Chandigarh, July 16
If allegations in a petition filed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court are to be believed, the houses of some Balmikis were set afire by the members of the same community and Union Minister for Tourism Kumari Selja manipulated the incident subsequently.

With this, her alleged role in the Mirchpur controversy has come under the high court’s scrutiny. Justice MMS Bedi has put her on notice along with the state of Haryana after hearing preliminary arguments on the petition filed by two accused - Dalbir Singh and Ajit Singh. The case will now come up for further hearing on November 16.

The petitioners stated that the FIR in the case was a political drama, created to suppress, humiliate and blackmail the Jat community and Selja was responsible for communal violence between the communities.

She failed to discharge her duties as a minister.

In an apparent attempt to substantiate their contentions, they have claimed that the entire luggage, clothing, below poverty line ration cards, identity cards and even academic certificates of now deceased Tara Chand’s three sons would have also been burnt, if the house was set afire by the Jat community, as alleged.

“The concoction of incident of fire was actually a manipulation of Kumari Selja and innocent petitioner had been falsely involved because of political reasons,” counsel of petitioners BS Chahhar alleged during the arguments.

Referring to the allegations, the petitioners said the houses of some Balmikis in Mirchpur village were set ablaze on April 21, causing the death of two persons - Tara Chand and his daughter.

Quoting the FIR, the petitioners said the first part showed that they were not even present at the spot. Even the complainant in the case - Karan Singh - is neither a victim, nor aggrieved.

He was also not present at the time of occurrence. Karan Singh is working as fishing contractor and is also a block samiti member and is called pradhan or leader of the Balimiki community.

He is actually the mastermind of the entire occurrence and thereafter played politics over it.

Elaborating, they said some miscreants on the directions of Kumari Selja created the scene.

Later on, Selja held a secret meeting with the Balmikis during her visit to Mirchpur on April 26 and instigated them to take stern action against the Jat community.

She also directed the leaders of Balmiki community to sit on a dharna before the office of the Deputy Commissioner, until new built-up pucca houses were allotted to them, the petitioner stated.

Selja also manipulated in sending Rahul Gandhi to the village and later shot off a stern letter to the Haryana Chief Minister.

As a result of the political pressure, 60 persons from the Jat community were arrested, petitioners further alleged.

Chandigarh, July 16
Haryana Speaker HS Chatha today took up for hearing the petition filed by Kuldeep Bishnoi, president of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), seeking disqualification of five MLAs of the party, who had joined the Congress soon after the October 2009 Assembly elections.

Bishnoi was present during the proceedings.

His counsel SP Jain contended that the five MLAs — Satpal Sangwan, Rao Narinder Singh, Dharampal Chhokar, Vinod Bhayana and Zile Ram Sharma — had been given enough opportunity to put their views before the Speaker.

Now they should be immediately disqualified from the membership of the Assembly for violating the anti-defection law.

However, the five former HJC members sought more time to file their reply because, they said, their counsel had gone to China. They also said that they had to collect certain documents from Bishnoi.

Chatha adjourned the hearing till August 16 after hearing both sides.

The Congress had fallen short of a simple majority by six seats in the House of 90 in the 2009 Assembly elections. But it formed the government after getting the support of seven Independents and a BSP member.

The five HJC MLAs “merged” their party with the Congress, which led to the filing of the petition against them by Bishnoi. Three INLD MLAs had also sought the disqualification of these MLAs.

Sirsa, July 16
A farmer was washed away by floods in the Ghaggar at Kelnian village late last night.

Satya Narayan (52) was on patrol duty to keep a watch on the water level in the river when he slipped into the surging waters.

Efforts to find his body proved futile.

The situation in the district continues to be critical in villages located on Barnala Road and those downstream of Ottu in Rania and Ellenabad blocks.

The floods in Sirsa appear manmade. Farmers, whose lands fall on the tract on both sides of the main creek of the Ghaggar are mainly responsible for floods in the villages.

To mitigate the fury of the Ghaggar during the monsoons, the government had constructed bundhs on both sides of a 70-km stretch along the Ghaggar

These bundhs start from Musahibwala village near the point where the river enters Sirsa and goes up to the Rajasthan border.

The idea behind the outer bundhs was to allow an 11-acre stretch to the Ghaggar when the river is in spate during the rainy season.

This stretch of 11 acres, however, belongs to farmers who have made their own bundhs on the river to protect their crops.

These bundhs have caused floods by creating bottlenecks in the free flow of the river and in the process increasing the rage of the Ghaggar manifold.

Underground pipes installed by some farmers to draw water from the Ghaggar have also wreaked havoc. Meanwhile, the district authorities have sought an assistance of Rs 1.1 crore from the state government for rescue and relief operations in the district.Haryana had yesterday released a sum of Rs 40 lakh for the district under the Calamity Relief Fund.

“Over 30,000 acres of land and 45,000 people living in 46 villages have been affected by the floods,” the DC, CG Rajini Kaanthan, said. Crops worth Rs 160 crore had been damaged in the floods, he added.

Meanwhile, several NGOs and associations have come forward to provide relief to the flood victims, running "langars" and medical camps for them.

Fatehabad, July 16
Twenty members of an extended family, among them children and an expectant woman, are trapped in a“dhani” near Dhani Thoba village in Fatehabad.

