Yamunanagar, January 10
A class XII student in Fakarpur village of the district was accused of raping his schoolmate on Thursday.

The police said the accused has been arrested on the basis of the girl’s complaint.

The girl, who is a class XI student in the same school as that of the accused, alleged that the boy offered to drop her home after school. But he took her to his house and raped her after threatening her of dire consequences.

The girl narrated the incident to her family, following which the matter was reported to the police.

A case was filed with the local police and medical examination of the girl confirmed that she was assaulted.

The police said that the boy was a juvenile and legal proceedings had been initiated as per the law. 

Bhiwani, January 10
Adding to the continuing shame of rapes in Haryana, a six-year-old girl was raped in Ninan village of Bhiwani district today.

A person took the girl, a second standard student, to agriculture fields on his bicycle and raped her there.

The accused left the profusely bleeding girl in the fields and escaped.

Villagers noticed the girl and intimated the police.

The victim is undergoing treatment in the Bhiwani General Hospital, where the doctors conducted her medical examination.

“The girl is under mental trauma and is unable to tell anything,” said Simardeep Singh, SP. A source in the hospital said that the victim was in a very bad condition and was bleeding profusely.

Jhajjar, January 10
The khap panchayats across the state are firm on their stand and would oppose the same gotra and villages marriages before the Supreme Court on January 14.

Om Prakash Dhankhar, chief of the Haryana Dhankhar Sabha and a prominent leader of Dhankhar Khap, told ‘The Tribune’ here today that a 17-member-panel comprising advocates and prominent leaders of different khap panchayats had been formed to place the khaps’ opinion logically over the inter-caste and same gotra and village marriages before the Supreme Court.

Notably, the Supreme Court has invited Haryana’s khaps on January 14 to hear their views before issuing any order to stop them from harassing boys and girls for entering into inter-caste or intra-gotra marriages.

“We do not oppose inter-caste marriages but we are not in favour of same gotra and village marriages as those belonging to the same gotra and village belong to the same clan and maintain brotherhood as per our social customs,” said the khap leader.

Dhankhar said khaps had no link with the rising incidents of honour killing in the state.

“The khaps neither endorse the killing of couples for the sake of protecting family honour nor pronounce any verdict of death penalty to anyone,” he claimed.

He maintained that “ gotra' is a means of social identity for people of a village. Even medical science does not support marriages in the same gotra."

Advocating severe punishment to the rape accused, Dhankhar said the khap panchayat should be accorded the status of a village court in deciding rape cases within a stipulated period, adding that a court representative could also be included in the khap panchayat to keep a close tab on the panchayat’s proceedings. 

Ambala, January 10
The All-India Power Engineers Federation today stated here that chairman and managing director of the state power utilities Devender Singh had expressed his willingness to adopt the Punjab model to bring down the Aggregate Transmission and Commercial (AT&C) losses.

The engineers had put up a presentation before him, following which he assured them that the Punjab model would be adopted after a discussion with senior officers.

Padamjit Singh, chairman of the All-India Power Engineers Federation, said in Haryana, the AT&C losses were in the range of 20 to 30 per cent in urban domestic feeders and 50 to 70 per cent in rural areas and they are mainly commercial losses.

These, he said, could be brought down to 10 to 15 per cent in urban areas and 20 to 25 per cent in rural areas under the Punjab pattern.

Bhupinder Singh, secretary-general of the Northern India Power Engineers Federation, who made a presentation before the Haryana Power Utilities management, said the gains from the low-cost strategies to reduce line losses could be successfully adopted in the state, which at present was working on modalities to introduce the franchisee system to reduce the losses.

He said the investment made on improving the system could be recovered within a period of one year of implementation.

Bhupinder Singh said besides improving the quality of supply, the recommended model had reduced the Aggregate Transmission and Commercial losses in Punjab from 22 per cent in year 2009-10 to 19 per cent by the end of March, 2012.

While the system reliability index showed an improvement of 99.75 per cent, the damage rate of distribution transformers had also been reduced significantly.

He said in its pilot project which was introduced in Patiala, the power utilities of Punjab had incurred an expenditure of Rs 34 crore after which they saved 233 lakh units of energy. 

Fatehabad, January 10
The Fatehabad police is in the dock after a young married woman alleged that she was called to Bhattu police station for no fault and undressed by a woman in the presence of a male SHO in the name of frisking. The woman, who is in her early twenties, met Deputy Commissioner ML Kaushik today and alleged that she had lodged a complaint against her husband and the parents-in-laws for making an attempt on her life by giving her poisoned tea for dowry.

When her parents left her in her husband's home after her discharge from the hospital last night, the in-laws approached the police expressing an apprehension that she could consume poison to implicate them in false case.

Upon this, the police called her to Bhattu police station, where she was stripped by a woman in the presence of a male SHO to ascertain whether she was carrying any poisonous substance.

The DC has asked Shamsher Singh Dahiya, DSP (Headquarters), to probe the matter.

Dahiya said that he had deputed Rekha Agarwal, Protection Officer under the Domestic Violence Act, to record the woman's statement.

The DSP maintained that the woman's frisking was not done in the presence of the SHO.

To a question why a woman was called to the police station at night when she had no FIR against her, Dahiya said the womans' in-laws had taken her to the police station apprehending that she could commit suicide to implicate them.

SHO Jagdish Chander has also denied that the woman was undressed in his presence.

The woman, whose parents live in Fatehabad, was married to a trader from Bhattu Kalan in June, 2012. However, the couple's relations turned sour and the police yeterday booked her in-laws under 498-A (dowry law). 

Kurukshetra, January 10
Minutes before the analogue communication examination of the third semester of B.Tech, Kurukshetra University (KU), was to begin, the news of the question paper being leaked broke among the students.

