Flesh trade racket busted; 14 in police net
Dehradun, November 28
A team of the Special Operations Group and the police from Vasant Vihar and Rajpur raided a house in the Hill View colony in the city last night and arrested 14 persons, including seven girls and head of the flesh trade Stella David. Besides, Stella’s daughter-in-law, her son Robert and other men, namely Rahul Batra, Rahul Kumar, Dharmendra and Ravi Kumar, were also arrested.

Dehradun, November 28
Nearly a million pilgrims took a bath in the Ganga on the auspicious occasion of Kartik Purnima in Haridwar today.

The holy city of Haridwar had been bursting at its seams since yesterday evening as lakhs of pilgrims had descended on the city to participate in the holy bath.

Since early morning at 3 am, lakhs of pilgrims had converged on the various ghats of the Ganga to take bath.

The maximum rush of pilgrims was seen at Har-ki-Pauri where pilgrims took bath the whole day. A large number of pilgrims from northern states of the country participated in the holy bath, according to police officials.

The Uttarakhand Police had made elaborate security arrangements for the Kartik Purnima celebrations. A large number of police personnel were deployed at all vintage points to facilitate the flow of pilgrims.

The police was hardpressed due to a movement of a large number of politicians, including Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna and his Cabinet colleagues and leaders of other political parties who also reached Haridwar to participate in the marriage of the daughter of Union Water Resources Minister Harish Rawat.

All trains to and from Haridwar were packed to capacity. However, much to the relief of the civil and police officials, the Kartik Purnima bath passed off without any untoward incident. Senior police officials, including DIG Garhwal range Sanjay Gunjial and Haridwar SSP Arun Mohan Joshi supervised the security arrangements.

Dehradun, November 28
On the direction of Director General of Police (DGP), Satyavrat Bansal, a Special Task Force (STF) team, a Special Operation Group team and another police team of Kashipur police arrested five suspects from Ram Nagar Road, Kashipur, who had allegedly planned to kill Congress leader Khajan Chand and Hitender Pal lodged in Haldwani Jail during court appearance, and commit a theft in the house of a wealthy trader in Nainital. The suspicts were promised Rs 10 lakh to eliminate Khajan Chand. They were provided with heavy arms and ammunition to complete the task, which the police recovered from them.

The names of the suspects are Luxman Thapa, Prakash Pandey, Amar Singh, Faizal and Sudarshan, all hailing from Udham Singh Nagar.

Satyavrat Bansal said he got the information about the plot through an informer. Besides this, he said, they had been involved in a number of robberies and theft cases in Jaspur and Haldwani. Among the accused Luxman Thapa and Prakash Pandey were arrested for their involvement in double murder case in Bhimtal, and in Uday Prakash murder case of Haldwani. A case is also registered against Amar Singh in Girish Chand murder case at Rudrapur. The criminal history of the rest of the accused is being probed as well.

The DGP said the police teams conducted a recce and mobile surveillance of the culprits for the past one week and arrested the them from a dilapidated building near Sona Farm, situated on Ram Nagar Road in Kashipur today. He said: “They revealed that a big builder hired them to carry out the killings. They are being interrogated to find out more about the builder and his intention for funding the killing and purchase of arms/ammunition.

Many more cases can be solved or criminals can be arrested with more revelations. Besides this, it is found out that the builder contacted some hardened criminals who are lodged in Dehradun jail to carry out the murders. These criminals then further contacted the accused, who were arrested today. With their arrest, the police has been able to prevent serious crimes.”

The teams were headed by Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), STF, S Santhiyal, and SSP, Udham Singh Nagar. The DGP has announced a reward of Rs 20,000 and the Inspector General of Police, Law and Order, RS Meena, announced Rs 10,000 for the police teams for achieving success in the given task. 

Dehradun, November 28
A team of the Special Operations Group and the police from Vasant Vihar and Rajpur raided a house in the Hill View colony in the city last night and arrested 14 persons, including seven girls and head of the flesh trade Stella David. Besides, Stella’s daughter-in-law, her son Robert and other men, namely Rahul Batra, Rahul Kumar, Dharmendra and Ravi Kumar, were also arrested.

While Robert and Rahul Batra jointly ran the flesh trade racket, the other men worked as agents. The police recovered Rs 58,650, 12 mobile phones and a Maruti 800 car from their possession.

SSP, Dehradun, Kewal Khurana told mediapersons today that Circle Officer, City, Mamta Vohra busted the racket. He said as many as 14 cases had been registered against Stella in Raipur, Rajpur, Patel Nagar and Vasant Vihar police stations for running the flesh trade racket in the city.

The arrested persons would also be booked under the Gangster Act so as to deny them the benefit of bail which they had been enjoying so far. He gave strict instructions to the police officers not to show leniency while registering cases in such serious issues.

Khurana said the group was bringing girls from Delhi, Bihar, Haryana and as far as Nepal.

They had rented a house in the Hill View colony on a monthly rent of Rs 11,000 last week. He added he would order an inquiry against those who had provided accommodation to the gang. About the girls involved in the racket, the SSP said an appropriate legal action would be taken against them.

