SP candidate shot dead

NEW DELHI, Nov 11: BJP rebel and Samata Party candidate for the Nangloi Jat Assembly constituency Ved Singh became the first victim of election violence in the capital when he was gunned down by car-borne assailants in Mundka village of outer Delhi late last night.

Ved Singh’s supporters Ishwar Singh and surrender were seriously injured in the shooting which occurred around 2230 hours. Ved Singh, also known as Lallu Pehelwan, was 30 years old.

Polling for the constituency, due on November 25, was adjourned by the Election Commission. Under the new rules, Samata Party will be given seven days to find a new candidate.

As tension mounted in the village, the home of former Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma, security was beefed up in the area and an alert sounded all over the city.

Ved Singh and his supporters were going to meet a lawyer around 2300 hours when the five assailants opened fire from a Maruti near the village square. While Ved Singh died before doctors could attend to him at the Jaipur Golden Hospital, Ishwar Singh was shifted from the Deen Dayal Hospital to Apollo today. Surrender was being attended to at the Jaipur Golden Hospital.

The Congress, Samata Party and the BJP demanded a CBI inquiry into the killing. While Congress and Samata Party leaders alleged that the former Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma’s relatives were involved, Mr Sahib Singh vehemently denied it at a press conference.

Former outer Delhi Member of Parliament and Congress leader Sajjan Kumar told newspersons that he had visited Mundka village today and Ved Singh’s family members had claimed that the BJP had been putting pressure on the Samata Party candidate to withdraw.

Ved Singh had defected to the Samata Party after he was denied a ticket by the BJP which is fielding Delhi Transport Minister Devendra Singh Shaukeen against Mr P C Kaushik of the Congress.

According to sources Ved Singh was also a key witness in the murder case of Kala Pehalwan. Kala Pehalwan was allegedly killed by two of Mr Sahib Singh’s nephews.

Mr Sahib Singh a former Chief Minister, demanding a CBI inquiry into Ved Singh’s murder, denied the involvement of any of his relatives. If the family members of Ved Singh had made any charges against him they should be thoroughly investigated, he added.

Mr Sahib Singh said he had met the Prime Minister and Home Minister today and asked them to institute a CBI inquiry.

Alleging that Mr Sahib Singh’s relatives were responsible for the death of Ved Singh, Samata Party general secretary Jaya Jaitley said the slain candidate had complained to party chief George Fernandes that the family members of the former Chief Minister were pressurising him to withdraw from the race. Mr Fernandes was to have inaugurated Ved Singh’s party office today.

"We are not in a position to name anybody and blindly accuse who has committed the crime but we fully support the demand of the victim’s father who has identified and named the killers", Ms Jaitley said.

While Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Shiela Dixit also demanded an inquiry by the CBI, Mr Sajjan Kumar said he had written to the Election Commission asking that the outer Delhi Assembly segments be declared as sensitive because "Chautala and Sahib Singh brand of politics exists there".

Former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana said this was the first time that an election candidate had been killed.

"This was not unexpected considering the kind of elements being encouraged during the past few years", the Union Minister said.

Mr Khurana said he had personally requested Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor to get the incident investigated at the level of the police commissioner or the additional police commissioner.

Several leaders, including Mr Fernandes and Mr Nitish Kumar of the Samata Party, visited Mundka village this afternoon.

It was reported that Mr Sahib Singh was manhandled when he went to Jaipur Golden Hospital to offer condolences to Ved Singh’s family. The dead candidate’s father had alleged that Mr Sahib Singh’s nephews had been threatening his son to withdraw. (UNI)

Child prostitution—a flourishing industry in Rajasthan

NEW DELHI, Nov 11: Child prostitution is today a flourishing industry in Rajasthan where traditional nomadic entertainer tribes are raking in huge profits from selling their "fruits of the womb", says a new study.

The practice is prevalent among Traditional Entertainer Groups (TEG) like the Banjaras, Rajnats, Kanjars, Bedia and Dehredar in what today forms a part of the "pink triangle" of sex trade in and around Jaipur, says the study on "child prostitution in India" by Mr Joseph Gathia of the Centre of Concern For Child labour (CCFCL). The pink triangle, described by the author as one of the most active commercial child prostitution areas, covers Delhi -Jaipur - Agra and certain goods transport routes like Calcutta -Siliguri -Guwahati - Shillong and Kandhala, Rajkot - Udaipur- Jaipur - Delhi.

While the All-India estimates of girl child prostitutes are 30 per cent of all women in prostitution, the percentage in Rajasthan is much higher at between 45 and 55. The principal reason for this is that the practice is family-centred with women members adopting prostitution as a profession and male members including father and brothers acting as pimps or procurers.

The profits are enormous. At the time of the "deflowering" ceremony known as "Nathani Utarana" the parents receive about Rs 20,000 to 25,000 and a girl in the pink triangle area brings a daily income of Rs 200-300, says the study.

Major clients are transport operators (drivers and cleaners), migrant labourers, young students and tourists. Surprisingly, the study found that about 20 per cent of the clients in the pink triangle area were young students. Further, the business was not confined locally and large numbers of young girls were taken to private hotels and houses in Mumbai where they made as much as Rs 50,000.

The problem of child prostitution is serious among 15 districts of Rajasthan which can be divided into two geographical areas. The first comprises Jaipur, Alwar and Ajmer and the second consists of Udaipur and Jodhpur.

The phenomenon is rising at an alarming speed in the seven districts of Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Jaipur, Tonk, Ajmer and Udaipur and will soon surface in the districts of Baran, Bundi, Banswada, Dausa, Dungurpur, Jodhpur, Sawai Madhopur and Sirohi, the study cautions.

