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| Thursday, July 13, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Probe acts of sabotage: BJP NEW DELHI, July 12 — The BJP today asked the Centre to institute a thorough probe into acts of alleged sabotage resulting in bomb blasts in religious place. Talking to newspersons, the BJP general secretary, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, said going by incidents there seemed to be a certain pattern in these incidents and this was all the more reason to undertake a probe. ‘Church leaders should apologise’ Sonia to meet PCC chiefs HDW case probe
not fruitful, says CBI |
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| Sadhus protest against UP move HARDWAR, July 12 — The Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad and the Bharat Sadhu Samaj here today rejected the proposal of the Uttar Pradesh Government to suspend the ‘Religious Endowment Bill’. The UP Government had declared yesterday its intention to suspend the Bill, popularly known as the “Dharmada Bill”, to assuage the hurt feelings of sadhus in the country. This has put the UP Government on tenterhooks. This announcement was made after a meeting of these bodies at Hardwar late last night. Bihar House concerned over
‘armed’ MLAs Paswan may quit JD (U) NEW DELHI, July 12 — The National Human Rights Commission has said there was no need for the enactment of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 2000, or a similar law. This unanimous view was taken at a meeting of the commission held yesterday to formulate its opinion on the bill. It reviewed the draft Bill, 173rd report of the Law Commission, relevant Supreme Court judgements and the views of the NGOs. |
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| Develop rural areas in NCR: Chautala NEW DELHI, JULY 12 — Emphasising the importance of developing rural areas in the National Capital Region (NCR), Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has said until the Centre allocated additional funds for the development of rural areas, migration would continue unabated negating the very concept of the NCR. Deporting migrants
a tough task Monsoon active
in west UP
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Probe acts
of sabotage: BJP NEW DELHI, July 12 — The BJP today asked the Centre to institute a thorough probe into acts of alleged sabotage resulting in bomb blasts in religious places. Talking to newspersons, the BJP general secretary, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, said going by incidents there seemed to be a certain pattern in these incidents and this was all the more reason to undertake a probe. The government should consider setting up a joint command or a joint team to inquire into the acts of sabotage resulting in blasts taking place in certain places of worship in different parts of the country, Mr Naidu said. The probe should not only look into the foreign hand behind these acts of sabotage but should also inquire about the complicity of those forces and organisations which had been cooperating with the foreign forces, the BJP leader said. Certain individual and political parties had jumped to the conclusion and had started believing that certain nationalist organisations of the country were behind these blasts, Mr Naidu lamented. These individuals and political parties had also started demanding that some of the BJP’s allies should withdraw support to the Vajpayee
government, Mr Naidu said. There was a design behind these bomb blasts, Mr Naidu said, pointing out that “we have also received information that some organisations are circulating a note in the name of the RSS to create confusion”. Mr Naidu said it appeared the Congress by blaming the RSS had more confidence in the ISI. The Congress had absolved the ISI of these incidents, the BJP leader said. |
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‘Church leaders should apologise’ NEW DELHI, July 12 (PTI, UNI) — The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), today demanded an apology from church leaders for making “baseless charges” against the Sangh Parivar outfits in the wake of the recent attacks on Christians as a pre-condition to any dialogue between the two sides. Apparently irked by the Christian leaders’ decision not to attend the National Commission for Minorities-sponsored talks with the VHP and the Bajrang Dal on July 11, VHP Senior Vice-President Acharya Giriraj Kishore told reporters the Sangh outfits would meet church representatives only if they withdrew their “baseless charges” against them and apologise. Mr Kishore, who had earlier blamed Pakistan’s ISI for the attacks, alleged a Christian organisation Save Christianity, was staging the attacks to get foreign funds. “These attacks are engineered by Christians themselves as they want to fetch more money from abroad. These attacks are fabricated. It is a false propaganda,” he told CNN last night. Participating in the programme, church spokesman Dominic Emmanuel said Christians were not in favour of Papal intervention to resolve the problem “as this is an internal matter of the law and order of the country.” He, however, expressed disagreement with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s stand that the incidents were isolated. “It might be his opinion or how he might have been informed. It is we who feel hurt, threatened, intimidated. We do not feel safe,” he said. Meanwhile, VHP leader Pravinbhai Togadia demanded prosecution of church authorities “for running a hate campaign against Hindu society and organisations”. VIJAYAWADA: Dr J.A. Oliver, Executive Director of the Andhra Pradesh Council of Churches and Vice-President of the National Christian Council on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to come out more openly and strongly against the continuing atrocities on Christians and bomb blasts in churches and take steps to book the culprits. HUBLI:
