Dehradun, September 26
The lofty effigies that light up during Dussehra in several places in Doon are the handiwork of several Muslim artists who come from neighbouring towns of Uttar Pradesh, days before the festival and begin readying them.

This is an old practice in the city that has benefited immensely from artists hailing from neighbouring towns, hired by various Dussehra committees to ready effigies of Ravana, Kumbhkaran and Meghnath.

Shaukat Ali, who is busy with the preparations at Ordinance Factory in Raipur, has been coming to Dehradun for the past nine years. Though he does not make much money, the desire to offer his services and contribute towards a Hindu festival is attractive enough to even goad his family members to undertake the journey to distant towns. “I hail from a small village in Bijnor, where most of my family members stay and work on small jobs, but come Dussehra and I ask them to accompany me”. For his other family members too, who assist him in the preparation, everything else takes a backseat.

Now very few families are left in Bijnor, Nazibabad and Muzaffarnagar who are carrying forward the tradition.

The effigy of Ravana will be 55 ft tall, that of Kumbhkaran 45 ft and Meghnath 40 ft.

Shukat ensures that he gets good bamboo from Muzaffarnagar and for the fireworks he usually gets China-made crackers that seem to offer a whole lot of variety. 

Dehradun, September 26
A new study conducted by the DMMC (Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre) has identified as many as 615 buildings in Mussoorie as highly vulnerable to seismic activities.

The yet-to-be released report has been compiled after surveying 3,344 buildings, confided DMMC Executive Director Piyush Routela.

The survey identified 615 buildings faced with a high probability of Grade 5 damage in which a building can collapse.

A Grade 4 damage, explained Dr Routela, would mean damage to a major portion of the building but with possibility of reconstruction.

The damage has been predicted in the event of a seismic activity reaching intensity VIII on the MSK scale.

Besides causing direct economic loss to the tune of Rs 235 crore, over 369 people are likely to sustain life-threatening injuries in Mussoorie township alone if such a quake hits the Queen of Hills.

The estimated loss, however, does not include losses incurred by public utilities like water supply, power, telecommunication lines and other infrastructure.

The actual economic and life loss figures might be higher since Mussoorie is located in the highly vulnerable Zone IV of Seismic Risk Map of India, pointed out Dr Routela.

The study urges government agencies to devise suitable mitigation strategy.

Dr Routela said, “In the near future, we are planning to organise a big workshop to create awareness among residents of Mussoorie, including government institutions and commercial establishments.

“The idea is to get them into self-protection mode in terms of construction and renovation of buildings as per safety norms”.

Most constructions in Mussoorie date back to time when concepts of seismic safety were not well developed.

A majority of the surveyed buildings are low rise (up to three storey) and constructed after 1950. So demolishing them may not be practical or cost-effective.

Therefore, it is highly important to create an awareness drive for making people to go in for retrofitting measures, which can be incorporated in maintenance of buildings usually undertaken by them.

“But this can happen only if people are made aware and provided with implementable technology,” added Dr Routela.

Haridwar, September 26
With black-marketeering and acute shortage of LPG cylinders and several cases of adulteration of petrol being reported in Haridwar district, state Food and Supplies Minister Diwakar Bhatt carried impromptu raids and inspection of several LPG agencies and petrol pumps in Haridwar, Roorkee and Lakshar.

A gas agency at Lakshar was sealed as it was deliberately found to be closed by the agency owner before the minister’s visit. Bhatt found several irregularities in gas agencies offices and warned officials concerned of grave consequences if the irregularities and inconveniences to customers continued.

In Haridwar, eight LPG agencies were inspected by the state cabinet minister and samples from petrol pump filling stations taken. All samples have been sent for checking to Dehradun.

Accompanying the minister during the raids were Haridwar District Food and Supplies Officer PS Pangti, SDM Harish Chandra Kandpal, tehsildars of the respective areas and other departmental officers.

Dehradun, September 26
The police has booked former president of the National Student Union of India (NSUI) Narender Panwar for allegedly misbehaving with Principal of MPJ College, Mussoorie, RS Shukla, and for damaging college property. The police said he had been absconding after the incident.

The Principal of the college complained to the police on Thursday that Narender Panwar wanted some students to get admitted to BSc and BA, which was wrong according to norms. The Principal said when he refused to get them admitted, Panwar started pressurising him.

He started arguing with the Principal and allegedly misbehaved with him. The police said Panwar also broke chairs and other things kept in the room of the Principal. He had been booked under Sections 427 and 353, IPC.— TNS

Dehradun, September 26
With the win at the ONGC ITF Women’s $10,000 Tennis Tournament, Poojashree Venkatesha won back-to-back title this season. In the final, she defeated Rushmi Chakravarthi by 6-3 and 7-5.

Poojashree was in the top right from the beginning and she continued it in the finals too giving her opponent little opportunity to settle down.

