Karnal, December 9
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda emerged as the “tallest of the Dalit leaders” in his party when a mammoth crowd, mostly the Scheduled Castes, gave him a standing ovation, not once, but twice, at the ‘Dalit sammaan rally’ organised here today to thank him for various pro-Dalit decisions taken by his government, particularly the one related to the giving of 100 square yards of residential plots free of cost to the landless Dalits. 

The decision will benefit members of the other communities also who are living below the poverty line. This honour was not given to any of the Scheduled Caste leaders of the party present at the rally.

The crowd stood up first when Hooda came on the dais and then again when he rose to speak.

Agreeing with veteran Dalit leader of the state and former union minister Chand Ram, Hooda said the Dalits and the Backward Classes constituted the mainstay of the Congress and whenever they had deserted it, the party had lost power. However, he reminded the Dalits that it was also a fact that it was they who suffered the most whenever the Congress was not in power. The Dalits, he alleged, had to suffer innumerable atrocities under the non-Congress governments.

He said his 33-month-old government had taken over 60 decisions for the welfare of the Dalits. He also released a booklet listing these decisions.

Without naming any party, Hooda said people with green (INLD), blue (BSP) and yellow (Janhit Congress of Bhajan Lal) flags would try to mislead the Dalits. But they should be not be taken for a ride by these people and desert the Congress.

During his 20-minute speech, Hooda did not mention any of the demands made by union minister Selja in her speech, who had pressed the need to extend reservation to the B-1 test for the police constables and guest teachers in private educational institutions. By announcing the scheme of financial incentives for checking the drop out rate among the Scheduled Caste students, Hooda perhaps wanted to stress that if these communities were able to get good education, they would not need reservation.

Going by speeches of various leaders, including president of the Haryana Congress Phool Chand Mullana, one can safely deduce that the ruling party does not consider the BJP as threat in the state. None of the speakers attacked the party, which is considered to be an alternative to the Congress at the national level.

Describing Hooda as a ‘Kisan leader’, Mullana took on the INLD and the Janhit Congress of Bhajan Lal. He said these parties had no issue to criticise the Congress or hold rallies.

Referring to the INLD, he said its leader organised rallies to celebrate the birthday of his father and the other one (Kuldeep Bishnoi) organised a rally because his father was not made the Chief Minister by the Congress. Mullana said they did not organise the rallies to highlight any issue of public interest.

Barring MLAs from the areas adjoining Karnal, no non-Dalit MLA spoke. The Dalit MLAs from all over the state were invited to address the rally by the political adviser to Chief Minister, Varinder Singh, who conducted the proceedings. 

Fatehabad, December 9
Residents of Fatehabad and Sirsa districts will be losers in development projects as a major part of the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund is likely to lapse going by the present indications.

Both Fatehabad and Sirsa districts and a part of Hisar district fall in the Sirsa parliamentary constituency.

Owing to the poor utilisation of funds by Atma Singh Gill, MP from Sirsa, his MPLAD fund for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08 amounting to Rs 4 crore has already frozen.

The amount being spent in connection with his recent announcements is from the fund for the year 2005-06, which, too, is still half-utilised.

Sources said that Gill, a first-time MP, has not been particularly liberal in announcing funds for the development of his constituency from his MPLAD fund.

Even in cases where he announced funds for certain projects, he failed to give written intimation of his announcements to the district authorities.

In several other cases, where he succeeded in making announcements and sending intimations to the authorities, he failed to provide utility certificates for these funds to the district authorities.

The MP had recently made 15 to 20 announcements in some villages of the district, but he is yet to give written intimation of these to the authorities.

Going by the present trends, it is highly unlikely that the MP will be in a position to use even half of the MPLAD fund allotted to him during his present tenure.

Assuming that the general election to Parliament is held on time in February-March, 2009, Gill is left with hardly 250 working days to spend the fund.

In these circumstances, he will have to announce and ensure the implementation of works for over Rs 2.50 Lakh per day in case he is to utilise the remaining funds under the MPLAD, which will be over Rs 6 crore by 2008-09.

Additional deputy commissioner C. G. Ranjnikanthan, who is responsible for releasing funds under the MPLAD for this district, confirmed that funds for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08 of the MP had frozen and progress in the utilisation of the funds reserved for the year 2005-06 was poor.

Gill, however, denied this and said that he had been announcing liberal funds for projects for the poor and needy. He said he did not believe in wasting his MPLAD fund on the rich and used it only for those who really needed the money. 

