Chandigarh, June 30
“Long faces and sullen faces”, those with a masquerade of happiness and those with the just-have-to-be-there expression and, of course, faces that genuinely beamed with triumph - together they made up the crowd that converged on the Haryana Vidhan Sabha here today.

The occasion was the filing of nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha seat by Congress candidate and prominent Jat leader Birender Singh and it turned out to be a smooth affair, just as expected.

While Birender Singh’s supporters began arriving well before the slated time of filing of papers, Congress MLAs, too, showed up to mark themselves present in front of party in charge of Haryana affairs Prithviraj Chavan.

However, the filing of nominations turned out to be a show of solidarity for the dissident camp within the Congress as well. To begin with, Birender Singh made his first appearance at the office of the Secretary, Haryana Vidhan Sabha, Sumit Kumar, also the returning officer for the Rajya Sabha election, with Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry. Union minister Selja followed soon after. Widely believed to be behind the “selection” of Birender Singh for the Rajya Sabha seat along with other detractors of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, she arrived in all flourish only for the filing of nominations. Rajya Sabha MP and Selja loyalist Ishwar Singh was the only other MP to be present and all of them stuck together right through the “show”.

Meanwhile, immediately after the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), Birender Singh arrived at the Secretary’s office in a procession with Chavan, Hooda and other senior Congressmen some of whom were sullen for losing the race for a nomination and others who were forced to smile and laugh and still others who were pleased with their victory of a nomination for Birender Singh despite resistence from within the party.

Birender Singh filed two sets of nomination papers with the returning officer amid a light-hearted banter that went on through the process among the Congressmen present. After he emerged from the office of the returning officer, Birender Singh’s supporters raised slogans of “Chaudhary Birender zindabad” before disbursing. A former Finance Minister, Birender Singh was accompanied by his wife Prem Lata to the Vidhan Sabha.

With this, the nominations for the two Rajya Sabha seats closed today. While scrutiny of the nomination papers of both candidates, Indian National Lok Dal’s Ranbir Singh Gangua and Congress candidate Birender Singh will be held tomorrow, the two can be declared elected only after the last day of withdrawal is over on July 3.

Chandigarh, June 30
In a major shakeup in the Haryana BSP, party supremo and UP Chief Minister Mayawati today removed party general secretary in charge of the state Man Singh Manhera as well as state president Prakash Bharti from their posts.

She has appointed the lone vice-president of her party Raja Ram, who is considered as her political heir, as the in charge of the Haryana unit. Naresh Saran of Sadhaura will replace Bharti.

Now Manhera, who will continue as a general secretary of the BSP, will be in charge of Himachal Pradesh. Till now he was looking after Haryana, Chandigarh as well as Himachal Pradesh.

Bharti has been made in charge of the Jammu and Kashmir unit of the party.

Manhera was brought in as in charge of the Haryana unit after the 2005 Assembly elections. A Balmiki of Punjab, Manhera was expected by Mayawati to mobilise non-Chamar Dalits in support of the BSP. Manhera did succeed in his mission as he not only brought many of them to the fold of the party but also several leaders belonging to the so-called upper castes, keeping in line with the social engineering experiment successfully conducted by Mayawati in UP. As a result of his efforts, the BSP’s vote share in the last Lok Sabha elections in Haryana crossed 15 per cent. However, his presence in the state was not liked by many old BSP leaders, who considered him as an intruder. In the last Assembly elections, the BSP vote share dwindled to less than 10 per cent.

Though Raja Ram is considered as a heavyweight in the BSP, with direct access to Mayawati, his first test will be to retain the support of the non-Chamar Dalits, who had joined the party under the influence of Manhera. 

Sirsa, June 30
The police here has denied the allegations of a runaway couple, Manmohan and Shakti, who met National Women’s Commission chairperson Girja Vyas in New Delhi yesterday, seeking security for the family members of the boy.

