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| Saturday, February
17, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Trans-border terrorism new challenge
Emotional rehabilitation scheme for
Gujarat Surjewala attacks Patel govt |
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Haryana adopts
5 more villages Special treatment Lanka President arrives next
week Vajpayee kicks off campaign in
TN HC clears decks for Ayodhya
trial Quattrocchi case CBI begins probe into Pillai’s
death 3 Bihar IAS officers booked ED quizzes
Sanjay Dutt Map issue: WWF
apologises to India
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Trans-border terrorism new challenge New Delhi, February 16 Addressing Delhi Police personnel on the occasion of the Raising Day function of the force, Mr Advani said the last few years had witnessed a total transformation in the role of the police. From investigating cases of robbery, murder, theft, kidnapping and dacoity, the police were today more busy probing incidences of militancy, he said. “Militancy has posed a growing challenge before the police.” The Home Minister stressed the need for steps to change people’s perception towards policemen. “There is need to
instill confidence among the people about the police so as to make them come forward in extending a helping hand,” he said. About the complaints of the police, Mr Advani said the grievances had been taken note of and the matter would be placed before the Finance Ministry keeping the financial implications in mind. Delhi Police Commissioner Ajay Raj Sharma told the Home Minister that there was need to increase the accommodation facilities for its personnel. He said only 16 per cent of its staff members had so far been given official residences. Besides, the police also had raised demands to enhance the quantum of bonus and the number of casual leaves. The police wanted the bonus to include both the basic salary and the dearness allowance (DA). At present the policemen were receiving bonus equivalent to one month of basic salary. On the casual leave, the stand of the police was that the Ministry of Home Affairs should restore the total number of leaves to 15. The MHA had brought the number down to 10. Though he did not make any announcement, the Home Minister said the matter would be considered sympathetically. Mr Advani gave away 21 gallantry awards for exemplary performance of duties to Delhi Police personnel. Among those honoured were the Special Cell Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Chand, who had led the investigation into the December 22 Red Fort militant attack. Earlier, Mr Advani took the salute as the contingents of various Delhi Police units marched at the New Police Lines Parade Ground. Three battalions each from the general police, women cell, commandos, dog squad, traffic police, riot police, the communication cell and the police control room participated in the parade this morning. Meanwhile, taking a cue from the foreign sniffer dog squads which played a major role in retrieving survivors from the debris in quake-hit areas of Gujarat, the government has directed Border Security Force to introduce similar training for its dog squads. “During the rescue operations in Gujarat, several foreign dog squads could successfully help retrieve survivors from the debris. Our sniffer dogs are not trained for this,” Mr Advani told reporters after taking salute at the Delhi Police Raising Day parade here today. “Till now sniffer dogs in India used by the police and security forces were at best utilised only after explosions or some petty crimes,” Mr Advani said, adding the BSF Training School at Tekanpur had been directed to introduce training module for the dog squads. Earlier addressing the parade, Mr Advani said the role of police in providing internal security cover has “gone up manifold”. “This is against what was originally mandated during the framing of the Constitution. Your role has increased by leaps and bounds not only in Delhi but all over the country. I am happy to note that the Delhi Police is discharging its responsibilities befittingly,” he said. The parade, marking the 54th Raising Day of the city police, was led by Additional DCP Sunil Garg. The function was attended among others by Delhi Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor and Union Home Secretary Kamal
Pande. |
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Emotional rehabilitation scheme for
Gujarat New Delhi, February 16 “A group of women would go around the camps in the quake-devastated areas like Bhuj, Rapar, Anjar and Bachau to help people there to overcome the emotional trauma,” the Khadi and Village Industries Commissioner(KVIC), Dr Mahesh Sharma, told The Tribune. “In the initial phase, the group, comprising about 20 women, would focus on Rapar. They would meet the quake victims frequently and talk to them, so that the victims can emotionally overcome the tragedy,” he said. The emotional rehabilitation scheme is being launched by the Gandhian organisation after a meeting by the KVIC, Harijan Sewak Sangh, Gandhi Samarak Nidhi, Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti and AVARD. He said the volunteers would be providing emotional rehabilitation to people for the next three months. Asked whether the volunteers included a team of experts like psychiatrists, to handle the delicate mental balance of the victims, he said, “The group includes those who have worked in disaster zones and they had worked in Latur, the epicenter of the 1993 quake.” Medical experts have stressed the need for psychological treatment of the quake victims as they have seen the houses crumbling down, relatives and their dear ones dead, and in some cases they are the lone survivors and in some cases they are alive but have become handicapped. Doctors said post-quake trauma patients should seek the help of psychiatrists, as any oversight might lead to long term complications. “Usually the level of suicides among