Ambala, April 16
Father of Aditi Garg, who was killed in the German Bakery blast on February 13, 2010, has announced to observe a fast at the Polytechnic Chowk in Ambala city tomorrow to demand capital punishment for the main accused in the blast, Mirza Himayat Baig.

Baig was proved guilty by a Pune court yesterday. The court will pronounce the quantum of his sentence on April 18.

Hardeyesh Jindal, father of Aditi, a resident of Ambala city told mediapersons here today that Baig had committed an inhuman offence by killing 17 innocent persons.

He said Aditi was studying in Pune and was present outside the German Bakery when the blast occurred. Aditi sustained 80 per cent burn injuries and died at a hospital in Pune on February 26, 2010. He alleged that Aditi was not provided proper medical treatment at the hospital.

Jindal said the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had not taken up the case in an effective manner and therefore, the other accused in the case are still on a run.

Jindal said during the hearing of the case, the ATS never contacted him. He said the ATS should arrest all the accused and plead death sentence for Baig in the court.

Bhiwani, April 16
The police in Bhiwani has arrested Rajinder, a nephew of Dharampal Obra, who is the INLD MLA from the Loharu assembly constituency, for allegedly raping a physically challenged Dalit woman and making obscene MMSes for blackmailing her.

The arrest has been made following a complaint lodged in October 2012 by a 30-year-old married physically challenged Dalit woman, who alleged that Rajinder raped her between October 2011 and February 2012 when her husband was away to Rajasthan.

MLA Dharampal Obra and his wife Sheela also face arrest as the woman had alleged in the complaint that the couple beat her up, threatened her and made casteist remarks for lodging an FIR against their nephew.

The police has also arrested the woman's husband Ram Phal in a case of outraging the modesty of a woman registered against him four days after his wife lodged a complaint against the MLA's nephew.

In her complaint, the victim has alleged that between October 2011 and February 2012, Rajinder, also from Obra village, raped her when her husband was away to Rajasthan for a few months and made a video clip and threatened to eliminate her if she disclosed the incident to anyone.

In February, when the victim's husband returned, she narrated the incident to him.

The victim has alleged that the MLA pressurised her not to lodge a complaint against Rajinder. He along with his wife allegedly slapped them and hurled abuses.

The victim had approached the police in May this year with her complaint, but it allegedly did not take any action.

The police had, however, maintained that the woman retracted from her statement after filing her complaint.

On October 23 last year, the victim approached the IG, Police, at Hisar with her complaint and consequently, a case under Sections 292, 323, 376 and 506 of the IPC and Sections 3, 33 and 89 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was registered against Rajinder.

On October 27, the police booked Obra and his wife for thrashing the woman and making caste-based comments on her and at the same time registered an FIR against the victim's husband on the complaint of a woman.

The woman had alleged that Ram Phal had outraged her modesty when she was taking a bath in her house.

Sirsa, April 16
A Dabwali court today remanded a head constable in police custody for two days for raping a 28-year-old woman on the false promise of marriage. The accused was arrested yesterday.

The police has sought head constable Roshan Lal’s remand for taking him to Chandigarh, where he is alleged to have booked a room in a hotel showing the victim as his wife.

The woman, a resident of Desumalkana village, had alleged in her complaint to the police that in 2009, she used to visit a computer centre at Dabwali in Sirsa, where she met the accused.

She alleged that the head constable promised to marry her and when she had to go to Chandigarh for a test on September 10, 2009, he kept her in his rented accommodation at Dabwali and violated her.

Later, he accompanied her to Chandigarh, where they stayed together in a room.

She alleged the accused continued raping her on the promise of marraige.

However, the accused married another woman in February this year.

The victim alleged that she had given a complaint to the police to stop the marriage but the police did not do so.

Finally, she lodged a complaint of rape against the accused.

Hisar, April 16
An 11-year-old girl was raped at her house when her parents were away for work here last evening.

Ashish (19), alias Chhotu, who works as a helper at a medical shop, allegedly entered the girl’s house and raped her.

The victim’s parents told the police that they worked as daily-wage labourers and had gone to work yesterday. They alleged that their 4-year-old son was sleeping when the accused entered the house and raped their daughter. The girl cried for help but no one heard her.

When the accused was trying to escape after perpetrating the crime, the girl raised an alarm again. Passersby nabbed the accused and beat him up. The accused was later handed over to the police.

