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Convicted Bollywood star surrenders to court

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May 172013
 

Indian actor Sanjay Dutt has surrendered before a Mumbai court and will begin serving time for a weapons conviction linked to a deadly terror attack in the city in 1993.

The Bollywood actor surrendered on Thursday to a five-year jail sentence handed by India’s Supreme Court in March for illegal possession of weapons supplied by mafia bosses linked to the terror attack, which killed 257 people in the city 10 years ago.

The 53-year-old actor served 18 months in jail in 2007, before being released on bail pending an appeal, so he is to spend the next three and half years behind bars.

The Supreme Court reduced his prison sentence to five years from the six-year term initially handed down.

Earlier this month, the court rejected Dutt’s plea seeking review of its judgement on his conviction and jail term.

According to industry estimates, Dutt is currently involved in projects worth at least $20 million.

Denying knowledge

Dutt was convicted for possession of an automatic rifle and a pistol that were supplied to him by men subsequently convicted in the 1993 Mumbai bombings.

Dutt has said he knew nothing about the bombing plot and that he asked for the guns to protect his family – his mother was Muslim and his father Hindu – after receiving threats during the religious riots that preceded the bombings.

The 1993 bombings were seen at the time as the world’s worst terrorist attack, with 13 bombs exploding over a two-hour period across Mumbai.

Powerful explosives were packed into cars and scooters parked near India’s main Bombay Stock Exchange and other sites in the city. In addition to those killed, more than 720 people were injured in the attack.

Despite the long-drawn trial over the bombings, Dutt’s Bollywood career has flourished over the past 20 years.

Indian media: Police violence

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May 162013
 

Media in India are discussing police violence against women, the announcement of a low-cost vaccine to fight diarrhoea, a drop in inflation and Bollywood’s presence at the Cannes Film Festival.

An increasing number of cases of violence against women by policemen is being reported by the media, including a recent case where a young woman was slapped in the northern Indian town of Ghaziabad.

Along with a number of national and local channels, India Today aired footage showing a policeman repeatedly slapping the young woman who was accused of being drunk.

The Times of India said police accused her “of consuming alcohol with a male friend inside a car”.

“At the police station, not only did a policeman hit her, but the policemen also allegedly encouraged the residents who had brought her in to thrash the woman.

NDTV website says: “The law provides that a woman cannot be detained after sundown and a male cop cannot as much as touch her. They were released on bail later in the night.”

‘Affordable vaccine’

Rotavirus, which causes acute diarrhoea, kills more than 100,000 children each year in India as existing vaccines, which cost around 1,000 rupees (about $18.50; £12) per dose, are too costly for many families.

The new vaccine called Rotavac, developed under a public-private partnership, will be priced at 54 rupees ($1; £0.65) per dose once it is approved by the Drugs Controller General of India, Hindustan Times reports.

NDTV website calls this announcement “good news” and feels that this is a step forward in providing “affordable health care at its best”.

Meanwhile, leading financial newspapers are reporting a drop in inflation and hope that this will give some respite to people who have been living with a continuous rise in the prices of essential commodities.

Headline inflation in India fell below 5% in April, reaching the Reserve Bank of India’s “comfort zone” for the first time in more than three years, financial daily Business Standard reports.

“The inflation data should come as a relief to existing home loan customers who have been saddled with high equated monthly instalments (EMIs) for the last few years,” reports financial website NDTV Profit.

In international news, publications are discussing Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India next week.

The Hindu says that “officials from both sides are currently holding consultations to finalise a slew of agreements expected to be announced”.

Writing in Hindustan Times, foreign affairs expert Brahma Chellaney says an emboldened China believes the recent standoff between the two countries in Ladakh “has so softened India that it can now be inveigled into granting more concessions, especially to make Premier Li Keqiang’s visit a ‘success’”.

‘Locked cockpit’

There were “tense moments” for passengers when the commander of a domestic flight got locked out of the cockpit during a toilet break.

“The Delhi-Bangalore flight was then diverted to Bhopal where it landed safely with the co-pilot in command,” The Hindu reports.

“The commander had left the cockpit for a short while to visit the toilet, and on returning found the door locked. The door had got jammed, and all efforts to open it even from inside by the co-pilot failed,” Air India said in a statement.

Turning to Bollywood, two Indian films have been selected for screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Ritesh Batra’s Dabba (The Lunchbox) will be screened at the International Critics’ Week, while Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout will be shown in the festival’s Midnight Screenings section, Hindustan Times reports.

Bollywood films have been making their presence felt at the festival in the past few years and the two directors hope their ventures will get good reviews on the international stage.

Pakistan prisoner attacked in India jail dies

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May 102013
 

A Pakistani prisoner jailed in India has died after he was attacked by another inmate in an apparent revenge attack for the death of an Indian prisoner in a Pakistani jail.

Sanaullah Haq, also known as Sanaullah Ranjay, who was admitted to a hospital in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh with serious head injuries, had suffered renal failure late on Wednesday, the doctor said on Thursday.

“His condition was extremely critical. He died early morning,” a senior doctor at the government hospital said on condition of anonymity.