It is learnt that the question paper was sold to some students in Kurukshetra for Rs 4,000.

The examination was to start at 9.30 am today and some students had received the question paper early in the morning. When the same paper was distributed to the students in examination halls today, the leak was confirmed.

Nobody in the university, it seems, was aware of the leak and none of the colleges have informed the university authorities either.

A student of TERII showed this correspondent a message of detailed questions received by him on his phone at 8.22 am, before the examination was scheduled to start. The student said all the questions were the same.

Students alleged that the question paper of the micro-controller seventh semester was also leaked and they had a proof as a message in their mobile phones.

“The exam papers of some other subjects have also been leaked and it is causing problems for students who prepare hard for the exams,” said students.

The affected students have demanded the cancellation of exams of the leaked question papers.

“The question papers are printed a few days ahead of the examination and delivered at the examination centres before the examination is scheduled,” said controller of examination Hukum Singh.

“There is no information regarding leakage. If it is so, action will be taken,” he added. 

Karnal, January 10
Outraged over the brutal killing and chopping off heads of two Indian soldiers allegedly by the Pakistani forces, some social organisations in Karnal today took out the funeral procession of Pakistan and also performed the symbolic cremation.

The social activists were deeply pained that Indian government had been avoiding strong action against Pakistan to teach it a lesson.

"It is unfortunate that we are living in a country whose central leadership is spineless and unless the enemies are paid back in the same coin, incidents like the Mumbai blasts, attack on Parliament and Kargil intrusions would continue to happen," said a member of India Against Corruption.

Raising anti-Pakistan slogans, the activists carried the effigy of Pakistan in a funeral procession from the Railway road and set it ablaze at the Committee chowk in the presence of a huge crowd.

President of the Akhil Bhartiya Pratima Raksha Samman Narender Singh demanded the immediate recall of the Indian High Commissioner from Pakistan and suspension of the Indo-Pak train and bus services.

Sharply reacting to Pakistan's fresh misdemeanour, ambushing and brutal killingof two Indian soldiers, Dr N.K.Kalia, father of Kargil martyr Capt Saurabh Kalia has also demanded "complete action against Pakistan to stop such heinous crimes in future."

Pakistan would not have dared to do it again if India had taken a strong action against Pakistan instead of appeasing it by arranging cricket matches and promoting trade and cultural exchanges, he said. He added that Pakistan should be brought to justice and punished for its inhuman and cruel acts.

Lt-General Hardev Singh Lidder (retd), who conducted 'Sarp Vinash' operation in Hill Kaka in 2003, said, "Pakistan should be paid back in the same coin as it understands only that language."

Kurukshetra, January 10
It was chilling cold on Wednesday night at Sannihit Sarovar in Kurukshetra where more than 100 persons were sleeping under the sky without any fire arrangement or 'doss house' (rain basera).

They were shivering, with nobody to look after them. The district administration had failed to provide warmth to them. It has just written to dharamshalas to provide shelter to the homeless.

Thankfully, Lok Sabha MP Naveen Jindal's team took care of the destitutes by giving them blankets.

District Congress treasurer Vinod Garg, media in charge of Jindal House Kalyan Kumar, Sanjay Singh and Rajesh Kumar reached Sannihit Sarovar at 10.30 pm on Wednesday.

Team Jindal covered every person sleeping there with blankets one by one. At least 20 passersby were also distributed blankets. Some rickshawpullers were also given blankets.

The team later visited other public places also to give relief to the poor people from the chilling cold. These included the railway station, bus stand and the Thanesar halt.

Naveen Jindal has been running a campaign in Kurukshetra since 2005. He has been distributing blankets, medicines, clothes, books and stationery, scholarships, pensions, funds under kanyadan and cricket, volleyball kits to youngsters. He has also arranged more than 1,000 eye camps and four mega medical camps. 

Chandigarh, January 10
Power Minister Ajay Yadav today urged Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal to start a new Shatabdi between Jaipur to Chandigarh via Rewari and Rohtak.

Yadav also demanded that the Rewari junction should be attached to the Delhi Zone instead of Jaipur division.

Other demands put forth by Yadav included the construction of a railway line from Rewari to Palwal, declaration of Rewari junction as a terminal station or adarsh railway station, extension of Ekta Express running between Chandigarh and Bhiwani up to Rewari. He has asked for a halt of the Delhi-Jaipur double-decker express and the Delhi-Ahmedabad Rajdhani at Rewari and to increase the frequency of passenger trains.

Faridabad, January 10
Two armed men looted Rs 2 lakh, jewellery and an i20 car from the house of a local businessman in Sector 16-A last night. Two men barged into the house of Narender Prasad, who owns a chemical unit. One of them forced the family members to assemble in a room at pistolpoint while the other

ordered Prasad to hand all cash lying in the house.

After the cash was handed over to them, they made the family memers to part with their jewellery. They fled the house along with the businessman's car.

Gurgaon, January 10
The crime branch of the Gurgaon police has arrested two persons in connection with the murder of a Gurgaon-based pub-owner and two policemen of Rajasthan.

Stating this here today, DCP Maheshwar Dayal said Ajay and Amit of Charkhi Dadri used to work for Pawan Sharma, who used to run a pub at Gurgaon.

Last month, Sharma was killed when he was travelling between Delhi and Gurgaon in his car. According to police investigations, Ajay and Amit, who were with Sharma at that time, had some altercation, following which they allegedly killed him.

Later, they fled to Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan to dump the body. However, tired of the long journey, they slept in the car. Somebody got suspicious and informed the police.

However, as a police party arrived and tried to arrest them, they opened fire and fled the scene. Two personnel of the Rajasthan police were killed in the incident. After that, they went in hiding at Jaipur and Delhi. Eventually, they were arrested by the Gurgaon police.