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British MP spurns his veiled voters
Six injured in Lahore blasts
2 ULFA leaders held
in Bangladesh
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Roadside bombs kill 4 NATO troops
UN to observe Nelson Mandela Day today
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British MP spurns his veiled voters
London, July 17 Philip Hollobone, a Conservative MP from Kettering in central England, a self-styled champion of veil ban in the UK, has proposed a French-style parliamentary ban on burqa in the British Isles. He has tabled a private members bill to ban certain face coverings in public and hopes that the French parliament’s decision this week to ban the veil in public will tip the balance in favour of similar restrictions in other European nations. In Kettering, Hollobone is asking his female Muslim constituents to come to meet him without face veils or otherwise communicate with him through letters. “I would ask her to remove her veil. If she said: ‘No’, I would take the view that she could see my face, I could not see hers, I am not able to satisfy myself she is who she says she is,” Hollobone was quoted as commenting in ‘The Independent’. “If she was in veil. I would invite her to communicate with me in a different way, probably in the form of a letter,” he said. He said the vast majority of Muslim women wore dress allowing people to see their face and claimed no Islamic scholars or clerics said wearing the burqa or niqab was a religious requirement. “It is not a necessity,” he said. “I just take what I regard as a common sense view. If you want to engage in normal, daily, interactive dialogue with your fellow human beings, you can only really do this properly by seeing each other’s face. “God gave us faces to be expressive. It is not just the words we utter but whether we are smiling, sad, angry or frustrated. You don’t get any of that if your face is covered,” he told the paper.
— PTI
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Lahore, July 17 The first explosion occurred at an internet cafe near a cinema hall in Garhi Shahu, a congested residential area, at 4.10 pm. The blast caused widespread damage to the cafe. The second blast occurred minutes later at another internet cafe in the basement of a building in Begum Kot, located about 15 km from Garhi Shahu. The police said the bomb was hidden in a bag. State-run rescue service spokesman Fahim Jahanzeb said at least six persons were injured by the blasts. They sustained minor injuries, he said. Rescue workers rushed the injured to nearby hospitals. Authorities evacuated parts of the Garhi Shahu area and closed down several shops. Personnel of the bomb disposal squad scoured the blast sites. The Tehrik-e-Tahafuz-e-Pakistan (Movement for the Protection of Pakistan) claimed responsibility for the attacks, Geo News channel reported. It also said that some journalists had received an SMS message that there would be three blasts in Lahore today. It did not say who had sent the message. Police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told PTI they believed elements linked to radical religious groups based in Lahore were behind the bombings. An alert had been sounded across Lahore, they said. — PTI
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2 ULFA leaders held
in Bangladesh
Dhaka, July 17 The two suspects, Ranjan Chowdhury (45) and Pradip Marak (55), were taken into custody from Lakkhipur area of Bhairab town in Kishorganj, 70 kms north of Dhaka, early this morning by the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion. RAB spokesman Lt Commander Mohammad Sohail said a sophisticated pistol, a revolver and four small bombs were recovered from their possession. At a hurriedly-convened press conference later in the day, Sohail presented the United Liberation Front of Asom operatives before the media in handcuffs. Sohail said the arrests were made based on a secret tip off that “several Indian trespassers” were staying at Bhairab, a commercial town, for long time. He said both Chowdhury and Marak were waiting for a bus to travel to northern Sherpur district when they were arrested. During initial interrogation, Ranjan told the RAB officials that he hailed from Madhusolmari of Gauripur in Assam’s Dhubri district and that he joined the ULFA in 1988 and obtained three months of “military training”, Sohail said. “The ULFA leader went to Bhutan to meet ULFA’s top military wing commander Paresh Barua in June 1995 and was arrested by Indian security forces on his return home the next month,” he said. He was detained in Guwahati jail of Assam for a year and was released in 1996. The arrest came as Dhaka is believed to have helped in the arrest of ULFA chief Arbinda Rajkhowa from Bangladesh territory along with several accomplices and subsequently handing him over to India. Dhaka at that time declined the report of his arrest from Bangladesh and subsequent handing over to India. Several newspapers had last month reported that Ranjan, who is often referred as Ranju Chowdhury, but the RAB had refused to confirm his arrest from the central Mymensingh district. Another ULFA stalwart Anup Chetia was arrested from Dhaka during the past 1996-2001 Awami League regime and is still in “security custody” despite the expiry of his jail term for cross border intrusion.
— PTI
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Roadside bombs kill 4 NATO troops
Kabul, July 17 Separately, NATO reported that Afghan and foreign troops found nearly 2 tons of processed heroin, 800 kg of opium and 90 kg of ammonium nitrate yesterday that could have been used to make 25 roadside bombs in the southern province of Helmand. The drugs had a street value in the United States of more than $38 million before taking into account the common practice of cutting them with other ingredients, which would exponentially increase the value, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Another joint force arrested a Taliban insurgent involved in bomb making after intelligence indicated he was plotting an attack during the upcoming international conference Tuesday in Kabul, NATO said. Several other insurgents were arrested during the raid yesterday night in Kabul. An American service member was killed by a blast in eastern Afghanistan today, while another coalition soldier, whose nationality was not released, died in a roadside bomb in a southern province, NATO said. It gave no other details. Two members of the multinational force died in a single explosion yesterday in the south. The NATO-led force gave no details but said one of the troops killed was American.
— AP
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UN to observe Nelson Mandela Day today
New York, July 17 "This week, the UN will commemorate the first Nelson Mandela International Day, designated as the 18th of July," Farhan Haq, the UN associate spokesman, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. A resolution adopted in November 2009 by the 192-member world body called for commemorations every year starting July 18, 2010 — Mandela's birthday — to recognise the Nobel Peace Prize winner's contribution to resolving conflicts and promoting race relations and human rights. Mandela, 92, led the fight against apartheid in South Africa as head of the African National Congress' armed wing.
— IANS
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