Manmohan, a Punjabi youth of the town, married Shakti, a Brahmin girl, against the wishes of the girl’s family and the couple had approached the NCW for protection to Manmohan’s family after two of his kin were injured in an attack here on Monday.

Though Manmohan’s cousin Rajesh Mehta (35) and his brother-in-law Jai Kalra (38), who are getting treatment in the local general hospital, have specifically accused the family members of the girl of attacking them, the police maintains that it is a case of brawl over the panchayat elections.

SP Satinder Kumar Gupta said the City SHO, who was investigating the matter, had found that the injured kin of Manmohan had an altercation with another party during the panchayat elections and the clash that took place on Monday was a repercussion of that.

“The couple had applied for police protection before a local court last month and we had immediately provided security. However, the couple disappeared after that and could not be traced even by the police,” maintained Gupta.

City SHO Mauji Ram said a case of assault had been registered against Sushil Sharma, though he too had lodged a complaint against Rajesh and Jai Kalra.

Sushil Sharma, a member of the other party, was also allegedly injured in the incident and was shifted to the local general hospital yesterday. Sharma was discharged from the hospital today. Mauji Ram said Sharma had denied any link with the girl’s family.

Rajesh Mehta, who runs a cloth shop in the town, alleged that a kin of Shakti had called on his phone on Monday and inquired about the whereabouts of Manmohan and Shakti.

“When I went to the market to pick my motorbike from a mechanic, I and Kalra was surrounded by some relatives of the girl, who attacked us,” he alleged while talking to mediapersons in the local general hospital.

Meanwhile, the intelligence wing of the police had provided inputs to the authorities that family members of the girl could attack kin of the boy.

According to sources, an officer of the district administration had also sent a written communication to the police requesting them to provide security to the family members of Manmohan. 

Chandigarh, June 30
The state of Haryana today virtually gave a clean chit to Minister of State for Home Gopal Kanda. In a reply submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on a petition for the registration of a criminal case against him, the state said the allegations were false and baseless. Portraying Kanda as a victim, the state claimed an attempt was made to kill him.

The petitioners, Mahabir Bagri, Pardeep Godara and Yogesh Sharma, had earlier alleged a murderous assault on them and an attempt to kidnap one of them on April 3.

Going into the background, the petitioners had alleged Sirsa residents had given a call for a bandh in protest against the erratic power and water supply on April 3, when Haryana Chief Minister was scheduled to visit the area. Kanda, passing by on his official vehicle, suddenly stopped and assaulted three persons. Kanda also directed the police accompanying him to fire at them and pick up Pardeep Godara. As people reached the spot, the kidnapping was foiled, the petitioners alleged. Later, a criminal case of assault and other offences under the provisions of the IPC, and also under the prevention of insult to national honour, was registered against them and others for allegedly causing damage to the National Flag on Kanda’s vehicle.

Kanda’s counsel Vikram Jain has all along been contending the petition is a counter-blast, as an FIR for attempt to murder and other provisions of law had been registered against the petitioners at the City police station, Sirsa.

The state, in the reply placed before Justice Gurdev Singh, today added there was no reason or ground to hand over the investigation to any other independent agency. It added INLD workers were forcing people to shut their shops under the threat of dire consequences. Kanda, along with his brother, were inspecting the arrangements in connection with the Chief Minister’ visit, when the petitioners, along with their associates, armed with pistols, guns and lathis, attacked Kanda’s government vehicle.

The accused even tried to kill Kanda and damaged the National Flag on his vehicle. Two shots were fired, one by accused Pardeep Godara. The police managed to save Kanda from the attack. The petition will now come up for hearing on August 2. 

Chandigarh, June 30
For nearly two decades, Haryana did not file a reply to a petition challenging the move to acquire a school’s playground in Gurgaon. The objections raised by a parents’ body against the land acquisition process also remained undecided, and even when the matter came up for final hearing before a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, no one from the Gurgaon Improvement Trust appeared to defend the move. Eventually, the acquisition proceedings were quashed by the high court.

