Mewat, June 9
An uneasy calm gripped Tauru village in Mewat today following a curfew imposed after yesterday’s communal violence.

Nearly 1,500 personnel of the Rapid Action Force (RAF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and the Haryana Police were deployed to ensure peace.

The curfew was relaxed from 4 pm to 7 pm and no untoward incident was reported. Neither did any market open during the relaxation nor anybody step out.

“We are working towards making things normal. The injured are being treated for free. There is complete security in the area. The curfew will continue till we are sure of everything being normal,” said Deputy Commissioner RC Verma.

The administration efforts, however, are being apparently marred by the “sympathy visits” of local politicians. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Yogender Yadav was roughed up by locals when he went to meet them, as they claimed him to be favouring a particular community.

“I had visited two injured persons in the AIIMS and came to meet someone in Mewat. A boy invited me to someone’s house to interact with members of a particular community. On reaching there, I found that it was a gathering of fundamentalists and, when I refused to take sides, they misbehaved,” Yadav said.

The people, meanwhile, claimed that they were agitated over police and administrative inaction.

“The rioters burnt down my son’s shop and beat him up brutally, as the police looked on. They have still not identified culprits. Two politicians came to my house offering sympathies, but I turned them away as I don’t want to be a vote puppet,” said the mother of an injured person.

In all, 15 persons were injured and 28 shops demolished when members of two communities came to blows after an accident in which a biker was killed by a dumper.

In the violence that began in the morning and continued for more than four hours, rioting mobs fired at each other and plundered and vandalised shops and vehicles. The violence was reined in only after curfew was imposed and three companies each of the CRPF and BSF were rushed to the area.

Ambala, June 9
The Centre has decided not to give the state a share from the unallocated power pool. This comes days after the state power utilities claimed to be power surplus and shut down most of its thermal units citing decreased demand.

While all other Northern states -- including Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan - have benefitted from distribution of unallocated power, Haryana is forced to buy from private players to meet demand.

According to highly placed sources, as Haryana had shut down several thermal units citing less demand, Central authorities did not allocate power to the state from the unallocated pool.

Sources said though the state was meeting its demand by purchasing power from private players, non-allocation of additional power could add to the power bill in case it has to overdraw power from the grid to meet the increasing demand, which crossed 7,115 MW on Monday.

In case of overdraw from the Northern Grid, sources said the utilities will have to pay unscheduled interchange charges (UIC) that could have been covered up if the state had got a share from power available with the Central authorities.

The Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL) has pressed into service eight of the 12 thermal units to generate power to meet increased demand. Units number 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8 at the Panipat Thermal Power Plant, two units at Yamunanagar and one at Khedar were generating 1,835 MW power on Monday evening.

Rohtak, June 9
Residents of Kharkara, Bhairan and other nearby villages today blocked the Delhi-Fazilka national highway 10 in protest against the acute shortage of water and erratic supply of electricity in the peak summer season.

The villagers reached the national highway around 11 am between Kharkara and Madina and blocked the Delhi-Hisar road as well as the link roads to register their protest.

Thousands of commuters were put to grave inconvenience as the villagers refused to lift the blockade despite appeals by police officials deployed there.

The villagers alleged they were not getting electricity for up to 18 hours a day due to which the supply of water to their households was also hindered. They maintained that they had to travel long distances to get drinking water in scorching heat.

Officials of the Power Department and the local DSP were sent to the spot to convince the villagers to lift the blockade, but to no avail.

The villagers finally cleared the road after nearly three hours when the SDM reached the site and assured them that prompt action would be taken to address their concerns.

The protesters warned that they would block the highway again if their power and water supply was not normalised within two days.

Kurukshetra, June 9
In a reaction to Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal’s opposition to the Haryana Government’s move of forming a separate Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, said “The government will take a decision best suited to the interests of Sikhs residing in Haryana. The legal opinion is likely to come soon and the decision will be taken without much delay.”

While talking to the media after attending a workers’ meeting at the Congress Bhawan here in Kurukshetra, he said, “The Chatha Committee report is with the government and I have asked the committee to give the legal opinion within this month and the decision will be taken with the consent of the Haryana Sikh community.”

