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Thursday,
July 3, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Terror ideology isolated: Jaitley Germany willing to sell radars to Pak Pak deports 3 kin of Sharif Attack on Pak Christians: main suspect held Bush satisfied with Musharraf action Post-Godhra investigations sabotaged: US report |
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Troops to Iraq: Sibal meets Rice
Canadian gurdwara in
ownership dispute Schoolboy battered to death
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Terror ideology isolated: Jaitley London, July 2 “I think there is no substitute to India winning this whole issue (battle against terrorists) and succeeding and these 3,00,000 people (Kashmiri Pandits) going back,” Arun Jaitley, Minister for Law, Justice, Commerce and Industry, said while speaking at the Clement Attlee lecture and banquet organised by Labour Friends of India on the subject ‘Why India Matters?’ Over 500 distinguished guests, including Lord Swraj Paul, leading NRI and Ambassador for British Overseas Business, Lord Kang, Indian High Commissioner to the UK, Ronen Sen, S.P. Hinduja and G.P. Hinduja, Chairman and President, respectively, of the Hinduja Group, and members of the Confederation of Indian Industry currently here attended the function at the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel last night. Mr Jaitley noted that there was an increased alienation of people of Kashmir from terrorists and from the ideology of terror. “There is a lot more positive situation, it seems to be developing there. There also seems to be a lot of pressure on Pakistan to stop this cross border activity. And there is some change of intent (on the part of the Pakistani Government), at least in ostensible pronouncement the leadership of the regime that is making today,” he said. Answering questions at the end of his lecture, Mr Jaitley said he could not bind himself to a time-frame either on the question of restoration of normalcy in Kashmir or resumption of India-Pakistan dialogue. While stating that perpetrators of terror in Kashmir stood isolated, Mr Jaitley said “they do receive some patting on the back from across the border.”
— PTI |
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Germany willing to sell radars to Pak Islamabad, July 2 Talking to journalists in Berlin yesterday, the President said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder during the talks told him that all sanctions imposed on military supplies to Pakistan’s armed forces had been lifted, Daily Times today reported. Meanwhile, President Musharraf and German Foreign Minister Joschka discussed Indo-Pakistan relations, the recent peace overtures for the resolution of the Kashmir issue and security in the region. President Musharraf said Pakistan had done everything to end cross-border infiltration and wanted to resolve the Kashmir dispute and other issues with India in a peaceful manner, the daily reported.
— UNI |
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Pak deports 3 kin of Sharif Islamabad, July 2 “This is the rule of jungle. The rulers are afraid of popular leaders,” said Mr Siddiqul Farooq, a spokesman for the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party. Mr Nusrat Sharif, wife of Sharif’s brother Shahbaz, and her daughters were arrested yesterday and forced onto a flight to Saudi Arabia, where another 17 members of the family are in exile. The three women, who had come to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia to attend a wedding, had eluded a hunt by the police for almost a week, hiding in the homes of friends and relatives in their home city Lahore. “This is only because they have guns, they have muscle power and we don’t. So in this 21st century, they are using muscle power to deport their own citizens, women at that,” Mr Farooq said.
— AFP |
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Attack on Pak Christians: main suspect held Islamabad, July 2 Abdul Jabbar, who commands a faction of the outlawed extremist group Jaish-e-Mohammad, was captured in the city of Sargodha in Punjab province at the weekend, a provincial official told AFP. Jabbar, who had close links to Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime, has a history of active involvement in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir. Five of his accomplices were also rounded up, the official said on the condition of anonymity. The police believes that Jabbar provided weapons, intelligence and funds for a suicide attack on a diplomat-filled church in Islamabad, an attack last August on a school for foreign missionaries’ children in Murree near the capital, and the grenade attack on a Catholic hospital chapel a few days later.
— AFP |
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Bush satisfied with Musharraf action Washington, July 2 The US President feels that the Indo-Pak tensions have diminished as a result of the actions of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Musharraf, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday. “When you see what is happening in relations between India and Pakistan, where they are exchanging Ambassadors, the Ambassadors are starting to arrive in each other’s country and you see improvement in the tension, the lessening of tension between India and Pakistan, it is a result of the steps that both Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf have taken”, he said.
