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Faultline
Kashmir-II From B L Kak
Mumbai HC to hear Nadeem’s plea today MUMBAI, Sept 3: Music composer Nadeem Akhtar Saifee, facing extradition proceedings in London for his alleged complicity in Gulshan Kumar murder .....more No assurance to Soren for becoming CM: Jaitley JAMSHEDPUR, Sept 3: Samata Party president Jaya Jaitley has said no assurance had been given to JMM chief Shibu Soren for the post of Chief....more IMPHAL, Sept 3: A Border Security Force (BSF) jawan was killed in an ambush by suspected Kuki militants in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, official sources said today. ....more |
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Biggest challenge CALCUTTA, Sept 3: The Left Front Government in West Bengal is facing the biggest challenge in its 24 years of uninterrupted rule, with the demand ......more Mahasheer fish farm at Sidhpur in Mandi SHIMLA, Sept 3: The Central Government has decided to set up a Rs. 4-crore National Mahasheer Fish Farm at Sidhpur in Mandi district to....more Criminal justice system NEW DELHI, Sept 3: Law Commission Chairman Justice B P Jivan Reddy today said the criminal justice system in the country was in a very bad shape and blamed the prosecuting agencies for not doing their job of ...more NEW DELHI, Sept 3: In a move to thrash out the contentious issue of model code of conduct before the assembly polls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry due early next year, the Election ..more |
Faultline
Kashmir-II From B L Kak Pakistan has encouraged the Kashmiris to rise against their "illegal and unconstitutional occupation" by India. The Hindus, now uprooted, were the victims of the signals from across the border, behind which lay the hidden truth that many of the young men now menacing the Hindus had been trained and armed by Pakistan, if not directly by the Government then certainly with its concurrence. This finding is very much in the book, Faultline Kashmir. A paradox overlays the tragedy of the Kashmiri Pandits, according to the book’s author, Christopher Thomas. "They believe the man who shares much of the responsibility for the destruction of their lives is the most famous Pandit who ever lived, a man who was obsessed with saving the Kashmir Valley for India and who wore his Hinduism and Kashmiri ethnicity with pride". This, Christopher points out, is none other than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Mr Nehru watched control of the Valley shift from a Hindu prince he hated to a Muslim politician he trusted, and who,as Hindus have it, was "biased in favour of his own". According to Christopher’s assessment, not only the Hindus were unhappy with being handed to the new Muslim-run political power centre in Srinagar; so were the Buddhists of Ladakh, whose aspirations tend to be lost in the bigger Hindu-Muslim question. Stating that the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) did the "inconceivable" in the second half of 1989 and launched a violent protest against their treatment at the hands of the Kashmir State, the book has noted that the Buddhists had grown increasingly impatient with Srinagar’s "beneficial treatment of a small Muslim community that dominated the local economy, which included control of the trade in pashmina wool for much-coveted Kashmiri shawls". The Buddhist had hoped in 1947 to be linked with Jammu in some relationship with India, rather than come under the sway of Srinagar and its "Islamic-flavoured politics", but in vain. Christopher’s appropriate lesson on the history of Kashmir: "Hindus have been driven out of the Kashmir Valley at least twice: once by Silkunder the Iconoclast, who thought that Killing Hindus and smashing their temples was fine sport, and again in the months spanning late 1989 and early 1990. In the 14th century they were able to return after Sikunder died. This time there is telling when and if they will b e able to do so because they are the victims not of a single man but of one of the most complex disputes on earth, to which there is no visible solution and therefore no prospect that 250,000 displaced Hindus-plus many others who left in the decades before 1989-will be able to go home". Reiterating that two hundred and fifty thousand of Kashmiri Hindus had fled Muslim gunmen in an unseen and brutally thorough campaign of ethnic cleansing, Christopher Thomas says in his book that while Kashmir’s tradition of Hindu-Muslim co-existence had been destroyed overnight, the Hindus of Kashmir, the Pandits, were now crammed into refugee camps beyond the Valley in Jammu or had scattered across India to live with their relatives. And Christopher has lambasted the powers-that-be in New Delhi for their failure to draw the attention of the world to "this mass herding out of Hindus by Muslim gunmen bearing Pakistani-supplied weapons". The Hindus, Christopher has written, believed the Government’s promise that it would soon be safe for them to return