‘Dead’ man in cop net after 18 yrs

Nirmal Kumar Singh (face covered) in Dhanbad

A person considered dead 18 years ago was sent to 14 days’ judicial custody after he was arrested today.

The chief judicial magistrate of Dhanbad, Deepak Kumar, sent the accused, Nirmal Kumar Singh, to judicial remand after he was produced before the court. The DSP (law and order), Varun Kumar Mishra, said the culprit was yet to confess that he was living in Varanasi in the guise of Narendra Pratap Singh after duping an insurance company.

The police were looking for Nirmal after one Uday Shankar Singh of Dhanbad lodged an FIR at the Bank More police station in June 2006 alleging that Nirmal was alive and living in Varanasi as Narendra Pratap Singh. Uday Shankar also claimed in the FIR that the family members of Nirmal had fraudulently withdrawn Rs 1.5 lakh from an insurance company.

According to sources, the family members of Nirmal claimed he had died in a boat capsize on August 6, 1988, and his body was missing. The news of his “death” was published in local dailies and was justified by a fake death certificate, the copy of which was attached with the FIR lodged by Uday Shankar.

Subsequently, relatives of Singh deceitfully made insurance claim and forged names on the voters’ list.

The DSP (law and order), investigating into the case, confirmed that the claims of the FIR were prima facie true and that Narendra Pratap Singh was actually Nirmal. However, more evidence has to be collected, said the DSP.

The DSP also said Nirmal Kumar was staying in Varanasi with his wife and children and running a transport business there. Since his roots are in Dhanbad, he kept on visiting the coal city.

The FIR of Uday Shankar also revealed that Nirmal was convicted by the Dhanbad sessions court in 1986 for murdering one Buddhadeb Chatterjee in June 1979. But Nirmal appealed in the Patna high court, and thereafter in the apex court, but his appeal was cancelled in 1994.

Unwilling to surrender before the court, Nirmal hatched the conspiracy, said the sources.

Big win for Jharkhand

Jharkhand with a 6-1 victory over Maharashtra in Group B progressed into the semifinals of the BSNL All-India hockey tournament and will clash with Orissa for a spot in the final.

Jharkhand's scorers were Lalit Kumar Pana (2), Joseph Soreng (2) along with G. Topno and Marcel Tirkey. Uttam Singh Duha scored for Maharashtra.

Karnataka and NTR, Delhi will face off for the other place in the final. NTR, Delhi beat Madhya Pradesh 2-1 with Premjit Kujur and Dinesh Chander logging the goals for NTR Delhi. A.W. Khan scored for Madhya Pradesh.

Devotees pour in from distant places to pay obeisance

Kurmali Bhasa Parishad in the State Capital on Saturday celebrated Tusu festival amidst a lot of jubilation and spiritual fervour.

Believers from distant places like Bundu, Tamar, Silli, Khunti gathered in Ranchi and offered prayers to Tusu goddess, who according to mythology had sacrificed her life in a river when a king wanted to make illicit relationship with her.


Lower Burdwan Compound became the centre of celebration. Rajaram Mahto, president of the parishad led the congregation in offering floral tribute to Tusu. The gathering also offered prayers to Tusu and sought from her prosperity and happiness for the society.

Three children go 'missing' from two different localities in the State Capital

Three children have gone traceless from two different localities under Namkom police station area in the State Capital in last three days.


Two of the missing children, Akash Deep Khallo and Prabhat Kumar, are students of DAV Nandraj School, while another child, Pawan Kumar Pandey, is a student of DAV Bariatu. Namkom police received written complaints from the parents of the missing children in this connection on Saturday.


Both Khalko and Prabhat, aged around 15 years, have not returned home since they, along with their friends, reportedly left for Jonha to play cricket on January 11, police said.

767 students crack JET, success rate boils down to 12.3 percent, Chemistry students fails to make the cut

 No student of Chemistry has managed to clear the Jharkhand Eligibility Test (JET), 2006 conducted by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission on November 12 last year. According to the result declared by the JPSC on Saturday, 767 candidates have cleared the JET.

The result translates into 12.3 percent success rate. 104 candidates of Chemistry Science had reached the Third Paper Evaluation level but none could clear the JET. Candidates who clear the first and second paper with the required cut-off marks (50 percent) for general and 40 percent for reserved category) are selected for TPE.


