New Delhi, August 2
While all eyes remained on fasting members of team Anna fasting since July 25, there were scores of anti-graft crusaders who held the ground at Jantar Mantar and were ready to continue the agitation, if situation warranted on the ninth day even as the Anna aides decided to call off their fast.

They, at least 350 coming from several parts of India, had vowed upon themselves to be a part of the agitation, responding to the Gandhian's call .

Displaying supreme grit and determination, they had joined the Anna-led indefinite fast even as the general feeling among the crowd was that the government will not agree to the demands of impartial probe against its own ministers through a special team.

"The government will not dig its own grave. But we will continue our agitation and even fasting for letting the government know that its time for it to say goodbye. I have been fasting since the first day here and have lost over 11 kg but that doesn't deter me. The 2014 is going to be decisive polls," said Dr Ranbir Gulia, a resident of Badli village, Haryana, who had adopted the same fasting method in protest of land acquisition in 2011.

Another ardent supporter of Anna from Carol Bagh Bhoj, who too has been fasting along with the team Anna, said, "The whole India is with Anna ji and even if the fast has ended here, the struggle towards bringing in a corruption-free system is not over yet. Today there is corruption starting from the birth registration to getting a death certificate. The government has been misusing its power and turned a blind eye to the problems of masses. This movement will come as a threat to the government as well as other ministers who have done nothing but only thrived on our taxes."

Harvinder Singh, who had slapped Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar a few months ago, was arrested after he barged into the Anna Hazare protest venue at Jantar Mantar while brandishing a sword this morning.

Singh reportedly heckled a policeman on security duty at Jantar Mantar and hurled abuses at the police.

Later, he was overpowered by the policemen and arrested under Sections 186, 353, 506 of the IPC. The police is investigating the matter. Some policemen may be punished for the security breach.

According to eyewitnesses at Jantar Mantar, Harvinder stated that he wanted to present the sword to Anna for his protest against corruption.

New Delhi, August 2
Delhi public works minister Raj Kumar Chauhan today visited the Geeta Colony bridge over the Yamuna to take stock of a reported gap in it. Accompanied by the engineer-in-chief, Chauhan instructed the public works department (PWD) to immediately transfer the executive engineer, assistant engineer and the junior engineer associated with the project for their failure to get the gap fixed. Now, the city government will write to the central public works department (CPWD) to take strict action against the three engineers for dereliction of duties.

The minister was told by senior engineers that on noticing the gap, the public works department had approached the construction company, AFFCON, for its repair, but the firm paid no heed.

The minister then made the announcement that AFFCON had been barred from executing any future projects of the PWD. The construction company has also been issued a show-cause notice.

The PWD ensures the quality of construction of its projects though internal and third party inspections. The company responsible for the third party inspection of the bridge is now being taken to task for its carelessness. The company was issued 1 per cent of the total cost of the project for undertaking inspections and reporting the deficiencies in the construction.

Meanwhile, the PWD has taken control of the site to get the repair work done at the earliest.

New Delhi, August 2
The Okhla waste to energy plant has produced a total of 38,138 MW energy from 2,22,000 tonnes of garbage since its inception.

This was stated by South Delhi Mayor Savita Gupta during a visit to the Okhla Sanitary Land Fill Site area where the waste-to-energy plant generates energy from disposed solid waste.

The plant was installed by the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi in coordination with the Okhla Waste Management Company. According to the agreement, 1,500 metric tonnes of solid waste is provided by the corporation to the plant which disposes of it through boiler maintaining the temperature above 850° C to generate 16 MW of energy daily.

The Mayor said that such plants play a very important role in the solid waste management of the city and help in disposing the garbage properly to get the energy, which is one of the rare sources of energy, as a by-product.

She said that so far 38,138 MW energy has been produced disposing 2,22,000 tonnes of garbage. The plant is following the parameters and guidelines laid down by the Pollution Control Authorities in this project.

New Delhi, August 2
Five persons have been arrested for allegedly cheating several government and private companies by siphoning several crores from their bank accounts through fake cheques, the police said today.

DCP Chhaya Sharma said the accused are Zameer Ahmed (50), Kapil Chaudhary (30), Anubhav Khandelwal (23), Vipin Kumar (24) and Brij Mohan Verma (50). They have been apprehended from different areas of Delhi.

A Delhi police team had earlier arrested six persons in a case of fraud registered at the Hauz Khas police station. Blank signed cheques for lakhs of rupees were recovered from them. The police had discovered that five cheques for Rs 3 crore of the Herbal Research and Development Institute in Uttrakhand had been encashed by these individuals.

It was while investigating this case that the police arrested Zameer Ahmed. At his instance, the other four accused were nabbed.

Kapil, who was an employee of the SBI at the Shastri Nagar branch in Meerut, used to take out cheques submitted for encashment. Later, details of original cheques like account details, signatures, stamp, series were superimposed on fake cheques printed by using high-quality scanner and printers.

Anubhav was allegedly responsible for preparing the fake cheques. The work was done at Vipin's computer shop.