— PTI |
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Post-Godhra investigations sabotaged: US report Washington, July 2 The 70-page report “Compounding Injustice: The Government’s Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat,” examines the record of the state authorities in holding perpetrators accountable and providing humanitarian relief to victims of massacres in the state in February and March, 2002. The Human Rights Watch urged the Indian government to take over cases of large-scale massacres where it alleged that the state government had “sabotaged investigations.” On June 27, a Gujarat state court acquitted 21 people accused of burning alive 12 Muslims in a bakery in Vadodara, it pointed out. Thirtyfive of the 73 witnesses reportedly retracted in court the statements they had given to the police identifying the attackers, the group said. “The government’s record on the massacres is appalling,” said Smita Narula, senior researcher for the Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Sixteen months after the beginning of the violence, not a single person has been convicted,” the report said. More than 100 Muslims had been charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) for their alleged involvement in the train massacre in Godhra, the Human Rights watch said. “No Hindus have been charged under POTA in connection with the violence against Muslims, which the government continues to dismiss as spontaneous and unorganised,” it added. Although the Indian government initially boasted of thousands of arrests following the attacks, the Human Rights Watch said, most of those arrested had since been acquitted, released on bail with no further action taken, or simply let go. It alleged that the police regularly “downgrade serious charges to lesser crimes- from murder or rape to rioting, for example - and alter victims’ statements to delete the names of the accused.” “Even when cases reach trial, Muslim victims face biased prosecutors and judges. Hindu and Muslim lawyers representing Muslim victims, and doctors providing medical relief to them, have also faced harassment and threats,” it said. Hindus in Gujarat had suffered as well, the group said. “Thousands of small businesses owned by Hindus closed down during the violence. The relatives of the Hindus killed in Godhra have been denied redress and some face economic destitution,” it said. The report also documents and strongly condemns the September, 2002 massacre of Hindus at Akshardham in Gandhinagar. The watch charged Hindu nationalist groups with continuing to arm civilians in Gujarat and many other Indian states.
— UNI |
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Troops to Iraq: Sibal meets Rice Washington, July 2 Mr Sibal also met with Marc Grossman, Undersecretary of State. His visit comes in the context of the US desire to have a division of Indian troops in Iraq. India is expected to take a decision on sending troops to Iraq after Mr Sibal’s return from the USA where he would be discussing issues concerning the mandate for the stabilisation forces, according to informed sources. The visit is significant also because it comes soon after the recent decision by President George W Bush to give $ 3 billion aid to Pakistan, half of it military and half economic. Mr Sibal’s visit to Washington follows the recent parleys between Indian officials, led by National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, and US Assistant Secretary of State Peter Rodman during which clarifications were sought by New Delhi on several points. Defence Minister George Fernandes had yesterday said that the government was still awaiting US response on these issues. Washington has urged India to send at least a division-level force or between 18,000 and 20,000 personnel to Iraq, the sources said, adding that there was a strong possibility that they would be stationed in Northern Iraq. — PTI |
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N. Korea rejects US plea on missiles Seoul, July 2 The commentary by the Rodong Sinmun daily came amid renewed focus on North Korea’s sales of weapons of mass production and a fresh flurry of diplomatic consultations aimed at halting Pyongyang’s attempts to build nuclear weapons. Also South Korea today confirmed that it would host ministerial talks with North Korea next week, but said the eleventh round of Cabinet-level talks since 2000 would be scaled down in view of the lack of progress on the nuclear dispute. And North Korea’s army announced that despite the tensions, it had accepted a US proposal for working-level talks on excavating and repatriating the remains of some of the 8,000 American soldiers missing since the 1950-53 Korean war.
— Reuters |
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Canadian gurdwara in
ownership dispute Vancouver, July 2 The police was called to the Sach Khand Darbar gurdwara on June 8 and 15 after shouting, pushing and shoving broke out between two groups, both of whom have supporters in terrorist outfit Babbar Khalsa, the ‘Vancouver Sun’ daily reported. Five people, who were the founders of the group that built the gurdwara received letters from the lawyer of the other side last week telling them they are banned from entering the building. “They say now the temple belongs to one Williams Lake and is a private property and that your are not allowed to come,” one of the five, Avtar Singh Chahal, who donated $17,000 to build the gurdwara, said. He said most members did not know that a couple of executive members of the original group transferred ownership of the $1.5 million property to another society in January, 2001, for a negligible amount of $1. The Babbar Khalsa-linked Sach Khand Darbar had bought the land for the temple in 1999 for $130,000. Darbar was unable to get a charitable status from the government, which would allow tax receipts to be issued for donations. In January 2001, two directors transferred the temple to the William Lake group, which had a tax number to issue receipts, the daily said.
— PTI |
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Schoolboy battered to death Dhaka, July 2 The teenage victim, identified only by one name, Rajiv, was killed after the team won the steel and wood trophy on Monday in Gazipur town, 30 km north of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, Ittefaq newspaper reported. Rajiv was waving the trophy with one hand when he dropped it on a concrete pavement near the school, the paper
said. The prize broke into several pieces. Cheering team-mates suddenly turned angry and beat Rajiv with iron rods and wooden sticks, leaving him seriously injured. He died on the way to a hospital. Police arrested seven teenage boys for their alleged involvement in the attack, the paper said, without giving further details.
— AP |
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