New Delhi, May 15
Traffic on South Delhi roads remained disrupted for several hours today after a speeding crane broke the railings of Moolchand underpass, injuring two persons and blocking the road.

The incident that took place around 7:20 a.m. gave a harrowing time to office goers in the South Delhi area amidst crawling traffic.

“The upper portion of the crane broke the railings of the underpass, injuring a biker who was riding over the bridge. One more person was also injured. The crane was stuck for quite some time blocking the road. Vehicles coming from Noida faced a lot of problem,” said a traffic police official adding that the injured biker had been admitted to the AIIMS.

Besides, thousands of commuters were left stranded on the road.

“The accident was caused due to the crane driver’s negligence who could not judge the height of the overhead railings. I had an early morning meeting, but I had to cancel it at the last minute when I realised I would be stuck there for hours,” said Tushar who works with HDFC Bank.

While the situation was much better for those who used public transport, as they got off the vehicles and chose to walk.

“I was in a bus. After I waited for almost half an hour I thought to walk,” said Raman who works with a magazine in Green Park.

It took more than four hours for the traffic police to normalise traffic in the area.

New Delhi, May 15
Delhi University today announced 18 per cent reservation for Other Backward Class (OBC) students from the coming academic session. The announcement was made today by dean of student welfare S.K. Vij at a press conference.

“This year the OBC reservation will be increased to 18 per cent from last year’s nine per cent. Next year, the reservation will be increased to 27 per cent as per the directions of the Supreme Court and the human resources development ministry,” said Vij.

Vij said that along with the increase in reservation, there would be an increase in the overall number of seats available for OBC students in each course. “DU has decided to increase the number of seats in each course by 36 per cent. This will raise the total number of seats from 42,000 to 49,000,” he said.

Admission forms for the university will be available from June 1 to 15. The last date for submission of completed forms is June 15. The university has also decided on June 25 as the date for the announcement of the first cut-off list.

Meanwhile, the university is already running four admission helplines, two in north campus and two in south campus.

DU has also announced that this year it will hold eight open days. The first open day is scheduled for May 24 and 25 at SGTB Khalsa college, the second on May 26 at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, third on May 27 at Keshav Mahavidyalaya, fourth on May 28 and 29 at S.P.

Jain Center in south campus, fifth on May 30 at Shyamlal College, sixth on May 31 at Vivekananda College and seventh and eighth on June 3 at Vivek Vihar and Acharya Narendra Dev College, Kalkaji.

The open days will have 40-minute presentations on admission procedures, location of colleges, courses available, important dates etc. The open days will be run by a team of 20 volunteers.

In addition to this, DU is also manning an e-mail service at dsw@du.ac.in for all admission related queries. Besides, DU community radio will also be airing special programmes on admission.

New Delhi, May 15
As the counting of ballots for seven parliamentary constituencies starts tomorrow morning, the Delhi police with its three-tier security system and the Delhi electoral office with its counting paraphernalia are all geared up for fair and peaceful end to the election marathon which began a month ago.

The counting would start at 8 a.m. in eight counting centres across the capital.

According to the Election commission (EC), 57 halls and 807 tables will be used for counting ballots in seven Lok Sabha and one assembly constituency. Five thousand trained officials and 2,421 other staff will be used in the process.

Each table will have one counting supervisor, one assistant supervisor and one additional counting staff of the central government. To ensure fair counting, the EC has directed poll observers to choose two EVMs at random at the end of each round for parallel verification.

Foolproof security arrangement, including a three-tier cordoning system, will be in place at all counting centres to prevent the entry of any unauthorised person. The Delhi police will deploy 2,000 police personnel.

New Delhi, May 15
Two major political parties in Delhi–the Congress and the BJP–are gearing up to celebrate victory in the nine counting centres for seven Lok Sabha seats and an assembly constituency. By-election was held in Rohtas Nagar assembly after the demise of Congress MLA Ram Babu Sharma.

These parties have briefed their supporters and decided the name of election agents who will be inside the counting centres.

The Congress today claimed that it would win all the seven seats while the BJP said it would win three seats. In the last election, the BJP had won only one seat that was of South Delhi.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Jai Prakash Agarwal, who contested from North East Delhi, said that tomorrow the party would celebrate victory day as it was going to create history by winning all the seven seats in Delhi.

Tomorrow will be the end of saffron party in Delhi as well as in other states as electorates have voted in favour of the Congress for the development works done on national and state level, he said.

Earlier, it was said that Congress would win six seats out of seven, but joining of Haji Dilshad, BSP candidate in North East Delhi, was a turning point. His joining the Congress has changed the mood of Muslim and scheduled caste voters. They have voted en bloc for the Congress candidates in all the constituencies, he said.

A senior Congress leader said that credit of turning point in Delhi election goes to Jai Prakash as with his efforts, Haji Dilshad joined the party.

However, the Delhi unit chief of BJP, O. P. Kohli said that the saffron party would make inroad in Congress vote bank by winning three seats–South, West and New Delhi. It will gain two seats as in the last election it had only one. However, he claimed that the NDA would come in power on national level.

