New Delhi, September 15
At Jawaharlal Nehru University, it is once again the rejection of the 'binary' forces in this year's election of the JNU Students' Union with the candidates carrying the legacy of Left ideologies bagging almost all the posts.

It is the radical All India Students' Association (AISA) whose candidates continued to lead on the top three posts of president, vice-president and secretary by a significant margin till late at night with the counting was still on while it trailed behind in joint secretary contest by 133 votes from Sonam Goyal, candidate fielded by the Democratic Students' Federation (DSF), the offshoot of Students Federation of India (SFI) formed six months ago.

Last time, except for the president post won by the DSF, formerly SFI-JNU's Lenin Kumar, the rest three in the top panel were with AISA.

Similarly, when it comes to the councillors' elections, the plum portion among the total 26 councillor seats fell into the kitty of AISA, which secured 14 vis-à-vis last time's 12 followed by one each for DSF, All India Students Federation (AISF), BJP-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Congress' National Students Union of India and the remaining won by independent candidates.

Going by the trend as it looked, AISA's presidential candidate Akbar Chawdhary topped the list with 1,337 votes followed by DSF's Ishaan who polled 481 votes; in the vice-president race, its choice Anubhuti was way ahead with a massive margin of 896 votes than her competitor DSF's Zeeshan who had 540 votes in his favour; then the fight for the secretary post was between AISA's bet Sandip Saurav who was leading by 532 votes than Caroline of NSUI.

"We have been leading in three top posts and this is a mandate for us who have been instrumental in leading students' movements, such as post-December 16 incident (Delhi gangrape). There have been parties that have tried to turn the flow with money but students have rejected such politics," said Akbar, the AISA's presidential candidate.

Over the last more than two days, the counting of the votes continued at the four polling stations-School of Social Sciences, School of International Studies, the Environmental Sciences Department and the School of Languages, the largest department which was the last one to be taken this evening amidst student groups chanting slogans after every announcement.

New Delhi, September 15
A 67-year-old man was killed when he was allegedly manhandled by three policemen early morning on Sunday in outer Delhi's Rohini area, after he refused to pay them a bribe for setting up a tent for the Ramlila celebrations, said his family.

However, the police have refuted the family's allegations. They instead said the deceased, Iqbal Singh, had fallen to the ground and succumbed to his injuries.

Iqbal is a former president of a Ramlila committee. He resided in sector-3 of Rohini, according to his son, Vimal. He alleged that at about 2.30 am today, three policemen beat Iqbal at a park in Rohini sector-3. Iqbal was inspecting the area for the Ramlila ceremony.

"After the attack, blood was oozing from my father's mouth. I along with some of my neighbours rushed him to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead," said Vimal.

He said that his father had already received the permission of the Delhi Development Authority and the police to arrange the Ramlila celebrations at the park. But the three policemen reached there and demanded Rs 1 lakh as a bribe for fixing the tent.

The police, however, denied Vimal's allegations and said that no policeman went to the park and interacted with Iqbal. They asserted that Iqbal had fallen to the ground and succumbed to his injuries.

"We are yet to ascertain why Iqbal's family is levelling allegations against the policemen. An inquiry has been set up in the case and we are waiting for the postmortem report to confirm the cause of his death," said a police officer.

New Delhi, September 15
The Delhi Police investigating the case of a 21-year-old US-based NRI are trying to ascertain if he was actually murdered after he had gone to a friend's house in Kalkaji on Friday night.

The new developments took place even though the police have registered a murder case in regard to Anmol Sarna's death at the Kalkaji police station.

Police sources said that Sarna had a wide injury on his head. The injury was about 2 cm wide and 15 cm long. Investigators are trying to figure out if the injury was self-inflicted or if someone had hurt Sarna.

"On Friday night, when he came rushing out of his friend's house, he had one of his hands placed on his forehead. He ran towards an iron gate and banged his head on it," said the sources.

A board of doctors has been constituted to give a detailed analysis of Sarna's postmortem, which has been conducted. A doctor, who is not part of the medical board, was sent by the US embassy to learn about the medical findings.

The police are suspecting Sarna's five friends who were with him at the party. Investigators claim that they are changing their statements.

"They can't remember the sequence of events. All of them, including Sarna, were under the influence of drugs," said the sources.

It was Friday night when Sarna and five of his friends were partying at a flat in B-block of South Park Apartments in Kalkaji. According to a local resident, at about 11.45 pm, he heard a man shouting in the neighbourhood.

"I came out of my house and looked around. I saw a man (Sarna), who was about six feet tall and well built. He was not wearing a shirt and was sweating profusely. He was running around the colony and rushed towards me. He then started sprinting and the two guards who were with me rushed after him. He slapped one of them and they hit him with their batons. He was not beaten severely, although he started bleeding from his chest and shoulders. He then started calling out the names of his friends. He kept repeating 'Chiki-Madhav'.

He would slap the side of the cars and then sprint again, swinging his arms in the air, stopping and then starting all over," said the local, adding that Sarna had also banged his head against an iron gate.

He further claimed that Sarna was not bleeding when he had rushed out from his friend's apartment, located on the second floor of a building in B-block.

Meanwhile, several residents of the area had gathered outside their houses. They decided to call the police.

New Delhi, September 15
The Nirbhaya gangrape case in which all the four accused have been sentenced to death had not only shaken the collective conscience of the people but also forced the government to think of amending the transport policy in order to check the illegal plying of buses, besides recruiting drivers and conductors of good morals. What's more, the government has also thought of developing good roads in the National Capital Region.

The bus involved in the incident was being plied on roads without the mandatory permit documents, the investigation report says.

The check the menace, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture asked various authorities in the central as well as state governments, including Delhi, to do a study.

The committee first heard the representatives of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, transport department of the Delhi Government and Delhi Police.

The committee also heard the representatives of Union Ministries of Urban Development and Home Affairs besides the officials of the state governments of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh that constitute the National Capital Region.

During the discussion, the committee and other bodies discussed several key functional areas in the transport sector in the NCR.

The representatives of the Delhi Government informed the committee that there is a shortage of qualified drivers and public service vehicles. As a result, Delhi has to depend upon the services of drivers from the neighbouring states like UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Odisha, Punjab, etc.

The committee was also informed that due to lack of reliable network of database, it is difficult to verify the drivers' antecedents.

While informing the committee, the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) said that the road network pattern of NCR is 'radial'. It has five national highways--NH-1, NH-2, NH-8, NH-10 and NH-24-while Delhi has no bypass. It also emphasised the need for various peripheral expressways around Delhi in order to decongest the city roads.

The Urban Development Ministry told the committee that there should be well-integrated, seamless and multi-modal with integrated ticketing system besides there should be low-cost buses.

The ministry also informed the committee that a task force was constituted for establishing a regional transit system. An agreement has also been signed by the Union Government and states of UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi to establish a special purpose vehicle - National Capital Region Transport Corporation.