to the Valley, and so left their keys and belongings with Muslim neighbours. "But they are still refugees, with scant hope of going home", the book says and adds: "Some Hindus later tried returning to the Valley to test the truth of calls by militant groups for them to go back and revive the spirit of Kashmiriyat. They soon abandoned the experiment. A large group of pioneers returned to Baramulla in 1996, a total of 29 families, and were tearfully embraced by their Muslim neighbours. Soon, the very militants who had invited them back ordered them out. This demonstrated the gulf between the Kashmiri people and the Kashmiri gunmen. Two militant organisations, Al-Umar and Al Jihad, even went to the length of issuing press statements warning Hindus to stay out". The book states that far from expressing the voice of the people, these groups were deaf to it. "The threats exposed the invitation to come home as propaganda; there had never been any intention of permitting the Hindus’ return", the book says and adds: "To this day every armed group will say there is no grievance with the Hindus and that they are safe to return, knowing it is not so". According to Christopher, the Hindus’ exodus continues to appeal ordinary Muslims, most of whom-like the Hindus-"despise any form of religious fundamentalism". Hindus were accused of conspiring with India against jihad, "a new term for Kashmir", and were warned in newspaper advertisements and notices posted throughout the Valley that they should not oppose the liberation struggle, Christopher writes. Christopher Thomas recalled: "Loudspeakers on mosques relayed hostile messages, many of which had been pre-recorded on cassette tapes complete with menacing background noises. In 1990, I heard such a message from the Hazratbal Mosque in Srinagar, which, translated, went roughly: ‘Help, help! We’re under attack. The Hindu army is slaughtering us. Muslims unite! Help!’ This was accompanied by screams of pain and the sounds of breaking glass…." Christopher’s yet another undisputed assessment: "By now militancy was in full spate, driven by old grievances as well as a new ingredient for Kashmir, Islamic fervour. The murder of prominent Pandits (Hindus) gathered pace while many ordinary Hindus received menacing letters or telephone calls. Their departure was the cleanest of ethnic cleansing, shattering the tolerant soul of the Kashmir Valley and destroying the declared hope of Mahatma Gandhi several decades earlier that Kashmir would cast a benign religious light over all of India". (To be continued) |
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Mumbai HC to hear Nadeem’s plea today MUMBAI, Sept 3: Music composer Nadeem Akhtar Saifee, facing extradition proceedings in London for his alleged complicity in Gulshan Kumar murder case, has filed a petition in Mumbai High Court challenging a lower court order which disallowed him to examine accused-turned approver Mohammed Ali Hussein Shaikh despite securing such a request from a United Kingdom court. The petition, filed by his counsel Majeed Memon, would come up for hearing before Justice Vishnu Sahai tomorrow. Nadeem is trying to examine the approver on a limited issue of the authenticity of a letter authored by him expressing his desire to become an approver. Mohammed Ali had retracted his statement earlier and filed a petition in Mumbai High Court seeking withdrawal of pardon which was refused on the ground that there was no such provision in Indian laws. According to Nadeem, the approver is illiterate and does not know fluent Hindi. The letter purported to be written by him in the presence of jailor is penned down in the same language but is signed by the approver in broken Urdu. The examination of the approver on this aspect is being considered important because the bow street magistrate, before whom the extradition proceedings were initiated, had held that evidence of the approver was the only material against Nadeem. If Nadeem is able to prove that the letter was not written by the approver on September 25, 1997, to R B Mokashi, a "police-foisted" lawyer, the entire exercise of extradition against him may not sustain. Nadeem had moved the High Court of Justice Queen’s bench division court in London challenging bow street magistrate’s finding of a prima facie case against him. On Nadeem’s plea, Sir Machael John Burton, a judge of Queen’s bench division of Supreme Court of England and Wales, in July had issued a letter of request to a competent judicial authority in India for allowing the music composer to examine the approver, his wife Banu Shaikh and daughter Shabnam on this issue of proving authorship of the letter. With such a request, Nadeem had moved the Chief Justice of Mumbai High Court who directed additional sessions judge H S Deshpande to comply with the request of a UK court. Accordingly, Nadeem’s counsel in UK, Clive Nicholas and Crown prosecution service Attorney Paul Garlick arrived in Mumbai and appeared along with their counterparts, Majeed