Hisar, December 19
The Barah Khap panchayat, which met at Mirchpur village in this district today to resolve the dispute between Dalit and Jat residents ended inconclusively as no member of the family of victim Tara Chand attended the meeting.

The meeting lasted over six hours. The panchayat meeting was chaired by Rajbir Dhanda. It was called to restore peace and brotherhood between different communities of the village in the aftermath of the violence against Dalits in April last which left Tara Chand and his polio-stricken teenaged daughter dead.

Representatives of the Dalits who attended the meeting assured the panchayat leadership that they would meet members of Tara Chand’s family and try to involve them in the peace talks.

They included Karan Singh, Vir Bhan, Chander Singh, Satyavaan, Binder, Ramphal and Om Parkash.

Dhanda said after the meeting that the panchayat was very optimistic about restoring peace and brotherhood in the village. He said once the panchayat resolved the dispute, there would be no need for keeping a police force in the village.

The representatives of the Barah Khap who were present included a member of the Zila Parishad, Randhir Singh, and Rajesh, Karan Singh, Suresh and Rajbir.

Several attempts have been made during the past few days to resolve the dispute at various levels. While all members of the Dalit community are willing to reach a settlement, the family members of Tara Chand are not prepared to do so.

Tara Chand’s son Pradeep, who appeared before the vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Raj Kumar Verka, last week even complained that witnesses were being pressured to retract their statements in the trial court.

Sirsa, December 19
A war of words has erupted between the ruling Congress and the main Opposition Indian National Lok Dal on the proposed “Badhte Kadam” rally of Chief Minister BS Hooda here on December 25.

While the Congress leaders claim that “Badhte Kadam” will bring several new projects to Sirsa, the INLD calls it “bhrishtachar ki taraf badhte kadam” (march towards corruption).

Hooda will be addressing a rally at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Stadium here on December 25 and will inaugurate a railway over-bridge on the Hisar-Dabwali road and a polytechnic building.

Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar, addressing people in Fatehabad recently, said “Badhte Kadam” would open the doors to development for the Sirsa parliamentary constituency.

He claimed Hooda would announce fresh projects for this constituency.

Ranjit Singh, former Deputy Chairman of the State Planning, addressing workers’ meetings at Nathusari village under the Ellenabad assembly constituency recently, claimed that Hooda had special attachment with Ellenabad.

Gobind Kanda, HPCC delegate and younger brother of Home Minister Gopal Kanda, addressing a meeting of party workers at his office, claimed that “Badhte Kadam” would provide an impetus to the ongoing development works in the district.

Talking to mediapersons here, Abhey Singh Chautala, INLD legislator from Ellenabad, alleged that the Hooda government had done nothing for common good in the past six years.

Chautala alleged that the only work undertaken by the Congress government so far had done to acquire fertile agriculture land of poor farmers and sell it to big industrialists and colonisers for a premium.

He accused the government of playing a cruel joke on the farmers affected by floods by giving them meagre relief for their losses.

“The government has given no compensation for up to 50 per cent damage to houses and Rs 15,000 for more than 50 per cent damage. Similarly, farmers have received Rs 5,500 per acre for crop loss, while they actually spent up to Rs 25,000 per acre,” he claimed.

Jhajjar, December 19
Taking exception to AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s remarks that radical Hindu groups posed a bigger threat to the country than militant groups like the LeT, INLD supremo and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala said Rahul was not a mature leader and he must keep in mind the national security while issuing any statement in this regard.

He said this while interacting with mediapersons after addressing INLD workers at the party office here today.

Terming Rahul’s statement as irresponsible, he said such sort of remarks might cause panic among the masses besides encouraging the terrorist activities.

Castigating the UPA government, Chautala said over 10 big scams had surfaced during the Congress regime, which should be probed by any sitting judge of the Supreme Court.

“Names of prominent Congress leaders could have been publicised in the 2G spectrum scam had the UPA government constituted a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the matter,” said Chautala, maintaining that the demand of forming a JPC made by the opposition was deliberately turned down by the government.

Maintaining that the Congress governments at the Centre and the state has failed on all fronts, he said the government had not only failed to control the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, but also to provide ample employment opportunities to the unemployed educated youth.