She began the game on a high note to break Rushmi’s first service in the first set. Later, she broke Rushmi’s service for the second time in the set and went on to win the set by 6-3.

The main feature of the first set was Poojashree’s service. She hit four aces in the first set to unsettle her opponent.

The second set was more dramatic with Poojashree taking an early lead in the set to make it 4-3.

Rushmi did try to make a come back in the match with some fine display of forehand strokes to break her opponent’s service for the first time levelling it by 4-4 and then went on to win her serve to take a lead for the first time in the match. Poojashree stuck back immediately afterwards to break Rushmi’s service for the fourth time. She finished off the match by hitting two aces to seal the set with 7-5.

After the match, Poojashree said, “This win is a big boost for me, especially because I will leave for Nigeria to play a tournament which will be a test for me.

Rushmi was really a tough opponent for me. It was good that I played well against her on the final day”.

Poojashree accepted that her service was the key behind her win. During her match she hit eight aces.

Reacting to her lose, Rushmi said, “She struggled to find her rhythm on the final day, as a result things did not go as expected.” She is now looking forward to participate in the Puna Tournament which will begin after two weeks.

The chief guest on the occasion was Assembly Speaker Harbans Kapoor, who gave away the prizes. Other dignities include IG Kumaon Ashok Kumar, tournament director Alok Jaimal, secretary of the tennis association Arun Saxena and manager of the Shanti Tennis Academy Lt Col RK Chawala and others were present on the occasion. 

Roorkee, September 26
Krita of Central Building Research Institute Colony lodged a complaint against her husband and in-laws for harassing her for dowry.

She alleged that she was ousted by her in-laws, including her husband Rajinder, father-in-law Jhandu, brother-in-law Kunwar Pal and sisters-in-law Angoori and Vimla, and asked to bring Rs 1 lakh and a motorcycle.

Krita was married to Rajinder, a resident of ITC Colony, Saharanpur, around 15 months back.

Dehradun, September 26
Uttarakhand Police registered a thumping 4-0 victory over the Cantt Blues team at the ongoing District Super League underway at Pavilion Ground here today.

The Uttarakhand Police team started their campaign to the super league stage in a dashing way. In their match against the Cantt Blues team they completely outplayed it in the match. Shot passes was the feature of their games. The Uttarakhand Police team scored their first goal in the 23rd minute of the match through Pralad. In the 37th minute, Shiv Shankar scored the second goal for his side.

The Cantt Blues team tried hard to reduce the lead in the match, but failed to penetrate the rock solid defense of the Uttarakhand Police team. In the 60th minute, Deepak scored the third goal for his side to help his team take an invincible lead in the match. In the closing minute he scored again for his team making it 4-0. 

Dehradun, September 26
Chandragupta section lifted the inter-section squash trophy in the U-13 category, whereas Shivaji section won the matches in the U-15 and U-17 category. Cadet Nelson was judged the best player and also won the upcoming player’s award.

Cadets Shivam, Mayank, Kush, Puneet, Ankit, Harsh, Surya Prakash, Abhijeet, Shivam, Orkhodeep, Goul, Vinay, Priyank, Anuj, Sunandit and Guninder were the winners.

The chief guest, Col H Dharmarajan, SM, congratulated all participants and encouraged them to work hard. 

Dehradun, September 26
Five schoolchildren got injured after an auto-rickshaw overturned near the Araghar temple Friday morning. The students were of different schools of the city.

The incident happened when the driver of the auto-rickshaw lost control over it and rammed it into a shop. The students started crying and passersby helped them get out of the vehicle and called up an ambulance.

The ambulance shifted the injured to the CMI Hospital. They have been identified as Manvi, Sanjeev, Kritika, Subhasini and Agrim. They are students of St Joseph Academy and St Thomas.

The auto-rickshaw was said to be overloaded. However, the driver said a few street dogs abruptly came in front of the vehicle and in attempt to save them, he took a sharp turn, leading to the accident.

Laksar, September 26
The arrest of four miscreants, while they were planning a robbery in the area, provided a bit of relief to the police as well as people of the area here.

Four such incidents have taken place only this month. On September 21, two motorcycle-borne miscreants robbed Rs 50,000 from an employee of a private finance company near Sindhru Basera turn.

On September 18, four armed criminals entered the house of cement dealer Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal and looted him and beat his wife when she tried to protest. Similarly, teacher Ram Kishan of Parhladpur village was looted of Rs 25,000 when he was coming back after withdrawing the amount from a bank on Haridwar Road.

Though with the arrest of the miscreants, the police claimed to have solved some cases of loot, the officials are under tremendous pressure to curtail the crimegraph.

The police admitted that as the major part of the state shares the border with Uttar Pradesh, it gives advantage to the criminals.

“Still we are doing our best. Cracking of several cases, including murders and double murders just corroborate the fact,” said SP (Rural) Ajay Joshi.