KalimNews: One Bangladeshi national is arrested by Darjeeling without any passport or visa. 48 years old Tarak Sheikh was found in possession with 176 Bangladeshi currency and Rs. 28,000 IC from him. On interrogation Tarak said that he is a tourist an came to Darjeeling for a visit.
ABAVP worksop
KalimNews: ABAVP is organising a two days' workshop at Banarhat. Members of all the branches of ABAVP in the Dooars and Terai region will attend the workshop to be held on 24 and 25 October. During the workshop it will also hold election for the vacancy caused by resignation of Rajesh Lakra Secretary of Dooars branch Sushil Tirky Secretary of Terai unit and Sanjiwan Kujur Treasurer and two joint secretaries.
2 Adivasi youth died
KalimNews: 2 died in a motor bike accident near Bagrakote MES camp of the western Dooars in NH31C. The two dead Umesh Kachua (25) of Ranichera TE and Arvind Kullu (21) of Good Hope Tea Estate died on the spot while their bike collided on a pillar and later crashed on a tree while taking the turning of MES more in the evening. Of the three driving in the bike Suman Xalxo (26) of Saili Tea Garden is fighting for life in North Bengal Medical College Hospital.
Sickle strike to teach family a lesson |
| Rohan at the Malda District Hospital on Tuesday. Picture by Surajit Roy |
TT, Malda, Oct. 19: A 12-year-old boy was abducted allegedly by a youth spurned in love by his sister, and would have killed him last night had not some local people arrived at the deserted mango orchard in a Kaliachak village on time.
They rescued Rohan Sarkar who was admitted to Malda District Hospital with an injury mark on the throat where Bapi Das and his friends had struck with a sickle.
Three months ago Binod Sarkar, a teacher of Rathbari High School, and his wife Sulochana had asked Bapi not to visit their house. The couple’s daughter, too, had — according to neighbours — finally “seen sense” and refused to meet Bapi, a flower trader allegedly engaged in shady deals.
The abduction and the murder bid were Bapi’s attempt to teach a lesson to the family that had stopped their 17-year-old daughter, a student of Class XI, from interacting with him.
“We were aware that Bapi was having an affair with Binod’s daughter. He would often visit the schoolteacher’s house and offer them flowers,” a neighbour said. “But the Sarkars suspected something and they directly asked the youth to stop visiting their home. The girl too gave in to her parents’ wishes and refused to meet him. Bapi so long did not have any criminal history, but we always felt that he was a shady character.”
Police sources said yesterday evening when Rohan was returning home alone after watching the immersion on the banks of the Pagla river around 8.30pm, Bapi, 25, and his friends abducted him. They covered his face and gagged him when he was almost near his house, 15km from here.
A woman saw the gang disappear with Rohan and informed the villagers of Birampur, who at the same time heard the boy scream for help. “By then the gag had come off and the boy shouted for help. They were trying to silence him with a sickle. We ran towards sound of screams coming from the orchard and found him there,” said a neighbour, who was one of the rescuers.
Sarkar is still not sure why Bapi tried to kill his son. “We had told him not to visit our house three months ago. I have no idea why an attempt to murder my son was made. I was at home when I suddenly heard my neighbours shouting, and walked out. Soon, I realised that Rohan has been abducted,” the father said.
Sarkar filed an FIR against Bapi and four of his friends around 2am today but the villagers alleged that nobody had come from the Mothabari police outpost to investigate. Neither Sarkar nor Rohan could identify the four friends.
Rohan recounted the abduction from his hospital bed this morning. “Bapi and some others gagged me and forcibly took me to the mango orchard. They attacked me with a sickle and I shrieked for help. In the struggle, the gag had come off,” the boy said. “Soon, I heard footsteps of people approaching the orchard. Bapi and his gang then fled.”
Bapi’s family members have fled Birampur. Villagers said his father owns a country liquor shop. “Preliminary investigations suggest that the incident is the fallout of a love affair. We are in search of those who had abducted the 12-year-old boy and injured him,” said Bhuban Mondal, the superintendent of police of Malda. “We have also received complaints against the accused. I will inquire why the force from Mothabari had not visited the village.”
Forest steps up vigil after herd-of-100 alert
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| Scouting for paddy |
TT, Siliguri, Oct. 19: Foresters have intensified patrolling on the fringe villages of the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary apprehending raids by a herd of 100-odd elephants in the next 24 hours.
“We have been monitoring the movement of a herd of 45 elephants, which were spotted at the Dalka and the Kalabari forests in Naxalbari block. But yesterday, we got information that another group of 100-odd animals is about to cross the sanctuary. We are apprehending that the herd may raid the paddy fields of Naxalbari block in the next 24 hours,” said Y.T. Eden, the divisional forest officer of Kurseong.
