National News

Bal Thackeray comes out in support of Malegaon blasts accused Pune, Nov 1: Coming out in support of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and other Malegaon blasts accused, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray today lashed out at pro-Hindutva elements for “disowning” them and asked the legal community to come forward to defend the trio. “The entire Hindu community should support the Sadhvi, retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay and Samir Kulkarni who are being framed by the ATS,” Bal Thackeray said in his trademark fiery editorial in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana. Thackeray said he did not support any kind of terrorism that “weakens the country and we regret the loss of life in the Malegaon incident.” “But if the pseudo secularists in the country are supportive of Afzal Guru (Parliament attack convict), why should we not love and be proud of Sadhvi Pragya, Ramesh Upadhyay and Samir Kulkarni?” “Every day Islamic terrorists are planting bombs to kill Hindus in India. The latest blasts in Assam too were engineered by Bangladeshi migrants. If a Sadhvi Pragya or a Ramesh Upadhyay or a Samir Kulkarni is born in the present milieu, they cannot be blamed,” it added. Alleging that the ATS machinery was being used at the behest of the Congress which is practicing politics of Muslim appeasement, it said, “the arrests of cultured and educated individuals in connection with the Malegaon blasts is an effort to crush Hindus to please Muslim fanatics in the country.” The editorial also lambasted pro-Hindutva organisations for what it called “disowning” the trio. “If Chhatrapati Shivaji and Veer Savarkar were alive today, they would suffer bouts of depression to see the passive tolerance of Islamic intimidation by Hindus,” the Sena chief said. The editorial ends with a poser. “If a Majid Memon puts on the black coat to defend brother of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim in a court of law, can we expect another Memon to stand up to argue for Sadhvi Pragya, Upadhyay and Kulkarni?” (PTI)

SP demands Mayawati’s arrest for razing statue New Delhi, Nov 1: Samajwadi Party today demanded the arrest of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and District Magistrate of Pratapgarh for allegedly razing a statue of India’s first Home Minister Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. “A statue of Sardar Patel was to be unveiled on his birth anniversary on October 31. But the district magistrate ordered that the statue and the platform on which it was built be razed.... We demand from the union government that the district magistrate and the Chief Minister be arrested,” SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav told reporters. Yadav alleged that District Magistrate Sainthal Pandiyan C had issued the order at Mayawati’s behest. He alleged that though the land on which the statue was built belongs to the Gram Sabha, the state government has tried to create an issue out of it. “The process of putting up the statue was started four months back but nobody had objected then,” he said. SP general secretary Amar Singh, who was also present at the press conference, read out a letter written by Pratapgarh MP Akshay Pratap Singh, in which the latter maintained that the Gram Sabha had given permission for using the land. Yadav said if his party came to power, “it would jail the district magistrate and Mayawati for this act”. “Sardar Patel stood by Mahatma Gandhi and fought with him shoulder to shoulder against the British. He should not be shown disrespect,” Yadav said. The statue was to be inaugurated by MLA from Kunda assembly constituency and Pratap’s cousin Raghuraj at Katra Gulab Singh, about 30 kms from Pratapgarh. The SP leaders also alleged that Mayawati had earlier shown disrespect to Mahatma Gandhi as well. (PTI)

