Sirsa, September 2
Two deaths in less than 15 days in Pakkashahidan village of this district due to fever have left the villagers jittery even as malaria and viral fever have spread in the entire district.

Veer Pal (18), a school-going girl, caught fever five days back and was getting treatment from a quack in the absence of any government health facilities in the village.

As family members were shifting her to Sirsa for treatment yesterday, she died on the way.

Earlier, Sandeep (18), a class XII student from this village, died of fever on August 17.

Though Sandeep’s family members maintained that he died of dengue, the health authorities here claim that it was not an established case of dengue as the tests were not carried out in a government-authorised laboratory.

Almost every household of the village has one or more person suffering from fever.

Meanwhile, almost all hospitals of Sirsa and surrounding areas of the district are packed with patients suffering from fever these days.

“Out of every 100 patients, over 50 suffer from viral fever, nearly 40 test positive for malaria and the rest have some other problems,” said Dr VP Goyal, a local physician.

He said he had so far treated two confirmed cases of dengue this season.

While reports from private hospitals point towards the spread of malaria , figures of the Health Department show only 1319 cases of malaria in the current year - 657 of these in August alone.

Sheel Kaushik, Deputy Civil Surgeon (vector-borne diseases), said these figures pertained to government hospitals only.

Regarding the deaths in Pakkashahidan village, she said the department jad found larvae of aedes mosquitoes responsible for spread of dengue in the village. However, none of Sandeep’s kin had tested positive for dengue while samples of Veer Pal’s kin had been sent for testing.

Dr Dayanand, Civil Surgeon, said doctors had been sent to the village. He maintained the tests carried out in private laboratories could not be relied upon as these were not confirmatory tests.

The health authorities relied only on the tests conducted in the National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) or Maharaja Agarsen Medical College, Agroha.

Jhajjar, September 2
The Haryana Police has announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh for the arrest of all 10 accused in the Dulhera murder case in which four persons were gunned down a month ago.

According to official sources, a reward of Rs 1 lakh each had been announced for apprehending the accused-- Sandeep of Chuliyana village, Pradeep of Karore village in Rohtak, Yogesh of Nilothi village, Pradeep of Kharmaan village, Gyanender, Beerpal , Harish, , Sanjeev, Kartar, and Shekhar.

The police has not been able to arrest even a single accused in the case.

Jhajjar SP Patram Singh said the identity of the informer would be kept secret.

Notably, four youths, including the son of a former sarpanch, were gunned down near a bus stop at Dulhera village on August 3.

The four victims, Sonu of Pelpa village and Sandeep, Godha and Satte, all hailing from Mandhothi village, were coming back to Bahadurgarh from Jhajjar in a Maruti car after deposing before a court in connection with a criminal case. 

Chandigarh, September 2
The Panipat police has today arrested three persons in connection with Tejas Gaba kidnapping case while the CBI has already arrested two persons from Chennai in July, who were making ransom calls to Tejas’ family.

Mahesh Aggarwal, DIG (CBI), said they had arrested Teja Singh and Karuneshwar from Chennai when they were making a ransom call to Tejas’ family.

Sources said Kaurneshwar, who was working in a private foreign firm and his aide Teja Singh, had demanded Rs 1 crore from the family members. CBI officials had put the phone numbers of the family members under surveillance through which they came to know about the ransom calls and arrested the accused from Chennai.

But Teja Singh and Karunshewar’s counsel Ajay Trehan, who had filed bail application of both accused in the Panchkula CBI court, said the CBI had falsely implicated the duo in this case. They had no connection with the case. He added that when this kidnapping incident had taken place at that time Karuneshwar was in Portugal.

On the other side CBI counsel DS Chawla said the investigation was at initial stage and bail to the accused would ultimately hamper the probe. Now, the CBI court had deferred the hearing to September 13 on the bail application matter, he added.

Tejas, who was eight-year-old when he was kidnapped, was waiting for his school bus at Paruthi Chowk on the morning of December 12, 2008. He was accompanied by his mother, Neena Gaba. He demanded for a pack of chips from his mother and when Neena went to fetch one, a person stepped down from a Honda Accord car parked nearby and grabbed Tejas from his arm. When Neena reacted, the person took out a revolver and fired a shot on the ground near her feet. Before the shocked mother could react further, the person got into the car with Tejas and sped away.