“The promise of the Congress government to provide compensation equal to the market price for the farmers’ acquired land besides giving them employment if any industrial unit was set up on their land has turned out to be hollow as the government neither gave compensation equal to the market price nor provided employment to the farmers and their kin,” said the former CM, adding that the government connived with the capitalists to render the farmers landless so that their costly land could be handed over to the industrialists at cheapest rate.

He called upon the party workers to oppose the wrong policies of the state government by making people aware in this regard.

Fatehabad, December 19
Gorakhpur farmers, agitating against the acquisition of their land for the proposed nuclear power plant, and Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar have joined issue over the project. The agitation and dharna of the Gorakhpur farmers against the proposed nuclear power plant of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited entered its 126th day today.

Addressing the agitating farmers, Hans Raj Siwach, president of the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, took exception to the recent remarks of Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar justifying the acquisition of their agriculture land.

Siwach said Tanwar should take a leaf out of Union Minister Kumari Selja’s book and instead of justifying their “uprooting”, he should stand with them in their hour of crisis.

“Being an elected representative of Ambala people, Selja has set an example by stalling the acquisition of land at Panjokhra village for an industrial modern township (IMT). Now, it is the duty of Tanwar to impress upon Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda during his December 25 Sirsa visit to revoke the notification issued for the acquisition of land belonging to the Gorakhpur farmers,” Siwach said.

He claimed that the land proposed to be acquired for the project was very fertile and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had herself expressed reservation over the acquisition of fertile land for various projects.

Hooda will address “Badhte Kadam”, a rally, at Sirsa on December 25 and Tanwar has been addressing meetings in the area to mobilise support for it.

Addressing a meeting in the local Panchayat Bhawan, Tanwar had earlier justified the acquisition of land and had termed this as essential for the development of this area.

“Many people had opposed the setting up of the Bhakhra Dam. However, the project saw the light of day due to some forward-looking people. Residents of 341 villages had to be uprooted from their land and the government resettled them in various parts of the country. Today, thousands of villages and lakhs of people are getting the benefit of the dam,” Tanwar said in his address. The MP said the nuclear power plant would provide employment to hundreds of youths.

Sirsa, December 19
Owing to the influx of hazardous chemicals and other effluents into the Ghaggar, the flora and fauna is running a great risk in areas irrigated by distributaries originating from the Ottu weir near Rania town in this district.

A large number of fish has been dying in the Ottu Lake daily, complained a fishing contractor. Not only fish, other creatures living under water have also been dying due to the highly polluted waters, leading to all-pervading stink in the vicinity of the Ghaggar.

Originating from the Shivaliks, the Ghaggar reaches Sirsa after passing through parts of Himachal, Punjab and Haryana and has become a source of irrigation for farmers of over a hundred villages of Rania, Ellenabad and Chopta blocks in this district over the years.

Though no water flows in the Ghaggar, except for the monsoon season, a large quantity of water is stored in the Ottu Lake and is used during the rest of the year. At present, six distributaries emanate from the Ghaggar from the Ottu weir and irrigate thousands of acres.

The water from these distributaries is also sometimes used for watering cattle and by children for bathing.

“The chemical-mixed water of the Ghaggar is causing harm to the soil. The water is also polluting the sub-soil water,” said a senior officer of the Haryana Agriculture Department requesting anonymity.

He said though the exact damage caused by the pollution could not be quantified, the reports that certain villages near Bathinda had witnessed a spurt in the incidents of cancer due to the influx of effluents into the areas was sufficient to gauge the gravity of the situation.

A farmer, Sukhdev Singh, rued that the underground water in their area had also become polluted due to the “poisonous” water of the Ghaggar. Farmers complain that the river waters contain effluents that enter it in Kalka, Pinjore, Panchkula and Ambala.

The pollution in it is caused by the discharge of untreated industrial waste and sewage from Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Punjab, they maintain.

Chairman of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board AS Chahal maintained that monitoring of the Ghaggar involved some problems due to the “inter-state nature” of the river. He said the meandering nature of the river made it all the more difficult and any proper monitoring of the influx of industrial waste into it was not possible without the participation of members of the Central Pollution Control Board.

Chahal said the board conducted checks as and when a complaint was received and a recent complaint against a Sirsa-based paperboard mill was examined and found false.

He maintained that the wastewater from Ambala town also entered the river and that too was a polluting factor for the Ghaggar.

