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Tackling sea piracy
Lawlessness to the fore |
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Smashing start Unravelling the origin of the universe Scientists the world over are celebrating the success of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which smashed protons together to create a record-shattering 7-trillion-electron-volt (TeV) collision. The LHC, also called ‘atom smasher’ or ‘big bang machine’, is a super-cooled particle accelerator built in a 27-kilometre tunnel under the Swiss-French border near Geneva.
Dealing with 26/11 masterminds
Hands-on training
Death for ‘honour’
Going abroad — in jail
Hyderabad Diary
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Tackling sea piracy THE hijacking of seven Indian vessels with around 100 sailors by Somali pirates off the Gulf of Aden has once again highlighted the growing threat to international trade. It is still not known when exactly the vessels were seized by the pirates. The incident came to light last Saturday after a UAE vessel was set free by the criminals. India has immediately banned the movement of its vessels on the pirate-infested route to Africa, including the Gulf of Aden. The menace has acquired alarming proportions for the past few years. Vessels belonging to many other countries have also been attacked by Somali pirates, but the international community has not been able to do much to bring the problem to an end. According to experts, sea pirates operate with a vast network of informers. They have acquired advanced weapons and communication and navigation gadgets. Somalis, suffering from abysmal poverty, are increasingly taking to sea piracy because of high returns at a comparatively low investment. The failure of the affected countries to forge a common anti-piracy front has made the task of these criminals easy. Law in the European countries indirectly favours sea pirates as they have an opportunity to settle in the country where they are imprisoned. European seafarers are prohibited by law to hand over any captured pirate to an Arab country where he can be punished with death penalty. A sharp rise in sea piracy cases poses a major challenge to India because a large percentage of Indian imports and exports pass through the Gulf of Aden. At least 24 merchant ships from India transit through this key route every month. Some time ago India and Russia had agreed to launch joint anti-piracy operations, which involved the use of warships. The idea was to escort all the merchant ships cruising through the Gulf of Aden. Perhaps, this has proved to be unworkable. NATO countries have their own separate arrangements to meet the threat from sea pirates. However, the time has come for the international community to find a collective answer to the growing problem.
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Lawlessness to the fore
THE tragic murder of yet another couple at Patti in Tarn Taran district of Punjab on Tuesday, hours after a sessions court in Haryana sentenced five people to death for abducting and killing a couple who had dared to elope, serves as a grim reminder of the remnants of feudalism which still survive in the two states. Both the couples, Babli and Manoj from Haryana and Prabhjot and Pardeep from Punjab, were killed despite the court having granted them police protection. While the Haryana policemen have been indicted by the court for dereliction of duty, even collusion with the culprits, the ‘harmless’ homeguards deployed for the security of the Punjab couple were actually overpowered by the miscreants. In both cases miscreants managed to escape without any resistance from onlookers. The trend among people in this region of taking the law into their own hands is fairly well-entrenched. People are prone to flaunt their firearms and open fire at the slightest provocation. The incidence of violence related to road rage and violence prompted by an exaggerated sense of the so-called family-honour remains alarmingly high. And yet conviction rates continue to be abysmally low in such cases. Exemplary punishment is even more rare. Campaigns by the police against the flourishing illegal trade in firearms also seem to be sporadic at best. It is sad when the state fails to protect life and liberty of citizens. While the culprits, who in this case may well be mercenaries, need to be booked and made to pay for their crime, civil society in Punjab must also rise to oppose the feudal mindset that promotes medieval ideas like family vendetta and honour killing. Such alarming signs of a society in transition, or could it be a crumbling society, should make people sit up and take notice. The basic issues of disputed marriages on the ground of caste, gotra, social and economic disparities, age etc. need to be addressed even as the law takes its course. The Punjab government must also take urgent steps to control the deteriorating law and order situation which is increasingly encouraging people to defy law with impunity.