The CM informed that an order had been released today to clear the dues of Rs 180 crore of the sugarcane farmers pending with the co-operative sugar mills for the year 2013-14, within a week. “I have asked the authorities to make sure that there should be no sugarcane farmer in the state after this week, whose dues have not been cleared,” Hooda added.

While addressing the party workers, Hooda also gave a punch line for the forthcoming Assembly elections, ‘Teesri Baar Congress Sarkar.”

State Party President Ashok Tanwar, said “It wasn’t that the Congress didn’t work, but in reality the expectations of the public have increased. Some of our party workers and leaders had indulged in conspiracy and they worked against the party in the Lok Sabha elections. I ask them to solve their disputes and not to repeat such things again. Inactiveness and complains were the reason that all state-level and district-level units and committees were dissolved.”

Chandigarh, June 9
Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) chief and former Minister of State for Home Gopal Kanda has claimed that many Congress ministers and legislators were in touch with him to join the HLP before the next Vidhan Sabha elections.

Kanda, who was in the city today, said many of these Congress leaders were willing to help reduce the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress Government into a minority, by tendering their resignations and join the HLP. But Kanda was not in favour of making the Congress government fall at this point as it would “anyway be routed in the next elections”.

Accusing the Hooda government yet again of tapping the phones of ministers, legislators and journalists, Kanda said he had tested this by making statements to his wife and brother in private conversation which were repeated to him by officers occupying key positions. “This was discussed with the Chief Minister when I was Minister of State for Home and the same is going on even today”.

Kanda, accused for abetment to suicide by airhostess Geetika Sharma formed his own party on May 2 soon after his release from jail on bail in this case. Kanda announced that he would hold a state-level rally in July. The HLP, Kanda said, could give more than 25 seats to Punjabis in the Assembly elections. He also released a CD today highlighting the policies and programmes of the HLP.

Chandigarh, June 9
With the Assembly elections only a few months away, Congress workers in Haryana are disappointed over having been denied any position of authority at a time when their government is in power in the state.

Though Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda made a handful of political appointments last year by appointing chairpersons of a few boards and corporations, several such positions are still lying vacant.

This is much to the resentment of workers, who have raised the issue of filling posts at various general body meetings of the party in front of senior leaders.

However, this has been conveniently overlooked by the government, which has shied away from making these appointments to accommodate leaders in this term. In the first term of Congress rule too, the state leadership had chosen to keep most positions vacant to dangle these before all such 'hopefuls' and keep them 'committed'.

Two posts are vacant in the Haryana Public Service Commission, three of State Information Commissioners, one in the Right to Service Commission, which is open, and several positions of members are vacant in the Service Selection Commission. There are a number of positions lying vacant in various boards and corporations of Haryana as well. Despite resentment over former bureaucrats being adjusted in all such slots, only senior leaders are eyeing such positions. There are local leaders in various districts who are keen on getting nomination to state's municipal councils, committees or corporations.

Sources said the government seems to be in no rush to nominate party workers to these positions.

Though there have been repeated demands to constitute market committees and accommodate workers, the pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Sources in the government, however, said some appointments would happen at the right time.

Ambala, June 9
Sadhoura legislator Rajpal Bhukhri, who was served notice for his public outburst against Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, today said he had not sought apology from the state Congress president Ashok Tanwar, but instead asked him to withdraw the notice, as he did violate the party discipline.

Bhukhri, a loyalist of Rajya Sabha MP Kumari Selja, had hit out at Hooda for development bias against Yamunanagar district. He had shot off a letter to the state Congress chief clarifying his stand. “Raising people’s issues does not amount to indiscipline. I have done nothing wrong by voicing people’s concerns,” Bhukhri told The tribune.

In the letter, a copy of which is in possession of The Tribune, Bhukhri said there was a need to unite the Congress as a whole and not just a section of the party that owed allegiance to Hooda.