The Corps of Detectives (CoD), probing the blasts at three churches in different parts of Karnataka in the past one month, is hopeful of achieving a breakthrough within a week, its Director General of Police V.K. Bhaskar said on Wednesday. |
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Sonia to
meet PCC chiefs NEW DELHI, July 12 — With less than a fortnight to go for the start of the monsoon session of Parliament the Congress party would begin an exercise to assess the current political situation and discuss issues at separate meetings. The first of the series will be a meeting by the Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi with presidents of Pradesh Congress Committees and Congress Legislature Parties here tomorrow. The meeting to be held at the party headquarters will discuss the current political situation where the party will also finalise the training programme for active members of the AICC. The AICC is holding organisational elections where a new president is scheduled to be elected by November this year. The elections are being conducted for the first time by the Central Election Authority under the chairmanship of Mr Ram Niwas Mirdha. A day after a meeting with the PCC chiefs and CLP leaders, the first meeting of the newly set up economic group will take place followed by a meeting of the Congress Working Committee in which the party’s stand on the CTBT and autonomy resolution adopted by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly is expected to be formalised. The party spokesman, Mr Ajit Jogi, said the CWC would discuss the nuclear policy and the Kashmir issue at length. There was some confusion in the party after senior leader Pranab Mukherjee said the Congress president told the US President in March the party was for “minimum credible nuclear deterrent”. The stand was an echo of the New Delhi official stand but Mrs Gandhi distanced herself from it just two days later. After completing the engagements in Delhi, the Congress president is expected to attend party conferences in different zones of the country including states which are to have Assembly elections next year. Elections are due in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. |
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HDW case probe
not fruitful, says CBI
NEW DELHI, July 12 (PTI) — The probe into the Rs 420-crore HDW submarine deal payoffs case appears to have reached a dead end as the CBI today informed the Delhi High Court that it has failed to find any direct evidence against the accused in the case. The CBI, which has completed the probe into the case within the country, could not find any direct evidence against the persons named in the case, its counsel A.K. Dutt told a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice A Pssayat and Justice D.K. Jain. The accused include former Defence Secretary S.K. Bhatnagar, NRI businessman Gopi Chand Hinduja besides some former
officials of defence ministry and HDW firm. Mr Dutt said in the absence of the direct evidence the German authorities have “expressed their helplessness” to probe into the alleged payoffs in their country. |
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Sadhus protest against UP move HARDWAR, July 12 — The Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad and the Bharat Sadhu Samaj here today rejected the proposal of the Uttar Pradesh Government to suspend the ‘Religious Endowment Bill’. The UP Government had declared yesterday its intention to suspend the Bill, popularly known as the “Dharmada Bill”, to assuage the hurt feelings of sadhus in the country. This has put the UP Government on tenterhooks. This announcement was made after a meeting of these bodies at Hardwar late last night. Mahant Ganga Puri, Secretary of the Maha Nirwani Akhara — one of the main constituents of the Akhil
Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, told TNS on telephone today morning that the sadhus had decided to start an indefinite hunger fast from today on Har-ki-Pauri to protest against the stand of the UP Government. The first batch of protesters would be led by Swami Satya Mitra Nanda — a former Shankracharya and founder of the Bharat Mata Mandir in Hardwar,
along with Swami Brahma Swaroop Brahamchari, president of the Jai Ram Ankshetra, Bhimgoda and Rishikesh. Mahant Ganga Puri, maintained that the sadhus were bent upon continuing with their programme of indefinite hunger fast till the UP Government totally withdrew the above said Bill from the proceedings of the UP Vidhan Sabha. The Bill has been lying pending since 1962. There have been numerous agitations against the Bill by the Akhara Parishad, various mutts of sadhus and the Bharat Sadhu Samaj. The announcement of rejection came following the failure of talks between the cultural and Religious Affairs Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Swami Satya Mitra Nanda here. It is reported that the UP Cultural Affairs Minister had rushed to Hardwar on Sunday and held night-long discussions with the former Shankracharya in order to end the tension which had been building up between the Sadhu Samaj and the UP Government for quite some time. The minister reportedly told Swami Satya Mitra Nanda that the UP Government would suspend the Bill for the time being. The Sadhu Samaj did not agree to it and wanted that the Bill should be “burnt for ever”. The Sadhu Samaj has pointed out that the Dharmada Bill was discriminatory in nature. The UP Government has provided in the Bill that religious mutts and organisations in Allahabad, Varanasi, Mathura and Hardwar would be governed under this Bill. Incidentally, these four cities are the centres of the activities of the various organisations of sadhus in the country. The attitude of the Akhil