The Parent-Teacher Association of Gurgaon’s Government Senior Secondary School had brought the matter to the high court’s notice way back in 1991. Aggrieved, the association had raised objections to the acquisition process initiated by the Improvement Trust in 1990. The association had also sought directions for quashing the proceedings in their writ petition.

The association was of the view that the move would deprive the students of an opportunity to play the “games of hockey, cricket, volleyball, football and handball”. They added that no other school in Gurgaon was having a playground spacious enough to hold state-level tournaments.

As the case came up for hearing, the Division Bench took note of the fact that the land was sought to be given by a village in Gurgaon sometimes in the early sixties free of cost so that the neighbouring students could benefit from the playground by holding tournaments and other activities.

The Bench, comprising Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Ajay Tewari, also observed that the objections raised by the association to the acquisition proceedings were still undecided due to the filing of the writ petition. In their detailed order, the Bench observed the respondents had not filed a reply since 1991 and nobody was present before the court on behalf of the Improvement Trust.

Pronouncing the orders in the open court, the Bench quashed the proceedings after taking into account the overall public interest, which required the presence of the playground for providing the students with necessary opportunities.

Chandigarh, June 30
Despite strenuous efforts by the state government to provide succour to victims of violence, Mirchpur refuses to remain off news headlines.

Two persons had died when members of a particular community had set the houses of Dalits in Mirchpur village in Hisar district on fire in April.

Now, the Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will visit Mirchpur on July 2. The committee will comprise 30 MPs and six officers.

The committee will take stock of the prevailing situation and measures taken by the administration following the violent incident. They would also have discussions with senior officers, besides interacting with villagers.

The government gave jobs to three members of the family of those who had died, besides giving monetary compensation to other victims. However, the victims were not satisfied and staged a dharna in Delhi.

Mirchpur shot into national fame when AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi paid a surprise visit to the village and met the victims. Rahul’s visit put the state government on the mat and opponents of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda within his own party became active in running him down before the party high command.

AICC president Sonia Gandhi also wrote to Hooda pulling him up for the administration’s failure to provide security to the Dalit families. 

Karnal, June 30
It was a unique case of the proverbial “hope sustains life” that a woman in her late twenties, suffering from documented ovarian failure with follicle stimulation hormone ranging at 128.60 and tubes damaged, delivered a normal male child at Guru Nanak Hospital here.

It is probably the only case in the medical history of India that Seema, a resident of Noida who was suffering from multiple ailments compounded by a huge tumor near the damaged endometrium, gave birth to a normal baby weighing 2.75 kg, in spite of a total negative response from all quarters.

“We can safely claim that it is the first case of its kind in India and the third in the world as no doctor will ever try to ‘produce a baby’ after knowing that the patient is suffering from documented ovarian failure with high level of follicle stimulation hormone and tumor near the damaged endometrium, and it is because of the sheer will and determination of Seema that this miracle happened,” Dr Prabjot Kaur, who treated the patient, told mediapersons.

The desperate couple ran from pillar to post for years and contacted doctors in many big hospitals in Delhi and other parts of country, but all in vain.

Finally, the couple came to Guru Nanak Hospital here, 26 months ago and the woman was adamant that she would have her own baby. It was a risky and daunting task but after treating her for 15 months, an egg was formed but the process was very slow and stimulation took 17 to 18 days.

Dr Prabjot said when the woman insisted that she wanted her own egg to be developed into an embryo, the doctors blatantly told her that it was a wastage of money and the result would not be positive, but she ignored all advice. Moreover, there was another major problem as there was only one egg and in medical terminology it was called a failure if the number eggs was less than five.

