Fatehabad, March 25
Before calling off their agitation late at night, it was a day full of protests for the Jat community members.

Unfazed by the intervention of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and unmindful of the miseries of the people, Jat activists continued their stir on railway tracks at Gajuwala and Mehuwala here during the day. Then, there seemed to be no early end to the imbroglio as Jat leaders have given hints that they will not relent despite recent developments. Balwant Singh Gill, president of the Tohana unit of the Sangharsh Samiti, said they had no plan to vacate the tracks even if the authorities try to use force on them.

The authorities, in turn, seem in no mood to act against the protesters, particularly after the affidavit submitted by the government in the high court yesterday.

The authorities, it seem, are waiting for the impending wheat-harvesting season starting next month. Once the harvesting season starts, farmers will have no option but to spend their time in fields.

JIND: In spite of the directions by the Punjab and Haryana High court, the Jats continued to stage a dharna and block the railway track near Narwana town, about 35 km from here, for the 14th day on Friday. Some of them are even observing hunger strike seeking acceptance of their demand. Leaders and representatives of Jats reiterated that their agitation and blockade would continue till the acceptance of their demand of job reservation in both the state and the central government services.

They said none of the officials of the state or the district administration had approached them for talks on the matter so far and claimed that it was the indifferent attitude and poor response of the government that had made the community to continue the stir.

Nafe Singh Nain, head of the Binain Khap, alleged that the quota facility to the community was being denied deliberately on political and caste considerations and it was the result of the double standard of politicians which had forced the people to come out on the roads and tracks.

Chandigarh, March 25
In Haryana the Jats often say jocularly that if God gives a Jat riches or a high ranking job, He actually creates a politician. That appears true of the two men leading the ongoing pro-reservation Jat agitation.

While, Yashpal Malik, President of the All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, the outfit that has launched the stir, is a rich Uttar Pradesh based builder, his Man Friday in Haryana, Hawa Singh Sangwan is a retired Commandant of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Malik hails from Muzzafarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. He was virtually unknown in his home state till he set up a company Mascon India Pvt Ltd in 2000. He is now Managing Director of the company. His first real estate venture was in Ghaziabad where he built Vasundhra Plaza. Later, he also expanded his business to New Delhi. His company now employs 40 fellow Jats.

Malik is known for extending a helping hand to fellow Jats. He has helped scores of youth set up their own small enterprises in the commercial complexes he has built.

After making his money, he joined the All India Jat Mahasabha headed by former wrestler and television actor Dara Singh. However, he broke away from it to float his own outfit All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti sometime in 2007. Since then he has organised massive protests by Jats in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

He came to limelight in Haryana last year when he held press conferences all over the state regarding his plans to launch a stir for reservation for Jats. However, his foray in Haryana ran into rough weather in September last year when violence marred the pro-reservation rally at Mayyar village in Hisar district.

Though he denies it, his close associates say he wants to contest assembly polls from Uttar Pradesh or Haryana.

Malik’s right hand man in Haryana, Hawa Singh Sangwan joined the CRPF in 1969 as a Head Constable. He was born at Mankawas village in Bhiwani district in 1947. He had his schooling at Charkhi village. Later he attended Dayanand College at Hisar. He retired from the CRPF as a Commandant in 2004.

He has written three books. One is on the Ayodhya Ram Temple issue. The other two deal with subjects relating to the Jat community. In 2007 he joined the Dara Singh led All India Jat Mahasabha. However, last year he came in to contact with Malik and was appointed as the President of the Haryana unit of Malik’s outfit.

Chandigarh, March 25
Nearly two years after the wife and two minor children of HCS officer Virender Singh Sehrawat were found dead under mysterious circumstances, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked the state of Haryana to hand over the investigation to the CBI.

Justice Alok Singh asserted that: “Undisputedly, Anju, wife of Sehrawat, and his two kids, Meghna (11) and Parth (7), were found dead under mysterious circumstances in the house and Sehrawat was present in the house when the bodies were recovered and his pistol was used in the occurrence.

“No other person was present in the house. Only the victims and Sehrawat were present. The matter requires thorough investigation. The court feels that Sehrawat being a civil services officer of the Haryana Government may be in a position to influence the investigation….

“It is directed that the state government shall hand over the investigation to the CBI.”