He said that Congress has started harping on the secularism tune to get the support of the regional and small parties. But the BJP has always trusted in healthy democracy. It has warned the country against pseudo-secularism, he said. 

Faridabad, May 15
The D-day comes tomorrow, but many in the ruling Congress have started mulling over the damage caused to the party on account of infighting during the election.

New Delhi, May 15
The central bureau of investigation (CBI) is far from cracking the murders of teenager Aarushi Talwar and her domestic help Hemraj, with insiders admitting there is still “no clinching evidence” against the three persons it accused of the crimes .

“ The CBI will further investigate the case to visit all aspects and will soon file the final report,” said CBI spokesman Harsh Bhal.

A CBI source, however, admitted they do not have “clinching evidence” yet to nail the accused. “We are now banking on forensic evidence, but it is very difficult to prove charges against the accused.”

“The murder weapon and the phones of the victims were crucial . Had they been recovered, it would have been helpful to pin down the murderers,” the officer said.

On May 16, 2008, Aarushi, the daughter of a prominent dentist couple, was found with her throat slit at their Noida home. The Noida police initially suspected the family’s domestic help Hemraj to be behind the killing, but retracted when they found his body on the terrace the next day.

The police then arrested Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar, but he was granted bail .

The CBI, which took over the case from the Noida police on May 31, pointed the needle of suspicion towards Krishna, Talwar’s assistant; Raj Kumar, a domestic help with a family friend of the Talwars; and Vijay Mandal, another domestic help in the neighbourhood.

Due to lack of evidence against the three, the CBI court in Ghaziabad granted them bail. They are out on bail. — IANS

New Delhi, May 15
The Delhi police’s crime branch has claimed to have arrested two interstate robbers for allegedly killing a man in the Jamia Nagar area of South East Delhi. The accused Akbar and his brother Anwar are the residents of Amroha in UP.

The Delhi police had declared an award of Rs 25,000 on each of them.

According to a senior police official, the two along with Shaukat Pasha were responsible for the murder of Abdul Hafeez. Hafeez was shot dead in the Batla House area on March 21 this year.

They were arrested yesterday following a tip off that Akbar would come to Sarai Kale Khan Bus Terminal at around 5 p.m. According to the police, the two had killed Hafeez after a monetary dispute.

New Delhi, May 15
Two persons were killed while one was injured when a truck hit their bike from behind at around 11 p.m. last night on the red light near Delhi Gate.

The deceased have been identified as Sonu (22) and Pran (21). Lokesh was injured in the accident. All three were residents of Laxmi Nagar.

Eyewitnesses said the victims were waiting at the red light when the truck hit them.

“Sonu died on the spot while Pran succumbed to his injuries in the hospital. Lokesh who has suffered a hand fracture,” said a police official.

Meanwhile, the Daryaganj police has registered a case of negligent driving against the driver of the dumper truck that bore a Haryana registration number.

After the accident the truck driver abandoned the vehicle and fled. The police is investigating the whereabouts of the errant driver.

Faridabad, May 15
Two boys were today electrocuted by a live wire hanging from an electricity pole near NS-3 police check-post. The two boys were rescued by police personnel on patrol duty and rushed to the Badshah Khan Hospital from where they were referred to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi.

They have received severe burns and their condition is stated to be critical. The two victims — Rahul and Nakul — (about 12 years old) were walking when their body touched the hanging wire.

To their fortune, a police Gypsy was standing nearby. No sooner than the incident took place, the personnel rescued the two. They used a plastic bag to break free the wire from the bodies of the two boys.

The personnel of the electricity department who rushed to the spot alleged that laying of the wire was done by the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF) through a private contractor. It was apparent that the contractor had done a shoddy work, said one of the electrician.

According to many, the incident speaks volumes of the supervisory mechanism on the part of the government agencies with regard to works done by private contractors.

Reports have it that the contractor is absconding.

New Delhi, May 15
The Delhi High Court today acquitted retired army officer S. J. Choudhary, sentenced to life imprisonment last year in the 27-year-old parcel bomb killing of city-based businessman Krishan Sikand, due to lack of evidence.

The court set aside the ruling of the trial court which last year had sentenced Choudhary to life imprisonment for killing Sikand, who was close to the army officer’s estranged wife.

A bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Aruna Suresh said there was weak evidence against Choudhary, warranting his acquittal.

“The only admissible evidence that remains against him is that of motive... but motive being presumptive evidence is weak and cannot form a chain of circumstances,” the bench said.

It added, “It is unfortunate that a crime is going unpunished. But we cannot hang any person unless our judicial conscience is satisfied and the evidence establishes the guilt of the person charged for the offence.”

The court did not rely on the testimony of a typewriter expert and owner of a typewriter school, ruling the evidence was not credible at all.

It directed that 71-year-old Choudhary be set free unless required in any other case.

Sikand, 40, had died when a parcel bomb, delivered at his Sunder Nagar residence here on October 2, 1982, exploded. The CBI, in its chargesheet, had accused Choudhary of the crime as Sikand, a divorcee, was seeing the officer’s wife, despite earlier being threatened to stay away from her. — IANS