“After the party leadership ignored me during the preparations for the June 8 workers’ meeting to be addressed by Hooda that I decided to boycott it,” he said.

In the letter, he stated in spite of being the only Congress MLA from Yamunanagar, the leadership ignored him. This, Bhukhri said, was done deliberately to polarise Congress workers. “Instead of bringing all Congress leaders, including Kumari Selja, Virender Singh, Kiran Choudhry, Avtar Bhadana, Arvind Sharma and Capt Ajay Yadav, on a single platform to send out a strong message, the party workers’ meetings were being addressed by only a few leaders,” the letter reads.

The MLA said the state leadership was ignoring dedicated party workers and, instead, promoting turncoats, sending out wrong signals to the workers and supporters.

Yamunanagar, June 9
Three youths drowned in the Yamuna while taking a dip at Ghumthala ghat yesterday.

Hundreds of devotees from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh had thronged Ghumthala ghat in this district yesterday to take a dip in the Yamuna on the occasion of Ganga Dushera. The youths -- identified as Sunny of Khairi village (Kurukshetra) and Rajat and Somvir of Sheetalpur village (Saharanpur) - ventured into the deep waters and drowned. The administration called in a diver from Kurukshetra, who managed to trace the bodies of the youths last night with the help of local people. Their bodies were handed over to the families on Monday after a post-mortem.

Hisar, June 9
Cracking the whip in the case of missing foodgrains from three warehouses in Hansi town of Hisar, the Haryana Food and Supply Department suspended District Food and Supply Commissioner (DFSC) Ghanshyam Singh and three inspectors on Friday.

The state government took the decision to suspend the officials taking into cognisance the inquiry report about the missing wheat crop, submitted by a senior official, who was dispatched from the Chandigarh headquarters.

The police had also registered a criminal case last week, against three inspectors: Mahender Singh, Vipin Kumar and Jaswant Singh, on the complaint of the DFSC Ghanshyam Singh.

However, following the inquiry report, the department decided to suspend the DFSC along with the three inspectors.

Sources said four officials would face the departmental inquiry in the missing wheat scam as it had incurred an estimated loss of Rs 3.5 crore to the state exchequer.

A team from the department headed by deputy director NK Mittal had found that around 36,000 bags of wheat were missing from three warehouses in Hansi, during its visit in May this year.

The team had come for inspection of the godowns after media reports highlighted that a major chunk of the wheat stocked in the godowns had decayed without proper maintenance in the last two years.

Meanwhile, the head office also posted an assistant food and supply officer at Hansi, who would be in charge of all the warehouses in the town.

Chandigarh, June 9
The Haryana government has constituted committees in its municipalities, which would be empowered to give sanction or refusal to the building plans for the plots situated within the municipal limit, not forming parts of controlled areas, so as to dispose of building plans applications within 60 days of receipt of applications.

Stating this here today, a spokesman of Urban Local Bodies Department said these committees were constituted in all the municipalities under Section 201 and 250 of the Haryana Municipal Act, 1973, with a view to grant, sanction or refusal of the building plans pending with the municipality for more than a month due to no meeting of the elected House.

These committees or the executive officers concerned are empowered for granting sanction or refusal to such building plans.

He said the situation when the building plans received in the Municipal Committee could not be disposed of within the stipulated time leads to consider deemed sanction of building plans that results in illegal constructions as well as litigations. He said the secretaries of the municipal committees have been directed to ensure that the meeting of the elected house is held once, every month.

He said for municipal councils, the committees for this purpose have been constituted under the chairmanship of the executive officer.

Kurukshetra, June 9
The Haryana Roadways employees will go on strike on July 16 to protest against the state government’s “indifferent” attitude towards their demands.

They are up in arms against the government’s move to give permits to private bus operators on 3,519 routes. Besides, they demand regular services for 8,200 employees and recruitment of employees for the workshops.

“In January, when the employees had gone on a four-day strike, the government had assured of meeting the demands, but it has not issued any notification so far. Hence, the strike on July 16,” said Hari Narayan Sharma, president of the All-Haryana Workers’ Union.

