New Delhi, August 23
The South district police today rescued a minor boy who was kidnapped from Batala in Punjab on 20 July.

South district DCP, Chhaya Sharma said that the police arrested a 45-year-old woman, allegedly involved in sex trade, and her boyfriend from the Adarsh Nagar area of northwest Delhi.

Savita, who divorced her husband seven years ago, and Ajay, 28, residents of Adarsh Nagar, were held after a complaint lodged with the Civil Line police station in Punjab's Gurdaspur district.

Initial investigation was taken up by the Punjab Police after Satender Kaur reported that her son had been missing since July 20. Satender along with her husband, two sons and a daughter, resides at a rented house in Batala.

On July 20, Satender had left home at 3 pm to pay the monthly rent of the house to the landlord. "When she returned after an hour, her younger son was missing. Her efforts to locate him in the neighbourhood bore no result. Later, she came to know that her neighbour Savita was also missing with her belongings," Sharma added.

The police said that Savita revealed during interrogation that she took a house on rent in Batala city and, within hours, befriended the victim and his family.

"Once she sensed the opportunity, she kidnapped the child by offering him sweets. She took him to Delhi by bus and starting living at rented accommodation with her boyfriend," Sharma said.

"Sustained interrogation has revealed that Savita was involved in sex trade and used to travel frequently to Punjab. She, along with her boyfriend, planned to kidnap a child to avoid interrogation at police pickets," said the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South).

On Thursday, the Delhi police received a tip-off that the child was seen with a woman in the Adarsh Nagar area. Keeping in mind the sensitivity of the case, a police team conducted a massive hunt for the woman and verified several addresses for the safe release of the child.

"A house-to-house search was conducted in Shankar Vihar and Adarsh Nagar during which the accused woman along with her boyfriend were apprehended and the child was rescued," Sharma added.

New Delhi, August 23
Ahead of the students' elections of Delhi University to be held on September 14, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), student wing of the BJP, began its campaign today.

The party members held a rally on the North campus and marched from the Arts faculty to the Vice-Chancellor's office.

The ABVP activists put forth a list of demands which include increasing hostel accommodation, special transport arrangement along with free passes in Metro and ensuring a secured atmosphere for students both within and outside the campus.

They accused the administration of adopting an indifferent attitude towards the students on a number of counts.

"There are just a handful of hostels and the demand for them is huge. Also, for the past 13 years, no new college has been opened at DU due to which a lot of students fail to get admissions," said ABVP secretary Rohit Chahal.

There are a lot of colleges which are located far from the campus. Students face lots of problems in commuting. In this regard, the ABVP pushed for the longstanding demand of increasing the fleet of DU special buses.

"Apart from more number of hostels and colleges, we have demanded concessions for students in DTC buses and asked the administration to look into the Room Rent Control Act in order to tackle the problem of staggering room rent," said Chahal.

They also raised the issue of bringing in Hindi as a medium of learning and in this regard pushed for issuing books for Hindi medium students so that the students from remote areas can cope with the evolving education system.

"Due to the changing education system and language problems, a number of students have not been able to clear their exams," added the ABVP secretary.

New Delhi, August 23
The Delhi government's initiative of conferment of powers on Additional District Magistrates (ADMs) for trial of bonded labour offences seems to have been a cosmetic exercise as of date no case has been heard under the new arrangement.

Through its latest provision while the national capital has set examples for other states towards zero tolerance for bonded labour, shockingly not a single prosecution has been on record under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, since its inception. Under the law, those found guilty are liable to three years of imprisonment.

"Not a single chargesheet has been filed in the past 35 years even though the cases of bonded labour have been quite common. All the RTIs filed by us received no replies regarding the number of prosecutions or the trials under the Act," said child rights activist Raaj Mangal Prasad, also associated with Pratidhi, an NGO which first took up the matter with the city government.

This indicates the lack of an effective system in place, reflecting poorly on the government's intention in implementing the law on bonded labour, said child rights activists here.

The matter came to light after Pratidhi contacted the Chief Secretary, Delhi government, asking for the status on the implementation of law in May last year, but no concrete reply has come in response to the RTI filed by it first in 2009.

But the response in the form of RTI replies, confirmed Pratidhi functionary Yogesh, received from the multiple agencies involved in the implementation of the law, including the directorate of prosecution, revenue department and the Delhi police, revealed incongruence, pointing out at a clear lack of coordination among them.

This even prompted the city government to go for the major move of conferment of powers on ADMs in order to reduce the burden of the judicial magistrates of the regular courts. In this regard, a notification was issued on February 3 in which the ADMs, holding the powers of Executive Magistrate, were conferred the powers of Judicial Magistrate of the first class for trial of offences under the sub-section (1) of Section 21 of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

However, the Delhi police is still sending the cases to the regular sessions courts.

New Delhi, August 23
The Delhi government has decided to introduce smart classes in its Rajikya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalayas soon. There are 17 such vidyalayas imparting education from 6th to 12th standard. This was decided in a meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today.

Dikshit stated that with the introduction of smart classes, learning will become simpler. In every vidyalaya, one section each in classes 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th will be converted into smart classes. Hence, there will be in all 68 smart classes in 17 Pratibha Vikas Vidyalayas. The introduction of smart classes in other sections and classes will be taken up later.

The smart class would facilitate the existing learning methodology and enable students to educate themselves effectively. The classes would be based on e-text books, digital library, virtual labs for science subjects and classroom learning.

New Delhi, August 23
With the arrest of two persons, the South district police has claimed to have busted a Mewati gang of dacoits which had unleashed a reign of terror in the areas of national capital territory.

The police has arrested the accused Anil 30, a resident of Palam, and Mohammad Umar 25, who hails from Rajasthan's Bharatpur district. Their arrest has solved 14 cases of robbery, dacoity and motor vehicle theft in the national capital, said Chhaya Sharma, DCP south district.

"Seven stolen vehicles and jewellery worth Rs 1.50 lakh have been recovered from their possession," said Sharma.

During investigation, the police collected intelligence on the basis of the modus operandi adopted by the gang and the time chosen to commit crime. "Their modus operandi was suggestive of Mewati criminals and it was supported by the view that all the incidents had been committed late at night or in the early morning which is usually the preferred time of Mewati criminals," Sharma added.

Anita Bhushan, the complainant, who works as a senior MNC executive, had told police at Saket police station, that she and her sister Vidhya Bhushan were robbed when they were near Lado Sarai during the wee hours of July 1. The two sisters had hired a taxi for Anand Vihar ISBT from Gurgaon Sector-56.

"When they reached M G Road near Mehrauli at about 5 am, a Toyota Innova car occupied by five-six persons tried to intercept them. The driver of the taxi tried to escape, but was intercepted near Lado Sarai," Sharma added.

As the taxi halted, several persons carrying knives and countrymade pistols overpowered the driver. Both the women were then robbed of their jewellery and Rs 8,000.