New Delhi, September 4
A builder allegedly killed his wife and daughter before trying to kill himself by cutting the veins of his hands and legs in the South Delhi area of Maharani Bagh today.

Mohammad Syed Abbas (38), a tenant of D-13, Maharani Bagh, supposedly gave sleeping pills to his wife Neelam (32) and daughter Jainam (2 years) last night, causing their deaths. He later inflicted severe cuts on his wrists and legs to kill himself. Abbas is at present undergoing treatment at the AIIMS trauma centre.

According to information, Mohammad Syed Abbas has suffered serious business losses and owed money to the tune of crores to people. A builder-cum-property dealer by profession, Abbas was receiving threats from the people to whom he owed money. He has a business office in Noida.

The police has received three suicide notes from the room on the first floor of the house where Neelam and Jainam were found dead. While one suicide note was written by Neelam in which she has expressed her desire to be cremated according to the Shia Muslim tradition, the other two were written by Abbas himself.

According to police sources, Abbas has written one suicide note for his friends in which he has expressed anguish at how life has treated him and to ask for his forgiveness from people who had loaned him money. The third suicide note was written for the police in which Abbas took the entire blame on himself for the death of his wife and daughter and requesting them not to harass anybody in this connection.

According to information from AIIMS, Abbas’s life is expected to be saved. He is under observation.

The police is investigating the case and refrained from commenting on the line of investigation. “We would certainly find out if the people who lended money to Abbas harassed him unduly, forcing him to take such an extreme step. If it appeared that there was undue pressure then they too would be booked,” said a police official of New Friends Colony police station. 

New Delhi, September 4
A doctor and two nurses of Bara Hindu Rao Hospital were allegedly manhandled last night by relatives of patient who, they said, had died due to the hospital’s negligence.

Reacting to the assault on doctors, the security guards at the hospital beat up the relatives. In the chaos that followed, the son of the dead patient suffered head injuries.

The resident doctors of the hospital went on strike after the incident.

According to reports, Raj Kumar Tyagi was admitted in ward number six where was undergoing treatment for diabetes. However, last night he died after his sugar level shot up to 586 points, causing coma.

While the doctors maintained that they could not have done anything about it since it was the last stage of disease, the relatives of the patient lost their cool and alleged inefficiency.

They allegedly hit Dr Idrish and two nurses on duty at the time after which the hospital guards were let loose on the relatives.

Prashant Tyagi, son of the deceased, was hit in the head after which he was taken to Saint Stephen’s Hospital for stitches. Even Dr Idrish has been admitted into the ICU of Bara Hindu Rao Hospital for treatment.

The doctors have gone on strike while demanding adequate security at the hospital. “We have long been demanding that a police post be set up in the hospital. Almost every hospital in the capital has one except ours. Though there have been assurances in the past but nothing has been done so far,” said a resident doctor on strike.

Bara Hindu Rao Hospital is controlled by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). As the out-patient department remained shut due to the doctors’ strike today, hundreds of patient suffered inconvenience even as the authorities concerned were trying to reach a compromise. 

New Delhi, September 4
The BSES today claimed to have installed 10 state-of-the-art ATM bill payment kiosks or electronic drop boxes for the convenience of customers. These, in addition to over 2,000 existing kiosks, will offer customers yet another next generation anytime, anywhere payment option.

The BRPL and the BYPL have installed these bill payment kiosks at their customer care centers and division offices. These would provide customers with an option of paying their electricity bill without the hassle of standing in queues.

These kiosks equipped with the next generation barcode scanners and MICR readers enable customers to make payment through cash, cheque and demand drafts. In the second phase, they will also be configured to accept payments through credit cards and debit cards.

With multi-lingual (English/Hindi) touch screen interface for easy navigation, these kiosks will help customers with making payments. The kiosks also provide an advanced voice guidance system (in Hindi and English) to assist customers complete the transaction.

According to the BSES, payments can be made even without the copy of the bill. The customer just needs to enter his/her CRN number.

Presently, these kiosks will operate from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Depending on customers’ response, they will be opened for 24 hours everyday.

BSES CEO Arun Kanchan said that so far such kiosks have been installed at 10 divisional offices five each in BRPL and BYPL including Jhilmil, Dilshad Garden, Mayur Vihar Phase — III, Laxmi Nagar, Shankar Road in BYPL and Sarita Vihar, Khanpur, Vikaspuri, Janakpuri and R.K. Puram in BRPL.

