The Hindu : New Delhi News : Around the City

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 20, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Around the City

Clear sky likely

NEW DELHI OCT. 19. The weatherman has forecast a mainly clear sky for the Capital on Wednesday. Maximum and minimum temperature is likely to be around 33 degrees Celsius and 19 degrees Celsius respectively.

Maximum temperature recorded on Tuesday at Safdarjung was 33.0 degrees Celsius and minimum 18.6 degrees degrees Celsius. Palam recorded a maximum temperature of 33.3 degrees Celsius and a minimum of 24.3 degrees Celsius.

Maximum humidity at Safdarjung and Palam was 94 per cent and 80 per cent respectively, while minimum was 34 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.

Veteran photographer dead

New Delhi Oct 19. Veteran news photographer and founder editor of PTI photo service, Ravibrat Bedi, died here today following cardiac arrest. He was 79.

Bedi, who headed the photo department of the Times of India, was associated with the English daily for 30 years. He also worked with AFP as its Asia Pacific photo journalist. Bedi is survived by four daughters and a son.

Girl assaulted

NEW DELHI OCT. 19. A 19-year-old girl was allegedly criminally assaulted by a sweeper at Vidya Sagar Institute of Mental Health and Nuero Sciences in South Delhi on Monday night. According to the police, the victim, a resident of Jharkhand, was the attendant of her friend who had been admitted to the hospital for psychiatric treatment in the hospital a couple of days ago. Around 11 p.m. last night, sweeper Dharam Pal took the girl to a bathroom on some pretext and allegedly criminally assaulted her. The police were informed about the incident around 2 a.m. in the morning. A case has been registered at Srinivaspuri police station and hunt has begun for Dharam Pal who has been absconding since the incident came to light.

Passport racket unearthed

NEW DELHI OCT. 19. A racket in allowing Afghan refugees to have Indian passports on the basis of forged documents has been unearthed by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Officials of the Delhi regional passport office and the Delhi police are suspected to be involved in the racket. One person has also been arrested in this connection.

According to the CBI, the arrested person, Suraj Ratra, a Faridabad resident, was an Afghan refugee who had managed to get the Indian passport through the racket. Sources said while antecedents of the accused were being verified, it was possible that he had gone to Afghanistan earlier when the situation was better but had to leave the country after it worsened.

Earlier, the CBI had launched a drive in the last week of September to check corruption in the passport department. It was during this drive Suraj Ratra's case came to light. Following investigations, the CBI registered another criminal case which was related to the first one. Several incriminating documents were also recovered in the searches carried out in Faridabad and Delhi during the drive.

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