Gurgaon, December 19
People should treat a doctor as a fellow human being and understand that he or she is also susceptible to human errors. However, in the event of some mishap with a patient, he/she is not given a fair chance to prove his/her point. At times, doctors are manhandled and their nursing homes damaged even when they are not at fault.

This plight was highlighted by the doctors themselves during a discussion at a public forum - “We The People” - held as part of the Third National Medico-Legal Conference of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Society of India (FOGSI), organised here. The Gurgaon Obstetric and Gynecological Society hosted the three-day conference, which concluded today.

They maintained that they had their own limitations in curing the patients. Though there was a law in the country to punish the guilty, people often took the law into their own hands.

“We do not want to protect any doctor who has been negligent, but there is a law for this purpose. The person(s) responsible for igniting violence against the doctor and his/her establishment should also be punished,” asserted the convener of the conference, Dr Dilip Walke, adding that there was no place for vandalism and violence in a civilised society.

If the patient’s relatives feel that the patient had died/suffered due to the doctor’s negligence, they should report the matter to the police, he stated.

Dr Vibha Misra said people should treat doctors as human beings and not demi-gods.

The president of FOGSI, Dr Sanjay Gupte, pointed out that mutual faith between the doctor and the patient was the most important element. He felt that the media should also try to play a responsible and constructive role while reporting such incidents.

Dr Gupte pointed out that 200 women died everyday in India during delivery, stating that the doctors’ target should be to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the next five years, instead of pondering over the harassment and violence the doctors were subjected to.

He disclosed that FOGSI would launch a campaign with the government for reducing the maternal mortality rate. He said the PNDT Act needed to be improved.

Dr RN Goel said nine states, including Haryana, had passed an ordinance to curb violence by a mob, but the police was not adhering to it.

The convener of the conference, Dr Ragini Agarwal, also felt that the doctors should be given a fair chance to prove that they are not guilty. Anil Grover, a practising Supreme Court advocate, maintained that commercialisation was the reason behind patients having lost faith in doctors.

Dr Nikhil Datar felt that by causing violence, the people were endangering the life of others as well.

Sonepat, December 19
Two persons - Arun Patil of Palla in Faridabad district and Shanti Devi of Sector 32, Chandigarh, died on the spot while two others were injured seriously when they were run over by a roadways bus after it was hit in the rear by a speeding container near Qumaspur village on the GT Road in the early hours today.

The injured - Ratna and Renu of Hari Nagar in Delhi - were referred to the PGIMS, Rohtak, by doctors at the local Civil Hospital. The police has registered a case against the container driver who escaped, leaving behind the vehicle.

The families of the victims have been informed about the incident.

The roadways bus of the Rohtak depot was on way to Gurgaon from Chandigarh and after crossing the Murthal flyover, it developed some snag and was

parked on one side of the three-lane road. The victims, along with the bus driver, the conductor and other passengers, were waiting in front of the

parked bus to board another roadways bus when the bus was hit in the rear by a speeding container. The victims were trapped under the bus.

The police reached the spot and took the victims to the Civil Hospital where doctors declared Arun Patil

and Shanti Devi “brought dead” and referred the two injured to the PGIMS, Rohtak.

Chandigarh, December 19
The Haryana Tourism Department will spend Rs 200 crore to upgrade its tourist complexes across the state during the next two years. This was stated by Haryana Tourism and Transport Minister Om Parkash Jain while addressing a press conference here recently.

He said Rs 33 crore out of this amount would be spent on tourist complexes at Morni Hills and Tikkertal, Rs 30 crore in Kurukshetra and Rs 11 crore on the renovation of tourist spots in Pinjore.

He said Oasis Tourist Complex at Karnal would also be extended as 33 acres had already been acquired for the purpose. A convention centre and a banquet hall would also be set up there. An amusement park would be set up near Tilyar Lake, Rohtak.

The present site of the Oasis Tourist Complex would be converted into parking area, he added.

He said efforts were being made to upgrade and renovate the tourist complexes in the state so that every kind of facility could be provided to the tourists. Jain, who also holds the charge of the Transport Department, said the Haryana Roadways was functioning smoothly. There was no unrest among the Roadways staff, as a package of Rs 70 crore had been given to the drivers and conductors of Haryana Roadways.

