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Crime
& Casualties Five
of a Family Gunned Down ARWAL (Bihar): Gunmen killed five members of a family at remote Arwal district in Bihar on Tuesday. The incident occurred at around 11 pm at remote Kharasin village in Arwal. Eyewitnesses said heavily armed assailants beat up the villagers before taking them to an open field, and gunned them down. The area has been ridden with violence over the past many years with ultra Marxist-Leninst groups fighting high caste people in the deeply caste-ridden society. But police officials ruled out the hand of any Maoist group. An eyewitness, who was taken along with the five members but escaped the attack, said he was clueless as to why the attack took place. "They caught and brought us here with our hands tied, then fired on all of us. We do not know the reason behind it," said Bhutan. "At around 11 pm when these people were sleeping they started hitting them. Then they brought these five members of the family to a square and killed them," said Sunil Kumar, a villager. Death
for Killer of Woman Tourist from NZ (Go
to Top) VARANASI: The long hand of law has finally caught up with tourist guide Dharmadev Yadav. A Varanasi court awarded him death penalty on Tuesday for murdering Diana Clare Routley, a woman backpack tourist from New Zealand, six years ago. The case was also one of the few in Indian history where an accused has been given capital punishment in the strength of evidence based on DNA finger-printing. Twenty-four-year-old Diana arrived in Varanasi in August 1997, checked into a guest house and was last seen with her tourist guide Dharmadev Yadav. As she did not return to Auckland, New Zealand, even after a year, her parents contacted Indian authorities. Suspecting foul play, Diana's father Allen Jak Routley came to India and formally lodged a complaint with the Bhelpur police station in Varanasi. The police finally tracked down Yadav in Mumbai. On sustained interrogation, Yadav admitted that he had murdered Diana and buried the body in his house. The police subsequently recovered a skeleton with some brown hair from his house in Ghajipur village, 70 km from Varanasi, and established its identity with the DNA finger-printing test after matching the sample with Diana's father. "The significant thing about this case is that the dead body was not identifiable, it had turned into a skeleton. The prosecution used the method of DNA testing to establish identity. Two post-mortem examinations were carried out on the body remains in which the superimposition technique was used. This is perhaps the first case in Uttar Pradesh where death sentence has been passed on the basis of DNA tests," said Anil Kumar Singh, prosecution lawyer. Four other accused were let off by the court for want of evidence. Yadav's father Samdev was full of remorse. "What to do? What can I say. One has to reap as one sows. One has to abide by the rule of the law. If he does something wrong, then one is bound to be punished," he lamented. The trial went on for nearly two years and dozens of witnesses were examined by the court before giving its final verdict. Diana was the 10th foreign tourist to have been found dead since 1997 under mysterious circumstances in Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India. Known for its Hindu temples and a culture steeped in religion and spirituality, Varanasi, located on the banks of river Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, is a favourite destination for visitors from other countries. Five-hour
Parole for RK Sharma on March 1 (Go
to Top) NEW DELHI: RK Sharma, prime accused in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, was on Monday given five hours' parole for March 1 by a city court for attending the engagement ceremony of his eldest daughter. He would be released from prison on parole from 5 pm to 10 pm on that day. Patna-Jharkhand
Train Passengers Robbed (Go
to Top) PATNA: Forty-five persons barged into three bogies of the Singrauli-Patna train on Wednesday-Thursday night and robbed the passengers of their valuables at gun-point. The loot went on for more than an hour, passengers said. A ticket collector received bullet injuries when he tried to resist the dacoits. He was later identified as Rajmani Singh. The passengers said the attackers had country-made revolvers and fired at least five rounds injuring several persons. Sachida Nand, a passenger, said "we heard at least five gunshots; we immediately bolted the door from inside. But they broke open the door and asked the passengers to hand over all the valuables at gun-point." Passengers said the railway police personnel arrived too late. Amritsar
Police to Patrol on Bicycles (Go
