Posts Tagged ‘Lucknow’
Written by admin on 05 February 2010
Lucknow, Feb 5 – Already booked under the Dowry Prohibition Act, there seems to be no respite for the state Sports Minister Ayodhya Prasad Pal as the Uttar Pradesh government has also initiated an enquiry against him, sources said Friday.
Now, the state government has directed the Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) to conduct a probe into the case in which a doctor Prabal Pratap had alleged that the minister called off his son’s marriage to his daughter because of inadequate dowry.
Earlier, on the directions of a chief judicial magistrate in Chitrakoot district, some 280 km from Lucknow, the police late Wednesday registered an FIR against the minister and his six family members for seeking dowry.
‘As per the directions of the government, N.K. Singh, zonal officer of the special branch of LIU has been entrusted with the task of conducting the enquiry against the minister,’ an LIU official told IANS, preferring anonymity.
‘In fact, as a part of his initial enquiry, Singh has already collected expenditure bills, photographs of the ring ceremony and other documents pertaining to the engagement between the minister’s son and the doctor’s daughter,’ he added.
Meanwhile, following court directions, the Chitrakoot Circle Officer (CO) has also initiated a police enquiry against the minister and his family members.
‘We have recorded the statements of the girl’s family and will follow the same procedure for the minister and his family. More than this, we cannot disclose anything further related to the case which is still under investigation,’ CO Udai Shanker told reporters Friday.
In its order, the court has directed the police to lodge an FIR against Ayodhya Prasad Pal, his son Om Dutt, brother Raj Kumar Pal, two daughters, the minister’s wife and his brother’s wife.
‘My daughter got engaged to the minister’s son in October 2008, but the minister called off the marriage as I was unable to pay the Rs.5 million dowry he demanded,’ said Pratap.
According to Pratap, the engagement ceremony took place Oct 7, 2008, at a tourist bungalow in Chitrakoot’s Karvi town. Since then, the minister has been delaying the marriage and is now demanding dowry.
‘He (minister) now says the only way to get my daughter married to his son is to give Rs.50 lakh (Rs.5 million). The minister has even openly challenged me to get a case registered against him for demanding dowry,’ Pratap told reporters.
‘I have also learnt that the minister has now arranged his son’s marriage to the daughter of an engineer in the irrigation department in Allahabad,’ he added.
According to Pratap, he had submitted necessary evidence to prove he had spent over Rs.500,000 on gifts that were given to Pal’s family at the engagement ceremony.
Tags: Lucknow
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Written by admin on 04 February 2010
Lucknow, Feb 4 – The Uttar Pradesh government’s annual budget of Rs.153,000 crore, tabled in the state assembly here Thursday, provides a major thrust to infrastructure, energy, information technology, rural employment and health.
The tax-free budget has avoided any allocation towards Chief Minister Mayawati’s obsession — memorials and statues on which her government has spent more than Rs.5,000 crore so far.
And though Mayawati has vehemently criticised the central government for denying Uttar Pradesh a special economic package of Rs.85,000 crore for development of the backward Bundelkhand and Purvanchal regions, the budget has allocated just Rs.390 crore for this.
The government, however, has allocated Rs.8,000 crore to the power sector to boost industrial development.
Besides, schemes worth Rs.9,226 crore were forwarded to the Rural Electrification Corp for providing electricity to some 127,000 villages.
A provision of Rs.5,808 crore was also made for the construction of roads and bridges during 2010-11, besides Rs.4,758 towards construction and maintenance of hospitals.
On the IT front, provision has been made for establishing public service centres in 18,000 villages to provide services like issue of birth and death certificates, ration cards, residence and caste certificates and registration in employment exchanges.
The budget also envisages setting up 28 new courts ‘exclusively for hearing cases of corruption’.
In order to promote self-employment, the budget provides for establishment of 9,500 village industry units in the coming financial year, for which a provision of Rs.247 crore has been made.
It also talks about providing employment to 25,000 weavers, besides creating 900,000 new small entrepreneurs under the urban self-employment scheme.
An allocation of Rs.400 crore has been made to benefit 75 lakh families under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
Interestingly, Finance Minister Lalji Verma kept fumbling for details on being confronted by routine queries at a press briefing after he tabled the budget.
A flustered Verma finally excused himself on the pretext of going back to the house, following which the press was briefed by cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh.
Asked to comment on the absence of any attempt by the government to curb rising prices, Singh said: ‘There is precious little that any state government can do to curb prices.’
Tags: Lucknow
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Written by admin on 04 February 2010
Lucknow, Feb 4 – Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who has come under attack over his comments on Batla House shootout in Delhi, Thursday said he never termed the gunbattle fake.
‘I am not carrying out investigations… I am not an investigating agency. So, I am not in a position to say the encounter (gunbattle) was fake… I haven’t ever termed the encounter fake,’ Singh, who is on a two-day visit to Azamgarh, 300 km from here, told reporters.
Singh Wednesday had raised doubts over the Batla House shootout that took place September 2008 in New Delhi.
Without taking the names of the two alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives killed in the shootout Atif and Chhota Sajid, natives of Sanjarpur town in Azamgarh, Singh Wednesday had told reporters, ‘I have seen the photographs of one of the boys killed in the encounter… The photo shows a bullet pierced his head… It should be noted that normally in encounters, one is not shot in the head.’
