New Delhi, August 25
Om Prakash alias Bunty, the leader of a bikers’ gang along with his associate Rajesh were shot in an encounter in the Saurabh Vihar area of Badarpur early this morning. Three Delhi policemen, including an inspector level officer, were also injured in the encounter, which lasted for over two hours, with both sides exchanging at least 20 rounds of fire each.

Kaushik, SHO of Nizammuddin police station, ASI Ashok Tyagi and constable Birendra have been injured. They have been admitted to the trauma centre at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where their condition was said to be stable. Whereas, the bodies of the two bikers have been sent for post mortem.

Four foreign made pistols, three countrymade guns, a knife, several live ammunition along and a stolen motorcycle have been recovered from them.

The bikers’ gang was wanted by the police of several states and Bunty carried a reward of Rs 50, 000. The gang was involved for at least 40 cases of murder and robbery in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Bunty, who was wanted in 22 cases of murder and robbery, had formed the gang during his stay in jail last year. 
The gang had struck several places in the National Capital Territory of Delhi in June and July. The gang was responsible for killing a trader in Kalkaji, a shopkeeper at Vikas Marg in the Lakshmi Nagar area of East Delhi and in another in Mayur Vihar.

The incidents had created insecurity among people and had also triggered off demonstrations by traders.

Giving details of the encounter at a press conference later, Delhi police commissioner Y.S. Dadwal said that with the death of Bunty and Rajesh the gang had been virtually eliminated but still two gang members remained. They have been identified and efforts were being made to nab them.

According to Dadwal, a special team of the Delhi police surrounded the building after it learnt that Bunty had come to meet his family in Badarpur from Faridabad.

An air of silence hung around Bunty’s home in Sangam Vihar in South Delhi. According to neighbours, Bunty didn’t stay there, but visited his family once in a few months.

The sound of gun shots in the early morning hours caused considerable panic in the colony near the Delhi-Faridabad border.

New Delhi, August 25
A person was allegedly robbed of Rs 1.8 crore by two unidentified persons in the afternoon today from Connaught Place area of the Capital.

The incident occurred near Super Bazar around 12.30 pm. Ranjeet Singh (28), carrying the money in a bag, was accosted by two youngsters in the parking lot of Super Bazar.

The duo fled with the bag by pointing gun at his head. They escaped on the black Pulsar motorcycle of the victim.

According to Ranjeet, the criminals were wearing helmets and he could not see their faces. Ranjit Singh, resident of Shakarpur, works for a private company, Associate Forex, and had exchanged foreign currency for Indian rupees at a nearby money exchange.

The case has been lodged at the Connaught Place police station. Police officials refrained from commenting on the line of investigations but it seems the victim has given some clues. “It is too early to comment as to who committed the robbery but we are working on a line of investigation and hope to crack the case,” said a senior police official of the district.

The senior police officials were holding meetings till late night.

This is the second incident of crime in the Connaught Place area in the past three days. A person was stabbed several times on Saturday.

New Delhi, August 25
Delhi has reported 450 cases of cholera this year; the civic authorities said on Monday and apprehended that the situation may worsen in the wake of the recent floods in Yamuna.

“Cholera has been a constant problem in the city. We have so far reported over 450 cases,” said V.K. Monga, head of the health committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

“The recent Yamuna floods are a set back and we think the water contamination may increase and add to the cholera situation. Besides, it will be favourable for mosquito breeding,” Monga said.

As the water in the Yamuna river has receded, people living along the river bank, especially the slum dwellers, need to be extra careful.

“They need to be careful about their water intake to prevent spread of cholera and other gastroenterological problems. The stagnant water would also assist in spread of dengue,” he added.

Monga said the MCD has already launched a campaign to spread awareness about cholera across the city.

Speaking about the growing dengue menace, he said: “The numbers are really increasing. I think we have nearly 65 cases of dengue so far. Good monsoon, flood and the current humid atmosphere are providing fodder for the aedes aegypti mosquito (the carrier of dengue).”

What is alarming is that of the total number of dengue cases, nearly 50 have been detected in the last 10-12 days.

Caused by aedes aegypti mosquito bite, dengue is manifested by a sudden onset of fever, with severe headache, muscle and joint pain, and rashes.

Monga said MCD has launched a special fortnight-long cleanliness drive beginning Monday.

“We have been telling people again and again that only awareness drive by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi or any government drive won’t achieve success unless we have support from the people,” Monga added. — IANS

New Delhi, August 25
Deputy mayor Divya Jaiswal has said that dengue cases are increasing in Delhi.

