Delhi Underground

Helpful suspect

After arresting Purushottam Rana,one of the accused in the murder of BSP leader Deepak Bhardwaj,a senior police officer was seen trying to confirm if they had caught the right person. The officer had pictures of Rana,recovered from the native place of the accused. Rana had short hair and no beard in the picture and the officer kept alternating between the picture and Rana’s face. Surprisingly,Rana said: “Arre,yeh toh mai hi hoon. Tab mere chote baal the. (It is my picture. I had shorter hair when the picture was taken).”

On the same side

An ugly spat broke out between three units of the Delhi Police last week over who would take the credit for solving the Deepak Bhardwaj murder case. Having received an early tip-off,Crime Branch arrested the accused just before he surrendered. Two teams from South District police reached the spot a few minutes later and tried to take the accused in their custody,each claiming that it was their case. The matter was finally sorted out at police headquarters by senior officers.

Pre-trial drama

A BATTERY of lawyers,engaged to represent Nitesh,son of Deepak Bhardwaj,and Baljeet Sehrawat — both accused of murdering the BSP leader — began presenting arguments even before the public prosecutor entered the courtroom. The judge said they should wait to hear if police wanted custody of the accused.

A pro bono act

AIIMS Trauma Centre’s long search for a brand ambassador to raise awareness about road accident injuries and their prevention found ended with budding cricketer Unmukt Chand. He has a huge fan following at the institute,partly because Chand agreed to participate in all promotional activities for free. “He was very cooperative and made himself available at such a short notice,” a senior official said.

DJB’s private plan

After its decision to privatise water supply,the Delhi Jal Board plans to lay sewerage networks and water pipelines in three unauthorised colonies as part of a pilot project,and invite private partnerships. CEO Debashree Mukherjee has specifically mentioned a pilot project that is testing a more shallow sewer system in Bijwasan that serves about 6,000 people. “The technical work won’t be awarded to the private company,we’re just using technology through a private company as a pilot to see if it works,” she said,adding there were no plans,at present,to use PPPs for the management of Delhi’s sewer system.

Media-savvy lawyers

With proceedings in the Aarushi Talwar case nearing conclusion,lawyers are now making a beeline for the courtroom in which the hearing takes place. Advocates associated with the case said at the current rate,the trial will probably end in the next four months. “Even if the trial is in camera,lawyers from the Ghaziabad court premises — even if they are not party to the case — are allowed inside court. They had stopped coming when media attention towards the case had flagged. Now,they are back and they listen to proceedings so they can give bytes to the reporters waiting outside,” a CBI officer connected to the case said.

Misplaced notice

The office of the South Municipal Corporation received a rude shock last week when it was sent a court notice asking a senior official to appear as an accused in a case filed by a disgruntled shopkeeper,whose shop was closed by the civic agency. A day later,however,the court clarified that the notice had been “inadvertently” sent out due to a “mistake” by court staff members,who had actually been instructed to send a notice to the shopkeeper for having failed to appear before the court on two previous dates of hearing.

Popular policy

The Delhi government is finally preparing a cabinet note for regularisation of extended Lal Dora areas in the city,which is also likely to be produced before the Council of Ministers soon. Delhi’s Urban Development and Revenue Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely recently conducted a high-level committee meeting,where he said that fresh applications would be invited from the residents of such areas for regularisation. “The extended Lal Dora areas would be treated at par with existing Lal Dora areas after this,” a government official said.

Team spirit

At the annual press conference of the Fire department on Saturday,the Fire chief was asked why the fire tenders always reached an incident spot late. Responding to this,Chief A K Sharma said,“A fire tender needs to negotiate with traffic too. But,the person whose house or property catches fire feels a second is equal to an hour. I don’t blame them. If my house was to catch fire tomorrow,I would also panic till firemen arrived.”

No questions please

Despite being the only woman candidate to get elected for the top post of the North Municipal Corporation,deputy Mayor Purnima Vidhyarthi played second fiddle to the Mayor,Master Azad Singh. While the party claimed that it included women in its new leadership,Vidhyarthi shied away from showcasing “woman power” in public. She thanked the party instead,for giving her the post. She was also found discouraging people from asking her questions about her priorities as the Deputy Mayor.