The accused was produced before a court today and was sent to judicial custody. In another incident, a man allegedly raped his 7-year-old daughter at Dhani Prem Nagar village in Hisar last evening.

The victim’s mother alleged that when she returned from work yesterday, her daughter complained that her father had raped her. The accused, Kuldeep, ran away when his wife questioned him.

The police has registered a case and a search is on for the accused.

Chandigarh, April 16
Senior officials of the Haryana government will explore the possibility of crop diversification at a meeting with the Union Agriculture Ministry in Delhi tomorrow. The Centre has invited the officials to work out ways to break away from the wheat-rice cropping pattern. Though Punjab has refused to go in for the plantation of poplar trees, Haryana is not averse to it and is likely to discuss proposals in the meeting tomorrow.

The union government has made a provision of Rs 500 crore for crop diversification and Haryana hopes to get anything between Rs 100 and Rs 200 crore, but it has to assure the Union Agriculture Ministry that it will be able to successfully adopt diversification. Uttra Pradesh is the other state that could be a major beneficiary from this central fund for diversification.

Highly placed sources in the government said the officials would discuss a proposal to bring about two lakh hectares of land under poplar plantation as part of this diversification initiative.

In his last budget speech, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had said: “The original Green Revolution states (Punjab was a leader among them) face problems of stagnating yields and overexploitation of water resources and the answer lies in crop diversification”.

Haryana, unlike Punjab, has been demanding Rs 5,000 crore to facilitate its proposed plan for diversification, but the union government has kept aside only Rs 500 crore for the entire country. Policy makers in the union government are of the view that most of the rice eating states have become self-sufficient in the production of rice and wheat and in times to come, diversification is the only way for agrarian economies to survive.

It is said that if the Haryana government comes up with a viable plan for diversification, it will take at least five or six years to shift to another crop or for the poplar plantation to give returns.

The officials will also discuss proposals for improving horticulture and diversification into cultivation of maize and some other crops.

Faridabad, April 16
Petrol station owners in Faridabad today observed a one-day token strike in protest against the sealing of eight petrol pumps here by Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) in order to recover its dues from oil companies.

The strike was in response to a call given by the Faridabad Petroleum Dealers Association to express solidarity with the affected pump owners.

The commuters faced problems on account of the agitation by the pump owners. The owners, however, called off the strike in the evening.

Manmohan Gupta, general secretary of the association, said the strike was called off keeping in view the problems faced by the public.

Meanwhile, the pump owners whose units were sealed, got a jolt today as Faridabad Administrator NK Solanki, went on two days' leave. The former had petitioned to him against the decision of the Estate Office, HUDA, to seal their pumps.

Gupta said the oil companies had taken up the issue in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the matter was listed for hearing tomorrow.

He said in a similar case in Gurgaon, the court had directed that the pumps sealed should be allowed to function on the condition that the oil companies concerned deposited 25 per cent of the outstanding dues to HUDA.

Hisar, April 16
A man is alleged to have slit the neck of his wife at Hansi town in Hisar yesterday as she did not want to stay with him.

Victim Renu (25) was shifted to the General Hospital, Hisar, where her condition is stated to be serious.

The police said accused Vinod, a resident of Boga Ram colony of Hansi town, had procured Renu, a resident of West Bengal, for Rs 35,000 few years ago. The couple has two children.

The woman eloped with her husband’s friend Raju, a resident of Devsar village, a few months ago. Later, the police arrested Raju and sent Renu with her mother when she told the police that she did not want to live with Vinod.

Last evening, Vinod came to Renu’s house and asked her to accompany him to an eatery on the Hisar road. Outside the eatery, Vinod allegedly slit Renu’s throat with a knife. Passersby rushed the woman to the General Hospital in Hansi, from where she was shifted to Hisar. Vinod is absconding since the incident.

Sonepat, April 16
A 35-year-old housewife was brutally stabbed at her house in Sector 23 by an unidentified girl here today.

The victim, Satyavati, was rushed to a local private hospital where she was operated and her condition is stated to be out of danger. On her complaint, the police has registered a case against the girl.

Satyavati was inside her house when a girl reached there on a scooty and introduced herself as a friend of her daughter.

When Satyavati went to the kitchen to bring water for the girl, the accused entered the kitchen and attacked her with knife several times. After inflicting serious injuries, the girl sped away on her scooty.

