Lucknow/Noida, May 9
The farmer-police clash over the land acquisition policy of the Uttar Pradesh Government acquired political overtures with parties across the spectrum demanding Chief Minister Mayawati’s resignation. The CM, in turn, blamed the Opposition of drawing political mileage out of the entire issue.

Section 144 of the CrPC was clamped around Bhatta Parsaul and other affected villages. The state government did not allow any political leader to enter Greater Noida which has virtually been turned into a fortress. Even mediapersons were not allowed to go into the troubled area. Over 5,000 cops, including jawans from PAC and RAF, have been deployed in the area.

Every leader trying to cross the border was taken into preventive custody. Among them were BJP leader and Ghaziabad MP Rajnath Singh, Leader of Opposition in the UP Vidhan Sabha Shivpal Yadav, MPs Mohan Singh and Jitendra Yadav, JD (U) leader Shard Yadav and RLD MLA Anil Chadhury.

These leaders were on their way to meet the villagers who lost their kin in the police firing in Bhatta Parsaul on Saturday.

“If I had been the CM in Mayawati’s place, I would have resigned on moral grounds” said Rajnath Singh.

Holding the Mayawati government responsible for the stir, Shivpal Yadav said, “The demands of farmers are valid. Instead of considering them, the state government is using brutal force to crush their agitation. The CM should step down.” Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav charged the Mayawati government with unleashing a reign of terror on helpless farmers.

”I won’t demand her resignation because I know people will throw her out in the next Assembly elections for her misdeeds,” claimed Yadav. “It is unfortunate that the government is not ready to talk to the farmers, who had been staging a dharna for the past four months. Demand for hike in the rate of compensation by the farmers was genuine and the government should have considered it,” he added.

UP Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh demanded setting up of a judicial commission to look into the entire land acquisition process for the Yamuna Expressway project. “The farmers, who have been put to a great financial loss and have been shot at and killed during the agitation by the police, should be compensated by the government,” he said.

Ghaziabad, May 9
A special court has ordered that Surender Koli, sentenced to death in the sensational Nithari serial killings case, be hanged between May 24 and May 31, following which he has filed a mercy petition before the President.

CBI Judge Shyam Lal issued the death warrant for execution of Koli, 39, after the Supreme Court in February confirmed the death penalty awarded to him in the case related to rape and murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar, CBI advocate Jai Prakash Sharma said today.

In the May 3 order, the judge said Koli should be hanged between May 24 and May 31 at 4 am.

Following the issuance of the death warrant, Koli moved a mercy petition before the President on May 7, the CBI counsel today told a court that fixed May 13 for further order in the matter.

Koli was sentenced to death along with his employer Moninder Singh Pandher, 54, by the Ghaziabad court on February 13, 2009. It was the first of the Nithari killings cases to be decided. The Allahabad High Court had confirmed Koli’s death sentence on September 11, 2009, while acquitting Pandher of the charges.

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in February, saying the case was “horrifying” and “barbaric” and “no mercy can be shown to him”.

A Bench of justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra had said, “Koli has not retracted his confessional statement” and the circumstances in which the crime was committed were “premeditated”, thus falling in the “rarest of rare category”.

“In the statement, he (Koli) described how he allured the girls and then strangulated them. He also confessed that he used to have sex with dead bodies and would eat parts of human body after cooking them,” the Bench had said in the order.

Sixteen cases were registered against Koli after Nithari serial killings came to light in December 2006, following discovery of human remains from a drain behind Pandher’s house in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi. — PTI

New Delhi, May 9
Having vociferously welcomed the September 30, 2010, judgment of the Allahabad High Court bequeathing proprietorial rights on Ram Lalla Virajman at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the BJP also welcomed the Supreme Court stay of that judgment and reminded that it too had sought the review.

A sheepish looking BJP spokesman and Ram Lalla Virajman’s counsel Ravi Shankar Prasad said soon after the apex court order, “the petitioners exercised their right to appeal against the high court order. I too had appealed that if the court recognised the right of Ram Lalla Virajman, how could it divide the piece of land concerned among three different parties.”

While Prasad restrained from saying anything further, off the record BJP sources said, “This trifurcation of land was not sought by any party and so the HC had erred in dividing and distributing three parts among the three contending parties.” Prasad said, “this is a legal process. We hope for an early decision by the highest court.”