At present, 60 patients with dengue fever are under treatment in various hospitals of the Capital. Of them, 50 cases are from the MCD areas, five from the NDMC, two from cantonment board, two untraceable and one from outside the city.

He said that the corporation was taking various preventive measures including deployment of thousands of health employees. He added that the corporation is taking stern action against the employees who did not discharge their duties seriously.

Recently, the MCD has terminated services of 72 domestic checkers on charges of dereliction of services, the deputy mayor said. 

New Delhi, August 25
Economic frauds carried out through bank automated teller machines (ATM’S) are now getting sophisticated and trendy with both technical and human expertise employed to siphon-off the crisped currency from their chests.

Anti-fraud experts say that India, with its huge number of ATM’S coming up every other day, is witnessing wide scale effects of the ATM fraud phenomenon which was lately prevalent in foreign countries.

The problem of ATM frauds is global in nature and its ramifications have been felt in India as well. It is a big threat and it requires a coordinated and cooperative action on the part of all the stakeholders, Pravin Dalal, cyber security expert said.

ATM frauds are executed by techniques like wire tapping, replicating the digital signature of the card, getting authentic personal data at fake data call centres, tampering ATM slots by rigging, phishing through e-mail accounts and fixing hidden cameras at vantage points inside ATM installations to steal the secret pin number of the customers.

Fraudsters use special devices like skimmers, duplicate ATMs, to withdraw stacks of money from ATMs.

Direct access to the bank account through the ATM card will not cause huge per client losses but collectively in the coming days it can be a huge figure, Mayur Joshi, head of India Forensic Agency, a private firm, said.

In the new and emerging trends relating to ATM frauds, Joshi describes an incident. In a recent case investigated by my team in Nagpur region, ATM cards belonging to new applicants were dispatched through official couriers at the residences of the victims after their applications were sanctioned by the bank authorities.

Interestingly, the ATM cards which belonged to applicants whose addresses were either not traced or were absent during delivery, were received by the bank officials and after getting the possession of the same cards they started withdrawing the money from the accounts of the depositors of the bank, Joshi said.

Banks never ask for personal information of their patrons over the e-mail, through post or by sending executives. Customers should very carefully mention their user ids, credit card numbers and passwords under their own watchful eyes, a spokesperson for a leading national bank said.

Banks on their part have installed various security fixtures like installing cctv cameras and deploying round- the-clock static guard at the ATM’S to keep a check on suspicious persons, he added.

Various banks have also pasted information security pledges and detailed pointers inside ATM complexes in order to spread the message of safe ATM usage, a banker said.

The IT Act, 2000 does not contain any specific provisions regarding the same and the traditional law of IPC, 1860 also cannot be relied solely and independently to tackle this problem, Dalal said.

He said that banks should opt for mechanisms like designated time, microchip technology, biometric tokens, ATM monitoring, customised softwares, and customer motivation to curb this menacing fraud. — PTI

New Delhi, August 25
Hospitals, both government and private, in the National Capital Territory of Delhi are facing an acute shortage of qualified doctors.

According to the Health Committee of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the shortage figure could well be over 12,500.

Translated into simple terms, this means that there is only half a doctor (0.5) available for every 1000 patients which is dismal ratio as compared to some of the developed countries.

The Health Committee of Assocham headed by chairman, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Dr B K Rao assisted by co-chairman Dr H. K. Chopra, chief cardiologist in Moolchand Medicity and other qualified and experienced doctors from AIIMS and other prominent institutions found that in the pre-2000 era, 0.3 doctors were attending 1000 patients and nearly 35 doctors meeting the health requirements of about one lakh patients. As many as 3200 doctors had to attend on about a crore patients in various Delhi’s hospitals and charitable trusts.

Releasing the estimates, the Asssocham secretary-general, D S Rawat said, “Presently, leading government hospitals such as AIIMS, Safdarjung, RMLH, Guru Teg Bahadur, Jaiprakash Narayan Hospital, Stephens and various dispensaries and leading health charitable trusts such as Ganga Ram Hospital etc. have about 10,000 doctors on their payrolls. Since Delhi is a leading medical care centre, it receives huge inflow of outside patients, particularly from states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan and other parts of the country. Doctors have to provide health care to a population of 1.3 crore in the Capital.”