The decision was taken during a meeting of members of the Haryana Roadways Coordination Committee at Jat Dharamshala here today. Earlier, the committee decided to observe the strike on July 23 but sensing the resentment among the employees, the committee rescheduled the strike to July 16.

Before the July 16 strike, workers’ meetings would be organised this month. “The meetings will be held in Chandigarh, Ambala, Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra and Kaithal on June19; in Karnal, Panipat, Sonepat, Delhi and Jind on June 20; in Rohtak, Jhajhar, Nuh, Faridabad, Palwal and Gurgaon on June 24; and in Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Narnaund and Rewari on June 25,” Sharma said.

He further said that thousands of roadways employees would reach Kaithal on June 29 to besiege Cabinet Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala’s house.

Dalbir Nehra, an employees’ leader, said: “The employees feel cheated as the government had assured the union in writing that the demands would be fulfilled. It has been four months and nothing has been done in this regard.”

He threatened to turn the one-day strike into an indefinite one if the government didn’t change its “adamant stance”. “This time, the employees will not settle with any assurance,” Nehra added.

Bhiwani, June 9
After a long wait of around eight years, the state government today started work on developing freedom fighter Pandit Neki Ram Sharma's ancestral house as a memorial here .

The memorial would be completed in four months at a cost of Rs 67.47 lakh . Members of a committee constituted by the Deputy Commissioner visited the house. Officials of HUDA, local administration and former MLA Shiv Shankar Bhardwaj, who is also president of Pt Neki Ram Sharma Vichar Manch, were among the committee. The committee took Pt Sharma belongings in its custody which would be relocated at the house after completion of the work.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had agreed to convert the dilapidated house of the freedom fighter, known as Sher-e-Haryana, into a memorial during his visit on May 20, 2006.

Chandigarh, June 9
The government has specified the procedure for processing the change-of-land use (CLU) cases within the limits of the Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and committees.

A spokesman of the Urban Local Bodies Department said a letter had been issued in this regard to all Commissioners of the Municipal Corporations, Executive Officers of the Municipal Councils and Secretaries of the Municipal Committees

In view of the orders passed by the High Court in the Rajat Kuchhal case and the recent amendments to the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, cases relating to grant of permission for change of land use in controlled areas within the municipal limits are to be processed in the Urban Local Bodies Department. — TNS

Jind, June 9
There’s a novel experiment underway in an acre-and-a-half at Jind’s Nidana village. A group of farmers, most of them illiterate, are out to prove a point to scientists and experts: agriculture is possible without pesticides and more profitable than with the use of pesticides.

Scientists of the Delhi-based National Centre for Integrated Pest Management New Delhi (NCIPM), with the help of the state Agriculture Department, have taken an acre-and-a-half on lease near the village bus stand, divided it into three parts and are growing cotton using different methods.

On one part, scientists have sown cotton as per their own technique, while on the second, farmers using pesticides are growing cotton. On the third part of land, the illiterate farmers of Nidani village are cultivating cotton to prove right their anti-pesticide stand right.

Farmers from Nidani, who shun the use of pesticides and have identified 204 insects (vegetarian and non-vegetarian), are out to prove that pesticides are not needed to keep insects away from crops. They have registered increase in produce ever since they shunned pesticide five years ago.

“We have repeatedly proved non-vegetarian insects eat the vegetarian ones and then leave the crop when they do not find their food. This way, there is no need for pesticide. NCIPM scientists say it’s not possible, but we want to prove them wrong by getting more yield from our part of the land without using pesticide,” said Ranbir Malik, a member of the Insect Literacy Mission (ILM).

The ‘Know Insects Before Killing Them’ movement was launched in 2008 by former Nidani Agriculture Development Officer Surender Dalal, who died in 2013. Farmers have been organising camps and spreading awareness about insects and how to identify vegetarian and non-vegetarian insects on their own. A trained group of villagers can count insects on one acre in just three hours.