The directions came on a petition for anticipatory bail by a woman in the abetment to suicide case registered at the Samalkha police station in Panipat district. The FIR was initially registered for murder on an application filed by Anju’s mother. However, during the investigation, Anju’s suicide note was recovered that blamed the woman for the extreme step.

Her counsel alleged that she had lodged two FIRs. One was registered on September 18, 2008, under Section 376 and the other on June 16, 2008, against Sehrawat and his brother.

In one of the cases, the police filed a cancellation report. Sehrawat was exonerated in the other. The counsel added that: “It requires thorough investigation as to whether Sehrawat is involved in the murder of his wife and two children or Anju killed her kids and then committed suicide because of the strange behaviour of Sehrawat.”

Claiming that Sehrawat was posted as Haryana Roadways general manager, the counsel alleged that: “By using his influence, he can get a clean chit from the police in the rape case filed by the petitioner.”

Making absolute the interim anticipatory bail to her, Justice Alok Singh asserted that: “Making the petitioner accused for an offence under Section 306 of the IPC for abetment to commit suicide on the basis that she had filed criminal complaints against the husband of the deceased seems to be a cooked up story. It seems that the Haryana police is not investigating the matter under the influence of Sehrawat.”

Chandigarh, March 25
A special court for hearing cases registered by the CBI is coming up at Panchkula. This court will hear only CBI cases pertaining to Haryana and will not handle any other matters.

The court will begin functioning at Panchkula next week, Deputy Inspector-General, CBI, Mahesh Aggarwal told The Tribune today. Following this CBI cases in Haryana will be transferred from the present CBI court in Ambala to Panchkula.

The Additional District and Sessions Judge at Ambala, AS Narang, has been posted to Panchkula to take charge of the new CBI court. There were about 100 CBI cases pending before the Ambala court, which include sensitive matters like the Dera Sacha Sauda case, the Ruchika case and the Delhi Police ACP murder case.

The special CBI court in Panchkula comes close on the heels of a special court in this township for hearing National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases.

The Chandigarh zonal office of the CBI covers the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. About 300 CBI cases pertaining to these states are pending before various designated courts. Most of them are corruption matters of high-profile criminal cases that were specially referred to the CBI for investigations.

In states like J&K, there are no courts to exclusively handle CBI cases, but designated courts hear CBI matters along with other cases.

The Haryana government had initially wanted the special CBI court to be set up in Sirsa, but the CBI zonal office here made a case for such a court for Haryana to be established in Panchkula due to administrative and logistic expediency. Sirsa is about 300 km away, making it difficult for officers from Chandigarh to attend court hearings regularly. 

Gurgaon, March 25
A demolition squad, headed by Joint Municipal Commissioner Narender Yadav and escorted by a police team under the commandership of Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajesh Duggal, razed several illegal structures, including under-construction multi-storeyed buildings, in an unauthorised settlement near Palam Vihar Colony here today.

The operation was part of an ongoing campaign to stop construction activity within 900 metres of the ammunition depot.

The drive is being run by the district administration following specific orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in this regard.

The demolition team also faced some resistance from local residents, who opposed the move and tried to prevent them from dismantling the unauthorised structures.

Residents, armed with lathis and brickbats, dared the team members to demolish their premises. Some residents, including women, also pelted 
the squad members with stones.

Retaliating, the police personnel accompanying the demolition squad used light force to disperse the protesters.

Later, some residents also went to the ACP office in Palam Vihar, but returned empty-handed.

Sirsa, March 25
Incidents of thefts in five shops in main markets of Sirsa last night triggered protests by shopkeepers today.

Traders, who were piqued at the spate of such incidents in the past few days, closed their shops till noon today, and held a demonstration at Bhagat Singh Chowk here.

Led by Hira Lal Sharma, president of the Beopar Mandal, Sirsa, the traders stopped vehicular traffic near the Chowk for over two hours and relented only after DSP (Headquarters) Puran Chand Panwar assured them of measures to check such crimes in the future.

The thieves, according to the traders, stole Rs 23,500 and 45 silver coins from a handloom shop, Rs 6,000 from a sweets shop and Rs 1,300 from another shop of general goods.

The criminals did not hesitate to target a shop situated near the City police station and stole cash from there by breaking its locks.

The desperadoes also struck at a cloth merchant’s shop near Shiv Chowk.

“Thieves have been targeting our shops almost daily, but the police has been adopting a lackadaisical attitude,” alleged Hira Lal Sharma.

