New Delhi, December 15
The Ramjas College forged mark-sheet scam has opened a Pandora's Box with the involvement of multiple gangs headed by several kingpins, which although operate separately, are interlinked with each other, working in connivance with the faculty.

A police official said a lab assistant of the botany department of Ramjas College, Subhash Chand, was arrested yesterday.

"We are investigating the involvement of more officials of the college in the scam. But, presently we do not have anything concrete on them," added the official.

Dr Rajender Prasad, the principal of Ramjas College, confirmed the involvement of the college faculty in the scam.

"It has happened due to internal politics among groups of teachers and faculty members," he said.

"The first case of admission by forged mark-sheet came to light on July 7. Anuj Sharma, a second-year student of Kirori Mal College was taking admission at Ramjas College on behalf of Sanyam Arora. Sharma was nabbed by the police after he tried to flee, when the college officials were verifying the forged mark-sheet that he was submitting.

A First Information Report (FIR) was accordingly registered at the Maurice Nagar police station", he said.

The FIR mentions that Arora revealed that a kingpin, Sanjeet Dahiya, involved in this scam was assisted by Rahul.

Dahiya was thereafter arrested.

The official said he was involved in 26 to 27 cases of illegal admissions.

The police then busted another gang involved in the scam on December 9. It first arrested Sahil, Mukul, Sanchit and Rahul.

Following their arrests, four more persons belonging to the same gang were arrested.

They are identified as dropouts of Ramjas College Naresh, popularly known as Naresh Tau and Rohit Lamba, besides Kuldeep and Sitta.

The official pointed out that Naresh was the kingpin of the gang consisting of the eight individuals who were recently arrested. He is also known as a mastermind of the scam, because he secured 20 illegal admissions this year.

"These two groups are interlinked. They were acquainted with each other," added the official.

The police is also investigating whether there are more gangs involved in the scam, wherein 35 students were illegally admitted in Ramjas College.

Most of the students had opted for BCom (pass). And in a state of desperation to meet the high-cutoffs they resorted to secure admission by forged mark-sheets after paying lakhs of rupees.

New Delhi, December 15
Three individuals were arrested for allegedly thrashing All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Jai Kishan in Sultanpuri, after he reportedly tried to drive away people standing outside his house.

The incident was reported around 10 pm yesterday when Kishan, who is also a Congress MLA, was on his way home at Raj Park, Sultanpuri.

The accused are Amit (22), Manav (22) and Omprakash (42). A woman, who was also involved, is absconding, according to the police.

The police said Kishan was returning in his car when he saw people standing outside his home. He asked them to clear the area and not to mess it. Thereafter, Manav pushed Kishan and started arguing with him.

"He started hurling abuses and slapped Kishan. When Kishan tried to push him away, they both fell into a drain. Kishan was injured on his feet and head," said a police official.

Manav also brandished a countrymade pistol. Others joined him and started abusing and beating Kishan. The police reached there and ended the fight. It arrested the accused and registered a case against them. Kishan was taken to the hospital, where he was discharged after treatment.

"I was able to nab one of the accused and prevented him from running away. I telephoned the police six times and it arrived after 45 minutes. This is the second such attack on me," said Kishan.

New Delhi, December 15
Depicting the elaborate making of the modern-day New Delhi, an exhibition organized by the Delhi government and inspired by a recent publication, Delhi: Red Fort to Raisina opened to public today as a part of the centenary celebrations of New Delhi.

Edited by curator JP Losty and with writings by Union minister Salman Khurshid, conservation architect Ratish Nanda and publisher Malvika Singh, the book introduces a layman to both the city of Shahjahanabad and Lutyens’ Delhi.

The ongoing 10-day exhibition displays numerous paintings and photographs from the book at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

At the inaugural ceremony of the exhibition, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said, “After the exhibition ends, it will find a permanent place in Delhi as a part of capital’s legacy. The city government will locate an appropriate place to house this unique exhibition on Delhi.”

The exhibition today had some of the best visuals from the book on display. It captured the journey of Delhi from the making of Red Fort to the making of New Delhi at Raisina Hill.

The highlights at the exhibition include the 1846 watercolour, panorama of Delhi from the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort, architectural landmarks from Jama Masjid to the Ridge and the narrow streets of Chandni Chowk and a map of Shahjahanabad by a Delhi cartographer before the Mutiny of 1857.

Kumari Shelja, Union minister of culture, inaugurated the exhibition. She said, “The exhibition today portrays an emergence of New Delhi. It marvels at capturing stone by stone creation of the city we live in today.”

Also on display were the earliest images of Safdarjung Airport which was initially a mausoleum in South Delhi for Safdarjung, a dissident nobleman of 18th century. Two hundred years later after its construction, the place became the first airport of the city.

There were exclusive shots of construction from the North and South Block, architectural plans of other government buildings and pictures of numerous ceremonies, including the first day of independent India or February 10, 1931 when all the political dignitaries attended the inauguration of New Delhi at South Block.

“The exhibition portrays a mix of many events from our history books and how they are connected to monuments and locations we visit today,” said Ratish Nanda, executive director at the Aga Khan Trust Foundation. 

New Delhi, December 15
Nearly three months after the first indigenous case of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) surfaced in the national Capital, 17 pig samples from Civil Line, Shahdara (South) and S.P. zone have tested positive for the virus causing the infection.

The figure is worrying as it is 20 per cent of the total 81 samples that the veterinary department of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had sent on November 27 to National Research Centre on Equines, Sirsa Road, Hisar, for investigation.

While it has brought some respite to the MCD, it has also renewed concerns over the poor sanitation in the city. The city civic body has decided to take rehabilitating JE's amplifying hosts, pigs moving throughout the city, as its top priority.

