M A I N   N E W S

Pinki ‘sending feelers to surrender’
From Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service

LUDHIANA, Jan 14 — Gurmeet Singh, alias Pinki, the main accused in the Avtar Singh murder case, had tried to get admission in a private hospital in Delhi showing a back date in order to create an alibi for him to protect him from facing prosecution in the shootout incident that took place in Maya Nagar here last Sunday.

According to a senior police official, the district police has traced his activities after the shootout incident to Deen Dyal Bandopadhaya Hospital in Delhi. The accused had tried to prevail upon the in charge of the hospital to admit him showing a back date. However, the in charge refused and Pinki left the place in the evening. His whereabouts are not known since then.

According to sources, quoting investigation reports from the arrested accused, Pinki was extremely unstable and anxious after the incident. When his condition became out of control, he was taken to the hospital where his blood pressure was measured to 273. The doctors immediately gave him injections to bring down the blood pressure, Pinki was fine in couple of hours and it was then that he requested the doctors to make a back date entry.

According to a senior police official, Pinki then on his own sought to be discharged as he was probably afraid of being tracked down. The police has seized documents in this regard.

According to the police official, the four accused separated from each other after this. While the three Bittu Gill, Paramjit Singh Pammy and Jaswant Singh Punna later surrendered, Sonu and Parveen Kumar were nabbed by the police, Pinki went away somewhere. He remains untraced.

‘Move’ to destabilise WB Govt
Left Front to hold protest on Jan 24
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Jan 14 — The Left parties today charged “Right wing” forces with carrying out “disruptive activities” to destabilise the Left Front government in West Bengal and said it would not be “deterred” by such terror tactics.

Stating that they would organise an all-India protest day on the issue on January 24, Left leaders, including Mr Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Mr A. B. Bardhan, accused the Union Home Minister, Mr L. K. Advani, of giving credence to partisan moves of the NDA to demand President’s rule in the state.

Leaders of the CPM, the CPI, the RSP and Forward Bloc at a joint press conference said a “systematic disinformation campaign” had been launched against the ruling Left Front on the basis of the Garbeta incident while there was no media focus on the killings of Left party cadres by the Trinamool-BJP combine in different parts of the state.

“The actual issue is to resort to illegal and violent actions to try and destabilise the situation in the state. A similar pattern was seen earlier too. In December 1995, the Purulia air-dropping of arms took place. The large-scale consignment of arms was to be utilised against the Left and the state government. The CBI inquiries have pointed to a well-planned conspiracy in this regard,” a joint statement issued by the Left Front leaders at the press conference said.

“Yet the BJP-led government is now trying to scuttle the case when the key accused are still absconding,” it alleged.

Asked whether the state government would order a CBI probe or one by a judge into the Garbeta incident, they said the state CID was inquiring into it. “It is wrong to say that only central agencies can do the job and not the state agencies. What has happened to the CBI probe into the Purulia case?” asked Mr Surjeet.

He said a former US Ambassador to India, Mr Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had “revealed in his memoirs that twice the United States funded efforts against the Communists during elections in West Bengal and Kerala.”

The Left Front leaders claimed the continuing attacks on the Left forces in West Bengal would be harmful to the democratic movement of the country as a whole.

“In a situation when the Right wing and communal forces are mounting one attack after another on secular and democratic values, the Right wing offensive against the Left Front has to be firmly fought back by all Left, democratic and secular forces,” they said.

On January 24, the Left parties as part of the all-India protest day will mobilise people in support of the Left Front and the working people of West Bengal who are in the forefront of the struggle for democracy and the interest of the people, the Left Front leaders said.