In due course, these kiosks will be installed in all BSES customer care/division offices across its 33 divisions, he added.

New Delhi, September 4
With the arrest of three persons including a Nigerian national, a special cell of the Delhi police has claimed to have busted an international drug trafficking cartel. 2.5 kg of heroin worth Rs 2.5 crore has been seized from them. Besides four mobile phones and a laptop have also been seized.

On September 1, inspector Attar Singh learnt that a notorious drug trafficker would come to Gandhi Vihar on Ring road to deliver a large consignment of heroin. The two were caught while carrying out the drug transaction. They have been identified as Abdul Latif alias Johnsan of Nigeria and Mohammad Akhtar. The consignment contained 1 kg heroin.

At Abdul Latif’s instance his hideout at Mukerjee Nagar was raided and 1/2 kg heroin concealed in an art book was found. He disclosed that the parcel was destined for Holland next day through Hemant, a resident of Paharganj. Hemant booked all their parcels containing drugs through courier companies. He was nabbed yesterday afternoon from the Paharganj area.

The gang concealed drugs in books, photo albums and prepared parcels to avoid detection. They used to pack heroin in the covers of books and albums with the help of carbon papers and tape so as to avoid X-ray scanning at airports. Then Hemant used to book the parcels with fake addresses of both sender and receiver. When the parcel reached the destined place in a foreign country, the concerned courier company used to communicate to their counterparts in India about the wrong or incomplete address.

Then Abdul Latif directed their counterparts to collect the parcel. Abdul Latif and Hemant had sent many consignments to Canada, England, Holland. 

Gurgaon, September 4
A France-based NRI has accused his brother, owners of a prominent automobile firm, a top district Congress leader, registrar, Gurgaon, and others of property fraud. A case has been registered against the accused at police station, Badashahpur.

The NRI, Sunil Sood, who emigrated to France in 1998 and runs an electronics business there alleged that Gaurav Malhotra, a family friend impersonated himself as Sunil Sood and sold his plot of land measuring 7 kanals and 3 marlas to Dhingra Motors through Satish Dhingra, Giri Raj Dhingra, Ashok Dhingra, Subhash Dhingra and Gopi Chand Dhingra. His elder brother Anil Sood, Gurgaon district Congress unit president Madan Lal Grover and advocate Hem Ram Khatana signed as witnesses in the sale documents.

The land in question is on a prime location under Narsingpur village, on the Delhi-Jaipur expressway. Its market price is estimated to be more than Rs 20 crore.

“But I don’t know at what price it was purchased by Dhingra Motors and what amount the other accused received as their share,” claimed Sunil Sood who has also accused the registrar and document writer Ramphul  Singla for being hand in glove with the accused in fraudulently drafting and executing the sale deed without ensuring proper identification of the owner.

Claiming that he had kept the original papers of the property with his brother since 2001 in complete trust, the complainant alleged that he came to know in 2008 through a friend that his brother had misappropriated the property through the original papers vide three sale deeds. He also alleged that Malhotra who impersonated him and forged his signatures in the sale deeds was the main beneficiary.

When contacted, one of the accused Subhash Dhingra held the complainant’s brother and friend Malhotra responsible for what had happened. “We did not know that Malhotra was presented as Sunil Sood. Moreover, we did not suspect anything wrong since his brother put his signature as a witness. Actually, we are the victims of the fraud but made the accused,” he claimed. Grover too supported this.

Meanwhile, the court of Pawan Kumar, civil judge, junior division, Gurgaon, today ordered a stay on the alienation of the said property till further order. The complainant had filed a civil suit against all accused for injunction.

New Delhi, September 4
Delhi University goes to polls on Friday. Thursday, the last day of campaigning, was spent in a rather unique manner by the NSUI. The Congress-backed NSUI which has also been the party in power at DUSU spent most of Thursday on a massive ‘clean the campus drive’. Maybe the media hype on printed posters littering the campus and the varsity administration’s disapproval backed by the court’s stand got too much for most parties contesting the current elections at DU.

Amrita Bahari, from the NSUI, the current acting president of the DUSU says, “Today we had this big ‘clean the campus drive’ and since morning, party workers and students together have been sweeping the campus, removing posters and simultaneously canvassing.”

Amrita continues, “We really wanted to tidy up the campus before election day and did manage to clean up North Campus. We removed all posters regardless of which party they belonged to.”

