S P O T L I G H T

Curfew clamped on Shillong
SHILLONG, Aug 16 (UNI) — A 24-hour curfew was clamped in the Meghalaya capital today following yesterday’s militant attack on the police, which arrested a militant involved in the shoot-out during day-long searches at several places.

The militant arrested from the Mawprem area belonged to the HALC, which was responsible for the firing which killed a CRPF Havildar and injured a constable, East Khasi hills SP G.H.P. Raju told UNI this evening. Life was paralysed in the city due to the curfew, which would end at 5.00 am tomorrow. Fresh incidents of firing were reported tonight from downtown Shillong near the CRPF camp at Polo. But the attack was repulsed.

Home Minister T.H. Rangad said at a press conference here today that the link between the NSCN (IM) and the HNLC was yet to be established. Senior police officers were confident that with the search operation at Mawlai, Jaiaw and Laban areas more ultras, including NSCN cadres would be arrested. Mr Rangad said the state would not be allowed to turn into another Kashmir or Nagaland.

4 blast suspects arrested
KANPUR, Aug 16 (UNI) — Four persons were arrested in connection with the crude bomb explosion in the Govindpuri locality here last night that left six injured. However, arrests are yet to be made for the two blasts spaced 20 minutes apart in Arya Nagar here on Monday night, the police said.

Film editor Renu Saluja dead
MUMBAI, Aug 16 (PTI) — Noted film editor Renu Saluja, who with her crisp editing embellished several movies, died here tonight of cancer, family sources said. She was 48. Saluja, four-time winner of the National Film Award for best editor for movies, including “Godmother” and “Parinda”, had been suffering from stomach cancer for the past six months. She breathed her last at the Bombay Hospital at around 8 p.m.

She made her mark in her very first film “Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai”, directed by Sudhir Mishra whom she later married. In a career spanning over two decades in Bollywood, the highly-acclaimed technician edited over 25 movies, including “Hey Ram”, “Dharavi”, “Is Raat Ki Subaah Nahin” and “1942, a Love Story”. “Mission Kashmir” was her last film the editing of which she had recently completed.

Breakaway group supports Goa Govt
PANAJI, Aug 16 (UNI) — The five-member breakaway group of the Congress in Goa today extended “unconditional outside support” to the nearly nine-month-old coalition government headed by Mr Francisco Sardinha saying the aim was to ensure long-term political stability.

Addressing a press conference here, Indian National Congress (Shaikh Hassan) leader Haji Shaikh Hassan Haroon said he and four other legislators — Mr Suresh Parulekar, Mr Prakash Velip, Mr Jose Philip D’ Souza and Mr Filip Neri Rodrigues — had left the Congress and formed a separate group to support the Chief Minister. “Mr Sardinha was neither strong nor weak till now and now with our support, he is strong”, Mr Haroon said adding that the only condition attached to their extending support was that there should be political stability for the remaining years of the tenure of the present assembly.