Students step in to sort out traders’ feud, stabbed

Express News Service

New Delhi, July 5: Two Civil Services aspirants were stabbed on Tuesday when they tried to intervene in an argument in Model Town. One of them died, while the other is in critical condition.

Dhananjay Tiwari from Varanasi and his friend Shiv Sharma, were stabbed by two businessmen in Gurjranwala Town in Model Town II. The accused, 31-year-old Rajesh Chugh and his 35-year-old brother-in-law Vivek Sharma, have been arrested.

Tiwari, Sharma and two friends were on their way to visit Tiwari’s younger brother, Rajkumar, in Gujranwala Town. On their way to the house, they saw the accused fighting with a guard. The four friends got out of their car and tried to intervene, but the accused stabbed Tiwari and Sharma.

Tiwari, who was 25 years old, died on the spot, while Sharma is still in critical condition in the Pentament Hospital in Gujranwala Town. A case has been registered at the Model Town police station.

Their friends, Ajit Singh and Siddhartha Vaswani, were not injured in the incident. The 26-year-old Shiv Sharma is from Azamgarh. He and Tiwari shared a flat and planned to appear for the Civil Services examination.

Mental health units in 11 distts

Express News Service

Lucknow, July 5: MEDICAL help will soon be available at door-step to the mentally ill patients in 11 districts of the state. The mental health units planned under the National Mental Health Programme is finally taking shape and will be set up in 29 different districts in the country.

In Uttar Pradesh, the state government has given a go to the nodal agencies to start the units in the 11 districts and begin training the doctors for the same.

Under the programme, a ten-bed mental health unit will be set up in each of these districts with the objective of providing medical help to the mentally-ill and challanged. The districts in UP where the units are being set up include Muzaffarnagar, Etawah, Banda, Moradabd, Mirzapur, Azamgarh, Ghaziabad and Gazipur.

The King George’s Medical University (KGMU) has been made the nodal centre for execution of the plan in three other districts- Faizabad, Raebareli and Sitapur. The ground work had been completed some time back and the nodal centre here was waiting for an approval from the state government to start the work.

The head of department and professor of Psychiatry at KGMU, Prabhat Sithole informed Newsline, ‘‘the government officials passed the orders in this matter in a meeting on Friday.’’ He added that a training programme has also been started for doctors and as soon as the government hands over the units, the teams will shift base and get down to work.

Director General (Medical and Health) Ram Babu confirmed that orders have been passed in the meeting with the Principal Secretary. ‘‘The work for the Lucknow division has started and the training has begun,’’ stated Ram Babu.

Earlier, the nodal in-charge of one of the unit, Harjeet Singh had stated that all work was complete including the recruitment of doctors and para-medical staff for the centres and only the government’s approval was awaited.

According to annexure of the government order, the units in these districts have to provide the mentally-ill patients and their families with referral service, liasion and daily out patient service. Moreover, the idea is to remove the stigma of mental-illness by creating awareness in the families of such patients.

The scheme has to be implemented in two phases. The first phase will be taken up this year and the second phase will be taken up during the ninth five year plan.