Bhiwani, April 16
Haryana Excise, Taxation and Public Health Engineering Minister Kiran Choudhry, who represents Tosham in the Assembly, inaugurated drinking water supply schemes and power supply projects today.

A sum of Rs 260 crore had been spent on sewerage and water supply alone since she took over the reins of the department as a minister, Choudhry said speaking to The Tribune after the inauguration of various projects.

Addressing villagers after inaugurating a raw water pumping station at Mitathal village in Bhiwani, Choudhry said the project would improve supply of potable water to Bhiwani. An 19500-meter water pipe had been laid to carry water from Mitathal to Meham road in Bhiwani.

Later, inaugurating a 33-KV power substation at Leghan Bhanan, the minister said the government had formulated a Rs 240 crore plan to strengthen the power transmission and distribution system in Bhiwani. Under this plan, the government would set up 10 new substations and augment the capacity of nine existing ones. The minister said to give reliable and quality power supply to agricultural tubewells and to give three-phase supply to domestic consumers, the agricultural and domestic load in rural areas had already been segregated in Bhiwani district by erecting additional 11-KV feeders

Kiran Choudhry said with the commissioning of a 33-KV substation at Leghan Bhanan, about 6,000 consumers of 18 villages will get improved voltage and regular power supply.

Faridabad, April 16
The court of Additional Sessions Judge, Faridabad, RN Bharti has sentenced two persons charged with triple murder to life imprisonment.

The guilty include Salman and Soaib, along with the main accused, Aslam, who had murdered a couple and their three-year-old daughter, Komal, after drugging them in their house at SGM Nagar here. The guilty are natives of Uttar Pradesh.

The crime occurred in October, 2011. Aslam was known to the victim couple, Pappu Chaudhary and Shoba, who had two children, including a two-year-old son.

Aslam, who has been declared a proclaimed offender by the court, had hatched a conspiracy along with the two other convicts to loot the house of Pappu Chaudhary.

He apparently made a courtesy visit to the couple's house along with a box of sweets laced with drug. While he was in the house, his two accomplices waited outside.

The couple and their kids became unconscious after consuming the sweets. Subsequently, they murdered the couple and their daughter, but left the son unharmed. They had escaped with the victims' belongings.

Karnal, April 16
Haryana Lokayukta Preetam Pal said the second phase of awareness campaign against corruption will be launched next month.

The first phase of the campaign had yielded encouraging results as 800 complaints were received within a year, the Lokayukta, who was here for the convocation of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), said. He said 400 of the 800 complaints had been disposed of. — TNS

Chandigarh, April 16
The state government has revised the per unit grants-in-aid being given to eligible beneficiaries for the construction of houses as per their requirement under the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY).

The aid has been enhanced from Rs 45,000 to Rs 70,000 in the plain areas and from Rs 48,500 to Rs 75,000 in the hilly and difficult areas. The IAY aims at providing shelter to rural BPL families.

While stating this here on Saturday, a spokesman for the Haryana Rural Development Department said under the IAY, the state government had spent Rs 46.61 crore during 2012-13. As many as 7,349 houses have been constructed and construction of 10,103 houses is in progress. Out of the total constructed houses, 4,328 were constructed for members belonging to the Scheduled Castes and 957 houses were constructed for minorities.

He said the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has been implemented in all the districts of the state since 2008-09. The basic objective of the scheme is to enhance livelihood security in the rural areas by providing up to 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

He said under the scheme, an expenditure of Rs 296.75 crore had been incurred and 100.62 lakh man days had been generated in the rural areas during 2012-13 up to February 2013. Out of the total man days, 52.10 lakh man days were generated for members belonging to Scheduled Castes and 38.46 for women.

Chandigarh, April 16
The Haryana government has notified the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas (Amendment) Act, 2013, to regulate the use of land in order to prevent ill-planned and haphazard urbanisation in or around towns and for the development of infrastructure sector and projects.

Giving this information here today, an official spokesman said the Haryana Infrastructure Development Board had been constituted under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister. The board could constitute an executive committee under the chairmanship of the chief secretary to assist it.

The board would act as a nodal agency to coordinate efforts of the government regarding the development and implementation of infrastructure sectors and projects, involving private participation and funding from sources other than those provided by the state budget and would identify infrastructure projects for private participation.

