M A I N   N E W S

Settle J&K Sikhs’ issue, PM urged
T. R. Ramachandran
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 27
The Chief Ministers of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir want Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to convene a meeting soon to find a lasting solution to the problems of the Sikh community in Jammu and Kashmir.

This assumes urgency as the multi-pronged efforts to infuse confidence among the Sikh community in the valley have been pushed to the background with Samata Party leader George Fernandes resigning as Defence Minister in the wake of the tehelka.com expose. Mr Fernandes had been specially deputed by the Prime Minister to assuage the feelings of the Sikh community in Jammu and Kashmir and impress upon them that its interests would be protected. The momentum injected by Mr Fernandes in February has suffered a setback with his exit from the government.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his counterpart from Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, held a meeting here last evening to review the steps taken so far to ensure the protection of the Sikh community. Members of the community have been the target of terrorist attacks in the troubled border state.

Dr Abdullah is understood to have apprised Mr Badal that he had specially taken up the problems of the Sikh community in the vally with Union Home Minister L K Advani and that the ball is now in the Centre’s court. The state government direly requires Central reinforcements and other assistance to implement the five-point action plan for the protection and well-being of the Sikh community.

The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister implemented one of these by inducting a Sikh minister in his council of ministers in February after the attack on Sikhs in Srinagar in which six persons were killed. The role of the Sikh minister in Jammu and Kashmir is primarily to act as a pivot for the widely dispersed community which continues to live under the shadow of threats.

The strategy is to relocate the Sikhs so that they are not thinly spread in the 160-odd villages in the valley. At all these relocated places, pickets of Central paramilitary forces, along with permanent police stations are to be established so that help remains close at hand in case of trouble.

The Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, and the vice-chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, Mr Tarlochan Singh, who worked on this action plan for the Sikh community, were also present at the meeting between Mr Badal and Dr Abdullah. Mr Dhindsa and Mr Tarlochan Singh have visited Jammu and Kashmir several times after the Chittisinghpura massacre. Mr Dhindsa has been asked to liaise closely with the Prime Minister’s Office so that Mr Vajpayee convenes a meeting soon with Mr Badal and Dr Abdullah for finding a convincing and workable solution to the problems of the Sikh community in the valley.

Tattooing done at ‘undertrial’s behest’

Ludhiana, April 27
The much talked about tattooing of the word ‘qatil’ (murderer) on the back of an undertrial Raman Kumar, alias ‘Nikka’, was done at the behest of Kumar himself, a Magisterial inquiry report here today said.

The tattooing was done neither inside the Ludhiana jail premises nor by any of the jail officials named in Raman Kumar’s complaint filed in the court of Judicial Magistrate Rajiv Kumar Berry here on Monday last, the report subkitted today to the Deputy Commissioner S. K. Sandhu by SDM Kuldip Singh, said.

According to the finding of the report, the tattooing was done at the Bakshi Khana by a fellow undertrial of Raman Kumar at his own behest. PTI