Most parties actively canvassed on the last day before elections. ABVP workers were busy moving from one department to another, one college to another to garner votes. After seven in the evening, most candidates and workers relaxed. “Now it is in the hands of destiny, we have tried our best,” said an ABVP worker. Students sit around in groups just outside the hostel betting on who wins. But there is a slight lack of enthusiasm among most students about the DUSU election.

Manika Tiwari says, “There has been this entire tamasha of the DUSU election on campus. There are posters all over the place and party workers come in and out of our class rooms but personally I don’t care who wins. How is it going to help us? At Stephen’s they held their election quietly and in a day without all this poster plastering and with minimum canvassing, why it can’t be more like that? This election is too politicized and once voted in, they do little.”

However, not everyone on campus is thinking like this, “I and my friends definitely intend to vote tomorrow. Students need more representation in the varsity executive and if this comes through or if DUSU manages this, that will be some achievement. We can then try and get more hostels,” says Ajit Singh, a second year student. Friday will decide whether NSUI manages to win a second term or BJP-backed ABVP walks into DUSU.

New Delhi, September 4
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today said to making people aware about the conservation of natural resources was a must as global warming and increasing population had cautioned the world that all these would lead to acute scarcity of natural resources.

Dikshit exhorted the people to involve themselves in the conservation of natural resources, otherwise the world would face extremely difficult times.

They should understand the importance of conservation of all natural resources otherwise there would a world war like situation on these issues.

The Chief Minister said this while inaugurating a three-day international conference on “Bio-diversity, Environment and Sustainability: Challenges for Future”.

Sheila Dikshit described Delhi as a ‘mini’ India, which is witnessing all-round development.

The fruits of development would not sustain forever because large numbers of people were migrating to Delhi. It is a land-locked territory with limited resources.

She called upon the people to conserve water and electricity.

Giving brief account of achievements in the field of environment protection, the Chief Minister said the green cover had expanded from 33 to over 300 sqaure kilometre and Delhi is the only Capital city in the world having largest public transport fleet propelled on CNG. 

New Delhi, September 4
The theme of the Delhi Book Fair 2008 this year may be ‘women writing’, but the fact is that barring books by Anita Desai, Shobhaa De, Sudha Murthy and Taslima Nasreen, other women writers are conspicuous by their absence in most book stalls. And even if their work is there, they are not attracting many book lovers.

“Hardly any stall is carrying books by women authors. And even if their books have been kept, the response is not good,” says stall owner Aditya Rajika.

At the inauguration of the book fair, officials said the theme of fair, ‘Women writing’, was an acknowledgement of growing contribution of women in this field. However, a visit to the fair on Thursday revealed that no special efforts had been made by the management to encourage women writers or their creations. Shockingly, a majority of stall owners were unaware that such a theme existed.

Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Shobhaa De, Sudha Murthy and the controversial writer Taslima Nasreen are among the writers whose creations are visible in a few stalls. People say they would be interested in reading their books but not of other woman writers, as their work was not impressive enough to lighten their pockets by a couple of hundred rupees.

The fair is full of books, both of Indian as well as international authors.

“Students mostly buy books of international authors because they are value for money, giving them a wider perspective at a relatively low cost,” says marketing manager Rajat Rastogi.

“In front of international authors and famous India writers, woman writers fail to do a good market because their creations mostly relate to social issues that are very different from the choice of the young generation,” explains marketing executive Harvinder singh.

Ruskin Bond, Chetan Bhagat and the famous series of Harry Potter are amongst the books that are selling, said an official.

The fact is that book fairs have lost that craze because people these days do not like to spend money on novels as they can be accessed through the Internet. Besides, buying a ticket of Rs 10 to visit the fair and buy books work out more expensive than going to a bookstall or ‘Daryaganj’— the famous hub of books on a Sunday.

“Books are losing market these days because all information is readily available on the Internet,” says a visitor to the fair, Shalabh Rastogi.

The book fair has proved to be a very good platform for B to B (business to business) transactions. Though the fair has not had a good response from the visitors, the publishers have managed to have good contacts with book buyers. 

Noida, September 4
The Confederation of India Industry (CII) today organised a colloquium on water conservation at Noida.

UP State Council CII chairperson Amitabh Nangia welcomed the guests and speakers. Raising the issue of water conservation, S. Chakravarty said that sometimes water is scarce while at times it’s available in plenty, the same goes with places. Water might be the reason behind the next world war, he said.