Call it the grace of God or miracle that the only egg produced came into the needle which was inseminated with the father’s semen and the embryo started growing. After the pro-nuclei stage, it was transferred but there was still another problem of endometrial damage and herbal medicines were administered to regenerate the damaged parts. “The first IVF was successful but there was no chance of the second and till the last moment we were not sure about what was in store for us and kept our fingers crossed,” she disclosed.

Dr Prabjot said they told her to remove the tumor as it could add to complications in the fourth month and might lead to abortion, but she dismissed the suggestion as she was apprehensive that her uterus might be removed and without a second thought said she was prepared for the worst.

It is indeed an incredible feat but the credit for this goes more to Seema who set the course than to the doctors who followed.

Kurukshetra, June 30
Dharohar Museum at Kurukshetra University has launched its website www.dharoharmuseum.com providing a virtual access to the museum’s extensive collection.

The website has been designed in a manner that over 2,000 exhibits and rare collections related to culture and heritage roll out instantly offering a glimpse of history, legacy and traditions of the state.

Kurukshetra University Vice-Chancellor Lt-Gen DDS Sandhu, who launched the website, said it would give a wide exposure to heritage, traditions and culture of the state and prompt people to visit various parts of the state.

The new website is based on a new content management system developed to provide extensive information of the museum’s collection and activities and also post the latest updates on programmes to be organised.

The collections included folk musical instruments, wall paintings, manuscripts, art and craft, transportation vehicles, tools, ornaments, gourmet of Haryana, pictures of war heroes and freedom fighters and also the list of donors who have gifted these precious items for display. 

Karnal, June 30
Panipat-based jeweller VK Malhotra, main complainant in the STF extortion case, died in Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi late last night. He was admitted to the hospital yesterday afternoon.

His death has come as a great setback for the investigations into extortion case as it was because of the CCTV camera installed at his shop that seven extortionists, all members of the Special Task Force (STF), were identified.

The district police had rounded up eight cops, including ASP Ashok Sheoran, ASI Vijay Pal, head constable (HC) Jagbir, HC Raj Kapoor, HC Ishwar Singh along with constables Vinod Kumar, Dharam Singh and Mahinder Singh, on March 15 and arrested them after interrogations. The arrested cops, including the ASP, were accused of extorting Rs 6 lakh from a local share broker and making an unsuccessful attempt to extort another Rs 10 lakh from a local jeweller on March 10.

They were caught on a CCTV camera at the jewellery shop, which helped in tracing the accused and investigating teams got the details of the mobile phones of all accused that provided vital clues about the crime.

Family members of Malhotra said he was operated upon in a local hospital at Panipat for removing tumour, but some medicine reacted and he was referred to Delhi yesterday. He was admitted to Jaipur Golden Hospital, where he died late last night. 

Karnal, June 30
Baksheesh Singh, the key accused in the case pertaining to the bomb blast on a convoy of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh near Nilokheri on February 2, 2008, was today produced in the court of Duty Magistrate Puneet Sehgal (Civil Judge, Junior Division), who remanded him in 14 days’ police custody.

The police argued that his custody was necessary for the recovery of a 9-mm revolver and RDX and he would have to be taken to Chennai, Goa and the Nepal border for investigations.

Baksheesh’s lawyer Lakhwinder Singh Kaliraun told mediapersons that the confessional statement of Baksheesh Singh in Hindi produced by the police was rejected by the court as Baksheesh could not read and write Hindi.

He disclosed that he would file a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for shifting the case from Haryana to another state as the dera chief was influential in the state.

He alleged that the Amritsar police, which arrested Baksheesh last month, subjected him to third-degree torture during interrogation, causing an injury in his right knee.

“We have requested the Judge for providing medical treatment to Baksheesh and the Judge assured that all necessary treatment would be provided to him,” he claimed.

Baksheesh, who was limping while entering the courtroom, maintained that he was not aware of any bomb and had nothing to do with the February 2 blast. Asked whether he was hiding in Pakistan, he stated that he never left the country.