to Top) AMRITSAR: With the objective of containing petty crimes like thefts and chain-snatching, police here have decided to patrol city lanes on bicycles. The police claim to have cracked many cases within a few days. The basic idea is to put a ckeck on urban crime. Bicycle patrolling is part of a Rs 14-crore welfare plan for the city police okayed by the State Government. The latest method of policing has yielded good results in the walled city, where neither police motor-bikes nor four-wheelers could enter the narrow and congested lanes to nab culprits. Amritsar SSP Narinder Pal Singh said cycle patrolling had been quite successful as a number of serious crimes, including cases of kidnapping and murder, have been solved. The work has been very satisfactory. As far as prevention is concerned, there has been a record improvement. Cycle patrolling has helped solve a number of cases. He said to make bicycle patrolling more people-friendly and enhance its efficiency, the department would procure modern gadgets. "Cycle patrolling is a good exercise. Amritsar has a long history of crime and this area is so congested that big vehicles cannot enter here. This will help check criminal activity here," said Dipender Singh, a shopkeeper. According to a recent survey, more than 40 murders, 50 cases of dacoity, five cases of rape and 30 cases of small theft were reported from Amritsar in the last two months. Bicycle patrolling is a proven way of checking crime. It proved successful in New York and London, the two most crime-infested cities in the world. Elephant Poacher Caught in
Jim Corbett Park(Go
to Top) JIM CORBETT NATIONAL PARK (Uttaranchal): A poacher in the Jim Corbett National Park has been captured after a night-long encounter while two others fled under the cover of darkness after lobbing grenades, the forest guards claimed. The park, spread over 1,000 square miles on the foothills of Himalayan mountains, is home to tigers, elephants, deer and crocodiles. The forest officials recovered five hand-grenades, some wire used to trap animals, four torch-lights, utensils and foodstuff from the site of encounter. The incident occurred in the elephant sanctuary within the park where the foresters spotted the three men moving suspiciously. Frequent poaching has led to decrease in the number of elephants in India A recent survey estimated that there were 25,000 to 28,000 elephants in India, including only 1,500 male tuskers of breeding age. Environmentalists say the Indian Government is not doing enough to protect its wildlife, particularly the dwindling tiger population, which has decreased to around 3,000 from 50,000 in 1947. The Corbett park, named after the famous British hunter-turned-conservator Jim Corbett, is 400 km from Lucknow. 10-year
Jail Term for UP MLA Mukhtar Ansari (Go
to Top) NEW DELHI: A sitting legislator of UP Assembly, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment following his conviction under TADA. The court imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on him as well. Special judge SN Dhingra on Wednesday also sentenced Ansari to three years imprisonment under the Arms Act and slapped a fine of Rs 50,000, on default of which he will have to undergo imprisonment for one more year. Both sentences would run concurrently. The record of the case shows that the accused was a professional criminal involved in several criminal cases, including those of murder and kidnapping for ransom, the judgement said. "Accused wields enormous muscle power, money power and political power. With this power he has been able to trample the criminal justice system. He went to the extent of threatening witnesses and even the victim whom he had kidnapped for ransom, who was rescued by the police, turned hostile for fear of him," the court observed. Ansari, who is now in jail, had switched from Samajwadi Party to Bahujan Samaj Party to contest and win the last Assembly election as an independent candidate. Punjab
Crackdown on Female Foeticide (Go
to Top) LUDHIANA: Punjab administration has started enforcing a ban on female foeticide after studies have revealed a distortion in sex ratio. According to 2001 census, the sex ratio in Punjab is 874 women for every 1,000 men against the national average of 933. The sex ratio was worse at 747 for babies up to one year of age. Doctors attribute the alarming rise in foeticide to the rampant misuse of ultra-sonography, which allows for easy and cheap sex determination. The going rate for an ultrasound examination (read sex determination) is as little as Rs 80. But the authorities and NGOs in Ludhiana have almost reversed the tide by cracking down on unscrupulous clinics and medicos. All centres using ultra-sound scanning now must register with the Government. Any woman opting for an ultrasound test is required to fill up a form issued by the Red Cross which generates an ID number for the client. Aiding them in the task is the integrated monitoring system, a computerized database which scrutinizes, tracks and monitors all ultrasound tests and abortions conducted at the numerous clinics that have sprouted across the nooks and corners of the teeming city. A three-member team comprising a Government doctor, an NGO member and a member of the Indian Medical Association also conducts regular and surprise checks on the centres to check female foeticide. An instant fallout of the measures in Ludhiana has seen sex ratio in the one-year age group jump to 772 in 2002 from 742 a year earlier. Alarmed over the declining ratio, the religious body of Sikhs, a majority of whom live in Punjab State, had issued a decree against sex determination tests and female foeticide. Pre-natal sex determination tests are banned in the country but illegal tests thrive as ultrasound scanning is cheap. Studies reveal at least two million foetuses are killed in India every year through abortion, simply because they are female. In many States of India's male-dominated society, women are blamed for bearing a girl child. In most cases mothers are harassed and sometimes even abandoned by in-laws for not bearing a boy, considered inheritor of the family's name and assets. -ANI |
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