people, who have lost relatives and property in earthquakes is very high,” observed Dr K M Patel. Psychiatrists said survivors could face the prospect of battling with severe trauma for months as they struggle to piece together their shattered lives. Post-trauma stress typically starts weeks or months after the quake and can show up as anxiety symptoms like palpitations, difficulty in breathing, choking and panic. Dr Sharma said the KVIC was preparing Rs 50-crore package to rehabilitate 10,000 artisans in the quake-hit areas. It would also distribute relief material worth Rs 3 crore to the victims. He said the distribution had already started in Kutch, Surendranagar and Rajkot districts. He said a separate fund for disaster management was being created the KVIC with the help of Gandhian institutions and utilise donations, which were being received for helping victims of the tragedy and restoring their livelihood. This fund was being set up on a permanent basis to help victims of this natural calamity and future calamities. Dr Sharma said the KVIC was also taking few initiatives for building confidence and pre-training awareness of the affected people in order to create self-sustainable employment. He said the organisation was setting up 10 clusters of khadi and village industries activities covering 100 villages and 10,000 women and artisans for employment generation. The rehabilitation programme would be carried out in coordination with the Centre and State Social Welfare Board, CAPART and Gandhian institutions and other NGOs working in the field, he added. |
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Surjewala attacks Patel govt New Delhi, February 16 “Vast reservoir of aid received from India and abroad is not being distributed except through the BJP’s frontline organisations like the VHP and the RSS thereby denying quick and speedy distribution of relief materials through the large number of voluntary and political organisations working tirelessly in the quake affected areas,” Surjewala, who recently visited several quake-hit areas of Gujarat, told a press conference here. Criticising the claim of Mr Keshubhai Patel that there was no complaints about the effectiveness of the relief operations, the IYC President said “unfortunately, the state government is still not fully geared up to meet the challenges of rescue, relief and rehabilitation in these times of extreme devastation and human misery.” “While a large number of NGOs, NRIs and the Army and a number of international agencies are engaged in wiping every tear, there is lack of cohesion and coordination on the part of the state government and its agencies,” he alleged. Mr Surjewala also attacked the RSS and the VHP for “pursuing a policy of discrimination” towards Scheduled Castes and minorities in the distribution of relief materials. Accusing the state government and the Centre of not extending adequate compensation to the families of those killed and to the injured, Mr Surjewala demanded that there should be an elaborate compensation for the kin of those killed, maimed and injured and for loss of earnings in the “interregnum six months”. |
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Haryana adopts
5 more villages Rapar (Bhuj), February 16 This was announced by the Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, who visited several villages in one of the worst-affected tehsils in the Kutch region today. He also announced the adoption of five more villages by Haryana. Earlier it has adopted 15 villages. Mr Chautala also directed the Haryana volunteers and officials to provide ration to residents of the villages neighbouring the adopted villages. He was accompanied by the Union Minister of State for Home, Mr I.D. Swami, and the Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly, Mr Dhiru Bhai Shah, who is the BJP MLA from Rapar. Appreciating Haryana efforts to provide relief to the quake-hit in village after village the residents presented 5.5-metre-long Kutchi “pagri” to Mr Chautala as gratitude. It must have been embarrassing for Mr Shah when Mr Chautala introduced him to his electorate in almost all villages. Even Mr Swami was embarrassed when Mr Shah, who belongs to his own party, described him as a Secretary of the Haryana Government in one village. In Vrijwani village, Mr Chautala inaugurated a temporary panchayat ghar. He announced that it would be made permanent by Haryana and he himself would inaugurate it. The Adhyatam Sadhana Kendra, Bhiwani, and the Bhiwani district administration has decided to construct 200 tin structures for the residents of Trambo village. Mr Chautala was happy to know that Haryana was taking care of 10,000 families and so far had pitched 8500 tents. |
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Special treatment New Delhi, February 16 The commission would soon send its recommendation to the Cabinet, Mr Pant told reporters after an hour-long meeting with Uttaranchal Chief Minister Nityanand Swamy. At the meeting, the Chief Minister said his state fulfilled all five criteria, including financial unviability, for the purpose. Mr Swamy said 80 per cent of Uttaranchal comprised hilly terrain and had little infrastructure. Special category status would help the new state get 90 per cent of central funds as grant and only 10 per cent as loan, while for other states the grant element constitutes 30 per cent. Mr Swamy said 20 per cent of the total population of the state comprised the Scheduled Tribes and 17.5 per cent were Scheduled Castes. Some districts — Chamoli, Uttarkashi, Pithoragarh and Udham Singh Nagar — fell along the international border with China and Nepal. The state had an annual revenue of Rs 1,200 crore against an expenditure of Rs 3,026 crore, resulting in a deficit of Rs 1,826 crore. Asked about the demands for changing the name of the state to Uttarakhand and shifting the state capital from Dehra Dun to Ghairsain, the Chief Minister said these were non-issues.