Of the 16,291 candidates who had appeared in the JET, 6,221 had reached the TPE level. The number of students belonging to SC/ST category reaching the TPE level was 1,651.

Inaction scar on poll panel grace

A visit to the office of the state election commission at Namkum on the outskirts of the state capital is enough to lose all hope for an early civic polls in the state.

There has been no polls for civic bodies for close to three decades and the state cabinet finally approved the rules this week. But if conditions at the state election commission office are any indication, chances of the poll this year appear seem negligible.

A group of 10 employees was busy playing cards under the winter sun while six others were engaged in an animated discussion over their future. One of the more senior officers strolled aimlessly in the corridors, apparently preoccupied with deep thoughts.

“We have nothing to do. And it is tough spending eight hours in the office doing nothing,” said an employee. “When there was a state election commissioner in the form of G. Krishnan, we had at least some work. Now even that is not there. So, we are whiling away time playing cards and getting a sun-tan,” he added.

Krishnan’s term came to an end on December 12 last year and a successor is yet to be found. Against the sanctioned strength of 30, the commission has 22 staff, with at least six of them employed on contract.

For an office without any work, the annual budget is Rs 72 lakh. But even after having spent Rs 3.5 crore over the past five years, the body has very little to show by way of work.

The day this correspondent visited the commission’s office, there was a call from the office of the chief secretary enquiring about the state of affairs in the office. Similar enquiries had been made on two earlier occasions, the employees confided.

But the enquiries this time might have more to do with speculation over the present chief secretary, M.K. Mandal, getting the coveted post, which has a tenure of three years or a retirement age of 62, whichever is earlier. Besides the name of Mandal, other names in circulation are of A.K. Mishra, Sunila Basant, Sushma Singh and T. Nandkumar.

Curiously, the state government has chosen to shift the secretary to the commission, Lalan Pandey, to the finance department.

Pandey, when contacted, conceded that the state election commission, too, can move the court if the state government fails to conduct the elections. But in Jharkhand, the commission has been content to play second fiddle to the state government.

The commission, claimed its officials, cannot be blamed for the delay in rural and civic polls since the basic work like reconstruction of wards, reservation rules and election rules are to be worked out at the level of the state government.

Three Jharkhand 'Star Girls' in Unicef calendar

 Three gutsy tribal girls from Jharkhand are featured in Unicef's 2007 calendar. They have risen above their poverty to educate themselves and become "Star Girls" and also shown the way to others in their villages.

The Unicef calendar titled "Star Girls", distributed here, features Laxmirani Manjhi, Jyoti Rose Tirkey and Suryamani Bhagat from the state. They were born in the backwaters of Jharkhand and managed to establish themselves in different fields.

These girls have broken the myth that girls from tribal areas can only work as domestic help outside the state.

Laxmirani, 17, is an international level archer and a cadet at Tata Sports Academy, Jamshedpur. A resident of Bagula village of West Singhbhum district, Laxmirani was leading a life of abject poverty. But she was keen to study. She is one of the few tribal girls of her village who went to school. She opted to become an archer.

"I travel to different parts of the world and my education has helped me achieve what I wanted to become," says a happy Laxmirani.

Jyoti Rose Tirkey also comes from a poor family. She opted for singing as her profession after going through many difficulties. At present she is a newsreader with the state-run Doordarshan television.

Suryamani Bhagat works as an activist of a non governmental organisation. Her village, Kotari in Ranchi district, is located deep in the jungles where Maoists call the shots. Bhagat, a graduate in Sanskrit, founded Taranag, an NGO to fight for the rights of tribes people and promote tribal culture. She also works for the Save The Forest movement.

Commenting on the achievement of the Jharkhand girls, Vasvi, a social worker-cum-writer, said: "Jharkhand can produce more such stars if opportunity is given to the state's girls to prove themselves."

The achievement of the girls is all the more striking as thousands of Jharkhand girls migrate every year to metropolitan cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Chandhigarh just to work as domestic help. Many of them return exploited, raped and some carry the HIV virus.

In Jharkhand, the female literacy rate is just around 40 percent and of tribal girls it is 20 percent.

