M A I N   N E W S

Taxmen zoom in on dream merchants

MUMBAI, Sept 26 (UNI) — Income tax teams today raided premises of film stars Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Amrish Puri and director Yash Chopra as part of massive operations to unearth black money in India’s film capital.

The tax swoop on as many as 33 premises as a continuation of the series of search operations launched a few days ago in the metropolis caused panic in the film industry.

Director-General of Income Tax (Investigations) P. K. Sharma said the raids were still continuing on the premises of the film stars, including Rani Mukherjee and Urmila Matondkar.

Similar raids were carried out about four years ago. Around 40 film personalities were raided and cash and documents were seized.

Detailed results are awaited but 15 lockers found in these premises have been sealed. Cash and documents relating to investments in property were seized by the taxmen. Documents pertaining to contracts for payments for performances abroad were recovered from the premises of actor Salman Khan.

More women choose death in J&K
Survey reveals dehumanising side of militancy
From M.L. Kak
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, Sept 26 — Even in the absence of any official or non-official survey, police records have revealed that the rate of suicide among women in Jammu and Kashmir has touched a new high during the past seven years.

According to a senior police officer, “We have six to eight incidents of suicide per week in the Kashmir valley and three to five in the Jammu region, particularly in the militancy-infested areas”.

According to rough estimates, six of the eight women, who take poison or strangulate themselves, die and the others survive because of speedy medical treatment.

Many of the suicide incidents go unreported and are not registered with the police because those who have committed suicide have done it either to save their honour after they were molested by militants or security forces or their parents do not want to invite trouble for at the police stations.

Love-lorn women, especially teenagers, those victimised by the militants or the security agencies and those tormented by unemployment, poverty and greedy in-laws demanding more dowry, have committed suicide in several places in the state during the past seven years. In the Jammu region too two to three dowry deaths take place every month and in such cases either the brides consume poison or are set on fire by the in-laws.

As compared to Jammu, Kashmir has a very low percentage of dowry deaths. But the valley is on the top as compared to the Jammu region as far as the rate of forced marriages resorted to by the militants was concerned. Several hundred women have been deserted by their husbands who forced teenagers to enter into wedlock with them.

Police records reveal that scores of top militants and senior political leaders and government officials have more than one wife. Invariably educated women, keen to get jobs, are misused by political leaders and bureaucrats before they find a backdoor entry into government departments. This has forced many innocent women to commit suicide.

Several state government officials had contacted Maulvis and other religious leaders with a request that they should campaign against flesh trade and against suicide bids by women. The Maulvis are said to have refused to touch such issues during their sermons in the mosques.

The police sources say during the past several months many centres in Kashmir were raided where the police found brothels being run by some anti-social elements. The pimps and touts have been enticing women to flesh trade. These raids and arrest of more than 10 pimps have hardly any impact on the flesh trade in Jammu and Srinagar.

The 10-year-long militancy and all that flowed with it have hardened the mindset of Kashmiris. The people no longer react sharply to bomb explosions in which innocent people get killed. They no longer take to the streets to agitate if innocent people get killed in the crossfire between the security forces and the militants.

They seem to have got immunised against death and destruction because they have felt helpless as they feel sandwiched between the militants and the security forces. The police sources say people have come to believe that bomb explosions, killing of 10 to 15 persons, militants included, per day in different parts of the state has become a part of life in Jammu and Kashmir.

In addition to this, the prolonged Pak-sponsored proxy war had resulted in unprecedented rise in physical and mental disorders in the state. While stress diabetes has effected more than 60 per cent of the Kashmiri migrants, those living in the valley have been hit by high incidence of heart and mental disorders. This is evident from the records of government hospitals and the Institute of Medical Sciences at Soura.

According to doctors, practising in Jammu and Srinagar, loss of memory and potency has afflicted a large number of people in the trouble-torn areas of the state. Several medical representatives interviewed by The Tribune said the intake of allopathic drugs is the highest in Jammu and Kashmir as per the population ratio. They said on an average, medicines, including life-saving drugs and tonics, were being imported by the state worth over Rs 200 crore per year. This was the result of stress and strain caused by militancy because prior to the rise of the subversive violence, the import of medicines was not more than Rs 100 crore per year.

If not anything else, it has facilitated mushroom growth of private nursing homes in the state and lucrative practices for the doctors in their private clinics.