UNI |
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Lanka President arrives next
week New Delhi, February 16 Arriving on February 22 evening, the Sri Lankan President would have a meeting with the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan and would have talks with the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee on February 23. It is interesting to note that Ms Kumaratunga’s private visit is longer than her official stay in the capital. Earlier, it was being said that the Sri Lankan President was coming here to undertake a sort of pilgrimage trip as she was expected to visit some centres of Buddhist worship but now sources are maintaining that she would remain in the capital for two days that is on February 24-25 on a private visit. With no official word coming from the Government about the details of her private visit, speculations are rife that her stay might have something to do with her health. Ms Kumaratunga came on an official visit in December, 1998. The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mr Lakshman Kadirgamar visited India in December last year and held wideranging talks with the External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh. Ms Kumaratunga is expected to brief the Indian leadership on the progress of anti-LTTE campaign currently being undertaken by the Sri Lankan Armed and Security Forces and the status of talks that the special Norwegian envoy, Mr Eric Solheim has been having with the LTTE leadership. The Sri Lankan President would also like to know from the Indian leadership, New Delhi’s view on SAARC that has been dormant for the past two years. |
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Vajpayee kicks off campaign in TN Coimbatore, February 16 Inaugurating the fair, Mr Vajpayee said, “We still have a long way to go to meet the expectations and needs of our people. But the NDA has shown the way”. “And I am confident that the people of Tamil Nadu will renew their mandate to our alliance whenever the next assembly elections are held”, Mr Vajpayee said. Stating that the
NDA government had faithfully implemented many of the promises made to the electorate, in the past three years, he said “We have enabled the regional parties to play their due role in managing the nation’s affairs”. The Prime Minister said the Centre-state relations had been “excellent” and there was communal harmony in the country.
PTI |
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HC clears decks for Ayodhya trial Lucknow, February 16 “Litigation regarding title over a disputed structure is no doubt a dispute of civil nature but demolition of a structure is a criminal offence”, Mr Justice Jagdish Bhalla observed in his 153-page verdict in the Ayodhya demolition revision petitions, delivered on February 12. “These two things are separate and are not relevant to each other. In criminal law “intention” plays a vital role. It is “intention” which is considered while deciding criminal cases. “Therefore, in the present case, it is not the question that the structure which was defiled in the present occurrence had already been defiled 42 years ago”, the high court observed, clarifying that “the question which has to be considered is as to what was the intention of the culprits at the time of occurrence which led to the demolition of the disputed structure”. With this, the high court cleared the decks for the trial of 40 accused including Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and former Faizabad DM Ravindra Nath Srivastava and SSP Devendra Bahadur Roy, among others, by upholding the framing of charges against them by a special CBI court. Fourtynine persons were chargesheeted in the Ayodhya case, of which eight, including Union Ministers L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, got a temporary reprieve due to a technical flaw in the notification transferring their trial to a CBI special court.