Several farmers of 14 villages, including Nidana, Nidani, Joura, Lalit Khera, Radana, Egra, Rajpura Bhain, Ital Kalan, Gulkani, Aleva, Mohangarh Chapda, Kharkram ji, Chabri and Lakhamajra, have stopped using pesticide in 2,200 acres. They have logged an increase of over 20 per cent in profit than their pesticide using counterparts in the last some years.

Agriculture Development Officer Dr Kamal Saini, who is coordinating the experiment, vouched for the Nidana farmers’ claims. He said he had been in touch with them for nearly five years. Now, the scientists wanted to verify the veracity of their claims though this experiment.

Faridabad, June 9
Development comes at a cost. This appears to be true in case national highway 2 that is being widened. More than 600 trees on the divider from Sarai Khwaja to the YMCA face the axe as the plan is to reduce its width.

“Nearly 625 trees on the divider will be felled soon as the authorities concerned have approved the move of decreasing the divider’s width,” said an official with Reliance Infrastructure, tasked with the project of six-laning the highway popularly known as Mathura Road. “The company has the Forest Department’s approval to cut the trees,” the official said.

The width of the divider is reported to be between 4 and 8 metres and it will be reduced to around 2 metres.

The demand for more space cropped up owing to the construction of Metro stations between Badarpur border and YMCA Chowk.

Nearly 25,000 trees on the Haryana stretch of the NH-2 were identified to be axed when the six-laning project took off last year.

The project of widening the NH-2 was conceived a few years ago due space not commensurate with the rising number of vehicles plying on it. Frequent traffic jams and accidents were a cause for concern, district officials said.

Panipat, June 9
Reliance General Insurance Company was taken to task by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Panipat, for denying the claim of an insured vehicle on the ground of delay in intimation. The Forum directed the firm to pay the insured amount to the complainant Raj Singh of Nara village with interest and litigation costs for the stolen Maruti Swift.

In a significant decision, the Forum President Joginder Nandal and its member Veena directed Reliance Insurance to pay Rs 4,33,912 to Raj Singh with nine per cent interest from the date of filing the complaint till realisation.

The Forum also asked the company to pay cost of litigation quantified at Rs 2,200, to the consumer within 30 days of the order.

In its order, the Forum stated Reliance Insurance after getting an information registered the claim and appointed the investigator if there was any in-ordinary delay insurance company should have rejected the claim immediately on the ground of delay, but they were ready to pay the claim amount to the complainant on non-standard basis, but the complainant was not ready to get the claim because he demanded the full insured amount.

After going through the documents presented before it and hearing arguments of Raj Singh’s counsel RP Saini and Relaince Insurance counsel AK Vij, the Forum further stated FIR was lodged by the complainant immediately after the theft hence there was no in-ordinary delay in lodging the FIR.

The complainant also produced the letter in which opposite parties offered the complainant to settle the claim on ‘Non Standard Claim Settlement’; if the claim was not payable what was the need to obtain the consent letter from the complainant?

“This all shows that opposite parties was just tracing the ground to repudiate the claim of the complainant. In the present case, FIR was lodged immediately after two days of the occurrence. Hence it cannot be held that there was any in-ordinary delay in breach of the policy condition. The opposite parties not make it clear and not produced any documents that why they settled the claim on non standard basis. Hence in our view complainant is entitled for insured amount as per the policy. There was no breach of condition and any terms of the policy. In the present case repudiation of the claim and denial of the amount by the opposite parties on the fictitious ground is unjustified and amounts to deficiency in service on the part of the opposite parties. The vehicle was insured for the sum of Rs 4,33,912. Hence opposite parties are liable to indemnify the loss to the sum of Rs 4,33,912,” the forum added.

Hisar, June 9
Unable to check the crime graph that is steadily heading north, the police have decided to deploy home guards as night watchman in the markets across the town and replace the private watchmen.

This was decided in a meeting headed by SSP Sibash Kaviraj and the Hisar Vyapar Mandal, where traders agreed to pay the salaries of the home guards. Besides, the police have also asked the traders to form a five member committee in all three police station areas - City police station, Sadar police station and Civil Lines police station - that would work in tandem with the cops in their respective areas.

