New Delhi, July 8
Ahead of his much-anticipated meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmud Qureshi on July 15 in Islamabad, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today declined to pre-judge the outcome of the talks, saying these were primarily aimed at reducing the “trust deficit” between the two countries.

“Let us not pre-judge the outcome. An initiative has been taken by Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and PM Manmohan Singh. This is primarily to reduce the trust deficit. This is a confidence-building measure," Krishna told reporters when asked if the Sir Creek issue would figure in the talks. He was speaking on the sidelines of the All India Annual Conference for Haj.

When asked about China's attempt to build a rail link with Pakistan through Karakoram, Krishna said, “Our National Security Adviser (Shivshankar Menon) went to China as Prime Minister's emissary. I have not got a chance to discuss the issue with him yet. But we are closely watching what is happening.”

On talks with Pakistan, New Delhi obviously is not keen on raising the level of expectations from what will be the first formal interaction at the political level between the two countries after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

Officials said India would again ask Pakistan to speed up the trial of the seven LeT operatives arrested by the Pakistani authorities for their involvement in the Mumbai attacks. It would also like to know from Islamabad whether it had provided to the Pakistani courts the evidence supplied by India linking JuD chief Hafeez Saeed with the Mumbai carnage.

Krishna, who leaves for Islamabad on July 14, is also expected to call on President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani before returning home on July 16. Issues like trade and people-to-people contacts are likely to come up in a big way during his talks with Qureshi. 

Kanker, July 8
Maoists attacked a Congress leader-cum-contractor’s house in the tribal dominated Dantewada district (Chhattisgarh) on Wednesday midnight as their 48-hour ‘bandh’ entered into the second day. In order to prevent the security personnel coming to help, they opened fire at a nearby Kuakonda police station.

The Congress leader, Avdesh Singh Gautam, escaped unhurt but his 15-year-old brother-in-law Sanjay Singh and his one employee were shot dead. His 11-year-old son Abhijit and two other relatives too received injuries.

The authorities claimed that six Maoists were killed during exchange of fire at the police station but their bodies were not recovered. Red rebels’ practice is to take away their ‘comrades’ bodies after such encounters.

On Thursday evening, there were alarming reports of a group of over 300 Maoists assembling in deep jungles of the Dhamtari district, adjoining the state capital of Raipur. Their location was reported to be about 150 km from Raipur. The police were suspecting that they might have moved there to carry out an operation on the last day of their bandh.

Late Wednesday night, the Naxals opened fire at CRPF’s Ekda camp in Narayanpur district. They retreated after an hour. No one was injured in the CRPF camp, which was already on high alert due to the ‘Bharat Bandh’ call given by the Maoists to take revenge as their top leader Cherkuri Rajkumar alias Azad was killed in Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh on July 2.

Today, several Maoist violence incidents were reported from different parts of the Bastar region. Here in Kanker, 150 kms from Raipur, and Naryanpur, the Maoists destroyed culverts, cutting off the area from other parts of the region.

A road works contractor, Gautam had been facing threats from the Red rebels for long. A former policeman, Gautam is closely associated with a senior Congress leader, Mahendra Karma, who launched the anti-Naxalite movement — Salwa Judum (people’s peace march) — in June 2005. 

Kolkata: The houses of seven CPM members and supporters were set ablaze by Maoists in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district on day two of the shutdown. A group of heavily armed Maoists raided the house of a former village council chief at Salboni town and set it on fire early Thursday, said DSP Aneesh Sarkar. Later, they torched the houses of six party supporters. — IANS 

New Delhi, July 8
Ever since Bhupinder Sherawat, 25, fell in love with Rajrani and the two tied the knot against the wishes of the girl’s distant family, the only constant thing in their lives has been the fear of death.

At large since a year are two of Rajrani’s cousins, accused of murdering one of their friends and mounting a deadly attack on them in October 2006, on the day they planned to get married.

The killers were furious with their sister for daring to marry someone from their ancestral village -- Daryapur Kallan -- on Delhi-Haryana border. The marriage, in their wisdom, was one within the gotra and thus unacceptable.