It is in view of increasing inflow of patients, the requirement for additional Delhi doctors has gone up by 12,500 and Delhi urgently needs their services. Therefore, it is recommended that recruitments to this effect are made on priority basis, says the Chamber’s analysis.

Assocham secretary-general also pointed out that medical institutions of repute such as AIIMS produce nearly 100 qualified doctors every year as against 180 of Maulana Azad and 100 of Lady Harding and as many of Safdarjung Hospital. One third of these prefer to pursue their post-graduation courses in various disciplines of medical branches.

The Assocham Health Committee therefore, is of the view that the centre health ministry and Delhi government should sit across the table and try to take policy measures that might lead to enhancement of medical seats in Delhi’s various medical colleges.

Not only the number of qualified doctors is in great demand but the faculty that imparts medical education in a number of medical institutions is also depleting. The faculty now prefers to resort to medical practice than to stay with teaching profession as it is no longer found to be lucrative.

Therefore, increasing number of medical colleges also calls for increasing need for medical teachers otherwise, the shortages would further expand and health for all will remain a dream, concluded Rawat adding that shortage of experienced and qualified doctor is particularly felt at the time of handling emergency patients.

New Delhi, August 25
The East district police has arrested six persons and claimed to have solved a Rs 20-million robbery case. The incident took place on August 13 when four persons barged into the office of Deepak Kansal at Mandawali, and at gunpoint robbed and fled with Rs 20 million.

The police has till now recovered over Rs 10 million and are expecting more recoveries.

During investigation, suspicion was raised over Raghu, a tea stall owner who was missing from the area. “3 people of the area were also missing after the incident. We searched for them at various places,” a police officer said.

“Two accused, Tara Singh and Raghu, were arrested on Sunday from near a mall in East Delhi based on secret information,” the official added.

The police recovered Rs 2.9 million from Tara Singh and Rs 1.25 million from Raghu.

“On their disclosure, other accused Sushil and Rajan were also arrested and Rs 200,000 were recovered from their possession,” the police said.

The police further arrested two other accused, Nafees and Mahesh on information given by Raghu and Tara and recovered Rs 4.5 million from the possession of Nafees and Rs 1.35 million from Mahesh.

However, two of their associates are still absconding. The police is expecting to arrest them soon. — IANS

New Delhi, August 25
A 22-year-old woman residing in Sunlight Colony of South Delhi was allegedly shot dead by her drunken husband on late Sunday night.

According to police, the incident took place around 11 p.m. when Sanjay, 30 barged into the house of his mother-in-law and shot his wife Meenu who was staying there after separation from him. Vidya, mother of Meenu told police that Sanjay had come with two other accomplices to the house in a drunken state and asked for Meenu. But before she could stop him he barged inside the house and shot Meenu in the head. She was rushed to the AIIMS, where she was declared brought dead.

According to family members of the victim, she had married Sanjay two years ago after a love affair.

However, things turned ugly soon after marriage when Sanjay started torturing and manhandling Meenu as he believed that Meenu was having an extramarital affair. This often led to arguments leading to fights between the couple.

According to Meenu’s brother Vinod, his sister got fed up of constant nagging and beating by Sanjay and came back to her house about a year ago and had not returned ever since. Meenu had filed for a divorce in the meantime. “Sanjay had been constantly nagging Meenu for the last three days and warned her of dire consequences if she did not return. However, she had made up her mind and did not pay heed to his threats,” said Vinod.

Meanwhile, the police is hunting for Sanjay who managed to flee after the crime.

Several police teams have been sent to the relatives and friends of the accused to learn about his possible hideouts. “We have registered a case against Sanjay under section 302 of IPC and sent teams to Jasola Vihar and Badarpur to find him and his friends. We will be able to nab him very soon,” said a senior police official. 

New Delhi, August 25
The Delhi cabinet has given its nod for purchase of more AC and non-AC buses, re-development of DTC depots, terminals and construction of road over bridge (ROB) and road under bridge (RUB).

Talking to media after the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that the cabinet has given its permission for purchase of 1,250 low-floor CNG AC buses and 1,875 CNG low-floor non-AC buses.

The cabinet has also given its green signal for re-development of DTC depots and terminals as per the recommendations of the Master Plan 2021.

The depots would be re-developed to facilitate construction of multi-storeyed parking facility for buses. This would reduce DTC’s dependence on government and also help the corporation to take up further improvement in the city’s transport system.

The process of re-development would be initiated from the Vasant Vihar depot.

