Panipat, March 13
Pakistani girl Rahila Vakil, who spent four long years to find her father buried in grave number 38 at Mehrana village of the district and another three months for the visa, has finally been granted permission to visit her father’s grave and perform the last rites by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Rahila’s father, Mohammad Vakil, had come to India to meet his relatives in Bhasani village in Muzaffarnagar district in UP on February 14, 2007. From there he left for Pakistan on February 17, but reportedly went missing. Unmindful of the fact that her father could have been killed in the Samjhauta blasts on the night of February 18, Vakil continued to believe that in all probability, he was arrested by the Indian security agencies and put behind bars.

Thereafter, Vakil wrote letters to the authorities of more than 60 jails across the country seeking information about her father, but finally she found that he had been killed in the blasts and now lay buried in grave number 38 at Mehrana village of the district, a fact confirmed by the NIA.

Following the revelations, she along with other members of her family, including her mother, Hashroon Bibi, minor brother, Mohammad Rizwan, and Mohammad Imran, all residents of Dingrawali village in Hafjabad district of Punjab province of the neighbouring country, had applied for visas on December 14, but were denied permission on the ground that the family did not have an adequate bank balance.

Vakil’s counsel in India, Momin Malik, had taken up her case with the High Commission and the Union Ministry for External Affairs pleading that she be allowed to visit India on a humanitarian ground as her father was the only breadwinner of the family and expecting them to have an adequate bank balance was beyond comprehension.

But, as both the Indian High Commission and the Union Ministry for External Affairs failed to respond to his pleas, Malik moved a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking legal recourse to get the visa issued to Vakil and members of her family along with the kin of other victims of the blasts. Following this, a seven-day legal notice was also served on the Indian High Commission.

Following this, the High Commission granted visas to Vakil and her brother, Mohammad Rizwan, to visit Panipat and Muzaffarnagar in UP.

Malik lamented that the two should also have been allowed to visit Chandigarh where their compensation claim case was pending in the Railways Tribunal. He said the issue of denial of visas to the kin of other Pakistani victims was still pending in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and March 13 had been fixed as the next date of hearing.

Chandigarh, March 13
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today imposed costs of Rs 20,000 on the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) for destroying records during the pendency of a writ petition.

Justice K. Kannan observed that the HSSC’s conduct in destroying the records of selection of Mandi Supervisors with the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board projected public institutions like the selection boards “in very poor light”, more so as the HSSC destroyed the records when they had definite information about the pendency of a petition.

The petitioners had sought the production of their answer sheets. Taking up the matter, Justice Kannan upheld the plea of petitioners’ counsel, HC Arora, that three months for destroying the examination record started from the date of final result declaration. But, in the instant case, the written test result was declared on May 31, 2008; and the result of final selection was declared on August 23, 2008.

Justice Kannan observed the HSSC could not have destroyed the answer sheets before November 23, 2008.

The case has been filed by Raju Sharma and another on selection and appointment of Mandi Supervisors in the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board.

Justice K. Kannan issued a notice to the HSSC through Advocate-General on an application filed by the petitioner for action against the Secretary not only for destroying the answer sheets of candidates, but also for concealing vital facts from the high court in its affidavits filed in the high court. 

Commuters turn up in large numbers at the Sirsa railway station as train services resumed after the Jat agitation ended. A Tribune photograph

Sirsa, March 13
Normalcy has returned to the local railway station that wore a deserted look for over five days due to strike by Jat agitators. After the agitators lifted their blockade from Mehuwala in Fatehabad and Ramayan in Hisar on Monday, the train services resumed on the Rewari-Bathinda and Rewari- Fazilka routes from today.

“The first train, 54783 Fazilka-Rewari passenger train, arrived here according to its schedule at 1.45 pm while the 54782 Rewari-Bathinda passenger train was the next to reach at 2.45 pm,” said Kirpal Singh, Station Master, Sirsa.

With this, the railway traffic on the route has become normal.

Earlier in the day, the railway authorities inspected the entire stretch of the track to rule out any damage before allowing any train to pass on it.

The trains between Rewari and Hisar were suspended on February 19, when the Jats started their dharna on the railway track near Ramayan village in Hisar.

However, the trains continued running on the Hisar-Sirsa- Bathinda route till March 7, when the agitators blocked the track at Mehuwala in Fatehabad.

Besides causing loss of revenue to the railway authorities, the strike caused a lot of inconvenience to commuters and financial losses to the vendors and the parking contractor at the Sirsa railway station. 