Rewari, December 9
A function comprising the death anniversary of Rao Lal Singh, a great visionary and educationist of Ahirwal region, as well as the annual function of the Rao Lal Singh Public College of Education and Rao Lal Singh Public School was held under the auspices of the Rao Lal Singh Shiksha Parishad in the school complex at Sidhrawali, 20 km from here, on Friday.

While education and transport minister Mange Ram Gupta was the chief guest at the function, Bhupinder Singh, MLA, presided over it.

Paying homage to Rao Lal Singh, Gupta announced that education in Haryana would undergo a radical transformation in the next two years. He stated that the government had devised comprehensive projects and programmes to ameliorate the standard of education in government schools to bring them on a par with private schools, which were now the hub of qualitative schooling in the state.

A comprehensive plan to introduce vocational and technical education on a massive scale for schoolchildren was in the pipeline, he added.

Making mention of the upcoming BEd colleges, whose number has now risen to 250 in the state, the education minister said that in view of the gigantic problem of providing jobs to the 25,000 odd trained graduates, who would pass out from these colleges, the government had decided not to accord sanction to any more of these BEd colleges from the next session.

He also announced a grant of Rs 1 lakh for the Rao Lal Singh Public College of Education.

Gupta gave away prizes to meritorious players and others.

While presenting the annual report, college principal Dr P.S. Yadav said the college had achieved a rare distinction in Haryana as its students had topped 14 times in the BEd examination of MD University, Rohtak, in the past four decades.

School principal Bimal Kumar Sharma also highlighted the achievements of the school in his report. 

Gurgaon, December 9
Gurgaon is all set to give a new look to its transportation system by adding 100 new buses to its fleet and constructing modern bus shelters in the town.

General manager, Haryana Roadways, Jaibir Singh Arya said in the first phase the roadways would launch five air-conditioned CNG buses between Gurgaon and Delhi from tomorrow. The buses would run between residential and commercial areas of Gurgaon to key spots in Delhi to cater to needs of high-end passengers.

These 42-seater super luxury buses would provide connectivity to the airports and railway stations also.

However, the ride in these cosy buses would be costly as the passengers of AC buses would be charged Rs 50 while those travelling by normal buses would be charged Rs 19.

Arya said the purpose of introducing AC buses was to cater to the elite segment of the city. He said these kind of low floor AC buses had been introduced in the roadways for the first time. He said the cost of each bus was above Rs 60 lakh.

He said out of 100 buses, 15 buses would be CNG and air-conditioned with low flooring, 15 would be diesel with low flooring and rest would be normal buses, which would be called as ‘Haryana uday’, whose route would be similar to the CNG AC buses.

Arya said 140 bus shelters were being constructed out of which 20 had already been constructed in the city. He said HUDA would construct the shelters on BOT basis. The revenue generated by the shelters would be given to HUDA. He said the cost of construction of each shelter was around Rs 70,000.

An official said 100 more new buses would be added in the NCR by the next year. The proposal for this addition had already been sent to the transportation ministry. 

Rohtak, December 9
Two local youths, Satender Hooda and Neeraj Dahiya, were found dead in mysterious circumstances at a financier’s office near the old Jhajjar octroi post here today. Satender was the president of the local Auto-rickshaw Operators Union, while Neeraj was said to be his deputy.

A liquor party was reportedly held at the scene of the crime last night, following which the double murder took place.

Manoj, who runs the office, found the bodies lying in a burnt condition when he opened the office this morning.

The police has registered a case and further investigations are on in this regard. The bodies of the youths have been sent for a postmortem examination.

According to police sources, it seemed that the deceased were first hit with some bottle or such object and later burnt. The office furniture, including a television set, was also found burnt.

The police has detained some persons for interrogation. However, neither the cause of their death, nor the motive behind the murder had been ascertained till the time of filing the report. 

Chandigarh, December 9
It seems convicts can go to any length to get out of prison on parole. A murder convict, undergoing life imprisonment in Sonepat, tried to tie knot with transient freedom by producing an invitation card for his marriage that was never to take place. When jail staff went to verify his claims, the “bride’s” family and villagers ‘greeted’ them with choicest abuses.

Seeking release on parole, Narender had filed an application before the Punjab and Haryana High Court claiming that he was to get married this month.

In an attempt to substantiate his claims, Narinder even placed on record an ‘invitation card’ which, he claimed, had been sent to relatives and friends.

Taking up his plea, the high court issued notice of motion to the state of Haryana and other respondents in the case. In response to the notice, counsel for the state Deepak Girotra filed a reply in the form of an affidavit by Sonepat district jail superintendent Rai Singh Mandiwal. The affidavit, taken on record, categorically stated that the petitioner’s plea was “totally false”.

