 |
|
|
Lahore Attack
Detention order on JuD chief reserved
Lanka fighting surges, 200 rebels killed
|
|
|
Vatican ‘washes’ away the contraceptive pill
|
|
Lahore Attack
Lahore, March 9 The security agencies conducted raids at several places after identifying Aqil, who has links to a banned militant group. However, the name of the group was not revealed. Though Aqil, who hails from Kahuta, managed to escape, his accomplice Talat was captured, Geo News channel quoted sources as saying. Talat and Aqil had been living in a flat near the Liberty traffic roundabout, where the Sri Lankan team was attacked on March 3 by a dozen gunmen who ambushed its luxury bus, leaving seven players and an assistant coach injured and eight people dead. Talat purchased a mobile phone SIM that was used by the terrorists involved in the attack, Geo News reported. Aqil masterminded the attack and was also in charge of its execution, it added. The Pakistani police has detained nearly 100 people for questioning. None of the 12 terrorists responsible for the attack have been arrested so far. The police has also described at least five of the persons detained by them as “facilitators” of the terrorists who carried out the attack. Mobile phones discarded by the terrorists have been crucial in tracing suspects, officials said. Preliminary investigations have also suggested that the attack could have been carried out by a group of operatives of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba to avenge the arrest of their operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
— PTI
|
|
Detention order on JuD chief reserved
Lahore, March 9 The JuD chief and five other detained leaders of the terrorist group, which has been banned by the UN, were produced before a judicial review board here of the Lahore High Court, comprising three judges. Saeed was placed under house arrest on December 12 last year and the five other JuD leaders - Haji Amir Hamza, Col (retired) Nazir Ahmed, Qazi Kashif Niaz, Mufti Abdul Rehman and Qari Yasin Baloch - were detained at around the same time. They were all placed under house arrest under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance, which allows a person to be held for up to 90 days. The home department of Pakistan Punjab province sought an extension of their house arrest, which is set to expire after a few days. The JuD leaders were driven to the court in armoured vehicles. Security personnel in plain clothes formed a ring round the courtroom in which the JuD operatives were presented before the review board. Saeed’s lawyer Zafar Iqbal told reporters that authorities had sought an extension in the house arrest without giving any valid reasons for the detention of the JuD leaders. The request for extending their detention was “based on foreign media reports”, he claimed. Iqbal said Pakistani authorities had not even received India’s response to their 30 questions seeking more information on the Mumbai attacks. He claimed the authorities had no grounds for holding the JuD leaders.
— PTI
|
|
Lanka fighting surges, 200 rebels killed The Sri Lankan military said it had killed at least 200 LTTE cadres during heavy fighting that erupted between the two sides in the coastal town of Chali in the northern Mullitivu district on Saturday. Troops had recovered bodies of over 150 Tamil Tiger cadres killed during the attempt by the Tigers to infiltrate the military forward defences South of Chalai on Saturday but their death toll is believed to be higher, Defence sources said. The sources added that troops were able to successfully repulse the infiltration efforts as they had ground intelligence and aerial reconnaissance information of an impending attack by the
LTTE. There was no word from the Tigers on the claims of high casualties among its members while the military did not say how many of its men had died in the fighting. As troops close in on the last remaining areas under the control of the Tigers, they are meeting stiff resistance from the
LTTE. Since Saturday, the LTTE's elite Charles Anthony Brigade and Radha Regiment have attempted to punch through the army’s frontline, the military said. “Now they have not held back. Their elite fighters have been deployed to stop troops from entering those areas,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. After 25 years of off-and-on civil war, Sri Lanka’s military is racing toward a final battle to crush the separatist group as a conventional force. The only thing slowing its advance is tens of thousands of civilians, mostly being held by the LTTE at gunpoint and suffering in dire conditions packed into a narrow 12-km long coastal strip, aid agencies say. In the same period, at least 676 civilians escaped the war zone, some on foot but the vast majority by boat, Nanayakkara said. The Tigers could not be reached for comment. The pro-rebel web site www.TamilNet.com, quoting an unnamed source, reported the LTTE had launched an artillery attack on the weekend that killed a “considerable number of soldiers”. Nanayakkara acknowledged some soldiers had been killed: “We have suffered casualties, but we are not releasing the numbers.” Both sides in the past have distorted battlefield figures to their advantage, and independent confirmation is difficult since the war zone is normally sealed off to outside observers.
|
|
Ex-LTTE man appointed minister
Colombo, March 9 43-year-old Amman alias Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, once a close aide of LTTE supremo V Prabhakaran, had split from the outfit in 2004 following differences with the rebel chief and formed Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) party which now heads the coalition government in Eastern Province. He visited the residence of the Sri Lankan President this afternoon along with 2,000 former fighters to join the Rajapaksa-led Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), official sources told PTI. Karuna later took oath as the non-Cabinet Minister for National Integration and Reconciliation. He joined the government two days after the TMVP members surrendered their arms in Eastern Batticaloa. His deputy and Eastern Province Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyan, who was also an activist of the LTTE for a long time after joining it as child soldier, formally led the process of the surrender of the arms. Pillayan said the TMVP wanted to create a trustworthy atmosphere in the country. — PTI
|
|
Vatican ‘washes’ away the contraceptive pill
London, March 9 In a long editorial marking International Women’s Day, Vatican’s official newspaper ‘L’Osservatore Romano’ pronounced the washing machine more important for the liberation of women than the pill as it had freed generations from the drudgery of household chores. “The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put the powder, close the lid and relax,” reads the article headline, above a black and white picture of two women in the 1950s admiring a front-loading machine. “In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of western women? The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalisation of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine,” ‘The Daily Telegraph’ quoted the article as saying. The first rudimentary washing machines appeared as far back as 1767, noted the article, with the first electrical models being produced at the beginning of the 20th century. The eulogy to a domestic convenience which most women in developed countries now take for granted quoted the words of late American feminist Betty Friedan, who in 1963 described “the sublime mystique to being able to change the bed sheets twice a week instead of once”. While early models were expensive and unreliable, technology had improved to the point that there is now “the image of the super woman, smiling, made-up and radiant among the appliances of her house,” the newspaper said. — PTI
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