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Smashing start
Scientists
the world over are celebrating the success of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which smashed protons together to create a record-shattering 7-trillion-electron-volt (TeV) collision. The LHC, also called ‘atom smasher’ or ‘big bang machine’, is a super-cooled particle accelerator built in a 27-kilometre tunnel under the Swiss-French border near Geneva. Many nations, including India, have contributed to the effort, and the scientists expect to reap rich data from what is said to be the most expensive experiment in the world. The LHC is run by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). First launched in September 2008, the LHC worked only for nine days when a badly soldered connection forced the scientists to shut down the machine through which they seek to understand the beginning of the universe. In the latest experiment, the scientists reproduced conditions that prevailed less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. As the sub-atomic particles collide, they split into elementary particles. The LHC is expected to show evidence of dark invisible matter, that scientists believe makes up some 25 per cent of the universe. Physicists also expect to find evidence of a theoretical particle which is thought to be responsible for mass in the universe — the so-called God particle. The LHC will gather data for two years. This data will have to be processed by scientists worldwide and scientists have set up the Grid. This sophisticated global network of more than 140 major computing centres will handle the roughly 15 million gigabytes of data expected to be generated annually. Over 100,000 scientists will analyse this data. The Grid is the biggest development in global communication since the World Wide Web, which too was developed by CERN. While it is too early to determine what exactly the LCH will accomplish, there are high expectations and the scientists deserve accolades for the successful experiment. No doubt it will trigger off much research and throw open a number of theories, conclusions and other spin-off that we will benefit from in years to come.
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Marriage always demands the finest arts of insincerity possible between two human beings. — Vicki Baum
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Dealing with 26/11 masterminds Nothing
exposes the gullibility of sections of the Indian elite more than their illusion that our American “strategic partners” will rein in the sponsors of terrorism in Pakistan. They seem to have forgotten that our American friends did little to stamp out Pakistan-sponsored terrorism after the Kargil intrusion, the December 2001 Parliament attack, or the 26/11 massacre in Mumbai. While the Western world and our own “liberals” shower praises on our leaders for their “statesmanship” and “restraint” in the face of provocation, each such capitulation only invites ridicule at India being a country incapable of responding “swiftly and decisively” to terrorist provocations. The latest example of Indian gullibility is the moaning one hears at Daood Gilani (half brother of a Press Adviser to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani), aka David Coleman Headley, being let of the hook with a plea bargain in a Chicago court, combined with a bland American refusal to extradite to India the man who conspired in the killing of 166 Indians while denying Indian interrogators unhindered access to the arrested terrorist. There has been a remarkable consistency in American behaviour when it comes to dealing with ISI activities directed against India. The Clinton Administration knew that the mastermind behind the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993 was the then Director-General of the ISI, Lt-Gen Javed Nasir, with the approval of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but refused to share intelligence implicating the ISI with us. One seems to forget that the US is primarily interested in eliminating the terrorist groups that harm its interests while showing little regard for the terrorist threats countries like India face. Moreover, issues become murkier when individuals and groups turn out to be double or even triple agents. A recent instance of such American behaviour has been the case of British national of Pakistani origin Omar Saeed Sheikh. The Sheikh was arrested near Delhi in 1994 while attempting to kidnap British and American nationals. He was, however, released and handed over to Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil in Kandahar during the hijacking of IC 814. Mutawakkil assisted the hijackers of IC 814 and even helped them to unload their baggage into his own car, for which he has been charged in an Indian court. But the Obama administration proclaims that Mutawakkil cannot be handed over to India to face trial because he is a ”moderate” Taliban, vital for American efforts for “reconciliation” with the Taliban! India should, therefore, be prepared to pay the price for the Obama administration’s determination to beat a hasty retreat from Afghanistan. Omar Sheikh’s case is even weirder than that of Mutawakkil. He is known to have been touch in Lahore with an ISI official, Brigadier Ejaz Shah, later appointed General Musharraf’s Director of the Intelligence Bureau. It has been established that aided by Lt-Gen Mehmood Ahmed, then Director- General of the ISI, the Sheikh wire-transferred $100,000 to the leader of the 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta. He, thereafter, confessed to the brutal beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl and was sentenced to death in 2002. Interestingly, this sentence has not been carried out and the Sheikh leads a relaxed life behind bars in Hyderabad (Sind) and even has access to mobile telephones with British SIM cards. The Sheikh is an interesting case study of the murky world of agencies like the CIA and the ISI. Credible reports suggest that he began his intelligence