Gurgaon, August 11
A Delhi Police team today raided the residence of former Haryana Minister Gopal Goyal Kanda located in the Civil Lines area here and searched it for more than an hour. The police party also picked up an 18-year-old boy, said to be a close relative of Kanda.

The boy, who has been identified as Kanda’s nephew Sanjay, has been detained for questioning by the cops. The team, led by Inspector Pankaj Malik, later searched the local office of now-defunct MDLR Airlines. A two-member team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) also questioned MDLR group’s legal adviser Ankit Ahluwalia. The raids are being conducted in search of the former minister, who has been named in an abetment-to-suicide case of Geetika Sharma, a former employee of the company. Geetika had committed suicide recently and blamed Kanda for the extreme step in her suicide note. Kanda, who has also been booked for criminal intimidation, is on the run. “We were looking for Kanda, but he is not here…we have detained an 18-year-old boy who is a close relative of Kanda and was present in the house,” a member of the raiding party said.

The police team also recorded statements of family members of Kanda present at the house. Kanda had told mediapersons on Tuesday that he had got a notice from the Delhi Police and would soon join investigations.

On Wednesday morning, Kanda left his Civil Lines residence in a white Audi SUV after a religious ceremony. In light of his earlier statement, it was anticipated that the former minister would go to Delhi and join the probe.

Sirsa, August 11
Activists of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) today reportedly forced shopkeepers to observe a bandh in Sirsa, Dabwali, Rania, Ellenabad and Kalanwali towns of the district.

The INLD had given a call for a complete bandh in Sirsa district to press for its demand for the arrest of former minister Gopal Kanda, the prime accused in former airhostess Geetika Sharma’s suicide case.

The INLD activists were led by Padam Jain, district president of the INLD in Sirsa, former MLA Sita Ram in Dabwali, former MLA Bhagi Ram in Ellenabad, SAD (Badal) MLA in Kalanwali and INLD MLA Krishan Kamboj at Rania.

In Sirsa town, senior functionaries of the party were given charge of a bazaar each.

While Padam Jain had taken the charge in Hisaria Bazaar, Krishna Fogat, women’s wing president and Amir Chawla appealed to shopkeepers at Bhagat Singh Chowk.

Jasbir Singh Jassa was seen asking shopkeepers to close their shops in the Grain Market area.

The INLD activists raised slogans against former minister Kanda. The camp office of Gopal Kanda on the Hisaria road remained closed throughout the day.

Padam Jain said the Haryana government was shielding Kanda and efforts were being made to save him in the case. However, the traders seemed sore over the manner in which they were forced to close their shops.

“Kanda’s supporters forced us to close our shops on Thursday and now the INLD has forced us to lose our business,” said a shopkeeper in Hisaria Bazaar, requesting anonymity.

He said the two groups had conflicting interests on the issue, but both forced the shopkeepers to justify their respective stands.

Chandigarh, August 11
The drinking water crisis across Haryana against the backdrop of drought-like conditions is on its way out, with the Central Government announcing an immediate relief of Rs 115 crore to the state.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting between Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh at a drought review meeting here yesterday.

The ball for the release of the amount was set in motion by Haryana Public Health Engineering Minister Kiran Choudhry, who demanded additional funds in the wake of the highly deficient rainfall resulting in the depletion of the water table in several districts across the state.

Gurgaon, Ambala, Rewari, Faridabad, Mewat and Mohindergarh were the districts specially mentioned by Chaudhry where the water table has receded and there was a drinking water crisis. Moreover, it was mentioned that there was inadequate availability of canal water at the water works located at the tail-end of the irrigation in Jhajjar, Mohindergarh, Bhiwani and Sonepat districts.

Officials informed The Tribune that a contingency plan by the department envisaged the drilling of additional tubewells, augmentation of pumping machinery for tubewells, installation of shallow tubewells and deployment of water tankers. “The immediate grant of Rs 115 crore will go a long way in augmenting the water supply in the state, particularly the rural areas, which had been hit hard by the current drought-like conditions,” Chaudhary claimed.

In fact, as an incentive, additional funds in the shape of bonus for the augmentation of the drinking water supply system in rural areas would be released when the Rs 115 crore was utilised properly.

It was decided to provide interim relief or Rs 230 crore to Haryana - Rs 160 for the augmentation of the water supply system and Rs 70 crore for the watershed management.

Of the Rs 160 grant, Rs 115 crore is to be released immediately, given the severity of the drought-like conditions in the state due to over 70 per cent rainfall deficit.

Officials asserted that the watershed management plan will be implemented primarily in the districts of Bhiwani, Mohindergarh, Jhajjar, Rewari, Gurgaon and Mewat to harness the rain water and improve the availability of underground water in the long run.