UNI Quattrocchi case Kuala Lumpur, February
16 Judge K.C. Vohrah heard preliminary arguments from his lawyers and the government in private before adjourning the proceedings.
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CBI begins probe into Pillai’s death New Delhi, February 16 “We have registered a case into her allegation and started an investigation,” CBI sources told UNI. The case was transferred from the Delhi police to the CBI on January 20 this year as per the directions of the Supreme Court. Ms Neena Pillai had alleged that her husband was the victim of a criminal conspiracy hatched by industrialist Nusli Wadia, godman Chandraswami and US investor Ross Johnson. Rajan Pillai died under mysterious circumstances in a hospital while in police custody in 1995. Doctors had said that he died of liver cirrhosis. In her complaint, Ms Neena Pillai alleged that her husband’s death was the outcome of a corporate battle to control the worldwide Brittania Industries, from which he had already been ousted. The case became controversial ever since the CBI in 1997 refused to abide by the order of the then Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Prem Kumar to conduct an inquiry into the allegation, saying that the magistrate had no power to refer the case to the premier investigating agency. Mr Justice Prem Kumar felt that keeping the international ramification of the case in mind, it would be appropriate that the CBI carried out the investigation. The CBI moved the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of the magistrate’s order on the ground that he had overstepped his jurisdiction while passing the order. However, the high court felt that the magistrate was justified in passing the order and directed the investigating agency to conduct an inquiry into the allegations. The bureau then moved the apex court where it got a judgement in its favour that the magistrate had no authority to order a
CBI investigation into any case. But the three-judge bench felt that the facts and circumstances of the case necessitated its investigation by the CBI.
UNI |
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3 Bihar IAS officers booked Patna, February 16 The FIR lodged here late last night by Inspector Randhir Kumar of the Special Branch, charged General Secretary of the Bihar Indian Administrative Service Association
(BIASA) P.P. Sharma, Industrial Development Commissioner G.S. Kang and Census Director S.K. Rakesh and their bodyguards with wrongfully confining him and a special branch constable Rajkumar when they were moving around the
BIASA headquarters. The officers have been booked under Sections 341, 342 and 353 of the IPC. Officials of the BIASA speaking to mediapersons here today, charged the two Special Branch personnel with “spying on them at the behest of Sadhu Yadav”. The two were alleged to have been found noting down numbers of vehicles of those IAS officers who had gathered to chalk out the future course of action against Yadav. Yadav is alleged to have forced Transport Secretary N.K. Sinha at gunpoint to sign an order revoking the transfer of an enforcement inspector Sitaram Paswan to Patna from Gopalganj, the MLA’s constituency, in his official chamber on January 18.
PTI |
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ED quizzes
Sanjay Dutt Mumbai, February 16 ED sources said Dutt was summoned yesterday to probe money transactions in the case relating to film financier Bharat Shah, who is facing the charge of alleged links with Karachi-based gangster Chhota Shakeel for personal gains. Shah has been arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). This is for the first time that an actor has been questioned by the ED in the case involving underworld-Bollywood nexus. Dutt is also an accused in the 1993 serial blasts case. He is being tried by a TADA court here which has released him on bail. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier interrogated Bharat Shah and “Chori Chori Chupke Chupke” film producer Nasim Rizvi on alleged hawala deals. Shah has claimed that he had financed the film for Rs 12.5 crore while the police said it was funded by the underworld. Rizvi has also staked his claim on the movie, saying that it was his own venture. ED sources said that in one transaction Bharat Shah had sent Rs 15 lakh by hawala to Chhota Shakeel through a contact in Dubai.
PTI Map issue: WWF
apologises to India New Delhi, February 16 The WWF International has conveyed its apologies for the error and for any embarrassment created through the India Mission in Berne (Switzerland), which took up the matter with the organisation, an official release said here today. The release said that the WWF International has also informed the Home Ministry that it has stopped the distribution of the map and has taken steps to rectify the error. The credit for bringing this blatant error to the notice of the government should go to Mr Prahlad Singh Patel, member of Parliament. |
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People of the port city of Bombay crowd the Gateway of India waterfront on Friday to watch the International Fleet Review. The Bombay government granted two days holiday to residents and workers, in the hope that less traffic would reduce smoke emission and enhance
visibility. 