The cabinet has also cleared a proposal of the Public Work Department (PWD) for construction of ROB and RUB for road number-68 near Nand Nagri with an estimated cost of Rs 107 crore. The project would be executed within 30 months.

The cabinet considered the action taken reports submitted by various departments and local bodies with regard to implementation of the Prime Minister’s new 15-point programme for the welfare of minorities. The programme aims to enhance education opportunities for minorities, ensure an equitable share for them in economic activities and employment and improve the living conditions of the community.

The cabinet, at the same time, also approved creation of 1,040 posts including 160 posts of officers of Delhi judicial service and other posts of ancillary staff in different scales for Dwarka and Saket district courts which would help in reducing the number of pending cases and ensure smooth functioning of the judicial system.

Noida, August 25
Surbhi hospital in Sector-35 Noida was in the eye of a storm following allegations that the staff there had swapped a newborn baby boy with a girl on Sunday morning.

A call centre canteen manager, Kishore Kumar of Sector-22 Noida, had taken his wife Maya to the Surbhi hospital for delivery of a child at about 2 am on Sunday. Maya had delivered a baby at 5.40 am. Soon after the birth of the child, a hospital nurse told the couple that a son had been born to Maya.

However, they were told later at 8.30 am that Maya had given birth to a girl.

According to Kishore, a slip in hospital had also informed them that a boy was born.

Dr Priti Chauhan who had carried out the delivery said emphatically that two deliveries had taken place in the hospital at that hour and both were female babies.

Denying the allegation that the boy had been swapped by the staff, hospital said that the parents were either confused or they simply did not want to accept a female child. As the parents had complained to the Sector-24 police, the hospital offered to have a DNA test conducted at hospital cost to authenticate the position.

Nathi Ram Panwar, SO, Sector-24 police station, said since the hospital has offered to go in for the DNA tests of the child and mother at hospital expenses, they cannot proceed on the complaint of the parents.

New Delhi, August 25
Providing a sigh of relief to the freshers, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is going to finish work on its new hostel Koyna in a few months.

With a total of 272 rooms, Koyna would provide accommodation to almost 544 boys and girls.

“All the rooms would be available on double occupancy. We cannot afford to provide one room to one student anymore,” said V.K. Jain, dean of students’ welfare, JNU.

According to the university sources, JNU is facing an unprecedented rush for the hostels this year.

“The seats in the university have increased due to the OBC reservation without any immediate extension in the infrastructure. We are under pressure to provide hostel rooms to the students at the earliest,” said Jain.

Out of the 1,400 outstation students who applied for the hostel facility, only 600 students have been allotted hostel rooms so far.

“Our priority is to provide accommodation to SC, ST and physically handicapped students. General category students would be provided rooms as and when they are available,” said Jain.

Meanwhile, the university does not look prepared for the exceptional increase in the number of girl students enrolled in JNU this year, changing the gender ratio drastically.

“We have not been able to make any special arrangement for the extra girl students as yet. Infrastructure cannot be created overnight. Another hostel is in the pipeline but it would take time,” he said.

Presently, the residential university campus has 15 hostels including two exclusive girls’ hostels and seven exclusive boys’ hostels. The university also owns four hostels for boys and girls, one married research scholars’ hostel and one working women hostel.

Koyna would be the 16th addition to the list.

New Delhi, August 25
Chairperson of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) Mahila Vikas Samiti Rekha Gupta admitted that she and the employees of the corporation did not have any information on the sexual harassment committee that was constituted in 1997. She came to know about the committee three months ago. Reportedly, she took charge over the committee one and a half years ago.

She said that the sexual harassment committee was formed in 1997 when the Supreme Court had directed all government departments to have such a committee so that women could register such cases. The identity of the complainant would be kept secret, Rekha Gupta said.

She was addressing women employees of the MCD at an awareness programme on sexual harassment.

The programme was organised after a number of rape and molestation cases came to light. Most of these were reported from MCD schools where headmasters and male teachers were involved, Rekha Gupta said.

She advised women not to hide such cases. Such bosses and colleagues must be exposed. She assured that the identity of the complainant would be kept secret.

Encouraging women, Shalini, a member of NGO Nirantar said that after such cases were reported, the government had taken certain measures for the welfare of women like — reservation of seats in buses, separate line for women at railway stations and bus stands.

The court has issued certain guidelines for the sexual harassment committee. The guidelines said that once a complaint has been registered, it is the duty of the committee to prove the allegations against the suspect. Prosecution and prevention are important but knowledge is a must for prevention, she emphasised.