The board would identify bottlenecks in the infrastructure sectors and recommend to the government policy initiatives to rectify the same. It would also select, prioritise and determine sequencing of infrastructure projects.

Sonepat, April 16
A two-day UGC-sponsored national seminar on ‘Human Rights Awareness: Emerging Trends’ concluded at Tika Ram PG Girls College here recently, with a call that human rights of an individual are natural rights by birth. And if we want to bring peace and prosperity in society, human rights must be protected.

Inaugurating the seminar, Prof RB Singh, vice-president, IGU, said environmental degradation was a violation of human rights.

He explained the Stockholm Declaration as a foundation for linking human rights and environmental protection declaring that man has a fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate condition of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being.

Convener and coordinator of the seminar, Dr Anita Singh, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, said the seminar was aimed at bringing together eminent and highly reputed scholars, academicians, lawyers and experts from all over the country to find a solution to check human rights violations in the country and the world.

The convener said 264 dignitaries and delegates actively participated in it and over 100 papers were presented in the seminar.

Prof Santosh Nandal from the Department of Economics, MDU, Rohtak, said the various laws and acts related to women empowerment and focus on equality, sustainability, productivity, empowerment and morality are the essential components of human development.

Prof Kanchan Singh from Meerut University and Dr Suresh Deswal discussed in detail about the global and national situations of human rights whereas Dr Kavita Solanki from GGS IP University, Delhi, termed child labour as a violation of human rights.

The seminar concluded on an optimistic note that the emerging trends of human rights awareness are both positive and encouraging, yet low levels of conviction rate, faulty implementation of certain legislation, loopholes in procedural law, apathy and illiteracy are major obstacles in our endeavour to safeguard human rights.

Yamunanagar, April 16
Relatives and friends of a 27-year-old woman, who died during delivery, went on a rampage inside the Civil Hospital compound here today, damaging the main doors of the trauma centre.

The woman identified as Meenakshi was brought here from her native Salempur village after she went into labour. During delivery, she developed some medical complications that led to her death. Instead of informing her family members about her death, the hospital authorities asked them to immediately rush her to the PGI, Chandigarh. But a private doctor, who was also present there, found that the woman was already dead.

This provoked her relatives who, while accusing the doctors of medical negligence, started breaking the doors and windows of the trauma care unit of the civil hospital. The hospital staff reported the matter to the police. The police officers pacified the protesters by assuring that an appropriate legal action would be taken against the erring doctors.

Meanwhile, the relatives demanded that the doctor who was conducting the delivery should be booked. The Chief Medical Officer could not be contacted.

Fatehabad, April 16
Doctors and paramedical staff found delinquent in their duty in providing services to the patients visiting the government health facilities will now have to face consequences.

Taking lessons from the April 7 incident, when a woman was forced to deliver her baby on road after doctors in the Fatehabad general hospital showed her the door, the Director General of health services in the state has taken tough measures to rein in the doctors and paramedical staff who tend to shirk from their duties.

“Incidents like this, where a poor patient in the advanced stage of labour delivered outside the emergency should not be repeated at any cost,” said a letter of the Director General of Health Services written to all state civil surgeons recently.

Scanned copies of the letter, dated April 12, 2013, were emailed to all civil surgeons of the state on the same day.

The letter further said all civil surgeons should ensure that proper medical care was given to patients visiting health institutions in their respective areas.

The civil surgeons have been directed to sensitise all doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff about the protocol and ethics involved in treating and for referring patients, if need.

“Detailed reasoning on the case file as well as on the referral slip be mentioned while referring a patient,” said the letter of the Director General, who has warned that no delinquent doctor or paramedical staff would be spared in future.

A poor woman from Bodiwali village in Fatehabad was forced to deliver her baby on the road outside the General Hospital, when hospital doctors showed her the door and told her to go to Agroha Medical College on April 7.

Even as her attendants were looking for a rickshaw, the hapless woman took the support of a scooter parked outside the hospital and delivered her baby on the road.

The incident sent shockwaves across intelligentsia after a news story “Woman shooed away by docs delivers on road” was published in The Tribune.

The State Human Rights Commission as well as the Punjab and Haryana High Court have taken cognisance of the news and have sent notices to the authorities.

The authorities have sent a woman doctor responsible for referring the woman to Community Health Centre, Bhuna, on deputation and served show cause notice to a nurse.