"We sent the samples last month and the reports were received this week. The report on 17 samples testing positive for JE virus is alarming and stronger surveillance is needed. The first step would be to relocate pig population and improve the sanitation of the piggeries. They have to be planned. The focus would be on limiting Culex mosquito menace," MCD health committee chairperson Dr V K Monga said.

Pigs are the reservoir of diseases and Culex mosquitoes, which affect the meningitis of the brain, can transmit this infection from pigs to human beings. Since September 21, when the first instance of the JE was seen in the Capital, concerns were being raised over the unprecedented emergence of 14 positive cases of Japanese Encephalitis (JE), including nine confirmed and five sero positive in surveillance, as of date in the national Capital.

Earlier, the government directed all the hospitals to collect blood samples of patients who may be asymptomatic, while the MCD carried the first random sampling of pigs in October.

As there was no headway in the combative action towards averting the remotest possibility of a JE outbreak, the civic agency announced a larger sampling of 500 pigs and would carry out the next phase of sampling in the next few days, said Dr Monga.

'Flavivirus', the virus that causes the infection, was earlier detected among population with a travel history to endemic regions such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh. "In our routine surveillance every year as a part of the protocol, we never noticed indigenous cases in Delhi and for the first time the place has recorded such cases, thus indicating the complexity of the JE transmission," said director of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, Dr A C Dhariwal.

To ensure that JE infection is controlled, the MCD is working in coordination with the Delhi government, said Dr Monga. More than other vector-borne infections such as dengue, malaria, chikungunya, JE has left the authorities troubled.

The cumulative figures for dengue stand at 1,124 cases compared to 6,600 people who tested positive last year; for chikungunya the civic body has recorded 107 cases against 75 cases and for malaria 270-odd cases. 

New Delhi, December 15
Harvinder Singh, who had slapped union minister Sharad Pawar, has now claimed before a Delhi court to be unaware of the incident, saying that he had lost his senses at that time as he had suffered a bout of mental disorder.

Singh, in a bail application filed today before a sessions court here, said he was present at the function but had suddenly met with a stroke/bout of mental disorder.

"On November 24, 2011, when he (Singh) was in the convention centre of the NDMC building, New Delhi, he suddenly met with a stroke/bout of mental disorder and lost his senses. He is unaware of what had happened after that," the application filed through advocate Kapil Dhaka said.

It said that Singh was implicated by the police under pressure and influence of senior political persons.

In the application, which is likely to come up for hearing tomorrow, 27-year-old Singh said he had apprehensions about his life.

"The applicant (Singh) is in custody for the past 20 days and is undergoing treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS).The applicant has serious apprehension about his life as the possibilities of political pressure cannot be overruled," it said.

A magistrate yesterday denied bail to Singh, saying he required further treatment at IHBAS, where he is undergoing treatment under judicial custody, as his medical report showed that he was suffering from psychological problems -PTI 

New Delhi, December 15
In a first-of-its kind, the Delhi Metro will introduce an advanced communication-based signalling system in its Phase-III project that will enable it to run trains at a short frequency of 90 seconds.

Outgoing managing director of the Delhi Metro E Sreedharan says the advanced technology, currently operational in the Metro systems abroad, can also be used in the existing Phase-I and II lines when their signalling system is due for replacement.

The communication based train control (CBTC), as the technology is known, will allow the Delhi Metro to run trains in every 1.5 minutes instead of the current frequency of 2.5 minutes.

The system would reduce the waiting time of the passengers on all Phase-III lines.

"We can run trains in every 90 seconds which is not possible with the present signalling system. There (in CBTC) we can go for 90 seconds and that is equivalent for 10-coach trains," said Sreedharan, who retires on December 31.

He also said this was the first time that the system was being brought to India.

Asked whether the CBTC can be integrated into the existing Phase-I and II, he said: "That is also possible because the tenure of the signalling system is 15-20 years. When they are due for replacement, then CBTC can be used there too."

The Delhi Metro's Phase-III will bring another 103 km of the capital on the Metro map and the corridors are - Kanpur to Lamina Vicar, Jayapura West to Klondiking, Central Secretariat to Kashmere Gate and Jahangirpuri-Badli.

Sreedharan said the Delhi Metro had placed orders for 212 cars from Mitsubishi-Rotem-Mitsubishi electrical and German train maker Bombardier for converting the existing four and six coach trains into eight-coach ones.

"We want more trains on congested routes. We have placed orders for eight coaches already to lengthen the trains on congested routes. They will start coming from September next year and by the end of the next year Line 2 (Gurgaon) and Line 3 (Noida/Vaishali) will have eight-coaches," he said. - PTI

Noida, December 15
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) yesterday presented a detailed project report for the Kalindi Kunj extension plan before the Noida Authority. The total cost of the project has been estimated at Rs 874 crore.

CEO of the Noida Authority Rama Raman and other officials were present during the DPR representation held at the office of the Authority.

The CEO directed the chief project engineer to study the DPR. The next review meeting is scheduled for next week.

In principle, an approval has been given to the project. The project is expected to be complete in 2016. The length of the line from Botanical Garden till Kalindi Kunj will be 3.9 kilometre. The line will have two stations-- Amity School and Kalindi Kunj.

Meanwhile, the CEO also held a review meeting of the development projects of the area. He told officials that all approved projects should be implemented without delay and the ongoing ones should be completed within the scheduled period.

The department officers have been asked to visit the development sites daily.

At Agahpur village, the lease-back committee held a meeting and approved the lease back of 2,348 square metre of land. At Shahdara village, 12 farmers were given cheques for 64 per cent hiked compensation. At Badoli Bangar village, 20,805 square metre of land, comprising 94 plots, was allotted under the 5 per cent developed land scheme to farmers. The issue of abadi land was also taken up by the officials for regularisation.