Hisar, March 13
But for the stoic stand taken by senior citizens of Saatbas - a cluster of seven villages - the body of Sandeep who died in a clash with the police on Tuesday during the pro-reservation Jat stir, might still have been lying on the rail track and the protesters might not have suspended the stir.

These villages include Ramayan, Depal, Mujadpur, Sultanpur, Dhandheri, Umra and Kawari. They share boundaries and the cluster is known as Saatbas since ages. The collective decisions taken by the Saatbas are accepted by all the seven villages.

When the leaders of the All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti failed to convince the protesters to suspend the agitation and cremate the body of Sandeep yesterday, the elders from these villages held an impromptu meeting. Former sarpanch Dhara Singh of Sultanpur chaired the meeting.

The meeting passed a resolution asking the residents of Mayyar village to which Sandeep belonged that they shift the body to their own village if they still wanted to delay the cremation any further and keep it there for as long as they wished. It expressed concern over the stalemate saying it was against Hindu beliefs to keep the dead body at a public place for so many days.

The Samiti leaders grabbed the chance provided to them by the polite but firm appeal of the Saatbas elders. They asked Jogi Ram, the father of Sandeep, to help them remove the body to a tractor-trailer for its last journey to Mayyar. It is learnt that earlier during the meeting of the 21-member committee in the Faculty House of Haryana Agricultural University they had prevailed upon Jogi Ram not to insist on delaying the cremation any further.

Another factor that forced the hands of the Samiti leaders was that despite being kept in an air-conditioned coffin, the body had begun to bloat. These coffins are normally used to keep the body for a day or at the most two before being cremated. If a body is kept in it for any longer than that, it begins to decompose.

That explains why the body was not taken to the home of the deceased. It was just offloaded from the tractor trailer in front of his house and placed back in the trailer. It was consigned to the flames straight after lifting it out of the coffin.

Another worrying factor for the protesters was that drunken youths had started extorting money from motorists in return for safe passage through the road blockades. The leaders grew increasingly wary of the youths.

Despite having promised to keep the stir going and returning to Ramayan after the cremation, both protesters and the Samiti leaders slowly began to leave the cremation ground one by one. Finally, when very few protesters and leaders were left there, Mahendra Singh Poonia disclosed that the stir had been called off.

The government has narrowly managed to get the agitation suspended. However, it does not appear to have learnt any lessons from the 2010 and 2012 editions of the pro-reservation agitation. Its approach is the same - total indifference and indecision.

Panipat, March 13
A large number of relatives of CBI constable Dalbir Singh’s native Kard village today blocked the Gohana-Panipat highway to protest against the failure of the police to trace his body. It was only after the intervention by the senior officials of the district administration that the blockade was lifted after several hours.

Dalbir Singh had gone missing on March 9 under mysterious circumstances after he took lift in a car from Gohana Mord. His brother, Satbir, had told the police that at around 10.30 pm on that day, Dalbir had told him that he had taken lift in a car from Gohana Mord and was on his way to Israna. But he did not reach Israna.

Acting on a tip-off, the police arrested the two accused, identified as Sonu and Kewal, who during the interrogation revealed that they had given lift to Dalbir in their car and later killed him and dumped his body into canal and fled with his belongings. The police launched a search operation in the parallel canals to trace the constable’s body, but the divers could not trace it. 

Hisar, March 13
The mortal remains of Ram Chander, father of former Finance Minister and Congress legislator from Nalwa constituency Sampat Singh, were consigned to the flames at his ancestral Bhattu village today.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was among those who attended the cremation. He placed a wreath on the body. Ram Chander had died at a Hisar hospital yesterday after a prolonged illness. He is survived by two sons and three daughters. His cremation was largely attended. — TNS

Chandigarh, March 13
Nearly 21 months after that fateful day of April 21, 2010, in Mirchpur, when members of a dominant community went about torching houses of the Dalits, causing two deaths, the one-man Commission of Inquiry has sought its fourth extension.

Still in the process of recording evidence of witnesses, the Commission, under Justice Iqbal Singh, has asked for a six-month extension and a fund of Rs 12 lakh in its request to the Haryana Government. The term of the Commission, slated to expire on March 31, is likely to be extended.

While the Commission has already recorded statements of over 70 witnesses and officials, the application for extension states that during scrutiny, it has found some more witnesses who need to be examined before the report can be compiled.