The foresters’ apprehension centred around the Bamanpokhri and Tukuriajhar ranges under the Kurseong forest division. “As most of the paddy fields are located in the two forest ranges, we are concentrating on the areas so that the elephants can be warded off before they destroy the crops,” he said.
Apart from utilising the division’s wildlife squad to stop the elephant attack, around 30 guards from four ranges — Bamanpokhri, Tukuriajhar, Bagdogra and Panighata — have been engaged, Eden said. “We are also bringing another 20 guards from the hills, who will reach the area within the next 24 hours. I am stationed at Bamanpokhri and will continue to be there till the elephants are driven away to the forest.”
The forester said the villagers were habituated to such raids by elephants, which usually start after Diwali. But this year because of the change in climatic condition, the crop is ready for harvest much ahead of the festival.
“As the region got good rainfall this year, the crop ripened before its usual time. The crops attracted the elephants before it could get harvested by the villagers. One tusker had already been electrocuted allegedly by villagers in their bid to save the crops from the animal. We are worried that if other members of the herd damage the crops, they may face the same fate,” the DFO said. “This may put us in spot.”
The Naxalbari panchayat samiti has asked the foresters to confine the elephants to the forests. “The foresters should maintain thorough patrolling in the area as this is the time when the villagers do the harvesting. They should prevent the elephants from raiding our villages,” said Amar Sinha, a member of the Naxalbari panchayat samiti.
Guards face jumbo fury- Elephant goes berserk and attacks three foresters after villagers throw stones at the animal
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| Dhiren Siddha at the Alipurduar Subdivisional Hospital on Tuesday. Picture by Anirban Choudhury |
TT, Alipurduar, Oct. 19: An elephant went berserk and attacked three foresters when the animal was stoned by people in a village near South Rydak forest this morning.
While Dhiren Siddha suffered serious injuries and was taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, the two others were admitted to the Alipurduar Subdivisional Hospital. The three had gone to Dhawla II to drive the elephant back into the forest.
“Two wild elephants entered the village near Samuktala last night. Guards led by North Rydak beat officer Shibshankar Goswami reached the village and sent one elephant back to South Rydak forest, almost 1km away. But the other elephant could not be chased back and it entered a bamboo grove,” said a forest officer.
With the animal firmly ensconced in the bamboo grove, the guards decided to wait till the break of dawn.
“But by 5am, a large number of people gathered near the bamboo bush and started pelting the elephant with stones. The animal became furious and moved aimlessly in the grove. The guards told the crowd to stay away from the animal and give it a safe passage for return to the forest. But all the pleas went unheeded and the elephant came out of the grove around 6am,” said the officer.
As the elephant charged at the villagers, the foresters fired two rounds in the air to scare it away. But it did not stop and chased the foresters instead. The villagers also started running helter-skelter.
“The animal pushed Dhiren Siddha, a ban sramik, and he fell to the ground. The next target was Narayan Biswas, who was hit by the trunk and flung against a banana tree. As Biswas lay on the ground holding onto the tree, the elephant moved forward and crossed him, its legs just about missing him. The third person to be attacked was Suren Roy. All the three were taken to the Samuktala health centre and then to Alipurduar Subdivisional Hospital,” said the officer.
An X-ray on Siddha has revealed that seven of his ribs have been fractured. Doctors who attended to him at the Alipurduar hospital said he had suffered an internal haemorrhage in one of his lungs. They referred Siddha to the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri as he was suffering from respiratory problems.
Before Siddha was taken to Siliguri, field director of Buxa Tiger Reserve R.P Saini and his deputy Suvankar Sengupta visited him.
Biswas could hardly believe that he had escaped the elephant by a whisker.
“We were telling people to give a safe passage to the animal so that it could go back to the forest. The animal was already furious that it could not return to the forest even after sunrise. I had a lucky escape when the elephant jumped over me when I was lying on the ground after the attack. We had chased one elephant back to the forest last night. If the people had not created problems, we could have driven the other animal also out of the village,” he said.
Two huts and a temple were damaged by the elephants in the village last night.
Sengupta said crowds always posed problems to the forest department’s attempts to drive elephants out of human habitats.
“We cannot work properly because of villagers’ behaviour. We always tell them to help us finish our job, but to no avail,” he said.
The officer added that the department would bear the cost of treatment of the three injured persons.
Software leads to cops using lost cellphone
TT, Balurghat, Oct. 19: Two police constables have been accused of using a cellphone with a provision for dual SIM after a software in the handset informed the original owner about the calls that were being made from it after it went missing on June 14.
