New Delhi, June 13
Two sisters drowned in a pond at Mundka in West Delhi on Tuesday.

According to sources, Muskan (7) and Bhavana (11) were residents of Tikri village at Mundka. They had arrived at a Sai Baba temple with their grandfather and mother. They reached there to offer prayers.

At 7 pm yesterday, both the girls, Muskan and Bhavana, went to the pond to take water for the ceremony at the temple. As they started playing there, both of them slipped into the pond.

They struggled to save themselves, but drowned. The police rushed them to the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital at Mangolpuri. The doctors declared them brought dead.

After a postmortem, the bodies were handed to the family today.

The police after questioning several residents of the area near the pond said that there was no foul play and it was an accident.

Sources said that Muskan and Bhavana stayed with their grandfather at Tikri village. Their father is a farmer at Narela.

New Delhi, June 13
Five persons have been arrested for allegedly drugging and robbing people in their auto-rickshaws after picking them from bus stands and railway stations and then dumping them in an isolated area of the national Capital.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime and Railways), Sanjay Kumar Jain, with the arrest of these persons, the police has solved seven cases of robberies in Delhi. The gang had robbed a professor of Aligarh Muslim University, an employee of the Indian Air Force and a Border Security Force (BSF) constable.

Jain said that the five persons were arrested near Old Delhi Railway Station in two auto-rickshaws. They were identified as Mansoor Alam (28), Mukhtiyar (36), Abrar, alias Kaddu Khan (24), Sabid (26) and Anbir (20). They are residents of Kishan Ganj in Bihar.

Mansoor and Mukhtiyar allegedly disclosed to the police that with the help of auto-rickshaw drivers, they would take passengers from different bus stops and railway stations.

They would tell the passengers to share the auto-rickshaw charges. On their way, they would purchase a beverage from a shop and offer it to the passenger. They would mix sedatives in the beverages.

After the person fell unconscious, they would rob him and dump him in an isolated area, said DCP Sanjay Kumar Jain.

New Delhi, June 13
With the All India Institute of Medical Sciences engaged in sprucing up its infrastructure these days, it is also considering to have a common space for its OPD canteen, located at Gate No 1 and the chemist store and the structure is expected to be on ground by the end of June.

The institute is also looking forward to promoting health food through a small outlet at Raj Kumar Amrit Kaur OPD where only baked and steamed food will be available.

The idea is to decongest the entry point along with shifting the chemist shop currently sharing the space meant for the unit designated for selling generic drugs.

"The structure at the front having a few shops will be razed in order to shift the crowd as a lot of OPD patients queue up there apart from the existing parking facility just adjacent to it," said AIIMS deputy director administration Vineet Choudhary.

"A food court having a cafeteria is being developed and the chemist shop will be shifted from the present location," he added.

While the construction for the combined structure is under way between the cooling tower and the nursing lecture theatre on the premises, the food court is to come up on a 450 sq mt space running parallel to the Ring Road. The remaining area of 150 sq mt will accommodate a juice shop, pantry and a general store, said an official from the civil engineering department.

"The lease period of the vendor running the OPD canteen is finished and he is on an extended agreement. Actually, there has long been a plan to shift the OPD canteen. Once the structure is ready, we'll allocate the tenders through an open process. We give the vendors built-up spaces and they will be responsible for quality services," added.

In the new canteen, the food items will be increased and will be available at reasonable prices.

The aim is development of the institute. In view of this, the proposal for the space was discussed during the institute's standing finance committee meeting held last month, said the official.

New Delhi, June 13
Installing biometric attendance system for all its municipal students will be the priority of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) as part of its efforts to bring educational reforms in the civic body.

The civic agency is mulling to bring proposal in this regard as soon as the school vacations get over. "We will soon plan a proposal on bringing biometric in all our schools," said Rajesh Gehlot, chairman of the Standing Committee.

The civic body has already implemented the system in all its other departments and plans the same for the educational purpose.

If the corporation goes by its words, it will become the first municipal corporation to have biometric attendance system for its students.

The SDMC schools cater to over three lakh students with a teaching staff of around 6,000. The system will also help in improving mid-day meal facility along with attendance as the corporation will be able to track accurate number of meals required for the school, said a senior SDMC official.

He said that installation of such a system would ensure the accountability and responsibility of the teachers for the prescribed hour in the school.

He said that this new system would help in providing better primary education to the children studying in municipal schools.

The South Delhi Corporation has more than 500 schools under its jurisdiction, which has been earmarked form Najafgarh to Badarpur and consist of four zones — Najafgarh, South, Central and West.

Though, the plan to install biometric system for teachers and non-teaching staff in municipal schools was conceived long back by the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Corporation (MCD), it got delayed due to the trifurcation, said the official.

While the unified MCD had planned to bring all 23,000 principals, teachers and staff providing education in 1,780 primary municipal under biometric attendance system.

"Now since the corporation has been trifurcated, each corporation will have to implement the system in its jurisdiction on its own," said the official.

New Delhi, June 13
A taxi driver was arrested from Gandhi Nagar yesterday with two leopard skins worth more than Rs 10 lakh, which had been procured from Uttarakhand by his accomplice.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime and Railways), Sanjay Kumar Jain, Vimal Kishore (34) was arrested from Gandhi Nagar when he arrived there to sell the skins. He is a resident of Pandav Nagar.

“When the police team with a wildlife official checked the jute bag he was carrying, two leopard skins were seized. A case under appropriate sections of Wild Life Act has been registered against him,” said Jain.

Kishore disclosed to the police that he is a graduate from Delhi and is working as a taxi driver.