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special BDDS in Delhi Police NEW DELHI, Nov 4: In view of increased subversive activities in many parts of the country and incidents of bomb blasts in the national capital during past few years, the centre has decided to set up special Bomb Detection ....more Govt taking steps to NEW DELHI, Nov 4: The Government is trying to develop a holistic system for prevention and control of crime and simultaneous check on human .....more Employee can be NEW DELHI, Nov 4: The Supreme Court has held that a workman, who is suspended pending in....more India to ask US to NEW DELHI, Nov 4: Declaring that India and the US were poised to take the security and strategic. ......more |
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‘Jaipur
foot’ again set to help Afghan victims JAIPUR, Nov 4: The cheapest artificial limb, known ...more NEWS
ANALYSIS From B L Kak NEW DELHI: The move was expected, and, therefore, did not take anyone in ....more SPECIAL
REPORT From B L Kak NEW DELHI, Nov 4: Pakistan’s military Government has been thrown into ....more CHANDIGARH, Nov 4: CPM general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjit today flayed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government and said ....more |
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Govt to set up special BDDS in Delhi Police NEW DELHI, Nov 4: In view of increased subversive activities in many parts of the country and incidents of bomb blasts in the national capital during past few years, the centre has decided to set up special Bomb Detection and Disposal Squads (BDDS) in Delhi Police. This information was given to the Delhi High Court by the Union Home Ministry in an affidavit in response to a series of directions issued to the Government regarding improvement of law and order in the city and upgradation of the police force. "To provide quick response against subversive activities the Government gave sanction on August 17 for creation of 216 posts in various categories for setting up three BDDS," said the affidavit filed before a bench comprising Justice Anil Dev Singh and Justice R S Sodhi. The bomb squads, having the assistance of dogs squads and forensic experts, would be provided necessary modern equipment and would function in three shifts a day. The Government has also decided to improve supervision at different critical areas of police functioning in the city and create 1,000 posts of Assistant Sub-Inspectors who would be specially trained for this purpose, the ministry informed the court. The "critical areas" include beat patrolling at sensitive locations and crime against women cell. Besides, the police would soon have nine specially-trained mobile teams, one in each district of the city, to investigate criminal cases. The court had issued specific direction in this regard in view of the "poor and slow" probe into the criminal cases and police adopting out-dated methods. The affidavit was filed by the ministry in response to various directions issued by the court from time to time in view of a pending public interest litigation highlighting the deteriorating law and order situation in the capital. The Government also said it had withdrawn 700 police personnel from VIP security duty to make them available for normal policing. The court had earlier asked the Government to give details whether unnecessary VIP security duty could be pruned and the personnel deployed there could be reverted to discharge their normal function of providing protection to common man against rising crimes. The court had also sought report from the Government regarding opening of 42 new police stations in the city as the exsisting ones were not sufficient in view of the rapid growth of the national capital region during past few years. The court had said there was urgent need to upgrade and modernise the police force considering the new methods being adopted by criminals in committing crimes. There was need to review the entire police set up keeping in veiw the modernisation of communication system, equipment and training of personnel. This should be done in the light of the recommendations of the Srivastava Committee, constituted by the centre to look into the Delhi Police set up some years ago, the court had said. (PTI) |
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Govt taking steps to control organised crime NEW DELHI, Nov 4: The Government is trying to develop a holistic system for prevention and control of crime and simultaneous check on human rights violations by reforming the criminal justice system and sensitising police, according to Union Home Secretary Kamal Pande. A committee under Justice Malimath has been set up to examine the system and make suitable recommendations to improve it. Delivering the valedictory address at the All India Criminology Conference here last evening, the Home Secretary said organised crime could be controlled and curbed only through constant vigil, good detective work, pre-emptive action and by catching criminals and awarding punishment commensurate with their guilt he said the Government was taking steps in that direction. Mr Pande he said punishment could be handed out out only if police arrested the criminal quickly and completed the investigation speedily and properly, prosecution presented the case effectively and in consonance with the laid-down criminal procedures and the courts dispensed justice quickly. "Unfortunately, all these three components of the criminal justice system are in jeopardy today," he lamented. To correct these systemic