The software in the Maxx MX 333 model combined with the cellphone’s IMEI number had helped Samrat Nath track down constables Suraj Chhettri and Bachhu Sarkar, allegedly the current users of the phone.
Nath, who filed a complaint with the South Dinajpur police chief today, said at least three complaints filed with Balurghat police station earlier had been ignored. “It is probably because the constables are their colleagues. That is why Balurghat police station refused to take any action,” said Nath.
In this particular model of the phone, a message comes to the original number when the SIM is changed or a new SIM inserted. When Chhetri inserted a new SIM, a message came to Nath. Having lost his phone, Nath had already received duplicate SIMs of his original numbers from service providers BSNL and Airtel.
“When I got to know about the new number, I called up and came across Suraj Chhetri, a police constable posted at Balurghat police lines, as the owner of one of the SIMs. Chhetri had not realised that I was the original owner of the phone and he gave me away his name. I intimated the development to the Balurghat police station on August 27 in writing, quoting my IMEI number and the anti-theft feature of my phone,” he said. Similarly, when Sarkar inserted another SIM, Nath got another SMS.
But Balurghat police station ignored Nath’s complaints.
The IMEI or International Mobile Equipment Identity number is a unique 15 or 17-digit code of a specific cellphone. It uniquely identifies a specific mobile phone being used on a mobile network. The IMEI is useful in preventing a stolen handset from accessing a network. Mobile phone owners who have lost their handsets can ask their service providers to disable it by quoting the IMEI number.
The cellphone was lost when Nath was on his way to Balurghat from Gangarampur on an NBSTC bus. “I was carrying the handset which has provisions for dual SIM cards. When I noticed that it was missing, I searched the bus thoroughly but could not find it. After some time, I rang my number and found that the handset has been switched off and filed a written complaint in Balurghat police station,” he said. That was Nath’s first complaint, followed by two others. Both the constables have denied the charges.
Swapan Banerjee Purnapatra, the superintendent of police of South Dinajpur, said today: “As two policemen have been accused in the case, we will be extra careful so that a free and fair inquiry is conducted. In case they are found guilty, appropriate departmental proceedings would be taken against them.”
Games gravy: Rs 8000 crore
TT, New Delhi, Oct. 19: The Central Vigilance Commission has received complaints that put the cumulative value of alleged corruption in projects related to the Commonwealth Games between Rs 5,000 crore and Rs 8,000 crore.
Sources said the complaints included payment to non-existent parties, wilflul delay in execution of contracts, inflated prices and bungling in purchase of equipment through tendering.
“The total misappropriation amount may touch a figure of Rs 5,000-8,000 crore. The commission is still awaiting reports from various departments and cannot give the exact amount involved in the bunglings,” PTI quoted a senior CVC official as saying.
In reply to an RTI application from PTI, the anti-corruption watchdog has given details of projects executed by different government agencies where discrepancies have been detected.
Complaints regarding alleged embezzlement of Rs 1.5 crore in purchase of Hova courts for the badminton stadium, malpractices in the tender for kitchen equipment installation and misappropriation in video board tenders for remodelling and upgradation of Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium were received by the CVC. In all cases, reports are awaited from the sports ministry, it said.
The CVC is probing at least 22 more Games-related construction and procurement projects executed by different government agencies.
Several investigative arms of the government are now involved in the Games probe.
The Enforcement Directorate has registered a case under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema) to investigate allegations that the Suresh Kalmadi-headed Games organising committee had indulged in irregularities while awarding contracts for the Queen’s baton relay.
A CBI team visited the organising committee headquarters to collect documents.
The income tax department is investigating the award of broadcast rights by Prasar Bharati to a UK-based company and its Indian arm following charges of tax evasion.
Glare on Emaar
The Delhi Development Authority has submitted to urban development minister S. Jaipal Reddy a report on problems in the construction of the Games Village. Emaar-MGF Construction had built the Village.
In the report, the DDA has cited various “irregularities” and “deficiencies” in the construction of 38 towers of the Village. It also accused the builder of exceeding the permissible limits of construction, sources said. If the allegations are proved, the company could face action.
On October 7, Reddy had written to the DDA that “it has been widely reported that Emaar-MGF Construction has not executed the project of the development of the Games Village diligently and efficiently. There are serious complaints against the project developer, including complaints of construction against the provisions of the sanctioned plan, as well as not adhering to the obligations as per the project development agreement. There have also been reports of delay as well as deficiency in the execution of the project, which have not only adversely affected the image of DDA but also the Commonwealth Games as a whole.”
In a statement, Emaar said it had complied with all laws and regulations, describing the Games Village as a world-class structure developed in record time.
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