2002, when he was standing at a bus stop at Dhaula Kuan in South Delhi.

The court took into account his professional qualifications while deciding the petition.

Pal was the solebread earner in the family, his parents claimed, while pleading that compensation should be awarded keeping in mind their future financial burdens.

New Delhi, May 6
A couple charged with attempting to commit culpable homicide of their neighbour has been acquitted by a court here after three prosecution witnesses turned hostile.

“All three witnesses who have been examined so far, including the complainant/injured, had turned hostile. The other witnesses who remain to be examined are all police officials. Hence, examining them would be a futile exercise in the absence of incriminating evidence”, said Additional Sessions Judge Dinesh Dayal.

The court acquitted Dheeraj Singh and his wife Seema Rani, residents of Shahdara in East Delhi, after a criminal trial was initiated against them under Sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC for assaulting their neighbour over a trivial issue.

The case, which was in the stage of recording the prosecution’s evidence, has been discontinued and the couple released after three crucial witnesses, victim Rajender Singh, his brother Yashpal and an eyewitness to the incident, retracted their earlier statements. According to the prosecution, Dheeraj was getting his house white-washed on January 11 last year when some paint fell on Rajender’s house. An altercation followed thereafter and Dheeraj allegedly hit Rajender on the head with a brick. 

Faridabad, May 6
While a seven-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a youth near Mewla Maharajpur village, three minor sisters are reported to have been missing from their house in Mujesar area in the city here since last evening. Though cases have been booked, the police was yet to arrest the accused involved in the crime.

According to police sources, a minor girl was raped allegedly by a person residing in her neighborhood last evening in a colony near Mewla Maharajpur village falling under the Surajkund police station here. It is reported that the victim was taken by the accused in a secluded place on some pretext and raped her before fleeing from the spot. The girl, daughter of a labourer, was taken to a hospital after she told her parents about the incident. The accused has been identified as Ikram. This is the second such incident in the city in the past week, as another six-year-old girl had been raped in similar manner in one of the colonies here.

Meanwhile, a widow who lives in a jhuggi cluster of Auto Pin near Mujesar village has lodged a complaint with the police that her three daughters aged between two and a half years to six years have been missing from their house since yesterday.

The girls have been identified as Arti, Chanda (4) and Usha (6). The police have booked the compliant in this connection.

Ghaziabad, May 6
A boy was crushed under the wheels of a bus in the city kotwali area here late on Saturday evening.

The people kicked up a ruckus near Seth Mukand Lal Inter College where the boy was hit by the bus. They pelted stones at the vehicles. Two buses and six other vehicles were damaged in the stone pelting.

The police had to be summoned from other police stations too. Senior police officers succeeded in pacifying the crowd and persuading them to return home.

A private bus, which was allegedly being driven rashly, had knocked down the boy, Deepak, who was on a bicycle. The boy, who was thrown away by the bus in the collision, died on the spot. The police later nabbed the accused bus driver.

When Deepak’s family and people in the neighbourhood came to know of his death in the accident, they jammed the road and created a ruckus there. The vehicles were damaged in stone pelting. A long queue of vehicles formed on both sides of the road.

The crowd became so agitated that police force from eight police stations had to be summoned. It took the SP (City) and the city magistrate two hours to persuade the people to lift the jam by midnight.

Noida, May 6
Today Gautam Budh Nagar district has completed a decade of its existence. It has established a number of records in the state, besides etching out a separate national and international identity for itself.

But in the realm of development, the district continues to be meted out a step-motherly treatment by the powers that be in Lucknow. Even after a decade when the district magistrate and district police chief have not got their own regular official residences constructed, how could one expect the common people to get their basic problems addressed.

In spite of being a hi-tech district, the district hospital in Noida is itself on a sick bed, transport department bosses in Ghaziabad still manage the departmental facilities here and government schoolteachers still have to go to Ghaziabad treasury to draw their salaries every month. Besides separate district jail has yet to be constructed here.

The tragedy of the people here is that sometimes they had to wage a war for having their separate district restored and at others they had to struggle for getting a district complex set up at Surajpur. The struggles waged have varied from roads to the high and apex court even, thanks to the whims of political bosses in the state.

In spite of all this, development priorities are often pushed back in this political tug of war which dates back to the carving out of this separate district in 1997.

It may be recalled that Ms Mayawatti had announced the creation of Gautam Budh Nagar district by amalgamating Noida, Greater Noida and Javer at a public meeting in Meerut on April 30, 1997.

And May 6, 1997, had gone into history as the red-letter day when this district–Gautam Budh Nagar, perpetuating the name of Lord Budha, was set up through a government notification. S.S. Sidhu, IAS and Daljit Chaudhary, IPS were chosen as the first district magistrate and SSP of the new district.

Some 446 villages of Ghaziabad and Bulandshahar were merged into GB Nagar. And even after the construction of a district complex at Surajpur, the debate had continued whether the district headquarters for GB Nagar district should have more appropriately been located at Rabupura, Javer, Bilaspur or Dadri.

New Delhi, May 6
A free health check up camp was organised at Basti Vikas Kendra, Chankayapuri, here today jointly by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Prajapita Brahama Kumari Ishwariya Vishwavidalya.

According to Sister B. K. Varuna, co-ordinator of the event, 100 persons were diagnosed for various ailments by a team of 20 doctors. They were also given free medicines.

They were also motivated to stay away from various types of addictions like drugs, smoking, drinking etc as these addictions could invite various types of diseases, she said.

Greater Noida, May 6
A case has been registered in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate against an SI and four policemen of the Dadri police station for having thrashed an advocate in a public place

The advocate, who was beaten up by the SI and policemen, has filed a case against them for threatening to kill him.

The court has fixed May 9 for examining witnesses in the case. Advocate Rakesh Verma said on May 2 he was having lunch along with a friend in a Dadri restaurant. Some people had just left after consuming beer from the next table, leaving the bottles and tumblers still on the table.

S-b-inspector R. B. Kaul from the Dadri police station along with six policemen reached there and threatened to put him and his friend behind bars for consuming liquor in a public place. When Verma protested, Kaul allegedly started abusing him and forcibly took him to the police station where he was ey thrashed. He was freed late at night.—OC