Bharatiya Akhara Parishad and the Bharat Sadhu Samaj has caused embarrassment
to the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its President Ashok Singhal. Distance between the various organisations of Sadhus, which were being used in the past by the VHP for promoting its activities of Ram Temple construction at Ayodhya and anti-Christian tirade, would suffer a big set back after this stand taken by sadhus. Further more, the sadhus have made it clear that they would not participate in the proposed “Save Ganga March” which the VHP is scheduled to start from Har-ki-Pauri on July 26. The VHP is now in a fix on how to make this march a success in the absence of sadhus and two of their frontal organisations. Moreover, the hunger fast by leading sadhus of the country would generate anti-BJP feelings amongst the pilgrims visiting Hardwar in large number in these days. The BJP would be further alienated amongst the general masses as a month long ‘Kanwar Mela’ is due to start from July 15 onwards. Over 50 lakh pilgrims visit Hardwar during this fair. |
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Bihar House concerned over
‘armed’ MLAs
PATNA, July 12 (PTI) —The Bihar Assembly today voiced its concern over MLAs coming to the House with firearms and expressed the need to impose ban on entry of officials and private security guards of members and ministers to the premises. The issue was discussed during zero hour when Leader of the Opposition Sushil Kumar Modi told the House that its Business Advisory Committee (BAC) had taken exception to the members attending the proceedings carrying firearms. He said the BAC in a meeting this morning, expressed its opinion against the practice and felt that the official bodyguards should not enter the Assembly premises. It also felt the need for disallowing the private securitymen of MLAs from entering the legislature complex, Mr Modi said. RJD President Laloo Prasad Yadav suggested termination of the membership of any MLA found carrying guns inside the House. Seeking consensus of the House regarding this, he said his party supported the views of the
BAC. |
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Paswan may quit JD (U) NEW DELHI, July 12 (UNI) — senior Janata Dal (United) leader and Communications Minister Ramvilas Paswan today hinted at “bowing out” of the party as there is no hope of the party reviving in the future. This is the first confirmation of news reports that Mr Paswan, who is also chairman of
JD (U) Parliamentary Board, was preparing to quit the party to float his own outfit. Mr Paswan told
UNI that he was certainly “unhappy” about the way the party was run during the last three years. Despite his reservations, he was one of those who believed that the party would change for the better with his friend Sharad Yadav at the helm. “Unfortunately, the developments have belied my hopes’’, he added. Asked, if as a senior leader he could not persuade
JD (U) to see his viewpoint, Mr Paswan saw fault with the party structure that bestowed all powers with the President. In this context he cited the case of former union minister Kamla Sinha who could not get the party symbol in elections even after her name was cleared by the parliamentary board. This would also be true even in the conduct of elections too, he said. None of the party stalwarts, including former Karnataka Chief Ministers
J.H. Patel and Ramakrishna Hegde were happy with the happenings in JD
(U). |
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Terrorism Bill not
required: NHRC NEW DELHI, July 12 — The National Human Rights Commission has said there was no need for the enactment of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 2000, or a similar law. This unanimous view was taken at a meeting of the commission held yesterday to formulate its opinion on the bill. It reviewed the draft Bill, 173rd report of the Law Commission, relevant Supreme Court judgements and the views of the NGOs. Referring to its stand on the previous TADA legislation, the commission said in a press note, that it had in 1995 taken a view that the draconian law should be removed from the statute book. The commission was of the view that unless there were “compelling reasons to depart”, its earlier view should prevail. The commission felt that it should look at the issue not from the point of view of constitutional validity of the new law and its provisions but it should
deliberate on the need and wisdom of enacting such a law in light of previous experience with the earlier TADA legislation, the adequacy of the existing laws, the provisions of the international covenants which the country is signatory to. The commission was fully convinced that the existing laws were sufficient to deal with any eventuality including terrorism, if properly enforced. |