Hisar, August 11
Members of rival gangs of criminals clashed inside the local Central Jail late last evening. As many as 11 inmates and four jail warders were injured in the clash.

Official sources said members of Jitender Jogi and Pradeep Jamawadi gangs were lodged inside the jail. Two supporters of the rival gangs had a verbal duel last evening after which about 40 members of each gang collected outside the barrack.

Some of them climbed up the wall of a bathroom to cut twigs from a tree for use as sticks. Others collected anything they could lay their hands on to hit the rivals. Before the jail authorities could act, the prisoners clashed. The clash continued for about 45 minutes.

Realising that the situation could go out of control, the jail authorities contacted SP Satish Balan who rushed to the jail with a police force. The police separated the clashing prisoners and sent them inside their barracks.

Later, the police conducted a search operation which yielded several mobile phones and SIM cards.

This is not the first time that members of these gangs have clashed in the jail. A property dispute is going on between the leaders of the two gangs because of which they keep clashing.

The injured were given first aid in the jail hospital. 

Karnal, August 11
A 30-year-old man of Sitapur in UP, whose ‘cremation’ was held six years ago, was rescued from a farm in Karnal recently where he was working as a bonded labourer.

The victim, Jamuna Prasad, had left his home in search of livelihood seven years ago. After a year, the family got a message from the Mashrik police station in Sitapur district, UP, that Jamuna had died in a road accident near Hapur.

The body was crushed beyond recognition and the family members accepted the body to be that of Jamuna and cremated it.

Recently, Pravasi Suraksha Vahini president Raj Singh Chaudhry got four bonded labourers rescued from the farm of Mangal Singh at Balu village near Nissing in Karnal district and Jamuna Prasad happened to be one of the bonded labourers being subjected to torture and inhuman treatment.

Jamuna was allegedly held in captivity by Mangal Singh for nearly one-and-a-half year.

When Chaudhry contacted his family in Sitapur and informed them that Jamuna Prasad was alive, they were shocked and thought that someone was playing a prank on them. But when Prasad himself spoke over phone, they were overwhelmed with joy and decided to come to Karnal to take him back.

“I was not allowed to speak to anybody,” claimed Prasad. Jamuna, at present lodged at the MDD Bal Bhawan, is eagerly waiting to reunite with his family. The marks of injury and beating on the body of Jamuna Prasad indicated that he was physically tortured and the police has registered a case against Mangal Singh.

Prasad’s father, Chhutta, and brothers, Raj Kumar and Nand La,l said they believed the police version which declared him as ‘dead’.

Jamuna went from one place to another after he left home and finally landed at Balu village where he was made a bonded labourer by a local farmer Mangal Singh and he worked for over 18 months for him.

Jamuna said he worked in Phoolpur village, Bachwal and Safipur, all in Meerut for one year each, but was not paid for it. Before coming to Balu village, he worked for one-and-a-half year at Akbarpur village.

Sirsa, August 11
Six youths from Nohar town of Rajasthan, who had come to Sirsa to watch a movie at the OHM Cine Garden here, died last night when their Chevrolet Tavera hit a tree.

Five of the six victims were between the age of 23 and 26. Sources said the victims worked in different offices in Nohar, 40 km from here. Friday being a Janamashtami holiday, they planned to watch a movie in Sirsa.

The sources said after watching the movie, they shopped in Sirsa markets and then had their dinner after drinks. While returning, one of the victims, Sandeep, asked the vehicle’s owner, Subhash, to allow him to drive Tavera.

However, Sandeep, allegedly failed to notice a turn on the Jamal road and the vehicle skidded off the road. Om Saini, a local resident, who was following the vehicle on his motorcycle, said the driver perhaps pressed the accelerator, as the vehicle hit a tree at a very high speed. The accident was so fierce that the front side of the vehicle was completely damaged.

Saini said when he rushed towards the vehicle, he heard a victim crying for help. He said he also raised an alarm and soon labourers from a nearby brick kiln and farmers irrigating their fields rushed towards the accident site, hardly 2 km from Sirsa town.

Sonepat, August 11
Two youths of Taazpur village were feared drowned in the Yamuna yesterday. The victims, Anuj (16) and Ankit (13), had gone to the Yamuna along with other 12 youths of the same village. While taking bath, both were trapped in the swirling water near the stone studs used for protecting the river embankment from erosion.

Deputy Commissioner Pankaj Aggarwal, DSP Bharti Mor and some Revenue Department personnel rushed to the spot and a rescue team of divers was pressed into service to fish out the bodies. The teams called from Rohtak and Madhuban were still trying to recover the bodies of the victims. 