links as an agent of the British MI 6 to wage war together with international jihadis against the Serbs in the Balkans. He was, thereafter, coopted by the ISI to wage jihad against India and secure the release of Maulana Masood Azhar. Responding to the million-dollar question of why the CIA has not demanded the Sheikh’s execution for the beheading of an American national, the Pittsburgh Tribune noted: “There are many in the Musharraf government that believe that Saeed Sheikh’s power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA.” It is well established that David Headley was recruited by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) around 2001 after his early release was secured from imprisonment for drug smuggling from Pakistan, in order to act as an informer on drug smuggling from Pakistan. Yet, by 2003, he was undergoing intensive training in Lashkar-e- Toiba (LeT) camps on close combat, weapons and explosives. This was around the same time that the Bush Administration had declared the LeT a terrorist organisation. The natural inference is that apart from working as an agent of the DEA, Headley was used by the CIA to penetrate the LeT. It is a different matter that given the widespread support for jihad within Pakistan, he became an active supporter of the Lashkar even when on the payroll of American agencies. Another instance of the Obama administration’s propensity to clutch at straws as it prepares for a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan has been its illusion that there has been a “turnaround” in Pakistan’s policy of supporting the Taliban because of the arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second ranking Taliban leader, by a joint team of the CIA and the ISI in Karachi. The reality appears to be that the CIA stumbled upon a Taliban hideout in Karachi and the arrest of Baradar was purely coincidental. More importantly, his arrest was an embarrassment, as Baradar was secretly, unknown to the Pakistanis, in touch with President Karzai and a UN envoy. Both Karzai and Baradar are Durrani Pashtuns, sharing common tribal loyalties. An infuriated President Karzai has found his “reconciliation” efforts with the Taliban now undermined, with the Pakistanis procrastinating on his demand for the extradition of Baradar to Afghanistan. Pakistan, which for years has denied the presence of the Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura on its soil, now brazenly demands that it will be the prime intermediary in any process of reconciliation with the Taliban — a demand the Obama administration appears to be meekly succumbing to. It is obvious that the Obama administration has no intention of bringing the real perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai carnage to justice. Lobbying with the Indian community and the US Congress is necessary to get the US administration to act against those responsible for the carnage. New Delhi should also approach civil society organisations in the US, apart from the relatives of the American nationals brutally murdered in Mumbai and pro-Israeli Jewish organisations outraged by the targeted killing of Jews in Chabad House, to join this effort. Moreover, approaches to formally interrogate Headley should be supplemented with legal action seeking his
extradition.
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Hands-on training AS officers of the Indian Revenue Service, we were trained in the art of search and seizure. During mock drills conducted at the parent academy we were taught not only the intricacies of law but also management of the assessee (tax-payer) and tax-evader. So, armed with freshly garnered knowledge and skills I confidently went for my first search operation. Our team entered a residential premises and began a physical search. I was asked by the members of the household if they could send their five-year-old daughter to school. Keeping in mind the spiel on “rights of assessee” during our training, I assented to their demand. As a matter of abundant precaution, however, we checked the child’s bag which contained a few books, a tiffin and a water bottle. Alerted by the surreptitious looks passing between members of the household, an alert and enterprising official in my team emptied out the tiffin and water-bottle. And guess what? The water bottle spewed out water along with bank locker keys. This was my first “field” lesson in “assessee” management. But there were more such lessons in the offing. My next search was even more dramatic. Every time we attempted to search the main bedroom, the owner convincingly clutched at his heart and complained of shooting pain. Not wanting to take a chance, we requested a cardiac specialist to examine the “assessee”. After the physical examination, a discomfited doctor came to me and timorously handed a nondescript notebook that detailed undisclosed transactions in crores. Apparently, the heart-clutching was simply a ruse to remove the incriminating note book from the bedroom before the search party found it. On another search, the lady of the house put a spanner in the works by alleging that the policewoman accompanying the search party had “picked” up her “Soltaires”. It turned out that the lady herself had hidden the solitaires in the pocket of her dressing gown. In another such search, the “assessee” kept up a running commentary about how, during the last search, he had locked the search party in the outhouse and had his henchmen beat the daylights out of them. This vitriolic commentary against a backdrop of “goons” hovering near the gate did nothing for our peace of mind. But, thankfully the commentary did not translate into a re-run of the previous search. One desperate tax-evader even let loose canine power to deter the search party. Before we could use a sedating dart, the bloodhound had taken a bite out of an official. These tax-evaders, in a short span of time, taught me what our mentors at the academy could not. This training “sans” mentors honed my assessee-management skills in ways no mock-drills
could.