Tejas’s father, Rajesh Gaba, had announced a reward of Rs 15 lakh for anyone coming up with information that could help them find their son. 

Ambala, September 2
The police has arrested Balwinder Singh of Kakepur village in Patiala district in connection with the murder of Sunita and her two children whose bodies were found in Babehali village, near here, on August 26, Shashank Anand, SP, said here.

Raj Kaur, mother-in-law of the deceased, had identified the bodies of her daughter-in-law and two grandsons after seeing newspaper advertisements. Raj Kaur was accompanied by Laddi, Sunita’s brother.

Laddi told the police that Sunita had lost her husband two years ago.

He alleged Balwinder Singh was making sexual advances towards Sunita. As she spurned Balwinder Singh’s advances, he had threatened to teach Sunita a lesson.

The police said the postmortem on the body of Sunita revealed that she was pregnant.

A second postmortem was conducted on Sunita’s body on August 30 to collect DNA samples.

Balwinder Singh was produced in a local court, which remanded him in police custody for four days.

Chandigarh, September 2
Taking a major initiative to promote sports among the underprivileged sections of society and encourage young Scheduled Caste (SC) boys and girls to take up sports as a career, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today launched the first-of-its-kind state-level fairplay scholarship programme.

Under the programme, monthly scholarships would be given to sportspersons, belonging to the SCs. Speaking on the occasion, Hooda said as part of the programme, medal-winning SC players would be given monthly scholarships, ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 8,000. To encourage SC girls to jump into the sports arena, woman athletes in all categories would be given an additional amount of Rs 1,000 per month. This would be in addition to the award money prescribed under the state’s sports policy. Hooda said the state government would bear the full cost of training, equipment and travel of national and international SC players. He expressed the hope that the programme would encourage youngsters in the underprivileged category to take up sports as a career. In another sports-friendly gesture, Hooda announced that 95-day boarding nurseries would be set up in the centres having more than 14 SPAT (Sports and Physical Aptitude Test) scholarship holders.

Hooda also launched another scheme for the SPAT qualifiers, under which they would get scholarships through SPAT pay cards. The scholarship amount will be automatically loaded every month in the pay card of a player, abiding by the condition of playing 22 days a month, saving them the usual hassles. Hooda announced the launch of SPAT-2012, which would commence from November 8.

Sirsa, September 2
After a spat between a gynaecologist and a woman attendant of a patient in the General Hospital here yesterday, the police today booked attendant Ram Dulari for assault, causing hurt and preventing a government servant from performing official duty.

Ram Dulari, of Dugrana (Rajasthan), who was attending to her daughter Neelam in the hospital, has been booked under Sections 332, 353 and 186 of the IPC on the complaint of gynaecologist Dr Poonam.

A press release issued by the district police here quoted Mahabir Singh, investigating officer and in charge of JJ Colony Police Post, as saying that the accused would be arrested soon.

After an ugly row in a female ward of the hospital yesterday, all doctors had left their duties and met DC Yudhbir Singh Khyalia demanding registration of a criminal case against Ram Dulari and providing security in the hospital.

Civil Surgeon Dr Daya Nand, who led the striking doctors, had maintained that Ram Dulari had hit Dr Poonam after she “gently tapped” Neelam on her chest, as she was asking the same question repeatedly.

Neelam, who had undergone a delivery through a caesarian section in the hospital, on the other hand had alleged that the gynaecologist lost her cool when she asked what diet was prescribed for her and slapped her hard on her chest. Attendants of other patients had also supported Neelam’s version and raised slogans against the hospital administration. 

Fatehabad, September 2
A local court today sentenced a father, Ram Kishan, and son, Gurmel Singh, to imprisonment for life for a murder after a dispute over dowry. The convicts attacked Gurmel’s wife, Goma Rani, her uncle, Harpal Singh, her mother and grandmother with swords on June 15, 2009, when the four left their house in Ratia after a dispute over dowry. Harpal Singh later succumbed to his injuries.

Goma Rani, who lodged a complaint with the police, alleged that Gurmel Singh used to harass her for dowry ever since she was married to him in 2009 and her father-in-law used to harass her sexually.

She alleged that when her mother, grandmother and uncle were taking her back to her parental house on June 15, 2009, the accused came on a motorcycle and attacked them with swords.