Mussoorie, November 28
A symposium on “Mountaineering and Environmental Preservation of Mt Everest” was organised under the aegis of Mussoorie Postgraduate College on its premises yesterday.

The chief guest on the occasion, Squadron Leader Toolika Rani, the first woman from Uttar Pradesh to climb Mt Everest, the highest peak of the world on May 26, 2012, addressing a gathering of college students, shared her environmental concerns and growing commercialisation of Mt Everest which left an adverse impact on the climatic conditions of the region.

Toolika Rani was of the view that due to unrestricted permits issued by the Nepal government, the mountain was becoming crowded with every passing year leading to a situation equivalent to a traffic jam.

The accumulation of tonnes of garbage at the highest peak of the earth was also creating an environmental problem on Mt Everest.

She further said her concerns had been shared by many other mountaineers namely Dawa Steven Sherpa, who believed that Mt Everest cannot be used as a product of amusement and some restriction should be imposed on the number of climbers on an annual basis.

However, she added that some agencies such as the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, set up by the Nepal government, are working to keep Everest clean and had undertaken several expeditions to clean up the peak from the heap of garbage being accumulated there but more efforts were needed in this matter from the global community.

Toolika Rani is serving with the Indian Air Force as an officer and is an avid mountaineer who has completed six expeditions and several treks in India and abroad.

After scaling Mt Everest in May this year, she now aims to climb the highest peaks of the seven continents as well. Her next challenge also includes scaling the virgin peaks around the country and Mt Everest via the north route in China.

“I was inspired towards mountaineering by the feat accomplished by the famous Indian woman mountaineer Bachendri Pal several years ago” said Toolika Rani.

Later speaking to The Tribune, she said the whole Everest expedition was possible with the help of funds from friends as the Air Force did not have any policy to support only one member attempting to scale the Everest on her own.

She rued the fact that despite being only woman from Uttar Pradesh to climb Everest, the state government had not yet acknowledged her feat as yet.

She also pledged to work towards women empowerment and promote mountaineering and eco-awareness among the youth of the country.

The President, Mussoorie Municipal Council, OP Uniyal, commended her efforts and said that the students should try to emulate the work done by her and bring laurels to the Uttarakhand. Anita Dabral, Usha Chaduhry, Dr. Shalini Gupta, Lipika Kamboj, Shilpa, Neha, Dr Laxmi Bhatt and others were also present on the occasion.

Dehradun, November 28
District Magistrate BVRC Purushottam held a review meeting of various schemes being run at the district, state and Central levels and funded by international agencies.

He directed the district officials to ensure utilisation of funds regarding the developmental works within the given time limit.

He directed Chief Development Officer to deduct one-day salary of the officials of various departments, including Power, Irrigation, Ayurveda and Drinking Water for not releasing the funds of district plans.

In the meeting, he said the state government released Rs 29.44 cr out of the proposed amount of Rs 74.61 cr of district plan.

The District Magistrate released Rs 21.93 cr in the month of October, which had been spent from 40 to 75 pc till now.

Purushottam expressed displeasure on less expenditure in sewerage work going on at Mussoorie. He enquired about PWD officials for withholding development funds.

District Forest Officer Sushant Patnaik assured to expedite the clearance of all files from the Forest Department.

Such issues regarding felling of trees on National Highways 72 and 58 and land transfer case and road widening at Mussoorie which require approval from the Forest Department were also discussed. The DM asked PWD officials to put up the concerned files before him.

Purushottam was unhappy over mere 40 pc admission rate of poor children in the schools of the district.

He instructed the District Education Officer to take stringent action in this regard.

Dehradun, November 28
A total of 36 gram panchayats were given nirmal gram awards 2010-2011 by Uttarakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi at a function held today.

Speaking on the occasion, Governor Aziz Qureshi said that complete sanitation and piped water continued to elude most households in the country and should be taken up by the governments on priority basis.

On the occasion Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said that despite several shortcomings, the Uttarakhand government had achieved sixth place in the country in the Nirmal Bharat campaign.

Shedding light on the complete sanitation programme launched in the state in 2003-04, Director of Swajal Kapil Lal said that initially the level of sanitation in the rural areas of the state was 21 per cent, which has now risen to 96.53 per cent.

He said that a broad awareness campaign was under way to encourage villagers to become part of the total sanitation programme by adopting healthy practices.

Under the total sanitation programme a total of 7,56,738 individual toilets, 2928 toilets in schools and another 349 toilets at anganwari centres are being built in the rural areas of the state.

Dehradun, November 28
Welham Girls School basketball team won the final of the Dehradun District Council Schools Association (DDSCA) Senior Girls Basketball Tournament by defeating Aryan School here today.

The final match was played at the Aryan School, where Welham Girls School thrashed Aryan School by 27-13. St Josephs’ Academy principal Brother AJ George, who was the chief guest on the occasion, gave away the prizes.

Principal of the Aryan School Cherry Jain, vice-chairman Sunny Gupta, students, teachers and coaches were also present on the occasion.