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Death for ‘honour’
NOT too long ago, five armed men barged into the house of 22-week pregnant Sunita and her lover Jasbir Singh, strangling them to death. Moments later, the couple’s half-stripped bodies stood displayed at the entrance to Sunita’s paternal home in Karnal, her father winning applause from the community for having restored the family’s honour. The day was May 16, 2008. Two years on, Karnal is back in the news. Karnal Sessions Judge Vani Gopal Sharma on Tuesday awarded the death sentence to five of the seven accused persons for the “honour killing” of a young couple – Manoj and Babli – who had married in the same gotra defying a khap panchayat. The moment is euphoric. It sends the message that the diktats of the caste (khap) panchayats will no longer be tolerated and the rule of law will apply, irrespective of the social and political patronage the khaps may enjoy.
“Among the Jats of Haryana and other northern states, people of the same village are considered siblings and their marriage is treated as incest. The case in point was shocking. None of the ruling party politicians condemned the killings. “Kisan leader Mohinder Singh Tikait publicly threatened anyone who dared to lodge an FIR. Full political and other support was extended to the killers following the khap’s verdict,” recalls Javeed Alam, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. From where do the khaps then derive their powers? The question has bothered sociologists who agree that the khaps existed in the pre-modern times to enforce social norms, especially those concerning marriage. “The khap panchayats have revived themselves in the past 20 years following the opening up of rural societies which have seen the movement of people across regions, castes and sub-castes,” explains Prof Surender Jodka of Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“They were not discouraged as much as they should have been. Till the time society was closed – until about 20 years ago – the Jats were fine. But when girls began to exercise their personal choices, the khaps became uncomfortable and felt pressured to preserve the purity of the clan. That’s when they started reconsolidating,” Jodka adds, describing the Karnal court judgment as historic – one that will send a strong message that extra-constitutional bodies have no room in a civilised democratic set-up. The judgment has been widely appreciated. National Commission for Women Chairperson Girija Vyas says the laws need to be strengthened further to deal with honour crimes as murders. Ranjana Kumari, head of the Centre for Social Research, which was at the forefront of the domestic violence prevention movement, says the verdict will teach a lesson to everyone who treats women as commodities and indulges in mass brutality in the name of
honour.
One of the cases that awaits a verdict relates to 21-year-old Ved Pal of Singhwal village in Haryana. Vedpal was abducted from under the nose of policemen by members of the khap panchayat while he was on his way to meet his wife Sonia. The couple was murdered in July, 2009. After executing the death sentence awarded by the caste panchayat, a 500-strong mob displayed the victims’ scarred bodies as a mark of victory in the battle of honour. The two belonged to the same gotra. Hundreds of such cases surface every year in the Rajasthan-Delhi-Haryana-Uttar Pradesh-Bihar belt, where caste equations remain dominant. Honour killings continue to be perpetuated largely because the khaps view marriage within the gotra as incest. Even the Hindu Marriage Act of 1954 bars marriage within the third generation in the line of ascent through the mother, and the fifth generation in the line of ascent through the father. It further bars marriage between certain degrees of prohibited relationships, including brothers and sisters.