Memon and Ujjwal Nikam (special public prosecutor in India) respectively before the sessions court on July 26 this year. After hearing both the sides, the judge refused the examination of the approver on the ground that Indian law did not permit such examination before the trial. He also held that examination of approver at this stage would prejudice the trial. However, he allowed Nadeem’s counsel to examine the approver’s wife and daughter. Since his wife was feeble and old, the defence chose to examine on oath only his daughter. Nadeem is apparently not satisfied with this evidence and prefers to examine the approver. Hence he has filed an appeal against the lower court’s order turning down his plea. Nadeem has argued that the sessions court had confused itself between "prejudice to the prosecution" and "prejudice to the trial". He also contended that the sessions judge was required to act as a mere recording agency instead of arrogating to himself the powers to adjudicate. (PTI) |
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No assurance to Soren for becoming CM: Jaitley JAMSHEDPUR, Sept 3: Samata Party president Jaya Jaitley has said no assurance had been given to JMM chief Shibu Soren for the post of Chief Ministership of Jharkhand state. Jaitley who was here to participate in a debate organised by ‘the Jamshedpur telegraph’ told newsmen yesterday that the Samata Party would not take any decision on the Chief Ministership issue on its own. Being a partner of the NDA, "the question of taking any individual decision on such a vital issue does not arise," she said. The NDA partners, she said would sit together alongwith Jharkhand MLAs to decide on the issue. Confident about NDA’s prospect of forming the Government in Jharkhand state, she added "we will do everything through a democratic process". Describing the idea of creating Uttaranchal, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand as "historic," the Samata Party leader said the purpose behind the idea was ushering in development in those areas and setting up a transparent Government. (PTI) |
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IMPHAL, Sept 3: A Border Security Force (BSF) jawan was killed in an ambush by suspected Kuki militants in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, official sources said today. Armed militants opened fire at a BSF patrol party at Kotlen, about seven km from Churachandpur district headquarters, yesterday killing the BSF jawan. The victim was identified as Shankar Kumar of 64th BSF battalion, the sources said. It was not immediately known which underground outfit attacked the BSF patrol party. Some underground groups including Kuki National Front (KNF), People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) are active in parts of Churachandpur district bordering with Myanmar and Mizoram, they said. The ambush is the second by armed extremists on security personnel in Manipur in the past five days. On August 30, suspected Naga militants had ambushed an army patrol party at Tamenglong lower ground area in Tamenglon district killing an Army captain and injuring two others. In another incident, an underground activist was shot dead by unidentified gunmen at Kairenphaibi in Manipur’s Bishenpur district friday, the sources said. (PTI) |
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NEW DELHI, Sept 3: In a move to thrash out the contentious issue of model code of conduct before the assembly polls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry due early next year, the Election Commission has decided to convene an all-party meeting on September 16 to evolve a consensus. While the Commission has been insisting that the model code should come into force from the announcement of the elections, the Government’s stand was that it should be applicable from the date of the election notification. In a letter to political parties, the Commission drew their attention to the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgement which held that the "Commission can issue directions that the model code of conduct should be observed by political parties, including the parties in power at the Centre and in the states, from the date of announcement of election". Aggrieved by the judgement, the Centre had filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court which is still pending. The Centre had stated in the SLP that the code should come into force from the date of notification and not from the date of announcement of the schedule of election. "While the matter is pending before the Supreme Court, the Minister of State for Law, Justice and Company Affairs and the Election Commission have held a meeting in the Commission, in which it was decided that the content of the code should not be touched and that an all party meeting may be convened by the Commission to decide the question of the date from which the code should be enforced," it said. (PTI) |
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