deficiencies, the Government was taking a number of steps to revamp the criminal justice system. It was proposed to separate the functions of crime investigation from maintaining public order at the police station level so that one function did not suffer at the cost of the other. Training to investigating officers to equip them with the skills and techniques of professional investigation, particularly when criminals have acquired special skills in their ‘trade’, was also receiving attention of the Government, he said. Grants were being given for setting up new forensic science laboratory and modernising the existing ones to facilitate and improve crime investigation. Providing funds to State Governments for modernising police force and taking measures to improve police-prosecution relationship so that cases were prepared and scrutinised thoroughly before being presented in court were the other steps being taken, he added. However, regretting the rising instances of custodial deaths, rapes and torture, Mr Pande said: "If the rising tide of indifference and corruption in the police force is not immediately checked, we may soon find ourselves moving towards a no-law stage. The onus of putting brakes on and reversing the situation in this regard lies entirely with the police and with those in the Government who control the police." He said training modules had already been prepared by the Government to sensitise police personnel about the importance and imperative of protecting human rights of every citizen. The help of police officials in this formidable endeavour had been sought, he added. Mr Pande said social and familial strains had led to increase in violence. People now took to crime as a short-cut to earn fast money. Organised crime had taken the more sinister shape of contract killings, kidnappings, extortion and protection money, smuggling of arms, drugs and contraband, and proxy control of business and industrial interests. Emerging nexus of organised crime with anti-national forces, including militant and fundamentalists, had given rise to terrorism, he added. The Home Secretary said the community could play an important role in preventing and controlling crime by acting as a powerful pressure group to discipline criminals and also to put a check on police. Instead of blaming the Government for not empowering various sections of society, the community should realise its potential and capacity and exercise it to the extent required in accordance with the demands of a situation. As long as the Indian society decided to stay dormant, it would continue to reel under multifarious oppression. Community leaders should take charge and shake the people out of this slumber of indifference and assumed helplessness, he added. (UNI) |
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Employee can be penalised for delaying proceedings: SC NEW DELHI, Nov 4: The Supreme Court has held that a workman, who is suspended pending inquiry, could be penalised by way of cut in his sustenance allowance if he deliberately delays the completion of the disciplinary proceedings. Under the Industrial Employement (Standing Orders) Act, a bench comprising Justice D P Mohapatra and Justice Shivaraj V Patil said the employer was required to pay subsistence allowance to a workman suspended pending inquiry at the rate of 50 per cent of wages for the first 90 days. The bench further said the employer was required to pay sustenance allowance at the rate of 75 per cent of the wages for the remaining period of suspension, if delay in completion of disciplinary proceedings was not directly attributable to the conduct of the workman concerned. However, Justice Patil, writing the judgement for the bench, said "a workman can be denied payment of subsistence allowance at the rate of 75 per cent after the expiry of 90 days of suspension, if the delay in the completion of disciplinary proceedings is directly attributable to the conduct of such workman." The apex court took into account another scenario where a workman approaches a competent court to protect himself from the prejudice likely to be caused by continuing proceedings simultaneously in domestic inquiry as also in the criminal case grounded on the same set of facts and succeeds in getting a stay on the disciplinary proceedings. (PTI) |
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SPECIAL REPORT From B L Kak NEW DELHI, Nov 4: Pakistan’s military Government has been thrown into confusion, with the reported decision of Washington to review its tactics by taking more interest in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. The United States has sought to convey to Islamabad that Northern Alliance has, in a swift turn of events, emerged as more important than other entities in the region. The message, precisely, makes two things pretty clear. First, in spite of Islamabad’s continuing support to the US against the Taliban, Washington will not finally accept Pakistan’s proposal for accommodating "moderate" Taliban in the new political dispensation in Afghanistan after the war. Second, Washington will not allow itself to be influenced or guided by Islamabad’s drive and diatribe against the Northern Alliance. Washington’s message has also been interpreted as the unwillingness on part of the United States to continue to regard Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism. Clearly, in the past some days, the focus of the US campaign has shifted to northern Afghanistan. This development has triggered a relevant question: Will the US now begin to distance itself from