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Monday,
January 21, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Temple work may start before deadline: VHP BJP to contest 318 seats in UP
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| Militants shift to PoK Could wage ‘jehad’ against Pervez New Delhi, January 20 As the Pakistani regime continues its crackdown on militant outfits, militant groups have made it clear that they would continue their operations from Pakistan occupied Kashmir as it did not fall within the ambit of Islamabad and warned they could wage “jehad” against President Pervez Musharraf, media reports said.
ISI ‘supporting’ ultras in Tripura
Guilty Bihar Minister dropped NCC set to back forces Hit calls for unity among Sikhs Illegal
felling of trees continues
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Temple work may start before deadline: VHP Ayodhya, January 20 Launching the “Sant Chetavni Yatra” (warning march of religious leaders) from Ayodhya to Delhi to pressure the government on the temple issue, several VHP and BJP leaders described the temple construction agitation as a “dharma yudha” and asserted that the temple would be built by its strength and not through a court verdict. “The March 12 deadline given by VHP to the Centre is only for the handing over of 47 acres of land and not beginning the construction of the temple. We will begin the construction before March 12 itself if we get the land,” VHP International Working President Ashok Singhal told reporters here. The government will have to take a decision by March 12 and return the acquired piece of land to the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, he said. The sant yatra comprising 6,500 religious leaders would reach Delhi on January 26 while a delegation led by Mr Singhal would meet Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the issue on January 27. The function was held amidst unprecedented security which drew sharp criticism from Mr Singhal who threatened to launch an agitation against it. In the next phase of its mass awareness programme, VHP would launch a “purnahuti” from February 24 wherein 20,000 people would converge in Ayodhya daily for 100 days at a stretch, he said. The ‘Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir Nirman Samiti’ will meet in Delhi on January 26 followed by a meeting of VHP’s apex decision making body, the Marg Darshak Mandal. The mandal will meet the Prime Minister on January 27. Addressing religious leaders and VHP activists on the occasion, BJP MP from Faizabad Vinay Katiyar declared amidst cries of “Jai Shri Ram” that “Ram temple will be built on our strength.” BJP MP Swami Chinmayanand claimed that NDA partners of the BJP were not opposed to the temple and wondered why a joint parliamentary committee cannot be formed on the issue. He said VHP leaders would be meeting Congress leaders on January 24 as part of the Sangh Parivar outfit’s contact programme with parliamentarians and political leaders. The VHP today charged the Uttar Pradesh Government with converting the Ayodhya township into a jail ahead of the yatra. |
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Churches carrying
out conversions: RSS Guwahati, January 20 “Some churches in the country, especially those in the North-East, were busy in conversions which were politically motivated,” Mr Sudarshan told a rally of RSS workers at Netaji School in Maligaon here.
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BJP to contest 318 seats in UP Lucknow, January 20 The party has given 37 seats to the Rashtriya Lok Dal of the Union Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, after hard bargaining, including a round of talks between him and the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. The RLD had asked for 60 seats. As part of the seat sharing arrangement, the JD(U) has been given 13 seats, the Lok Jan Shakti of the Union Minister, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan eight and Ms Maneka Gandhi’s Shakti Dal six, the state BJP Chief Mr Kalraj Mishra, announced here. The BJP would be contesting 318 seats, he said. The party has already announced 317 seats. The Lok Parivartan Party formed by the expelled BSP leaders, Mr B.R. Verma and Mr R.K. Chaudhary and the Loktantrik Congress Party have been given four seats each, Mr Mishra said. The Samata Party has been given eight seats while the Kisan Mazdoor Bahujan Party two. Three seats have been given to independents. The BJP-led alliance in the state would go to poll as "mini-NDA," as it represented several parties which were part of the NDA government at the Centre, he said. Meanwhile, the Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Rashtriya Kranti Party leader, Mr Kalyan Singh, will file nomination for the Atrauli Assembly seat tomorrow. He disclosed this while releasing the second list of his party’s 16 candidates, besides announcing the candidature of Ms Munni Devi for the Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat. He was
non-committal on contesting the Bulandshehar Assembly seat even though there was speculation over the issue.