She said that if a complainant is not satisfied with the committee report she could go to the court.

New Delhi, August 25
Cycling enthusiasts and other people concerned about climate change, air pollution, energy conservation, health and heritage of the Capital, took part in a Heritage Bicycle Ride on Sunday.

Over 100 Indian and foreign nationals residing in the city participated in the 12-kilometer ride.

The two-hour journey started from Humanyun Tomb at 7.30 a.m. and passed through several historical monuments located near Mathura Road before culminating at the same spot.

“Uniqueness of the heritage bicycle ride is that it provides people an opportunity to leave their cars behind for one day and explore the heritage monuments and history of the city on a leisure cycling tour,” said Nalin Sinha, programme director, Initiative for Transport and Development Programmes (ITDP).

This was the third heritage ride organised in the city. First two rides explored Shahjahanabad and the Lutyens’ Delhi area.

The heritage rides are a joint initiative of the Delhi Cycling Club, the ITDP and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.

Delhi Cycling Club is a group of cycling enthusiasts engaged in creating awareness about various benefits of cycling amongst the citizens of Delhi and fighting for the rights of cyclists on roads. Started in October 2007, the club has been organising bicycle rides on various themes in Delhi and currently has 400 members.

“We have an e-mail group and we organise all these creative events for safe sustainable and environment friendly traffic and transportation programmes,” said Rajendra Verma, events coordinator, ITDP.

The next heritage ride is scheduled for September 14 in the Delhi University north campus area.

New Delhi, August 25
‘Essential Wisdom’ and ‘Mystic Eye’, two spiritual books written by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, were released at a function here last evening.

‘Essential Wisdom’ opens with an introduction to Sadhguru and familiarises the reader to his philosophy. Short poems give further insight into the philosophy and at the same time serve as entry points to each chapter. Swami Nisarga has further embellished the book with short introductory notes to each chapter.

According to the author, there often comes a moment in people’s lives when full stops begin to fade away only to be replaced by question marks. It begins to feel like the sentence like life can no longer be parsed by an inherited system of punctuation. This is the juncture where an individual takes on the role of a seeker as opposed to his earlier stagnant state of mind.

The questions are the same, which have been asked from time immemorial. However, old torpid answers fossilized into scriptures, and spiritual artifacts, as glorified hearsay, no longer quench the thirst.

The seeker embarks on a journey looking for vibrant and pulsating responses. To satiate himself he searches for a deep-sea diver who has plumbed the depths of existence and returned with an eyewitness account, says the mystic.

The author says that this book is for those seekers as it encompasses a gamut of restless and fevered questions, which have arisen in his mind at some point in time. Questions about fear, desire, suffering, determinism, God, love, morality, self-deception, doubt, karma, the mind, the body, disease, healing, madness, death and dissolution are explained and answered effectively.

‘The Mystic Eye’ seeks to answer questions like what exactly is enlightenment. And who exactly is a mystic? Are mystics still to be found? 

New Delhi, August 25
To protest against the vandalism, SAHMAT extended the exhibition of M.F. Husain’s paintings for another day in ‘as-is’, vandalised condition.

SAHMAT also held a meeting to protest against what it termed as “a cowardly attack, and an attempt on the part of rightwing forces to impose a narrow view of our culture.” A handful of miscreants had yesterday barged into the Vitahalbhai Patel House here where the exhibition of Husain’s paintings was being held and vandalized the room smashing glass and ripping down paintings. SAHMAT had organised the exhibition as the Art Summit which concluded yesterday had refused to exhibit Husain’s paintings fearing threats from protestors.

Noida, August 25
Noida police claimed to have recovered a stolen car from two criminals after an encounter in Noida Phase-II area. The criminals are reported to have slipped away after the encounter.

According to police, during vehicle checking two criminals had opened fire on Phase-II police in the forests of Wajadpur village on Sunday at 6.30 a.m. They reportedly slipped away leaving a silver colour Swift car No DL-3-CA-W-1379. This car had been stolen on August 13 from Sector-39 police area. According to police, the criminals who fired on police were Vipin Yadav and Rinku Yadav of Sarfabad village.

SSP R.K. Chaturvedi said, “The criminals appeared suspicious during vehicle checking. When asked to stop, they fired on the police and then fled away abandoning the car. Only after their arrest or verification of the car registration number, truth will come out.”