Shopkeepers Som Nath Sethi, Gajanand Soni, Chander Jain, Sita Ram, Kedar Pahwa, Ganga Ram Gupta, Jai Parkash, Tarsem Bajaj and many others alleged that the traders had been losing their property as well as peace of mind as the police did not listen to their grievances after the crime.

The DSP said police patrolling would be increased in the local markets.

Karnal, March 25
Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (ad hoc) president Jagdish Singh Jhinda, who created a commotion by tendering his resignation from the SGPC and walking out of the Budget session yesterday, said today that he resigned on “moral grounds” as he failed to get justice for the victims of the 1984 Chhillar anti-Sikh riots.

“I was part of the SGPC for the past eight years, but could not get justice for the victims of the Chhillar anti-Sikh riots. Owning moral responsibility for not being able to do anything for the victims, I decided to resign,” he told The Tribune. He said the SGPC president should not be a puppet in the hands of the members and should be elected directly. Besides, no SGPC member should be an active member of any political party.

The SGPC should function as a non-political organisation and SGPC members should be barred from contesting elections, he stressed.

He decried the SGPC for the allocation of a “meagre” Rs 5 crore for Miri Piri Medical College, Shahbad, and said the amount was peanuts for a huge project like a medical college.

Chandigarh, March 25
The last has clearly not been heard on the stand-off between the Haryana government and the Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi. A three-year old chargesheet against the officer was quashed in January this year by an unprecedented Presidential order, following which the state government notified in February the withdrawal of the chargesheet. But the pitch was queered earlier this month when the Haryana forest minister Captain Ajay Yadav wrote a demi-official ( DO) letter to the Union Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, calling for a review and declaring that the state government ‘does not agree’ with the findings and the recommendations of the Enquiry Committee set up by the Union Ministry.

It is now learnt that Chaturvedi, in a communication to the Ministry, has refuted statements made by the Haryana minister in his DO letter. A ‘Herbal Park’ in Fatehabad, the minister had claimed, was built on Shamlat or panchayat land and Chaturvedi, he added, was guilty of obstructing public work. The officer had claimed the land belonged to private individuals and that the state government had spent a large sum of money to oblige them. The officer is now believed to have attached copies of government replies , furnished in response to his application under RTI, with the names of the land-owners.

The officer has also refuted the minister’s contention that the inquiry in the so-called Jhajjar plantation scam was not yet over. Chaturvedi is learnt to have pointed out that the entire field staff of Jhajjar had been suspended after an official enquiry and on the basis of the enquiry report. But the state government, he alleged, had taken no action against the supervising officer.

Indeed, the state government appears to be in no mood to take action against the officers against whom the Union Ministry found evidence of fabricating evidence and of falsely implicating Chaturvedi. All of them have either been let off or rewarded with plum postings.

The stand-off would indicate that despite having paid fines and compensation to the officer in the past, and despite being forced to revoke his suspension and withdraw the chargesheet against him, the state government is unwilling to let him function.

It has also created a piquant situation in which the state’s forest minister has taken upon himself the task of writing on behalf of the Chief Secretary. Questions are also being raised on whether a state government can defy and question the findings of an enquiry committee, which found the charges against the All India Service officer to be baseless.

Sonepat, March 25
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today reiterated the state government’s commitment to develop Haryana as another Denmark in the production of milk and its byproducts.

Addressing a state-level programme on “Top Quality Murrah Incentive Money Distribution”, Hooda said the livestock breeding had become the need of the hour and it should be adopted as an alternate source of income especially in times when the per capita land holding was shrinking.”

He stated that animal husbandry and livestock breeding had been a part of life and culture of the people of Haryana and Murrah breed of buffaloes had proved to be the God’s gift for them.

Laying stress on the need to improve the treatment and artificial insemination facilities, the CM said the government had opened 94 new veterinary institutions and upgraded 104 institutions during his tenure as the Chief Minister.

He claimed that Haryana was the only state in the country which had become Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)-free area and after obtaining a certificate from the Animal World Health Organisation, it would become a leading exporter of Murrah buffaloes’ milk products.

Giving incentives to the owners of high yielding milking buffaloes of the state to the tune of Rs 7.19 crore on the occasion, the CM claimed that around Rs 2,591 crore had been given as incentive to the breeders of milking animals during the past three years and announced to increase the incentive amount for a certain category of animals.