Hisar, August 11
Chetan Sheoran, who allegedly killed a girl student of Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology yesterday, was today produced in a local court which sent him to judicial custody.

In his statement, he said he and Varsha Yadav were friends when they were studying at Kota in Rajasthan a few months ago. However, she had stopped meeting him or talking to him for the past two months.

He said he planned to commit suicide after killing the girl but he was apprehended before he could escape. He said he had no regrets.

Chetan had allegedly slit Varsha’s throat on the university campus yesterday. He had been allegedly stalking her for the past four days.

The police said it had recovered the weapon — a knife — used by the killer from the scene of the crime. 

Chandigarh, August 11
Haryana’s toll free number 1800-180-5678 for complaints regarding water supply seems to be drowning in the woes of the public and Public Health Minister Kiran Choudhry is unhappy.

Most complaints are from the minister’s home district Bhiwani from where the complaint-registration programme was launched in April this year.

Of the total of 5,900 complaints received so far, the Public Health Department has disposed of 4,777 complaints while 1,068 are pending with the Shikayat Nivaran Kendra for want of information from the districts. The department is yet to receive a response on 740 of these from the field staff .

These statistics were presented at a review meeting of the department on Wednesday. As many as 89 complaints are pending from Bhiwani while Charkhi Dadri has 42 complaints awaiting response.

Dissatisfied with the response time being taken by the field staff, junior engineers and SDOs, Choudhry has directed the superintending engineers (SEs) to initiate action against those failing to give a feedback within the stipulated time. She asked them to convey to the field staff to “shape up” or face action.

Choudhry said she would personally lodge random complaints at the kendra to zero in on non-performers.

“I will dial the number and leave a complaint as a layman to see the response time. I will get details of the calls I make and their status at the next review meeting. Wherever the field staff are esponsive and fails to get back, I will take them to task. Let them be ready for punitive action,” she warned the SEs of different circles across the state.

Unhappy with the number of complaints pending in Bhiwani, she said the programme was yet to catch on and directed the officials to publicise it and make it well-known to the public.

“So far, the complaints are limited to a few districts only and 1,068 complaints are pending since the number was started. This means that we are not disposing of complaints fast enough,” she rued.

While the SEs admitted that the response was lax from certain pockets and the field staff in some districts, they complained that there were not enough SDOs available to deal with the complaints or carry on with their regular duties.

The SE from Mewat, while mentioning that some posts of SDO were vacant, grudged the fact that only those to be punished were sent there.

Panchkula, August 11
Ritu, the daughter of Ranjit Singh, told the CBI court today that her father received many threats to his life from the Dera Sacha Sauda head before he was killed.

Ranjit Singh was murdered at Kurukeshetra in 2002.

However, the application filed by Gurdaas Singh Toor in the Chhatrapati murder case, has been rejected by the court.

Ritu told the court that the accused Jasbir, Sabdil and Krishan had come to their house on June 26, 2002 and threatened her father on the directions of Dera Chief Ram Rahim Singh. She said the three used to threaten her father on phone as well quite often.

Ranjit Singh was said to have highlighted the sexual exploitation of women at the hands of the Dera chief.

The CBI court had already framed charges against five Dera Sacha Sauda followers in Ranjit Singh murder case, including Dera manager Krishan Lal. The other four accused are Inder Sain, Jasbir Singh, Sabdil and Avtar Singh.

Ram Chander Chhatrapati, a journalist, was allegedly murdered on October 24, 2002 for writing against the illegal activities inside the Dera. 

Faridabad, August 11
A local court today sent Bharti, one of the 10 accused of the gang rape in Jharsetly, to 14-day judicial custody.

The accused had raped an employee of a call centre of the Delhi Jal Board and a resident of Delhi on Thursday night after forcibly making her consume liquor. While he was arrested yesterday, the police has failed to arrest the other accused.

SHO Devender Singh said several raids had been conducted in Jharsetly, the village of the accused, and their possible hideouts to nab them. Six teams had been constituted to arrest them.

Meanwhile, an informal talk with some residents of Jharsetly reflected popular opinion in favour of transfer of the case to the CIA, a special wing of the Haryana Police, for proper investigation of the case. Inquiries reveal the accused are a part of an organised criminal group.

One of the accused, Luka, is a relative of Sher Singh Daggar, once a district level office-bearer of the INLD and a Nano car, one of the vehicles used by the accused, had sticker on which the INLD was imprinted. The vehicle has been taken into custody. 

Rewari, August 11
Rohtak Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda inaugurated a media centre at Kosli last night.

He said the centre would be equipped with all modern facilities to enable journalists to carry out their work proficiently. Recalling journalists’ contribution in the movement of freedom of the country, he urged mediapersons to ply their pen in the interest of society and the nation.