The Unicef calendar features girls from other states too. The other nine girls whose achievement, names and photographs have appeared are from Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

No takers for children of jailed parents

Vineeta (name changed) is a seven-year-old girl who wants to study, play and make friends. She cannot do so as she has no option but to spend her childhood in jail.

There are 15 other children, aged 1-15 years, who are spending their childhood inside Birsa Munda Central Jail here.

The reason: their parents are also lodged in the same jail as they have been convicted in different criminal cases. Some face life imprisonment while others are serving seven years' terms.

Sunita (name changed) is another child, whose parents are serving life imprisonment for killing her grandfather and grandmother.

She was born in the jail and is being brought up there. There is no one to take care of her outside the prison.

And there are children who cannot meet their father despite being in the same prison.

According to the jail manual, male and female prisoners are kept separately and are not allowed to meet. The children are given the food prepared for the prisoners.

'According to jail manual, the children can stay with their mothers for six years. After that their relatives can take them to home,' said Abraham Minz, the superintendent of the jail.

'But not a single relative has turned up to take them back,' he said.

There is also a provision that if a mother wishes, her children can be adopted.

But according to jail officials, no one wants to adopt children whose parents are serving sentence in criminal cases.

'We are bound by the rules. We feel sorry when we watch these children growing up inside the jail though that they have not committed any crime. They cannot study because we cannot send them to any school. We cannot provide nutritious food to them as well,' said another official.

Poverty forces Jharkhand villagers to ferry coals on cycle for miles

 Poverty and unemployment has compelled many villagers in Jharkhand to salvage coal from abandoned pits and carry the black diamond on cycles to distant towns to earn livelihood.

Many abandoned mines in the forest, which are believed to be in the hold of certain local musclemen and politicians, provide earning options for the villagers by transporting the rummage coal into the markets of Ranchi, Bokaro, Giridih and other places covering miles on cycle.

"We carry coal. Indeed, we are facing ample of problems, but it's a compulsion for us. We are unable to save money. My elder brother has been affected by TB (tuberculosis). We don't have money for his treatment," said Ghanshyam Mahto, a cyclist-coal carrier.

For thousands of villagers, the dawn starts with dragging along cycles loaded with sacks of coal on the steep hilly road leading to the remote market places.

"We start at 1 o'clock in the night and reach the city by 5 o'clock in the evening. While returning, we start at around 2 am and reach our home at around 12 noon," said Kamlseh Kisko, another cyclist-coal carrier.

Their families, which include a good number of minors, are the worst hit as and when the main bread earner falls ill, generally due to tuberculosis (TB).

There are instances when teenaged youngsters ferry the coal and support their families as sole earning members or supplement the low income.

"I have been carrying coal since two years. Unfortunately, for the past two months I have been suffering from TB. We carry coal to Ranchi, but could not save money. I am the only earning person in my family. Now, I myself have fallen ill. I wonder what would happen to my family now," said 16-year-old Raju.

Mining in the mineral rich State, mostly covered by the forest, is a common practice, and coal and other minerals are the prime sources of revenue. But it seems as such risky mining and ferrying will prevail until alternate avenues are paved for these coal carriers.

Eight Jharkhand children missing in Assam

 Around eight Jharkhand children who were working in Assam at brick kilns and as other labour are reported to be missing following the bloodbath unleashed last week by militants in that state.

The parents of the children, all below 16 years age, are worried as repeated attempts to contact them have failed.

'My 14-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter had gone to Assam in June last year. They were working in a brick kiln factory. But we have not been able to contact them since the news of the killings. We last spoke to our children two months ago,' said Tipru Nayak, a resident of Goratoli village of Ranchi.

Paresh Nayak of Selda village too has a similar story to tell. His two sons of 12 and 15 years and a 14-year-old daughter went to Assam last year. But now he is unable to contact them.

The two daughters and one son of Sukhnath Nayak of Janum Barki village of Ranchi are also missing in Assam. Nayak too failed to establish any contact with his children.

Former chief minister Arjun Munda alleged that five people of the state were killed in United Liberation front of Asom attacks.

Chief Minister Madhu Koda had written a letter to his Assam counterpart, Tarun Gogoi, seeking security for his people.

Every year thousands of people migrate to Assam to work in brick kiln factories and tea gardens.