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Blasts kill 60 in Baghdad
Kanishka report to be out in June
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Sale of land with Sikh shrines illegal: Pak House panel
Islamabad/Lahore, April 23 A Pakistani parliamentary panel today criticised the alleged illegal sale of agricultural land attached to two Sikh shrines in a village near Lahore to the army-run Defence Housing Authority (DHA), saying it was not permitted under the rules.
‘Pakistan may let Taliban
use nukes against India’
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Baghdad, April 23 Seven blasts hit different areas of the Iraqi capital around the time of Muslim prayers, mostly near Shi'ite mosques and at a marketplace, an interior ministry source said. Around 112 persons were wounded. “Targeting prayers in areas with a certain majority,” Baghdad security spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said, referring to Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, “is a revenge for the losses suffered by Al Qaida.” “We expect such terrorist acts to continue.” Last Sunday, Al Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, purported head of its affiliate, were killed in a raid in northwest of Baghdad by the Iraqi and US forces. In today's attacks at least 21 persons were killed and more than that number were wounded when three bombs exploded in populated Sadr City slum. Another bomb killed at least 11 and wounded 17 near a Shi'ite mosque in al-Ameen district in southeastern Baghdad. An earlier car bomb killed three persons near a Shi'ite mosque in the northwestern neighbourhood of al-Hurriya, the police said. Hours earlier, seven members of a family were killed in a series of blasts in Khalidiya, a town in Iraq's turbulent western province of Anbar 83 km (50 miles) west of Baghdad. One police officer died trying to defuse a bomb. The mainly Sunni province of Anbar has been relatively quiet since tribal leaders in 2006 started turning on Sunni Islamist groups such as Al Qaida, which had once dominated it. But insurgents continue to operate in the vast desert province. Iraqi officials say they have been expecting revenge attacks from Sunni Islamist insurgents after security forces scored a number of victories against Al Qaida in the past month. The strike against Al Qaida’s Iraq leadership has been accompanied by a string of smaller battlefield victories in which more than 300 suspected Al Qaida operatives have been arrested and 19 killed, according to US and Iraqi officials. Overall violence in Iraq has fallen in the last two years as the sectarian bloodshed that followed the 2003 US-led invasion faded, but tensions were stoked last month after a national election that produced no clear winner. — Reuters
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Kanishka report to be out in June
Toronto, April 23 The Air India Kanishka flight 182 from Montreal to Delhi was blown up mid-air near the Irish coast June 23, 1985, by a bomb planted by Khalistani elements to avenge the army action at the Golden Temple to flush out militants. All 329 passengers, mostly Indian Canadians, were killed, making it the worst aviation attack in history till 9/11 happened. Another bomb, meant for another Air India flight, also went off at Tokyo airport the same day, killing two baggage handlers. As the verdict in the criminal trial in 2005 pointed out, Sikh militants had planted both the bombs at Vancouver airport in two unaccompanied suitcases which were transferred to the connecting Air India flight and Tokyo-bound flight at Toronto airport. Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was the only person jailed for his role in the bombing, was released last year. Two Vancouver-based suspects - Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri - were acquitted in 2005. As the non-guilty verdict in the criminal trial led to outrage among the families of the victims, the government set up a commission under former Supreme Court Chief Justice John Major in 2006 to conduct a public inquiry into the case. Commission sources said Thursday that the report is set for release in June - the 25th anniversary of the bombing. During its investigations, the commission called in more than 200 witnesses and went through more than 17,000 classified papers. The inquiry was finished in 2008 but because of various delays, including parliamentary elections, it couldn't be presented on time. The five-volume report is likely to run into more than 3,100 pages. "But we don't know when the report will be out... only the inquiry commission knows. We are just waiting for it," Toronto-based Bal Gupta, who lost his wife in the bombing and was the brain behind the Air India Victims' Association, told IANS. Asked whether the report will put closure on the tragedy, he said: "No, there will never be closure on this tragedy for us. No report can do that." The report comes out at a time when India has expressed its concern to Canada that Khalistani activities are once again increasing on its soil. — IANS
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Sale of land with Sikh shrines illegal: Pak House panel
Islamabad/Lahore, April 23 A total of 850 kanals attached to the two shrines - Samadh Bhai Maan Singh and Gurdwara Deh - in the village within Lahore cantonment were sold to the DHA by the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), which is responsible for managing the properties of Pakistan's minority communities. The Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly or lower house of Parliament constituted a special committee to unearth the alleged wrong-doing in the sale of land by ETPB to DHA. The parliamentary panel said ETPB was not entitled to sell its land to DHA or any other department or authority under existing rules. Public Accounts Committee chairman Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan asked the ETPB to present a report on the issue as the management of properties of minority communities is a "sensitive" matter. ETPB chairman Syed Asif Hashmi, who appeared before the panel, said the board had an agreement with DHA whereby it provided 850 kanals. The DHA was to return 43 per cent of ETPB's land after developing it but it returned only 25 per cent of the land, he said. Instead of developing the land for increasing its productivity, the board had allegedly sold it to the DHA in a deal that changed the very nature of the agriculture land into residential plots. —
PTI
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‘Pakistan may let Taliban
use nukes against India’
Washington, April 23 "If something broke out in Kashmir that reignited the vitriol between India and Pakistan, that could be an incident that could cause someone to make the decision. "We don't want to use these weapons, but we're going to let our surrogate Taliban have access to these weapons and they'll do our dirty work," Bob Graham, head of US Commission on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism told US lawmakers at a Congressional hearing. Graham was responding to questions from anxious lawmakers who expressed concern over the safety and security of nuclear weapons in Pakistan at a hearing convened by the House Homeland Security Committee. "I think one of our recommendations was to work with India and Pakistan to develop some fail-safe procedures. Unlike, the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, where although we were strong adversaries and had the capability of destroying each other. We understood that we didn't want to allow a misstep or an accidental event to become the ignition for such a war. So we set up the red phone in the Oval Office and a whole protocol," Graham said referring to the report of the commission released early this year. "None of that exists between India and Pakistan. I have felt that this may be an area in which the US and Russia together, since we developed these protocols for our own benefit and the world's benefit, might work together with India and Pakistan to try to get them to develop," he said.—
PTI
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Bombs targeting Shi’ite areas killed at least 56 persons in Baghdad today in a possible backlash after Iraq touted a series of blows against Al Qaida. Eight persons were also killed by bombs in the Sunni west of the country.