1984 riots: 10 panels later, no action against politicians, policemen yet New Delhi, Nov 1: It was exactly 24 years and a day ago that former prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards, triggering violence against the community, especially in the national capital. Nearly 3,000 Sikhs were massacred. But despite two commissions and eight committees set up to identify those responsible for the riots, not one politician or senior police official has been punished. Some of the panels even recommended registration of cases against top Congress politicians but many of the prime accused were never charged with the crimes they were accused of committing. The government has only doled out compensation to relatives of those killed in the sectarian violence — the worst since the 1947 partition — after a commission headed by retired judge GT Nanavati submitted its report in August 2005. In his report, Nanavati claimed there was evidence against Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and HKL Bhagat for instigating the mobs to attack and kill Sikhs. But the commission failed to pinpoint the role of the Congress functionaries. A few people have been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. But no one was given the death sentence. “Both the Marwah Committee (the first enquiry panel formed in 1984) and Nanavati commissions failed to bring out the truth on the 1984 carnage. They failed to fix the responsibility of the state but only criticized the role of police officials,” says Vrinda Grover, a senior lawyer who has closely tracked the various committees and commissions set up since 1984. In her reckoning, there has been a travesty of justice. “Not a single politician has been held responsible for the carnage. One committee found six IPS (Indian Police Service) officials directly responsible due to their negligence in duty and recommended termination of their service without holding any further inquiry. “Strangely, no action was ever taken against them and they retired. But officers at the junior rung were made scapegoats,” Grover told IANS. Journalist Manoj Mitta, who has chronicled the investigations for over two decades, says the political class “benefited” from the lumbering confusions of the various committees. “Both the Nanavati and Mishra Commissions (set up in 1985) were cover-up jobs and both saved the skins of politicians and the police,” says Mitta, co-author of a book, When a Tree Shook Delhi — a powerful narrative that meticulously details accounts of the massacres. Mitta believes that thousands of lives could have been saved had people in positions of administrative importance merely done their jobs. Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance — he himself is a Sikh — that his government would take all possible steps to reopen or further examine individual cases recommended by the Nanavati Commission, nothing has been done to bring the guilty to book. “He apologised to the community for the riots and assured them of speedy and fair justice to victims. But what has happened? Nothing,” fumes Trilochan Singh, whose brother was killed in the violence that paralysed Delhi for four long days. Then prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated Oct 31, 1984. Over the next four days, nearly 3,000 Sikhs were set upon and killed in a murder frenzy allegedly planned and led by Congress activists. The then Congress government was widely criticized for its inaction. Gurcharan Singh Babbar, president of the All India Sikh Conference, said the story of the investigation of the riots was an “astounding example of how the political establishment used the administrative machinery to blatantly obfuscate the truth, protect the guilty and obstruct the course of justice”. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) closed all cases against Tytler in November 2007 after it submitted a report to a city court stating that no evidence or witness was found to corroborate the allegations against him of leading murderous mobs. (IANS)

Favour a political solution to Sri Lankan crisis: Karat Chennai, Nov 1: The CPI(M) today said it favoured a political solution to the Sri Lankan crisis and called for an autonomy for the Tamils within the “united set up of Sri Lanka.” Party general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here that the CPI(M) was clear on supporting the cause of the civilian Tamils, but not the LTTE. “The party is clear on not supporting the LTTE. They have no positive role in the (political) solution,” he said. Noting that India has a role to play in ensuring only the safety of Tamils and not a ceasefire in the island nation, Karat said, “the Government of India should impress upon Sri Lanka to pursue a political solution.... Autonomy should be granted to Tamils within the united set up of Sri Lanka.” India cannot force Colombo for a ceasefire, as “neither did we initiate a ceasefire nor are we party to it,” he said. However, “military hostilities should cease,” he said. Charging the Congress-led UPA with being unable to tackle the growing terror strikes in India, including the recent one in Assam, Karat called for setting up of a multi-functionary agency to exclusively deal with the menace. He called for a ban on Bajrang Dal on the lines of SIMI, and said any organisation creating terror and taking to violence should be banned. He also called for an end to associating terror with the Muslim community. On the recent attacks on North Indians by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in that state, he alleged that the Congress-NCP government was going soft on party supremo Raj Thackeray and said such incidents affected national unity and communal harmony. Referring to the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Karat said his party was trying to float an “electoral alternative” to the BJP and the Congress. (PTI) Kalam happy over photographs taken by Chandrayaan I Bangalore, Nov 1: Former President A P J Abdul Kalam today expressed happiness over the first photographs of Earth taken by the terrain mapping camera by Chandrayaan-1, India’s maiden moon mission.Kalam, who has been closely associated with the country’s space programmes, said he had seen the first pictures of the Earth, shown to him by ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair. “They are good pictures. They are high-resolution pictures,”' he said on the sidelines of a function organised to mark the launch of an emergency response service in Karnataka. “The photographs are indicative of what things hold out for us in future,” he said. On the moon mission, he said, “every Indian should be proud about the success of the mission.”' The terrain mapping camera on board India’s first unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 took black and white shots of the Earth from deep space. The camera was operated through a series of commands from the spacecraft control centre of ISRO’s telemetry tracking and command network here.The first imagery was taken from an altitude of 9000 km above the Earth and the second from 70,000 km. (UNI)