“There are only few bad elements and not the unions that are creating a nuisance,” he said, adding that 700 new buses had already been purchased for providing betweer connectivity. The Roadways was planning to introduce a luxury bus service in the state, he said.

Kharkhoda (Sonepat), Dec 19
Conceived six years back, the ambitious industrial model township (IMT) project here remains a non-starter. The government had decided on Kharkhoda for the venture because of its proximity to the national Capital. The locals had welcomed the step hoping that the township would create more job opportunities for them while the government had expected industrial investment worth crores.

The project, given to the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC), hit a roadblock when owners of 60 brick-kilns, whose land was to be acquired for the township, put up a strong resistance. The government refused to renew licences for these brick-kilns. Later, on the Chief Minister’s intervention, an extension of six months was granted to them.

The township, which was to be developed on the lines of Manesar, was to include campuses for large industries, IT parks, industrial plots, factories, housing, commercial areas, entertainment zones and educational and healthcare facilities.

On the other hand, the MIT at Rohtak, which was announced after Kharkhoda, has already got going with two industrial houses, including Maruti-Suzuki and Asian Paints, setting up their units there.

Senior officials in the HSIIDC, requesting anonymity, said the failure of the authorities to acquire land for the project had become a major hindrance.

Meanwhile, the locals demand that the government should take effective measures to complete the township which would not only give a boost to property prices in the area but also result in over-all prosperity.

Kaithal, December 19
The elections to 30 out of 31 wards of the Kaithal municipal council were conducted peacefully today and 77. 39 per cent voters exercised their franchise in the poll.

Rakesh Sardana was elected unopposed from ward No. 13. All results were declared by SDM-cum-returning officer Hawa Singh here today.

Anil Kumar, Commissioner, Ambala division, and observer, personally supervised the whole process. Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Electoral Officer Amneet P Kumar and SP Simardeep Singh assisted by other district officials kept a watch over the law and order situation.

The following have been elected as municipal councillors from respective wards; Ward No. 1 Sultan Singh, ward No 2 Vijay Pal, ward No 3 Neetu, ward No. 4 Sharan Jeet Kaur, ward No 5 Pushpa Devi, ward No 6 Anil Kumar, ward No 7 Varsha Rani, ward No 8 Pardeep, ward No 9 Chanchal, Subhash Chand (10), Urmil Kaulia (11), Asha Rani (12), Rakesh Sardana (13), Krishan Kumar (14), Kamlesh Gupta (15), Javeer (16), Darbara Singh (17), Sujan Singh (18), Mela (19), Rajbala (20), Prem Chand (21), Ved Parkash (22), Ram Niwas (24), Sheetal Kumar (25), Anand Kumar (26), Basanl Lal (27), Ranbir Singh (28), Joginder (29), Surinder Ranjha (30) and Asha Rani (31).

Bhiwani, December 19
Eighty-one per cent polling was registered during the municipal council elections that held here today. The administration had deployed heavy police in the city for the peaceful conduct of the elections.

The police had taken all polling stations in its custody last night. For the first time, electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used in the elections.

Polling, which started at a slow pace, gained momentum during the mid-day. All polling agents were provided seats outside the polling rooms.

More police had to be deployed at ward number 15 after complaints of tension among voters and candidates. Such complaints were also received from ward No. 19, 10 and 31.

The police checked every voter before entering the polling room.

It also checked sensitive and hypersensitive wards after every half an hour.

The district police chief had coordinated with mediapersons by urging them to send SMSes of any untoward incident during the election.

Vijay Panchgama was declared winner from ward No. 1, Patas Kaur from ward No. 2, Sewa Devi Dhillon (3), Sukhvender (4), Sudama Tanwar (5), Bhawani (6), Niranjan Balmiki of the INLD (7), Mange Ram Jhaduwala (8), Ishwar Mann (9), Praveen Kumar (10), Asha Rani Chawla of the INLD (13), Kamlesh Yadav (14), Jagdish Thekedar (15), Gobind Ram, alias Billu, (16), Vijay Tanwar (19), Maman (22) Puran Chand Azad (26), Anil Kathpalia of the INLD (27) and Bala Devi was declared winner from ward No. 31.

The results of the remaining wards were awaited till the filing of the report.