According to it, the main reasons for the growth of girl child prostitution is the increased road traffic between Gujarat and North India due to the Kandla free port and petrochemcial industries located in that state, increased tourism, misconceptions about sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS and no alternative income avenues for men, particularly young male members among the tegs.

In fact, acceptance of prostitution as the only source of livelihood in the name of tradition is a survival strategy of the TEGs. There is no indication among menfolk to change the situation and a majority of them do pimping with boys beginning to pimp at the age of 15, it observes.

The study, which covered a total of eight village clusters in Alwar district and four in Jaipur district, found that in one cluster about 70 per cent of the girls aged between 16-18 had been in the flesh trade for three to four years. This indicates the early induction of girls and young college boys and the Nouveau-rich class come to these clusters in their Maruti vans to take girls as young as 13 and 14 out for disco dancing, it says.

The study, covering 200 girl children belonging to women in prostitution, found that a majority of them had joined the family tradition before attaining the age of 14. Sixtyfour per cent of them admitted to being used for purposes of commercial sex before the age of 14.

When asked for the reasons for adopting the family trade at an early age, 62 per cent said they had no option and 19 per cent attributed it to monetary compulsions.

Awareness of the illegality of child prostitution was also low with only 23 per cent of the parents of the respondents knowing that what they did was not legally allowed. The majority of the girls and their parents said it was not illegal and parents added that they could do as they pleased with their daughters.

When asked for suggestions to save the girls from prostitution, 44.5 per cent of the girls said income-generating activities would enable them to run their households independently. About 25.5 per cent of the girls did not want to continue in the profession and this was attributed to the plight of the elderly women around them who were neglected by their own kith and kin due to their expired commerical value. The young girls apprehended the same bleak future for themselves and so showed eagerness in learning skills like stitching, tailoring and weaving.

Observing that a large percentage of women in prostitution wanted some kind of residential school system away from the villages to provide their children with long-term care, the study recommends a package programme designed specifically to cater to the needs of these children. Employment opportunities for women in Agro-based industries or small-scale industries in rural areas should also be created. (UNI)

Dasmunshi’s asks Mamata to return home

CALCUTTA, Nov 11: In the backdrop of a chill in ties between Trinamool Congress and BJP, working president of West Bengal Congress Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi today extended an open invitation to Mamata Banerjee to return to the parent party fold.

In an obvious though unspecified reference to Banerjee, Dasmunshi told a public meeting here that it was unfortunate that some had left Congress and supported the "communal" BJP to form a Government at the Centre but they could come back at any point of time.

"We are even ready to step down from our posts to facilitate their return,"he said.

State Congress chief A B A Ghani Chowdhury, who has differences with Dasmunshi on this issue, did not say anything in this regard and largely confined his speech to the escalation of prices of essential commodities.

Dasmunshi’s remarks assume significance as they came in the wake of a down in Trinamool Congress’ relations with BJP leading to Mamata’s resignation from the Coordination Committee of the ruling alliance.

Dasmunshi sought to refute Mamata’s charge of a nexus between West Bengal’s ruling Marxists and State Congress saying it was the CPI-M which, being scared by the rise of the BJP, genuflected to Congress president Sonia Gandhi to take a lead to dislodge the Vajpayee Government. (PTI)

Thakre defends giving ticket to kith and kin

BHOPAL, Nov 11: Bharatiya Janata Party president Kushabhau Thakre today defended his party’s decision of nominating the kith and kin of several leaders for the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh saying that "only the able and deserving have been fielded".

"We are not promoting kinship. But it will be injustice to deny the ticket to any deserving person just because he or she is a relative of any party leader", he told reporters here.

Claiming that his party had not selected anyone just because of his close relations with any party leader, Mr Thakre said these aspects had been taken into consideration before fielding such candidates.

Replying to a question, he denied that Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Uma Bharati had sat on a dharna to force the party leadership to give the ticket to her brother Swami Prasad Lodhi at Badamalera Assembly constituency in Chhatrapur district.

Mr Thakre said the people of the state wanted a change and "the non-performance" of the Digvijay Singh Government and rampant corruption were among the main election issues in the state.

The people might talk about the BJP-led coalition Government at the Centre during these elections but the state level issues will dominate, he added.

Replying to a question, Mr Thakre said the BJP did not leave any seats to its allies in Madhya Pradesh as these parties were not in a position to defeat the Congress in any of the Assembly segments.

Asked about former Chief Minister Virendra Kumar Sakhlecha’s decision to leave BJP and contest as an independent, he said it would not have any impact on the poll prospects. This is not for the first time that Mr Sakhlecha is leaving the party, he said refusing to elaborate on the reasons for denial of the ticket.

Referring to price rise, he said there was a conspiracy behind the rise in the prices of essential commodities. Those behind the recent artificial scarcity of salt have been exposed following firm action by the Government, he claimed.

Asked who were behind the salt scare, he said he would not name anyone as it was for the police to find out.

About the BJP-led coalition Government at the Centre, Mr Thakre said there might be some delay in taking decisions because of the allies but the Government was not "indecisive". (UNI)

Samata Party candidate shot dead

NEW DELHI, Nov 11: Samata Party candidate from Nangloi assembly constituency Ved Singh was shot dead in Northwest Delhi late last night in the first election-related violence in the capital.

His bullet-ridden body was found near a Chaupal in Mundka area around 2300 hours, police said today and added that a hunt had been launched for the assailants.

Singh had switched over to Samata Party from BJP recently.

Samata Party president and Defence Minister George Fernandes and other senior leaders of the party have rushed to the site. (PTI)