He denied that this had caused a setback to the Sangh Parivar plans for commencing the construction of a magnificent Ram temple at the site of the demolished masjid.

But it certainly seems to have come as a relief to the Muslim parties who appeared clearly hurt by the earlier judgment, Sunni Waqf Board counsel Zafaryab Jilani stated this adding that “we are satisfied with today’s order of the SC...This will help in maintaining peaceful position in the country. Everybody had claimed for exclusive rights, so the SC is completely justified in staying the HC judgment,” he said.

He further said: “The board will ask the court to expedite its hearing in the case.” The Hindu Mahasabha too welcomed the apex court order saying: “Nobody prayed for it (partition of land into three parts). Everybody wanted full land. Our stand continues that entire Janmabhoomi premises belongs to the Hindu Maha Sabha.”

The Congress, however, was very circumspect and restrained in its reaction. The party spokesman, Manish Tiwari, declined to comment on the matter by saying that “It is our tradition that we do not comment on issues while they are pending in the court.”

Santiniketan (WB), May 9
Braving summer heat, tourists from India and abroad gathered to attend Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations here today.

The day began early with students of Visva-Bharati University dancing in the campuses as they sang Baitalik (meditation prayer with songs). The ashramites woke up to the recorded rendition of one of Tagore’s famous songs ‘He more chitto’, while special prayers were held at Chhatimtola, the meditation place for Maharshi Debendranath Thakur, Rabindranath’s father, at 5.30 am.

The prayer meeting was presided over by Visva-Bharati Vice-Chancellor Rajat Kanto Roy. A special prayer was also held at Udayan, the house where the ashramites celebrated Tagore’s last birthday inside the sprawling Uttarayan complex at 8 am.

An exhibition on Tagore, mainly photographic accounts of his life and work, his foreign trips, his family life and many other facets, drew a number of tourists at Uttarayan.

Tagorean nostalgia will be rekindled tomorrow when his piano will feature in a recital by Jyotisko Dasgupta, grandson of late Maitreyee Devi, noted writer who came close to Tagore during his lifetime, at Udayan. The piano was gifted to Tagore in 1922 by Maruy Van Egghen, a Dutch lady, who visited Santiniketan to meet the poet. — PTI

New Delhi, May 9
CPM Politburo member Brinda Karat today slammed the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for dereliction of duty in allowing a foreign NGO to conduct clinical trials of HPV vaccines in India without ensuring that it followed protocols and guidelines on informed consent.

In a letter to Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today, Brinda, who has been in the forefront in exposing gross violation of ethical guidelines in the HPV vaccine trials, said the ICMR representative on the study’s project advisory board must be held responsible for misconduct, as instead of ensuring the institution’s mandate of adherence to research guidelines, he sided with the NGO (PATH) to disregard important observations made by the DCGI, which wanted clinical trial protocols followed.

“Ethics of the ICMR are under question. Equally strange is the fact that the ICMR representative who was part of the PATH project was picked to assist the government panel probing the vaccine issue. Since ICMR was a partner in the project, its role as advisor is suspect. We demand action against the ICMR people who partnered with PATH in disregarding protocols and against the DCGI for allowing such a project to run at all,” Brinda demanded, along with public health group Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, as they questioned the committee’s “soft recommendations” despite proof that the ICMR and PATH misled authorities.

Suratgarh, May 9
The prestigious 2nd Strike Corps of the Indian Army is practicing Operation Geronimo-type operations among other manoeuvres during a joint exercise with the IAF currently underway in North Rajasthan.

The exercise of the Ambala-based Kharga Corps, one of the three Indian strike corps, began some days ago and Army Chief VK Singh is reportedly keeping an eye on ‘Vijayee Bhava’. He would formally inspect the exercise on May 12 but is learnt to have already visited various components of the ongoing exercise.

‘Vijayee Bhava’ is the first amongst a series of summer exercises being held in sweltering temperatures of 45°Celsius. The exercise in inhospitable climate and rugged terrain is considered significant, as troops have by now been trained to enter into enemy territory within a given time frame.

The exercise envisages sustained, massed mechanised manoeuvres in a simulated environment by composite combat entities, ably supported by air and complemented by a wide array of weapon systems and enabling combat logistics. According to Ministry of Defence spokesman SD Goswami, the manoeuvres are being conducted to test the operational and transformational effectiveness of the Kharga Corps as also validate new concepts that have emerged during transformation studies undertaken by the Army.