Never mind Rajrani’s parents’ consent to the wedding, her brother (in jail for attempting to kill the couple) and village cousins - Sonu Satyavan and Deepak -- remained dead against it. They took it upon themselves to guard the family’s honour that they felt had been besmirched by the girl.

“While we were heading to a temple in Punjabi Bagh to get married, these people opened fire at us. I sustained six bullet injuries in my chest and Raj got two in her forehead. We survived but our friend Dharam succumbed to his injuries,” Bhupinder tells The Tribune on the day Union Cabinet deferred the decision on amending laws to cover honour crimes.

The young boy has no idea of the deferment. But he’s sure that laws of the land are acutely insufficient to halt the perpetrators of honour crimes. Rajrani’s cousins -- main accused in the case -- are still on their murderous mission as FIRs under Sections 302 IPC (murder), 307 IPC (attempt to murder) and 102 IPC (criminal conspiracy) against them have failed to act as a deterrent.

Shockingly, both were out on parole within three years of being booked. What is worse -- Satyavan, who got parole in February last, jumped it and allegedly killed Bhupinder’s elder brother. Despite this, the other accused in the case -- Deepak -- secured a parole last month and has threatened to eliminate the boy’s family and the couple. “Satyavan killed my brother when he was returning home from his Najafgarh office. They are waiting to kill us. We have got personal security officers on court orders but I wonder if that will help,” says Bhupinder, questioning the Delhi government for clearing the paroles of the accused in the crime.

For the young couple -- who eventually married in 2007 -- the last three years have been the darkest years of their lives. Bhupinder hasn’t worked all this while; and Rajrani awaits a miracle.

Over the past year, courts in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana have issued 125 protection orders to couples fearing “honour” killings. Obviously, existing legal provisions are too meagre to inspire confidence among those spending every day of their life in the shadow of death.

New Delhi, July 8
The Supreme Court has ruled that the three per cent reservation in jobs for the physically-challenged candidates could not be held up for want of identification of suitable posts for them.The implementation of the law on reservation could not be “deferred indefinitely by bureaucratic inaction” in identifying the posts, a Bench comprising Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph held in a verdict yesterday.

The court’s observation came while directing the Centre to appoint Ravi Prakash Gupta, a 100 per cent visually challenged candidate who cleared the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission in 2006.

The Centre had refused to appoint Gupta, who figured fifth on the merit list, contending that there was only one vacancy for this reserved category that year. However, the candidate argued that seven posts were available for the category, going by the fact that the government had failed to implement the Disabilities Act, 1995 till 2006.

While Section 33 of the Act provides for 3 per cent quota, the government has to identify suitable posts under Section 32. “While it cannot be denied that unless posts are identified for the purposes of Section 33 of the Act, no appointments from the reserved categories contained therein can be made, and that to such extent the provisions of Section 33 are dependent on Section 32 of the Act… but the extent of such dependence would be for the purpose of making appointments and not for the purpose, the Bench ruled.

Lucknow, July 8
Two youth surrendered at the office of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) confessing to their involvement in the murder of a former Samajwadi Party MLA in Mau on Sunday.

Six unidentified persons had shot at the former SP MLA from Mau Kapil Dev Yadav while he was returning from a temple.

Ankur Rai (22) and Ravi Shankar Singh (21) tried to barge into the office of the SHRC member Justice Vishnu Sahai and pleaded guilty of the murder of Kapil Deo Yadav and said they feared they would be killed in police encounter. They alleged the district police was torturing their family members to extract information about their whereabouts.

They said six persons were involved in the murder. On the basis of the leads provided by them, the police today arrested another accused Manoj Rai.

According to the accused, they killed the former MLA to avenge the death of Ram Daras Rai, father of Ankur Rai.

Ankur alleged that instead of being treated like a criminal for murdering his father, Yadav had gained in stature and become an MLA.

The former MLA had 12 criminal cases against him, including those of murder and attempt to murder. He was manager of two degree colleges at Mau.