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Going abroad — in jail
UPON petitioning the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Chandigarh, the London Borough of Ealing was very recently successful in securing an emergency travel document for 12-year-old Gurinderjit Singh abandoned on the streets of Southall in the UK two years ago. Sadly, he was a victim of illegal immigration as those who deserted him preferred to remain in hiding to stay in the UK to conceal their wrongful immigration status. Perhaps, they harboured a belief that deserting the boy would lead to the regularisation of his immigration status in the UK. This did not happen. The Borough through the British courts became the boy’s guardian and moved for his repatriation. Fortunately, the boy was reunited with his extended family to celebrate his 12th birthday at home in his village in Punjab. Gurinderjit was happily back home on March 29, 2010, after the Guardian Judge took a decision on his custody. At a recent seminar in Chandigarh of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Organised Crime (UNODC), it was revealed in a report that 20,000 persons from Punjab try to migrate abroad illegally every year. It was also reported that over one lakh persons who migrated illegally landed up behind bars. Many languish in jails abroad with no hope of return. Others, who stay on for economic and social reasons, are compelled to remain away from their homeland forever to keep their illegal status intact. Their return becomes a myth. No wonder, human trafficking agents thrive. The Passports Act, 1967, and the Passports Rules, 1980, recognise the grant of emergency travel certificates authorising persons to enter India. Citizens of India abroad whose passports are lost, stolen or damaged and who cannot be issued a new passport without verification and persons who produce insufficient evidence to justify Indian citizenship, as also Indian citizens whose passports have been impounded, revoked or refused or have to be repatriated to India qualify for the grant of emergency travel certificates. The Indian missions abroad within whose jurisdiction such Indian citizens exist are competent to issue emergency travel certificates. However, neither the law nor any policy actually helps the illegal immigrants who attempt to return home in desperation abroad. The procedure for obtaining an emergency travel certificate is cumbersome and technical. Proving Indian nationality for an Indian citizen in the absence of any documentation can be difficult. The verification of antecedents in India by the Indian mission abroad as a precondition poses a major challenge. The result: a large number of Indian nationals languish in jails abroad. Communication problems, lack of money and an inhospitable climate abroad can perpetuate their agony. Such hapless Indian citizens are a condemned lot. Perhaps, the best possible solution to commence the return procedure is for every state government to ask the Central government to request all foreign embassies and high commissions in New Delhi to give them a list of all Indian nationals detained in their respective countries on account of illegal immigration. Thereafter, the Centre can pass on such lists to the states to which illegal immigrants belong. Once the antecedents of such Indian nationals are verified, emergency travel certificates can be issued to them through the Indian missions abroad. Leaving things in a flux and carrying on with the status quo will not help. As of now, the inclination, initiative and incentive to adopt a positive path seem to be lacking. States will have to prompt the Centre to start a fast-track process for the return of illegal immigrants. Once immigrants start returning home, their cases would deter others who wish to go abroad illegally. The enactment of a deterrent law may also help. The writer, a practising lawyer, handled Gurinderjit’s case
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Hyderabad Diary Mallya, an ardent devotee, visited the hill shrine recently and offered special prayers for the success of his team. The liquor baron and owner of Kingfisher Airlines also made a hefty donation of Rs 6 crore for the temple’s ambitious Rs 1,000 crore project to gold-plate the inner walls of the sanctum sanctorum. A deeply religious Mallya makes it a point to visit Tirumala, the country’s richest temple, and seeks the Lord’s blessings whenever he takes up a new project. He had paid $ 111.6 million for RCB, next only to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries which bid $ 111.9 million for Mumbai Indians.
Farewell to alms It is time to log off for beggars in the IT-savvy Andhra Pradesh. Seeking alms in public places has been banned in AP, a state that revels in projecting a progressive and reforms-oriented image. Any person found begging on the streets can be arrested without any warrant. As per the new rules framed for implementing the Prevention of Begging Act, seeking alms at public places, including traffic junctions, bus and railway stations, will be treated as an offence. The arrested beggars will be produced in courts. After ascertaining their medical condition, the courts will order their detention in a work-house for a maximum period of three years. During this period, the beggars will be required to work for six hours a day and the wages thus earned will be returned to them on their release. After the completion of the term, the “convict” will be released only after obtaining a written undertaking that he will not repeat the offence. According to a survey, there are an estimated 12,000 beggars in Hyderabad alone, collectively earning about Rs.15 crore per annum through alms.
Love beyond border Ever since Pakistani channel Geo TV broke the story about wedding plans, the air here is thick with excitement. Sania has a huge fan following in her home town. Shoaib is no stranger to Hyderabad, though his earlier tryst with the city was controversial. The Pakistani captain was involved in a marriage dispute with city girl Ayesha. He had reportedly exchanged marriage vows over telephone in 2002 but backed out later. Sania, whose international ranking has been plummeting over the last few months, had called off her engagement with a city-based businessman Sohrab Mirza in January on grounds of incompatibility. The tennis star’s family announced that her marriage with Shoaib will take place an April 15. After the marriage, the couple would shift to Dubai and pursue their respective careers.
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Bollywood
In an atmosphere of mutual distrust between India and Pakistan over terrorism, a sub-continental love story involving tennis star Sania Mirza and Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik has come as a whiff of fresh air. Will the union of sporting icons achieve what political rulers could not? Several Hyderabadis feel that the impending marriage will go a long way in strengthening the bonds between peoples of the two countries.