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UP gets into election groove Lucknow, January 20 All main political outfits, barring the Congress have announced their list of candidates and most of the parties have already kicked off their election campaign on issues both at the state and national levels. The BJP has said it would make terrorism and the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) its electoral plan, besides the government’s achievement during the past four years. Fighting terrorism and POTO will be the main issues for us in the elections, BJP spokesman H.N. Dixit said. Besides, the party would also seek mandate on the basis of the works undertaken for the welfare of the people and its social justice policy. The party feels that provision for separate reservations for the most backward castes and most Dalits will enable it to reap rich dividends at the polls. The BJP’s main political rival in UP, the Samajwadi Party (SP), which is banking on the anti-incumbency vote, has decided to “expose” the BJP-led government for what it claims on all round failures. SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has already kicked off his party’s election campaign by addressing a series of election meetings in different parts of the state, said the BJP’s attempts to rake up emotive issues would not cut much ice with the electorate. Mr Yadav called the BJP’s MBC card a “stunt” and said it would not fetch it the support of the backward classes as separate reservation for them was confined only to papers. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), also banking on the anti-incumbency factor, will, besides highlighting the failures of the BJP-led government during the past four years, try to expand its support base to all sections of the society. The Congress on the other hand feels that it will get the support of all sections of the people
particularly from those who had got disenchanted with the BJP. The Congress has also decided to approach people promising them development, which they claim has taken a back-seat during the successive non-Congress governments in the state. Though, according to the analysts, the main fight at the polls will be between the BJP and the SP, the BSP and the Congress were likely to put up stiff resistance in some pockets. The BJP has forged an electoral understanding with the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which is considered powerful in some parts of the western Uttar Pradesh.
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Militants shift to PoK New Delhi, January 20 The “Friday Times” quoted intelligence agencies as indicating that the religious clerics may not go down without fighting and were making efforts to instigate students of seminaries they controlled into starting a ‘holy war’ against General Musharraf. “The state erected this structure over a period of two decades. It will take at least three to four years before things calm down,” the weekly quoted an analyst as saying. The analyst pointed out that the government cannot hold the militants for long in jails and there was a need to change the climate in which this kind of intolerance bred. India has been alleging that the arrested militants were
quietly released, following which they went to the PoK to start their operations from there. This would also help Pakistan in showing to the world that it no longer indulged in cross border terrorism. Hizbul
Mujahideen supremo Syed Sallahuddin had recently stated that banned outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba could continue their activities from the PoK. Meanwhile, intelligence agencies in Pakistan were also worried that some of these fundamentalist groups could attempt to target the President. “What is worrisome is their ability to resort to subversive activities. The government will now have to be careful about that .... “We have seen this happen in Egypt, Algeria and even in India, so he (General Musharraf) has to be careful,” Friday Times quoted an intelligence official as saying. The weekly says, however, two factors have been favouring President Musharraf — support to the reformist agenda by the moderate Muslims and rout of Taliban in Afghanistan which discredited the militants. The weekly said the militant groups pushed several people into Afghanistan to fight the US-led allied forces but majority of them died while rest were in jails manned by Northern Alliance.
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Wish to kill Pervez
lands boys in jail Shivpuri (MP), January 20 Manoj Ojha alias Pinku (16) and Ram Niwas Namdev alias Rinku (17) from Khatora village about 65 km from here were arrested yesterday and have confessed to their crime, Mr Chanchal Shekhar, SP, told reporters. The duo, who were inspired by films like ‘Gadar’ and ‘Mission Kashmir’, told the police that after the December 13 attack they decided to go to Pakistan and kill General Musharraf, he said. They kidnapped their employer’s son Shanu on January 11 and demanded a ransom to finance their mission, the SP said. However, the police found the boy’s body on January 17 after questioning the villagers about the incident. The two teenagers surrendered to the police and were arrested.
