Keorak (Kaithal), June 4
In what may be termed as an embarrassing incident, scores of alleged protesting Gujjars from Keorak, a model village of Kaithal district, today ransacked the police post and burned down numerous official records kept here.

Tension gripped Kaithal district after the state police authorities were ``forced'' to vacate the police post located on the Kaithal-Ambala road after the protesting Gujjars ransacked it.

Meanwhile by evening, the district authorities also shifted the entire medical and paramedical staff from the primary health centre (PHC), Keorak, to the Kaithal civil hospital. The step was reportedly taken to ensure the safety of the staff.

Keorak was made a model village by chief minister B. S. Hooda early this year.

About a dozen policemen were admitted to the civil hospital here who were later discharged after administering first-aid, confirmed the hospital sources.

Furniture at the police post was set on fire while the agitated group destroyed documents.

The Gujjars also reportedly damaged the wireless system at the post in the alleged attack, the charge the sarpanch denies.

Today's incident took place after the agitating Gujjars from the village were returning after attending a procession at Kaithal. It was organised to register a protest against the atrocities on their community in Rajasthan.

Villagers alleged that the police cane charged the Gujjars without any provocation.

They said that the police force beat the shopkeepers and other villagers.

Both the villagers and the police blamed each other for stone-pelting incident that caused injuries to members of both the parties.

Meanwhile, SSP Navdeep Virk said that some villagers were rounded up for ransacking the police post and attacking the police force.

Sensing trouble the authorities had decided in advance to evacuate the force and weaponry from the police post, said Virk.

Earlier in the morning defying prohibitory orders people in large number from Gujjar community gathered at Jawahar Park, Kaithal. The mob also damaged several vehicles, shops and tree guards near Pehowa chowk.

They also burnt the effigy of the Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

Karnal: Scores of protesting villagers placed the burning tyres and blocked the GT Road near Patti Kalyana village near Samalakha, Panipat. Despite the prohibitory orders the villagers disrupted the vehicular traffic for about one hour this morning. It was only after long persuasion that the villagers lifted the blockade.

Chandigarh, June 4
Once known for its cotton, the Sirsa region, the backbone of farmers here was crippled with the onslaught of the American Bollworm. Unwilling to give up, the Haryana farmers went out to experiment with the ‘white gold’ - as cotton is popularly referred to - due to the high price it fetches compared to other crops. Today, the plight of these farmers is very different. They are not competing with each other to survive, but trying to outdo the each other in terms of yields.

Started as a project under the Project Director-cum-Deputy Director of Agriculture, Sirsa, many farmers offered their farms to produce Bt Cotton after dwindling yields and massive losses threatened their existence. Trials were conducted in various villages and the outcome that is now known after years of trials has thrown up very interesting results.

Four farmers- Sukhdev Singh, Ramurty, Mukhtiar and Kashmir Singh - from Begu, Moriwala villages were chosen for the trial of SIGMA seeds. For cross checking they were also provided with ANKUR, DYNA, and RCH seeds. At harvest Sukhdev Singh got a yield of 930 kg and 900 kg per acre for his test and check variety, Ramurty got 870 and 850 kg, Mukhtiar got 800 and 860 kg and Kashmir Singh got 910 kg, 
respectively.

Another set of farmers, Suresh of Sakerkhera, Gurdeep of Bhawdeen, Joga Singh of Farwain, Rajaram of Shahpur and Surjeet of Panjuwana were provided with RCH-134 as test variety and Ranjeet, MRC 6301, MRC 6304, ANKUR 650 and B138, respectively, as check varieties. These farmers got a yield of over 1100 kg for their test variety and 510 to 960 kg for check varieties.

Another set of trials were conducted with the hybrid cotton seeds in the Dabwali block of the district where Om Prakash of Abub Shahar, Kapur Singh of Sergarh, Hari Singh of Panawala Mota, Sukhvairl Kaur of Khera Malkana and Anjubala of Dewan Khera used these seeds. The per acre yield they harvested during the Kharif 2006 was 1160 kg, 1120 kg, 1180 kg, 1060 kg and 1040 kg, respectively.

For the past few decades cotton has been one of the main crops for the farmers of Sirsa district. These farmers who were almost destroyed after American Bollworm crippled their yields now find a savior in Bt cotton. It has taken almost six years of experimentation for scientists in Haryana to make Bt cotton acceptable.

Trials tests and comparative studies of Bt, hybrid and other varieties of cotton seed in the farmlands of the same farmers during the Kharif season of 2006 have demonstrated good control of bollworm species in different growing areas. 

Rohtak, June 4
The Delhi police has finally arrested Rajesh Kumar, alias Sarkari, a notorious criminal who had been evading arrest for long. He was arrested along with his accomplice in Noida late last night.

Sarkari, a resident of Dhamar village in Rohtak district was wanted in several cases of murder, loot, threat and extortion and carried a cash reward of Rs 50,000 on his capture.

The most recent complaint against him was a case of extortion lodged by Rohtak-based Maruti dealer Jagmohan Mittal.

The complainant had alleged that Sarkari had demanded a certain amount from him and threatened him with dire consequences if his demand was not met.

Earlier, his name figured in the murder case of Sandeep, a law student of Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU). In all, he was wanted in five-six criminal cases, but could not be arrested.