Elaborating, he stated that the girl’s family and village elders had simply refused to acknowledge the so-called marriage. Rather, they used abusive language with the jail staff and police authorities who had been deputed to verify the petitioner’s plea.

After going through the affidavit and the record of the case, Justice Surya Kant of the high court ruled that the petitioner’s effort to seek parole was based on a “totally false and concocted plea”. As such, the petition stood dismissed.

Taking a serious view of the matter, the Judge also directed the state and other respondents in the case to be overcautious in entertaining the petitioner’s request for parole in future also.  

Sonepat, December 9
Labour unrest has been brewing in industrial complexes of this district for the past few months because of the partisan attitude of the labour department as well as the failure of the government to take action against employers who are in the habit of violating labour laws, the factories Act and the Minimum Wages Act.

S.N. Solanki, a veteran trade union leader and former president of the Haryana Committee of the CITU, told mediapersons here today that the workers in a number of factories were being harassed by the employers on some pretext or the other and they have been forced to launch agitations in support of their demands.

He said the services of women workers of a toy factory on the Sonepat-Bahalgarh road had been terminated by the management on flimsy grounds and they had been staging rallies for the past two months or so almost daily.

He urged the government to intervene and direct the management of this factory to reinstate all women workers and pay their full wages without any 
further delay.

Solanki also said the management of a gutka factory at Ferozepur Bangar village had locked out the factory illegally and the services of all workers had been terminated.

He warned that if the management failed to reopen the factory the workers would have no alternative but to intensify their agitation. — PTI 

Sonepat, December 9
The police today arrested four persons for reportedly attacking a police party, which had gone to Shanti Nagar Colony of the town to intervene in the marriage of a minor girl.

Krishan, father of the groom, Raj Singh, Ramdhan and Kala were held and the marriage was stopped.

According to information, the marriage of Poonam, the minor girl, and Anil, a resident of Baroda village, was scheduled for today.

Poonam’s sister, Sunita, had fixed the marriage. As the marriage party arrived, an unidentified person informed the administration about the marriage.

A police team led by naib tehsildar went to the house of the bride and asked them to stop the marriage after they confirmed the age of the girl.

Some members of the marriage party started a scuffle with the police and attacked them. They also snatched the carbine of a policeman.

However, SDM Amarjeet Mann accompanied by another police party arrived there and held the four persons.

The police has registered a case under Sections 332, 353, 186, 506, 329 and 356 of the IPC for assaulting the policeman on duty and under Sections 4 and 6 of the Child Marriage Act. 

Chandigarh, December 9
The Haryana forest department has decided to create a special cell to popularise the cultivation and marketing of medicinal plants in the state. This was stated by minster of state for forests Kiran Choudhry at a meeting with officials of the department here yesterday. This cell would also help farmers cultivate medicinal plants, promote herbal parks and market end products.

She said a processing plant of aloe vera would be set up at Bhiwani as it was a popular and beneficial medicinal plant and had a wide international and national market for its products. She added that the department had decided to give top priority to agro forestry to achieve the 10 per cent target of tree cover in the state by 2010. Farmers would be provided with free saplings and the produce of these trees would belong to them. Choudhry said that geographically Haryana had 80 per cent agricultural land and by growing more trees farmers would benefit economically. She said the Choudhry Surender Singh Memorial Zoo at Bhiwani would be expanded.For this the Haryana public health department had already given 3.17. 

Sirsa, December 9
The police today registered a case against Bhimsein, a resident of Rajasthan, and his mother Vimla Devi for allegedly torturing Suman.

Suman, daughter of Ram Singh of Gudhia village (Sirsa), accused her in-laws of demanding dowry.

In her complaint, Suman alleged that both her husband and mother-in-law harassed her for bringing insufficient dowry.

Fraud case

Eight persons have been booked for allegedly making fake land deals. They have been booked on court orders.

Niranjan Singh, a resident of Thehri Mohar Singh village, had filed a complaint in a court against seven persons, accusing them of destroying his crop on the basis of a fake deed of his land.

In another case, Rajkumar, a resident of Chak village (Fazilka), had filed a complaint in the court wherein he alleged that Shiv Shambhu sold his plot on the basis of fake documents.

The police has registered a criminal case against them. — PTI  

Karnal, December 9
Two robbers looted Rs 30,000 after injuring manager Sultan Singh of Mahabir Filling Station last night on the Meerul road here. The manager was counting the sale proceeds of the petrol pump.

The robbers came on a motorcycle and two others were waiting in front of the pump and after committing the robbery they fled towards Karnal.

The manager was admitted to the civil hospital. He told the police that he was counting the sale proceeds in a cabin. When he resisted the robbers, they fired at him. He got bullet injury in the thigh. — PTI