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ISI ‘supporting’ ultras in Tripura Agartala, January 20 Sources said the extremists, who use Tripura as their corridor, come into the state through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border, carry out attacks and escape into a safe haven in Bangladesh. The statement was made following the Congress demand for resignation of the Left Front government on the grounds of “misrule, militant rampage and atrocities against party workers”. The Congress, in a press conference in New Delhi on Friday, released a “charge sheet” against the Left Front government headed by Mr Manik Sarkar. Refuting the charges, the sources said, “The Congress allegations were completely concocted, based on falsehood and made with an ulterior motive. Such allegations would only strengthen the hands of extremists and anti-national forces.” The Left Front sources stated that at least 18 battalions of the BSF were required to guard the 856-km-long Indo-Bangladesh border with Tripura, but the present strength of the BSF battalions was only nine. As a result, there was no effective check on the movement of terrorists across the international border, it added. There had been considerable delay in the actual commencement of fencing while the pace of work was very slow, they alleged, adding that only 7.5 km of the border with West Tripura has been fenced so far. The sources said as per the assessment of the state-level coordination committee Tripura required at least eight more battalions of paramilitary forces, including three of Army, which were withdrawn from the state earlier. |
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Guilty Bihar Minister dropped Patna, January 20 |
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NCC set to back forces New Delhi, January 20 “No one is excited at the prospect of a war. But the cadets are raring to reach the forward posts, ready to shift into battle mode, to live upto the example set by their predecessors in two crucial wars fought by our country,” Mr B.K. Bopanna, Director-General of the NCC, said here. Mr Bopanna said during the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars, a large contingent of NCC cadets in the rank of Captain and Major worked in tandem with the Army, extending their services in supplying arms and ammunition, assisting in ordnance factories and capturing enemy para-troopers. The cadets also worked hand-in-hand with the Civil Defence authorities and actively took part in rescue work and traffic control, the NCC chief said. The NCC is known as the “cradle of many a future lieutenant”. Realising this responsibility, Mr Bopanna says the NCC has chalked out a ‘Vision 2025’ for the first quarter of the new millennium with an emphasis on increasing Army attachment, modernisation of training methods and a complete revision of training syllabus. The programme, besides aiming to increase by one lakh the total strength of the NCC, organised into three wings — Army, Navy and Air Force — also has plans of qualitative improvements of instructors.
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Hit calls for unity among Sikhs New Delhi, January 20 “Sikhs, wherever they live, must unite in defeating the forces that have harmed the community’s interests for long,” DSGMC Chief Avtar Singh Hit, also President of the Delhi unit of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), told newspersons here as he led a procession in honour of the tenth Guru. Mr Hit urged the Delhi Sikhs to strengthen the prospects of the Akali-BJP alliance in Punjab, ahead of the state assembly elections due next month. “We are very pleased that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is visiting Rakab Ganj Gurdwara at 9.45 a.m. tomorrow to offer obeisance on the occasion of Guru Gobind Singh’s birthday,” he said.
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PM greets nation on Gurpurb New Delhi, January 20 “Guru Gobind Singh’s life is a perfect example of sacrifice, compassion and brotherhood. Mr Vajpayee said in a message.
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Illegal
felling of trees continues HANUMANGARH: The state has been suffering heavy losses due
to the felling of fully grown trees by thieves in the canal area in
the Sriganganagar and Hanumangarh districts. Though the Central Government had given permission to fell and sell these fully grown trees in the Gang canal and Bhakra canal areas, but the state government has done nothing in this regard. The thieves are cashing on the sluggishness of the state government and are making a handsome amount by felling these trees. Sources said after starting the work of felling the fully grown trees along the Indira Gandhi canal about two years ago, the government decided to cut trees in the Gang canal and Bhakra canal area. In a survey conducted at that time in the Gang canal area about 87,000 babool trees, 46,000 sheesham trees, 28,000 eucalyptus and 3,900 other trees and in the Bhakra canal area about 84,975 babool trees, 79,000 sheesham trees and 20,000 other trees were found fully grown to be felled. A year was spent in deciding whether the work should be taken up by the Forest Department itself or it should be get done on contract. Finally, the job was assigned to the Forest Department. The trees under the Gang canal were more than 50-year old and those in the Bhakra canal area were 30-40 year old, the sources said. In the last months of the year 2000, the state government following the decision of the Supreme Court sent a scheme to the Central Forest and Environment Ministry to fell these trees by adopting scientific methods, the sources said. In this scheme emphasis was laid on felling the fully grown trees in the Bhakra and Gang canal areas and planting saplings in their place. In September 2001, the Forest Department gave green signal to the scheme, but till date work had not been taken up, the sources said. The sources said the project could not get a start in what of budget. The work was to be carried by the office of the Deputy Forest Conservator, Suratgarh, specially opened for the felling of fully grown trees. In the meantime, thieves are indulging in illegal felling of trees and this has been going on since long. The
sources said the thieves carried weapons with them and many times had
shot at irrigation officials. Cases of illegal felling of trees were
registered in various police stations, but the action had been taken
by the police only in a few cases. |
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4 ULFA ultras gunned down Guwahati, January 20 Acting on a tip off, the police surrounded the village last night where the militants were hiding. when they were asked to surrender, the ultras fired on the security personnel. The militants were killed when the police opened fire in retaliation, the sources said. One AK-47 rifle, a
Chinese made pistol, a wireless set along with some ammunition and incriminating documents were recovered from the deceased, sources said.
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New food policy in a month: Shanta Thiruvananthapuram, January 20 “As a hunger-free India is the NDA government’s aim, a new foodgrain policy would be announced within a month,” he told reporters here.
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