President of Hisar Vyapar Mandal Ramesh Kumar Lohia expressed concern over the inability of the police to the SSP in a meeting last evening. “It was decided that the police will assign the areas to home guards, who would remain in constant contact with the police and the traders. Earlier, we had employed private watchmen, but we were not convinced whether they will stay on duty during the night,” Lohia said.

He said the traders had also decided to form a five-member committee that would cooperate and exchange information with the police in criminal cases that were under investigation.

Police spokesperson Harish Bhardwaj informed that the police had sought cooperation from the traders to make the town free of crime.

Meanwhile, many banks in the town had decided to keep their ATMs close at night in view of the rising crimes in the town. According to information, the police had asked the banks to either deploy security guards at night or keep the shutters down. “Since most of the banks have no provision for security at night, they have decided to keep the ATMs close from 10pm to 6am,” said a bank official.

Karnal, June 9
Protesting over the termination of several employees and non-payment of their salaries for the last few months, engineers, supervisors, foremen and other construction staff of the Supreme Infrastructure India Limited, one of the construction companies of the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College (KCGMC), today stopped work and raised slogans against the management of the company.

Pardeep, one of the construction company employees, alleged that the company had terminated their colleagues without any reasons and without issuing any notice to them. Not only this, the company failed to pay their dues since the last five months.

He demanded the company should revoke the termination of their co-workers and should also provide their pending dues. — TNS

Yamunanagar, June 9
A Yamunanagar-based woman, lodged a complaint with the superintendent of police (SP), alleging that her husband was HIV positive before marriage and that he transmitted the disease to her.

The couple was married around two years ago, but the woman came to know about the disease when she got pregnant and had gone to get a routine check up at the local Civil Hospital.

“I was shocked when the doctor told me that I was HIV positive,” said the victim.

On the advice of her doctor, the couple got their tests conducted at the PGI, Chandigarh, where doctors found that both of them were HIV positive.

In her complaint to the SP, Shashank Anand, on Monday, she said her husband was HIV positive before marriage. Her husband and in-laws knew about his disease, but failed to tell her the truth.

The victim alleged, “My husband always administrated medicines. But, he never told me about his disease. Whenever, I questioned him, he started beating me up.”

She added her husband and her-in-laws also tortured her and forced her to get dowry. She added that her father had fulfilled their (in-laws’) demands several times, but whenever her father failed to meet their demands, they tortured her.

She asked the SP to take stringent action against her husband and her-in-laws.

Karnal, June 9
The Civil Lines Police have booked seven persons, including a woman, in an alleged job racket.

The accused reportedly took money from a retired agriculture scientist on the pretext of providing him the job of an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the state Agriculture Department.

Dr Gyan Prakash Bhargava, who retired from the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) in 2006 and lives in Sector 7 here, alleged that the accused cheated him of Rs 80 lakh cash.

They fraudulently took his signature on some blank papers and also took the original papers of his property on the pretext of providing him a job of OSD in the Agriculture Department, said Bhargava. The accused also claimed to have good relations with the state Governor.

The accused have been identified as Mannu of Bajida Jattan village, Vikram and Vishal of Kaserla Kalan (Ambala) and Gyanendra Singh, Sonia, Vishal and Anuj of Madhuban Police Complex.

Bhargava struggled for two months and later complained to the Prime Minister’s Office, Human Rights Commission, the Governor, the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary, the DGP, IG Karnal range, SP Karnal and DC Karnal, before the police filed an FIR against the accused.

“The main accused Mannu was my son Rohit Bhargava’s student. He influenced my family members saying he had good contacts in the government. He, and the other six, conspired to cheat me,” said Bhargava.

The police have booked seven persons under sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 506, 120 B of the IPC and efforts were on to nab them, said Civil Lines SHO Lalit Kumar.

Rewari, June 9
Pritam (24) committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his house at Badhrana village in this district today. No suicide note was recovered from the spot .

Pritam's kin found him hanging from a ceiling fan in his room. The cops were informed and the body was sent for postmortem.