Though the court sentenced those guilty in the Mirchpur violence and wrapped up the case, sources in the Home Department said the inquiry by the Commission is unlikely to throw up anything startling.

Initially set up for three months to probe the Mirchpur muddle where two members of Dalit community, Tara Chand and his polio-stricken daughter, lost their lives in the incident, the Commission got its first extension till March 16, 2011.

However, this deadline, too, could not be met in view of the protests by Jat organisations early this year which made it difficult for the Commission to record statements of witnesses in the case. Eventually, a second extension was given till September, 2011, despite the fact that the courts, too, were keenly watching the developments in the case.

However, this also lapsed with the Commission still recording the statements of witnesses in the case, necessitating a third extension. Though it was believed that the Commission would submit its report before its term ends in March this year, another extension is in line to enable “scrutiny” of new witnesses. 

Chandigarh, March 13
The Haryana Government will soon open four new rehabilitation centres in the state to help drug addicts kick their habits and enable them to join the mainstream. The new centres will come up in Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Sirsa and Narnaul, Haryana's Health Minister Rao Narender Singh said here today.

He said the centres would also provide counseling services, besides encouraging addicts to maintain good health. Currently, the government is running similar de-addiction centres in Gurgaon, Hisar, Karnal and Ambala districts. The minister said the state government was committed to provide qualitative health facilities to people and would take all steps to ensure the same. — PTI 

Chandigarh, March 13
There is good news for thousands of teaching and non-teaching staff working on the sanctioned and aided posts in the privately managed aided schools across Haryana.

In an apparent “pro-employee” decision, the Haryana Government has decided to “take over” the teaching and non-teaching staff of these institutions in a bid to improve the education standard and check the exploitation of staff at the hands of privately run educational institutions.

A communication by the Director, Secondary Education, to all privately managed aided schools has asked the latter to provide details of the staff working on the sanctioned posts.

“The matter regarding taking over the staff (both teaching and non-teaching) working on the sanctioned/aided posts in the private aided schools is under the active consideration of the state government and a policy is being framed in this regard,” the communication said, asking the private schools to submit the details by March 19.

Sources said a meeting with the managements of the privately managed aided schools would be held after March 19 to work out the modalities of “taking over” the staff of these institutions.

Though taking over the staff by the government would entail more expenditure, it would pave the way for more control over the privately run educational institutions, which are currently law unto themselves in the selection of teachers and admission process. The state government contributes a major share - 95 per cent - of the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff of the aided schools.

Wielding the stick

Against the backdrop of the state government’s recent tug-of-war with the private schools over admission of 25 per cent economically weaker section (EWS) students, the proposed policy seems to be in the direction of ultimate takeover of the privately managed schools. While the government may have its own justification to “take over” the staff of these schools, the decision may run into severe criticism at the hands of private school managements.

New Delhi, March 13
The INLD today contended in the Supreme Court that the Haryana Assembly Speaker’s decision to allow the merger of the HJC with the Congress in 2009 had denied the INLD a chance to come back to power. “But for the protectionism by the Speaker, we would have been in power,” as none of the parties had secured absolute majority in the 90-member House, senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan argued before a Bench comprising Justices Altamas Kabir and J Chelameswar.

Dhavan made the statement in response to a query by the Bench as to why INLD MLAs wanted to be interveners in a case being fought between HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi on the one hand and the Speaker and the five HJC MLAs who had merged the party with the Congress on the other.

Dhavan contended that under the anti-defection law, the five MLAs had lost their membership of the House automatically the moment they decided to desert the HJC and join the Congress in the name of merger. In view of this, there was no occasion for the Speaker to allow the merger of the HJC with the Congress on the basis of the claim made by the five MLAs, he argued.

In the Assembly poll, the Congress had won 41 seats while the INLD secured 31 seats. The HJC had bagged six seats, including that
of Bishnoi.

Concluding his arguments, Bishnoi’s senior counsel Nidhesh Gupta said the authority to merge any party with another was only with the party leadership and not with the legislature party. Citing provisions under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution, he said the legislature wing would come into the picture on the issue of merger only in the wake of any decision by the party to merge with another entity.

In a bid to drive home his argument, Gupta pointed out that the BJP had won only two seats in the Lok Sabha in the 1984 elections. Could the two MPs have been allowed to merge the BJP with some other party without the consent of the party leaders? he wanted to know.

The arguments will continue tomorrow. The five MLAs have come to the SC challenging the HC verdict declaring them as “unattached” members of the House.