K.K. Sharma, general manager, Jubilant Organosys Limited talked about water conservation. He also spoke on the management practices adopted by the company. Gurdeep Singh, senior manager, Maintenance and Utilities Subros Limited talked about water conservation techniques adopted by them at the factory that included using water of ETP for horticulture and rainwater harvesting systems. Praveen Aggarwal, general manager, Coca Cola India Limited spoke on Cola Cola’s stewardship on water conservation. S.K. Makhija, vice-president, Jain Irrigation Systems also spoke on water conservation. Jyoti Sharma, president, FORCE, gave a presentation on the rewarding partnerships on water conservation. 

New Delhi, September 4
Are we equipped to face disasters and do we have an effective disaster management plan in place? No is the vehement answer from more than 78 per cent corporate heads interviewed recently.

This fact was discovered during a random survey carried out under aegis of Assocham in which over 400 corporates participated and gave their views on the country’s ability to handle disaster such as tsunami, floods, earthquakes, fires etc.

In all, 312 CEOs mostly belonging to companies in telecom, power generation and transmission, oil, gas, sugar, infrastructure, hospitals, railways, textiles, agro-products strongly felt the need for creating a sound and proactive disaster management team to respond to contingencies arising out of natural calamities.

Nearly 65 per cent respondents felt that tsunami which struck coastal part of India about four years ago had galvanised the Indian administration to evolve an effective disaster management plan. However, around 300 CEOs still felt that that after tsunami settled down, the disaster management was not given the required attention.

Over 55 per cent corporates participating in the survey said that the involvement of private sector, common man, Institutions like schools, colleges and even NGOs in handling disasters was negligible. Even the media does not play the required role to suggest measures to handle natural calamities, barring reporting them in a sensitive manner, they added.

The chamber has also emphasised that disaster management should be made a permanent chapter in curricula of all schools so that students are imparted necessary physical training to handle disaster like situation before the forces are called upon to take on such exigencies and calamities.

Over 70 per cent respondents, however, expressed satisfaction that in order to respond effectively to floods and earthquake risk mitigation, ministry of home affairs has initiated national disaster risk management programme in all states but much more needs to be done.

According to them, a comprehensive programme should be taken up to forewarn the people about possibilities of floods and earthquake so that they evacuate themselves to safer places and sites in advance as precautionary measures.

The chamber is of the view that just a territorial army has been created in the oil sector particularly in its downstream branch to meet any sort of exigencies happening in refining and exploration front, a similar force is recommended to be made to handle disasters.

A special corpus needs to be created for this purpose in which the private sector should be asked to make 50 per cent contribution and also send their experts in schools and institutions that are mandated to create the suggested force.

There is a need for greater emphasis on infrastructure in large cities and the government has to set aside a dedicated fund. Over the last 15 years, there has been a 30-35 per cent increase in urban population and most cities suffer from water shortage. Equal attention should also be paid to roads and power, concludes the survey.

Ghaziabad, September 4
As a shock to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Noida double murder case, a CBI court in Ghaziabad has granted bail to co-accused Vijay Mandal due to lack of sufficient evidence.

The CBI had opposed the bail application of three suspects in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case. They were — Vijay Mandal, Rajkumar and Krishna. The CBI had pleaded that they might abscond if granted bail. It says that the case was still under investigation and the agency was awaiting some reports of narco and brain-mapping tests.

The CBI was to file a chargesheet in 90 days latest by September 10. The bail of co-accused few days before the period has given a blow to the CBI officials. It seems that they do not have enough evidence to nail the suspects. It is learnt that like Mandal, the other two would also get bail after September 10, if the CBI fails to file chargesheet against them.

Arushi was found dead in her bedroom on May 16 at her Jalvayu Vihar residence in Sector 25. The police initially suspected servant Hemraj. But the next day his body was recovered from the terrace. The Noida police then arrested her father Dr Rajesh Talwar alleging that he had murdered Aarushi when he found her with servant Hemraj in an objectionable but not compromising position. The Noida police had termed it as honour killing. Later the case was transferred to the CBI, which did not find any evidence against him. Last month Talwar was given bail as the CBI gave him a clean chit.

The CBI lower court of special judge Sapna Mishra had extended the judicial custody of the three suspects till September 18. Later the CBI upper court special judge granted bail to Vijay Mandal.