Karnal, September 2
Former Tamil Nadu Governor and Union Agriculture Minister, Surjeet Singh Barnala today called upon 10 dairy scientists to ensure that the research in the dairy sector was transferred to farmers, which could help them increase the milk production and yield.

Inaugurating a two-day workshop of leading dairy scientists at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) here, he said India was the largest producer
of milk, yet an adequate quantity of milk was not available to all.

Lauding the work done by the NDRI in dairy research, Barnala hoped that the successful cloning of buffaloes would go a long way in increasing the milk production and breaking the yield barriers.

Dr AK Srivastav, Director NDRI, said India was the largest producer of milk, but keeping in view its growing demand in the country, new experiments to increase production were imperative.

He said the NDRI was experimenting with the mixing of nutrients in milk to make it “a complete food”.

As many as 25 dairy scientists are attending the workshop. 

Hisar, September 2
The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam have prepared a Rs 418-crore plan to strengthen the power transmission and distribution system in Hisar district.

A DHBVN spokesman said here today that under this plan, the nigams proposed to construct 23 substations, including two 220-KV substations , three 132-KV substations and 16 33-KV substations. It included augmentation of 10 existing substations in the district.

The DHBVN planned to set up 2000 additional transformers and replace 200 existing transformers to strengthen the distribution system . In addition, 190-km-long distribution lines would be erected.

He said the nigam planned to lay a high-voltage distribution system (HVDS) or low-voltage distribution system of international standard in all villages of the district for qualitative power supply. The power utilities spent Rs 269 crore on strengthening the power transmission and distribution system in the district during the last six years, .

The DHBVN constructed 10 substations in the district, including a 400-KV substation, three substations of 132-KV level and six substations of 33-KV level. Moreover, the capacity of 17 existing substations had been augmented.

As many as 8780 new distribution transformers had been set up and 650 transformers were augmented with new transformers of higher capacity to strengthen the distribution system.

To segregate the agriculture and domestic load in villages, the DHBVN erected 129 additional feeders in the district and rehabilitated 96 overloaded and lengthier feeders. 

Karnal, September 2
The Supreme Court has admitted a special leave petition (SLP), challenging the acquittal of the two accused and commuting of the death sentence of four others to life imprisonment, by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the infamous Manoj-Babli honour killing case.

The SLP was filed by the family members of Manoj, challenging the March 11, 2011, verdict of the High Court, converting the death sentence awarded to the four accused by the Session’s Court, Karnal, to life imprisonment and acquittal of the two other accused, Satish Kumar and Ganga Raj, for lack of the evidence.

Satish Kumar was awarded a death sentence and Ganga Raj was awarded life imprisonment by the Sessions Court of Karnal, in March last year for killing Manoj and Babli on June 15, 2007, and death sentence to four accused Gurdev Singh, Rajinder Singh, Suresh Kumar and Baru Ram.

The High Court had acquitted Satish Kumar and Ganga Raj and converted the death sentence of four other accused to life imprisonment without any remission.

The Counsel for Manoj’s family, Lal Bahadur Khowal, told from New Delhi that the Supreme Court had admitted the SLP, challenging the High Court’s verdict.

Gharaunda (Karnal), September 2
A woman, Kiran, today delivered a baby in the gallery of the Government Hospital, Gharaunda, with the help of some class IV employees.

The fuming relatives of the woman alleged that the doctors refused to admit the patient who had severe labour pains and she delivered the baby with the help of some class IV employees as no nurse or doctor was available.

Jasbir, husband of Kiran, said he had come to the hospital for delivery of his wife but no staff was available and after suffering acute pains for nearly half-an-hour, she delivered the baby in the gallery.

“We desperately tried to contact the doctors and other staff but of no avail and finally some class IV employees came to our rescue and delivery was conducted,” he lamented.

However, Dr Sukhpreet said he was in his room but immediately came up when informed about the patient but she had already delivered the baby by that time.

Sonepat, September 2
As many as 24 students of Kalpana Chawla Vidyapeeth, Kharkhoda, were injured when their school bus overturned after it was hit by a truck near the Kharkhoda bypass this afternoon.

They were taken to the Communitty Health Centre and a private hospital in Kharkhoda. One of the injured was referred to the PGIMS, Rohtak, and another taken to the Civil Hospital, Sonepat.

The police has booked the truck driver. — OC