Pakistan? This question has assumed much significance in the context of the fact that the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance continues to have strongholds in northern Afghanistan. Afghanistan-watchers say that there are other grounds which have led to some kind of unease in US-Pakistan equations. The US intelligence community believes that if Pakistan’s intelligence machinery, particularly the ISI, had played a fair game, the execution of Mr Abdul Haq, a pro-US commander, by the Taliban would not have taken place. Significantly, Washington has not rejected the report that Pakistani ISI compromised Mr Haq’s security by leaking information on his whereabouts to the Taliban. The US intelligence had cultivated Mr Abdul Haq for long without intimately involving Pakistan. The ISI was not ignorant of US-Haq contact. After his execution, Islamabad sent out a signal to Washington, reiterating that United States should not bypass Pakistan in its search for new Pashtun leaders who could be accommodated in a post-war Government in Kabul. There are continuing indications that the US Administration is holding out on an all-out assistance to the Northern Alliance, because a proper political framework for Kabul in the post-Taliban phase has not been worked out. The last thing Washington wants is the Northern Alliance marching into Kabul in the absence of a proper political environment and a bloodbath to ensue. Equally significant factor which has diminished the warmth in the Pak-US relationship in recent days, relates to Islamabad’s refusal to give the US access to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. True, Islamabad agreed to take advice for making their nuclear weapons more secure. But the Musharraf Government refused to allow the US any physical access to its nuclear wherewithal. Pakistan President and military ruler, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, is not to blame for his unwillingness to oblige Americans by conceding their demand for two more Pakistani bases to further facilitate the US offensive in Afghanistan. The Musharraf regime has already made available four Pak air bases for the US troops. Gen. Musharraf, who is currently facing stupendous public criticism for his pro-US policies, is not prepared to get further isolated on the political front in his country. Hence, his refusal to accept US demand for two more Pakistani bases. The US was looking for the bases of Shurkat and Mianwali for the anti-Taliban strikes. Gen. Musharraf could not be expected to make available Mianwali base, in view of the fact that it is close to Pakistan’s nuclear facility in Chashma. True, Washington is satisfied with Gen. Musharraf’s role against Islamic radicalism in Pakistan. But US has no plans to consider sympathetically Gen. Musharraf’s pleading for suspension of American drive during the month of Ramzan. In fact, US President, Mr George W Bush, has reiterated that there will be no respite in the military campaign for Ramzan. Mr Bush’s message was loud and clear: "The enemy won’t rest during Ramadan and neither will we". That Washington had made up its mind to continue the war in coming days and weeks was abundantly made clear by the US National Security Adviser, Dr Condoleeza Rice: "This is an enemy that has to be taken on and taken on aggressively and pressed to the end. We cannot afford to have a pause". A report from Washington has forecast: US President is expected to take his anti-terrorism campaign on a high profile in the next 10 days. |
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CHANDIGARH, Nov 4: CPM general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjit today flayed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government and said because of its dilly dallying policy Pakistan was getting moral support on the Kashmir issue from the USA "in the garb" of attack on Afghanistan. Mr Surjit talking to reporters here after participating in the Punjab state Council of the CPM here said that despite the NDA Government having offered on a platter its unstinted support in the Afghanistan attack, yet the USA had little regard for this country. The Marxist leader alleged that the USA was trying to dominate the entire world in the name of its so-called fight against terrorism. He pointed out that who-so-ever came to the sub-continent in connection with the Afghanistan attack, raised the bogey of Kashmir. The US Foreign Secretary during his visit to Pakistan had even characterised the Kashmir as the main issue. The Marxist leader strongly deploring the US attacks on Afghanistan and killing of innocent said such an attack should have been under the aegis of the United Nations. India along with other countries must emphasise this upon the UN, he added. The CPM leader strongly criticising the POTO said that Parliament would outrightly reject this draconian and most dangerous move. Even the press has not been spared by the NDA Government in POTO. He pointed out that as many as 78,000 people were held under TADA but only 7,000 of them were found guilty. He described the national executive meeting of the BJP in Amrtisar as a jamboree. He said barring POTO and terrorism nothing else was discussed in this meeting which also brought to the surface differences between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani on the issue. He strongly deplored Mr Advani for his statement which inter -alia had said that opposition parties opposing the POTO would be supporting terrorism knowingly or unknowingly.(UNI) |
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