He is expected to be brought to Rohtak on a production warrant. A team of the Rohtak police, headed by DSP Kuldeep Singh, has been rushed to Delhi to bring him.

Meanwhile, no arrests have so far been made in connection with the murder of a 12-year-old boy Nikhil, who was shot dead by unidentified assailants on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday in the Gandhi Camp locality of the town.

He was asleep along with his parents when the incident occurred. Some assailants entered the house from a neighbour's roof and rained bullets on the family.

While Nikhil was shot dead, his father Babu Masih and mother Sushma were injured in the assault. Nikhil's father works as a pathological technician, while his mother is a staff nurse at the local PGI Hospital.

The police is investigating the case.aIt may be pertinent to mention that a local garage owner Vijayvir was also shot dead in the town a few days ago.

Kaithal, June 4
Kuldip Bishnoi, MP, has said that the decision to float a new political party will be taken after he completes a tour of all 90 assembly constituencies of Haryana following which a state level rally will be held at Rohtak. The announcement regarding the new party will be made later.

Kuldip was addressing a press conference here after addressing a public meeting at anaj mandi, Pundri, 15 km from here, yesterday .

Kuldip said he was forced to raise his voice against the misrule of Bhupinder Singh Hooda who has failed to show any positive results in the development of the state. He said for raising his voice he had been suspended from the party.

Earlier, Kuldip addressed a public meeting in which he took to task the Congress leadership for ignoring the voice of the people and making Hooda as chief minister. Earlier, Kuldip was brought to the venue of the meeting in a procession. Former ministers Devinder Sharma , Surinder Madan, Subhash Batra , Lehri Singh, Pawan Grag, former DCC President, Kurukshetra and many other prominent persons were also present on this occasion.

Yamunanagar, June 4
Commodity price index ticker and online computer system, the primary component of the first and the only 'kisan chaupal' of the state installed at the Jagadhri Cooperative Marketing-cum-Processing Society, has stopped working. The Haryana Government had planned to set up more than 80 such kisan chaupals in the state.

The expansion of chaupals or e-kiosks, a joint venture of IFFCO and Hafed, has also hit roadblock because of the ongoing restructuring process of cooperative societies in the state, informed officials of Hafed.

On January 9, 2006, 'kisan chaupal' was launched here with much fanfare and Hafed had announced to extend the facility to all district headquarters and also to all cooperative marketing societies. However, after a year and half no other e-kiosk has come up in the state (though there is one e-kiosk at Hafed, Panchkula), but it was not meant for farmers in general. Besides, providing information on various aspects of crop, pesticides, fertiliser and other related things, the chaupal was to provide information on rates of commodities in various mandis, future commodity rates (on NCDEX platform) and weather information.

A visit to the Jagadhri e-kiosk this afternoon revealed that the price ticker (NCDEX platform) had not been working for the past at least three months and the computer on which farmers were to be provided information too was non-functional. Sources revealed that the ticker had not been functional for the past several months and the computer system too was not available to the farmers in the recent past. Sources also added that in the past, hundreds of farmers availed the facility but now they were without such help.

Karnail Singh Lathar, additional general manager (IT), Hafed, claimed that Hafed had not been informed about the non-functioning of the price ticker and other equipments. Lathar said that tomorrow officials from Panchkula would be visiting the site to get firsthand information and that it would be made functional soon.

Sources in Hafed, meanwhile, revealed that the expansion programme of e-kiosks in the state had been affected because of re-structuring of the cooperative societies. There were about 65 cooperative marketing societies in the state and IFFCO which was financing the project had imposed certain conditions and the board of individual cooperative societies had agreed to it.

"About 20 societies which were still functional have completed the formalities and orders for e-kiosks for them have been placed with IFFCO,” informed Lahtar. He added that Hisar and Rothak districts would soon be getting one kiosk each. 

Rewari, June 4
Two fresh cases of dowry deaths were reported from two different villages in the Kosli subdivision in the past 24 hours.

Newly wed Monika (19) was allegedly done to death by her in-laws for bringing less dowry. The incident took place at Sudhrana village, 25 km from here.

Monika, daughter of Jagdish Kumar of Bhiwani district, was married to Sanjay, son of Krishan Kumar of Sudhrana village, in July, 2006.

In a complaint made to the Kosli police, Jagdish Kumar alleged that her daughter was persistently subjected to harassment for insufficient dowry by her in-laws, who inflicted fatal injuries on her that led to her death.

The police has booked her husband Sanjay, father-in-law Krishan Kumar, mother-in-law Angoori Devi and brother-in-law Ravinder Kumar under the Dowry Act.

In the second incident, the body of newly-wedded Poonam Yadav (21) was fished out of the JLN canal near Lukhi village, 30 km from here, yesterday.

Pritam Singh Yadav, a cousin of the deceased, alleged that Poonam was tortured to death by her in-laws who later threw her body into the canal to give it a shape of accidental death by drowning.

He alleged that she was treated cruelly when her family failed to meet her in-laws’ demand of more dowry.

Poonam was married to Pawan Yadav of Lukhi village in February, 2007.

The Kosli police has registered a case of dowry death under Sections 304-B and 34 of the IPC against her husband Pawan Yadav, father-in-law Sunder Singh Yadav, mother-in-law Pushpa Yadav. — OC