Coming out in his self-defence, Singh Thursday said: ‘I have only said that bullet injury in head not appear normal in encounters,’ quickly adding ‘as I have not conducted any inquiry, I am no one to tell about the encounter’.
‘Though it’s true that the aggrieved party was not satisfied by the human rights commission enquiry into the shootout… I got complaints that the version of the aggrieved party was not taken by the commission,’ he said.
Tags: Lucknow
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Written by admin on 04 February 2010
Lucknow, Feb 4 – Armed robbers looted cash worth Rs.3 lakh and other valuables from passengers on a train in Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnor district, officials said Thursday.
After looting the passengers for over two hours in two compartments of the Amritsar-bound Jan Nayak Express, the robbers, numbering eight and carrying guns and other weapons, pulled the train’s emergency chain and escaped as it stopped in Bijnor, some 400 km from Lucknow.
‘The daring robbery took place late Wednesday evening. Preliminary investigations reveal that the eight who looted the passengers boarded the train in Moradabad,’ government railway police inspector Surendra Pal told reporters Thursday.
‘During the loot, the robbers also assaulted a number of passengers in the train and threatened to throw them out if they failed to give their cash and valuables to them,’ he added.
According to officials, a case against eight unidentified men has been registered and a joint enquiry into the case has been initiated along with the Bijnor police.
Tags: Lucknow
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Written by admin on 04 February 2010
Lucknow, Feb 4 – On the directions of an Uttar Pradesh court, the police have booked the state Sports Minister Ayodhya Prasad Pal and his six family members under the Dowry Act, an official said Thursday.
A chief judicial magistrate (CJM) court in Chitrakoot district, some 280 km from Lucknow, Wednesday ordered the police to lodge an FIR against the minister and his family for seeking Rs.5 million as dowry.
‘The case against the minister and six others under the Dowry Act was registered late Wednesday at the Karvi police station,’ police inspector C.D. Gaur told reporters Thursday in Chitrakoot.
‘As directed by the court, a team has been constituted to probe the case in which a doctor Prabal Pratap has alleged that the minister called off his son’s marriage to his daughter because he could not get adequate dowry,’ he added.
In its order, the court has directed the police to lodge an FIR against Ayodhya Prasad Pal, his son Om Dutt, brother Raj Kumar Pal, two daughters, the minister’s wife and his brother’s wife.
‘My daughter got engaged to the minister’s son in October 2008, but the minister called off the marriage as I was unable to pay the Rs.5 million dowry he demanded,’ said Pratap.
According to Pratap, the engagement ceremony took place Oct 7, 2008, at a tourist bungalow in Karvi town in Chitrakoot. Since then, the minister has been delaying the marriage and is now demanding dowry.
‘He (minister) now says the only way to get my daughter married to his son is to give Rs.50 lakh (Rs.5 million). The minister has even openly challenged me to get a case registered against him for demanding dowry,’ Pratap told reporters.
‘I have also learnt that the minister has now arranged his son’s marriage to the daughter of an engineer in the irrigation department in Allahabad,’ he added.
According to Pratap, he had submitted necessary evidence to prove he had spent over Rs.500,000 on gifts that were given to Pal’s family on the occasion of the engagement ceremony.
Tags: Lucknow
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Written by admin on 03 February 2010
Lucknow, Feb 3 – Members of the Ulema Council, a body of clerics, waved black flags and shouted slogans as senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh and other party leaders Wednesday arrived in Azamgarh on a two-day visit, police said.
Wearing black badges, members of the Ulema Council stopped Singh’s cavalcade at various places including, Devgaon, Lalganj, Mohammadpur and Fariha in Azamgarh, some 300 km from Lucknow.
It was only after the efforts of the security personnel, that Singh along with other Congress leaders managed to resume their visit.
As per the schedule, Singh while in Azamgarh’s Sanjarpur town was to meet the family members of the two alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives Atif and Chhota Sajid, killed in September 2008 by the police during the Batla House shootout in New Delhi.
While Singh met Sajid’s family, members of Atif’s family refused to meet him. Atif’s family said they would meet Singh or Congress leaders only after their demand to carry out a judicial enquiry into the Batla House shootout was met.
Sajid’s family handed over a memorandum to Singh for conducting a CBI and a judicial enquiry into the Batla House shootout.
Without taking the names of Sajid and Atif, Singh said, ‘I have seen the photographs of one of the boys killed in the encounter… The photo shows a bullet pierced his head… It should be noted that normally in encounters, one is not shot in the head.”
Though Singh did not assure that he will get a judicial inquiry conducted in the Batla House shootout case, he said he would try his best to get an enquiry conducted by the National Investigating Agency (NIA).
Though the Ulema Council has termed his two-day visit as a ‘gimmick to strengthen Muslim votes’, Singh claimed the visit was not driven by politics.
‘I am not here for doing politics… I am here to hear you so that no innocent gets punished. I want to establish communal harmony,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Ulema Council has reiterated that they would continue to protest against Singh on his second day visit to Azamgarh.
Tags: Lucknow
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