No communication is possible with the family as the “dhani” is acres away from the dry patch of land near the bridge on the Rangoi Kharif Channel.

Mohinder Singh, who also lives in a dhani, says the family, like his own, had not expected the water level to rise so much.Balbir Singh, a patwari, said he had tried to counsel the family to evacuate their dhani before the water began to rise butb in vain. He claimed that even now the family was adamant although the authorities were ready to evacuate them on boats. Though the discharge of water has come down considerably at various points in the Ghaggar, more and more land is coming under water. Slowly but surely, floods are also approaching Fatehabad town. The waters are only a kilometre away from Majra Road of the town.

New Delhi, July 16
The Supreme Court today adjourned to November 22 the hearing on the original suit filed by Punjab in 2007, objecting to the 109-km Hansi-Butana canal constructed by Haryana at a cost of Rs 260 crore.

The Bench comprising Justices JM Panchal and AK Patnaik passed the order as in recording of evidence in the case, which also involved Rajasthan, is not yet complete. Rajasthan is also opposing the canal to draw water from the Bhakra Main Canal (BMC) at a higher point.

While Punjab says Haryana has constructed the canal without its consent, Rajasthan maintains the new line would affect the flow of water to the state.

Haryana, however, insists that it is not asking for a greater share of water and only wants to draw water from a higher point so that it can meet the demands of drought-prone areas.

Chandigarh, July 16
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has announced a Rs 8.5 crore package for assistance to farmers in the flood-affected areas of the state. The package includes free and subsidised seeds of different crops and additional fertilisers to the farmers. The flood-affected areas include Sirsa, Fatehabad, Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and some parts of Karnal district.

The stayte government will supply mini-kits of seeds of alternative crops like toria, hybrid bajra and jowar in the affected areas free of cost.

The affected farmers will also be given seeds of basmati varieties at subsidised rates to enable them to raise fresh nursery or go in for direct seeding.

An official spokesman said here today that seeds of hybrid maize and moong or urd would be supplied at highly subsidised rates to ensure that no area was left unsown in the flood-affected districts. Since the fertilisers used by farmers while transplanting paddy and other crops had gone waste due to the heavy rain and floods, allocation of urea had been increased from 8.5 lakh metric tonnes to 9 lakh metric tonnes and of the DAP from 3.2 lakh metric tonnes to 3.6 lakh metric tonnes.

The spokesman said paddy had been damaged in 93,815 hectares in the flood-affected districts whereas cotton had been damaged in 6,434 hectares. Besides, fruits and vegetables, fodder crops had also been damaged in 11,464 hectares. The damage to pulses, vegetables and horticultural crops was quite substantial.

Kurukshetra, July 16
Ram Krishan is held hostage in his slushy home at a dera of bazigars in Barna, surrounded by fields inundated with flood waters, without enough food, with little water, no firewood and five mouths to feed.

He’s not alone in this misery since the Satluj-Yamuna Link was breached near Jyotisar on July 7. Other families in the dera face a similar predicament. Worse, there is no help at hand.

A daily wage earner, Ram Krishan, recalls: “There was incessant rain and water gathered in the fields and homes that afternoon. Then we heard of the breach. Before we knew it, the water rushed through the fields and barged into our homes, devouring all that came in its way.

“There have been days when we have slept on an empty stomach because there’s no food and no firewood.” He has now managed a cylinder on loan.

With the dera under 5-ft deep waters, the families spent two days in a nearby college. “Since then, nobody has come to inquire of our welfare. We are a lesser’s God’s children. We hear food packets and water is being distributed in cities while we, the below poverty line (BPL) families, don’t seem to exist for anybody,” chips in Subh Narayan.

He’s already under debt of Rs 2,500, buying items of everyday use. Plastering a crack in her two-room house, Reshma says:

“I managed to save my buffalo with much difficulty. Had she gone, we would have been ruined.

“For two days, my family went hungry because there was no oil to light the stove.”

In other smaller colonies of Kurukshetra, a similar situation prevails. Help in the form of doctors and medicines is yet to reach. The children, rolling in the slush and swimming in the flood waters, seem more vulnerable to diseases.

In Kaithal, at a relief camp in Jagdishpura, women squabble for fodder for their cattle.

“We can go hungry, not the cattle. There’s no fodder available.We are drawing a blank everywhere, even at this camp,” says a disappointed Taro.

Rohtak, July 16
The examination process of Maharshi Dayanand University has come under a scanner, following a complaint that some officials on exam duty had allegedly sought bribe from students reappearing in an examination of the engineering course.

The university has relieved two officials on duty at a centre and sought an explanation from them.

The matter was highlighted after the MDU authorities sent a flying squad team to a centre at Baba Mastnath Engineering College here yesterday after someone complained that money was being charged from candidates for copying in the exam. But the raiding team did not find anything, claimed KC Dadwal, Controller of Examinations.

He said the complainant was anonymous and neither a student nor a parent had come forward with any grievance.. There was no proof or evidence to substantiate the allegations.

However, two officials, including the centre superintendent and the deputy superintendent, had been relieved and asked to submit their explanation, said the COE.

He said it had been ensured that the examns were held in a free and fair manner.