Gurugram :
A Dalit woman from Rewari’s Nayagaon, a mother of three, has told the police that Nishu Phogat, the key accused in the Rewari gangrape case, had tried to rape her in September last year and that she had approached the police and the panchayat, but was told to keep mum. 

We had earlier reported that the rape accused had targeted another woman but the panchayat had closed the matter after facilitating a “compromise”. Subsequently, the local DSP deputed a team in Nayagaon and the victim mustered  courage to speak out. “I was cutting grass when I felt somebody groping me. It was Nishu. He tried pinning me to the ground. As I screamed, some women rushed to my help. They were carrying scythes. This scared him off.”

The victim said she narrated the incident to her husband and they went to Nishu’s home, but he was not there. “I went to the Nahar police station. They told me to sort out the matter through the  panchayat. 

“We approached the panchayat. I was not allowed at the meeting. Later, I learnt they had paid my husband compensation.”

Rewari SP Rahul Sharma said they would seek Nishu'’ remand to question him in the matter. “We will also probe the panchayat role.”

Achieved 70% with open defecation-free status

Karnal :
Adding another feather to its cap, Karnal district has achieved seventh position across the country and third in north zone in Swachh Survekshan Grameen-2018 by securing 96.8 marks out of 100 in all parameters set for the survey conducted between August 1 and 31 by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation Uma Bharati on Tuesday honoured Karnal Additional Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav, Indri BDPO Angrej Singh and Haibatpur sarpanch Rajpal for their contribution towards this goal during a programme in New Delhi.

Karnal (urban) had already secured first place in Haryana and 41st rank in India out of more than 4,000 cities in Swachh Survekshan-2018. Karnal district was the leader in Swachhta Pakhwada in August 2017.
Yadav appreciated the efforts of all gram panchayats and officials associated with the project. He said Labour and Employment Minister Nayab Singh Saini on July 28 launched the Swachh Survekshan Grameen-2018 for rural areas of Karnal and administered oath of cleanliness.

“With open defecation-free status in January 2017, we achieved 70 per cent marks. Achieving 30 per cent marks was a challenge. We identified focus areas and made people aware by putting up banners at public places in villages. A sanitation chariot was launched by Deputy Commissioner Aditya Dahiya,” said Yadav.

He said the focus was on cleaning of waste water. Villagers were sensitised on adopting techniques to make compost from kitchen waste and use kitchen waste as manure in kitchen gardens, he maintained.

He said a campaign was started to use green dustbins for wet waste and blue ones for dry waste. He said special cleanliness drives were organised at public places and school students organised cleanliness rallies.

He said nukkad nataks, mohalla sabhas and vigilance committees were supported to maintain continuity of open defecation free status. He said the people were educated to give feedback on a mobile app launched by the government.

Latest incident reported from NIT on Sept 30

Faridabad :
It seems that ATMs are being targeted by thieves. The police are yet to arrest the thieves who uprooted an ATM in Parvatiya Colony in the NIT here in the wee hours on September 30.

The occurrence of three incidents earlier exposed chinks in security. The police claimed to have launched a probe after taking possession of CCTV footage in connection with the latest incident, but were yet to lay hands on the culprits.

The criminals came in a Mahindra Bolero and took less than 10 minutes to uproot the ATM of HDFC Bank carrying Rs 12.20 lakh. They fled after loading the the vehicle at 2.45 am. The matter came to light in the morning when local residents informed the police.
Police sources admitted that a gang had been active in the city for the past few months and was perhaps involved in three other incidents since September 17.

These ATMs were found damaged in Rajiv Colony on September 17, on the Sohna road on September 25 and on the Dabua-Gazipur road on September 27. All spots were within a radius of 15 km.

An official claimed on the condition of anonymity that the gang could be from the Mewat region. He claimed that uprooting of ATMs using a vehicle had been started after criminals found breaking it time-consuming.

Alert personnel in a police control room vehicle on July 28 foiled taking away of an ATM containing Rs 33 lakh uprooted from Rajiv Colony.

Claiming that banks had failed to ensure security of ATMs, police PRO Sube Singh said the police had been working on clues and were likely to arrest the culprits soon.

Ambala :
In order to keep railway stations plastic bottles free, the Ambala Division of the Northern Railway introduced a bottle-crushing machine at the Ambala cantonment railway station here.

The machine was inaugurated by Arjuna awardee boxer Manoj Kumar.

Praveen Gaur Dwivedi, senior divisional commercial manager, Ambala, said “The machine will help in keeping the railway station plastic bottle free. With this machine, the bottles at the station will get crushed and there will no issues regarding blockage of drains.”

Besides Ambala, a machine was inaugurated at the Chandigarh railway station by Olympian boxer Jitender Kumar.
Meanwhile, a two-day exhibition-cum-painting workshop conducted at Ambala cantonment railway station concluded here on Tuesday.

Paintings created by the wards and employees of railways and those by Uttam (an artist who paints using his foot), a collection of old coins and currency notes, bio toilet mechanism, bonsai collection and heritage photographs were on display in the exhibition.

Uttam also conducted a painting workshop for wards of railway employees and made live paintings on the theme ‘Swachh Bharat’.

New Delhi :
Maharishi Dayanand University in Rohtak, Haryana, has been ranked the cleanest government university by the HRD Ministry followed by Guru Nanak Dev University in neighbouring Punjab's Amritsar.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar announced the "Swachh Campus rankings" under different categories.

The Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in the national capital has been ranked third among the government institutions followed by the Algappa University in Karaikudi and the Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur.

Among the residential campuses of private universities, Pune's Symbiosis International University has been ranked at the top followed by OP Jindal Global University in Sonipat, KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research in Belagavi and Manipal University in Jaipur.

Raipur's ITM University has been ranked at the top among non-residential campuses of private universities. The Northcap University in Gurugram and Dr CV Raman University in Bilaspur have been ranked second and third respectively in the category.

Among the technical institutions, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Coimbatore bagged the top rank, followed by IIT Guwahati, Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University in Bhubhaneshwar and the Indian Institute of Information Technology in New Delhi.