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Develop rural areas in NCR: Chautala NEW DELHI, JULY 12 — Emphasising the importance of developing rural areas in the National Capital Region (NCR), Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has said until the Centre allocated additional funds for the development of rural areas, migration would continue unabated negating the very concept of the NCR. In his address at the 25th meeting of the National Capital Region Planning Board here today, Mr Chautala called for a policy for rural areas as the emphasis till now had been on the development of towns. According to an official spokesman, the Chief Minister urged the Centre not to urbanise any additional area within the NCR till planned area was available for the purpose. He said 30,000 hectares of land was available for urbanisation within the sub-regions of the NCR outside Delhi. Maintaining that Haryana had made concerted efforts to develop the areas falling within the NCR, he said that massive urban infrastructure created in the form of
commercial and industrial estates by the Haryana Government and its agencies had been lying unutilised. He said the Haryana Urban Development Authority had created urban infrastructure in priority towns. A sum of Rs 3050 crore had been invested in NCR towns and an area of about 7,000 acres had been developed. The Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation had also invested Rs 1,882 crore to develop 4639 hectares of area in the NCR. Drawing attention of the Centre towards the decision of the Delhi Government to set up an industrial estate at Bawana over an area of 1,500 hectares, he said that it would impair the move of shifting industry out of Delhi according to the decision of the Supreme Court. He said that other states had invested heavy amounts to develop infrastructure in anticipation of Delhi Government’s move to shift out industries. He pointed out that proposals would continue the influx of migrants to Delhi and these actions were not in accordance with the objectives of the NCR plan. Mr Chautala also impressed on the Central Government to make Delhi unattractive for migrants by reversing high subsidies on services and low taxes. He said that in order to avoid inter-state diversion of trade, the Delhi Government should also bring its sales tax rate at par with the neighbouring states. He urged the board to assist in getting the necessary additional plan funds allocated for projects for which feasibility studies had been done. The projects, he added, would remove major traffic bottlenecks in the region. Mr Chautala’s speech was read in his absence by Haryana Town and Country Planning Minister Dhirpal Singh. |
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Deporting migrants
a tough task NEW DELHI, July 12 — The Delhi police is facing difficulty in deporting the illegal migrants of Bangladesh from the Capital as it is not getting help from any agency of the Delhi Government, police sources said. The Delhi police launched a drive about a month ago to identify and deport the illegal migrants of Bangladesh following an order from the Ministry of Home Affairs. It sought the help of the Delhi Government for the job but it was refused, the sources said. The Foreign Regional Registration Officer, Mr Pradeep Bhardwaj, said around six lakh Bangladeshi migrants lived in different areas of the Capital, the Delhi police detained 382 so far and kept them in the Lampur Beggar House till their deportation formality was completed. He said of them 33 were deported. Beside, 362 additional
Bangladeshis were identified. When asked how they were deported he said job of the Delhi police was to identify and hand over them to the BSF. |
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Monsoon active
in west UP
NEW DELHI, July 12 — Monsoon has been active in east Rajasthan and the plains of west Uttar Pradesh. Rainfall: Rain or thundershowers have occurred at most places in east Rajasthan and the hills of west Uttar Pradesh at many places in Himachal Pradesh and the plains of Uttar Pradesh, at a few places in Haryana and at isolated places in the rest of the region. The chief amounts of rainfall in cm are: Haryana: Narnaul and Rewari 3 each and Rohtak 1, Himachal Pradesh: Baijnath 6, Dharampur and Pandoh 4 each, Hamirpur 3, Arki 2 and Barsar, Dehragopipur, Kahu, Kasauli, Kangra, Karsog, Kumarsain, Nagrota Surian, Sunibhaji and Solan 1 each, Punjab: Patti 3 and Amritsar 1, Rajasthan: Banswara 10, Dungala 8, Gambhiri Dam 7, Agahgarh and Nimbahera 6 each, Pratapgarh, Pirawa and Orai Dam 5 each, Kanota, Sarwar and Srinagar 4 each, Chomu, Kishangarh, Sawai Madhopur and Tizara 3 each, Bassi, Bandi Kui, Baran, Bhimsagar, Kapasan, Kota, Khandar, Ramgarh Bandh, Sikar and Udaipur 2 each and Alwar, Amer, Barath, Chaksu, Gangadhar, Hindon, Jaipur, Karoli, Khanpur, Lalsot, Malakhera, Phagi, Ramgarh and Vijay Nagar 1 each and Uttar Pradesh: Mainpuri 6, Kalpi 5, Hamirpur and Shahjina 4 each, Elginbridge, Hanuman Setu, Lucknow (control room) and Narora 3 each, Ayodhya, Basti, Haripur, Jaunpur, Marora, Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi 2 each and Ankinghat, Bareilly, Baheri, Banbasa, Birdghat and Sultanpur 1 each. Forecast valid until the morning of Friday: Rain or thundershowers will occur at many places in Himachal Pradesh, east Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, at a few places in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab and at isolated places in west Rajasthan. Heavy rainfall warning: Heavy rain is likely at isolated places in east Rajasthan and east Uttar Pradesh during the next 24 hours. Forecast for Delhi and neighbourhood valid until the morning of Friday: Generally cloudy sky with one or two spells of showers/thundershowers. Farmers weather bulletin for Delhi: Forecast valid until the morning of Friday: Moderate to rather heavy rain will occur at many places. Outlook for the subsequent two days: No large change. |
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