“Although it’s scant consolation I’d like to offer a sincere apology to the family of Sanaullah Haq and my sympathies for their loss,” Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state where Haq had been imprisoned since 1999, wrote on Twitter
on Thursday.

Last week, Pakistan said the assault was “condemnable” and called on India to punish the attacker. India said it regretted the incident and gave consular access to Ranjay.

The hospital would hand over the body to two of his relatives who had arrived in India from the Pakistani city of Sialkot ”as per the instructions of the government”, the doctor said.

Ranjay, who has been serving a jail term for a 1990s bomb blast that killed 10 people, was attacked by a prisoner identified as a former Indian army soldier just 24 hours after Sarabjit Singh’s death in a Lahore jail that drew strong reaction from India.

Last weekend, demonstrators took to the streets in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to protest against the attack on Ranjay.

The prison violence could fuel tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, whose relations were hit by a border flare-up earlier this year.

The neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region of Kashmir, which they each control in part but claim in full.

New Delhi says 535 Indian prisoners, including 483 fishermen, are in Pakistani jails, while 272 Pakistani prisoners are behind bars in India.

India court criticises coal scandal probe report

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May 092013
 

India court criticises coal scandal probe reportIndia’s Supreme Court has accused the government of interfering in a federal investigation into a coal scandal said to have cost India billions of dollars.

Judges expressed concern that senior government figures had met Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials to suggest changes to its report.

The court said the CBI had become a “caged parrot speaking in the master’s voice”, Press Trust of India reports.

India lost $210bn (£134bn) by selling off coalfields cheaply, auditors say.

The CBI admitted to the court last month that it had shared the confidential draft probe report with the government before submitting it to the court.

Outraged opposition parties have been demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Law Minister Ashwani Kumar resign for trying to influence the investigation.

Mr Singh denies any wrongdoing in the scandal and has refused to quit.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court judges examined a nine-page affidavit submitted by the CBI outlining the changes that were made after the report was shown to Mr Kumar and others.

The court said the CBI was supposed to “interrogate to find out the truth” and not to “interact with government officials”.

The CBI has said the report was shared with Attorney General GE Vahanvati, former Additional Solicitor General Harin Raval, officials in the coal ministry and the prime minister’s office and the law minister.

The agency has said that no names were deleted and no substantial change was made to the report.

Correspondents say the controversy has raised questions over the independence of India’s leading investigation agency when it looks into scandals involving government ministers and officials.

The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) into the sale of coalfields said private and state companies had benefited from the allocations between 2004 and 2010.

Opposition politicians accused the government of “looting the country” by selling coalfields to companies without competitive bidding.

The Congress-led government has been beset by corruption scandals. General elections are due next year.

India and China ‘pull back troops’ in disputed border area

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May 072013
 

India and China have started pulling back troops from disputed territory near the two countries’ de facto border, India’s foreign ministry says.

Soldiers were said to have set up camps facing each other on the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region last month.

The two sides held a series of talks to resolve the row and on Sunday, agreed to withdraw the troops.

The two countries dispute several Himalayan border areas and fought a brief war in 1962.

Tensions flare up from time to time. They have held numerous rounds of border talks, but all have been unsuccessful so far.

A spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, Syed Akbaruddin, told the BBC that India and China had agreed to pull their troops back to positions they held prior to the current stand-off, which began last month.

Meetings between border commanders were being held to confirm the arrangement, he added.

Indian officials had accused Chinese troops of straying 10km (six miles) into Indian territory on 15 April and putting up tents in the Depsang valley in Ladakh, in eastern Kashmir.

China had denied reports of an incursion.

The pull-out comes days ahead of Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid’s visit to China, ahead of a scheduled visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India.

Mr Khurshid is visiting China on 9 May, ahead of Mr Li’s visit on 20 May for his first overseas trip.

Court approves contested India nuclear plant

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May 062013
 

India’s Supreme Court has paved the way for the commissioning of a nuclear power plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu that has been the target of widespread protests.

Monday’s verdict would make the Russian-built Kudankulam plant, designed to help meet a surging demand for electricity, the country’s largest nuclear power project.

“The plant has been set up for people’s welfare,” said the ruling delivered by judges KS Panicker Radhakrishnan and Dipak Mishra.

“Necessary clearances have been taken by the government, and development of the nuclear power plant is important for India.

“We have to strike a balance between larger interest and economic necessities.”

Plans for the Kudankulam plant were first drawn up in 1988 and it was supposed to have gone into operation in 2011.

Two of the reactors are now in place but they have come on line amid large-scale protests by locals about the threat of radiation.

The judges ordered the government to submit a final report on the safety aspect of the plant and waste disposal arrangements to deal with the hazardous material.

Several petitions had been filed before the top court by anti-nuclear activists challenging the project on safety grounds.

Sarabjit Singh: Convicted Indian ‘spy’ cremated

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May 032013
 

Sarabjit Singh, the Indian convicted of spying in Pakistan and killed in a Pakistani jail, has been cremated amid mass outrage across India.

Senior Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi and several government ministers from the state of Punjab were among the large crowd attending the state funeral in Singh’s home village.

Singh, sentenced to death by Pakistan in 1991, died after being attacked with bricks by inmates in Lahore’s jail.

Delhi called the attack “barbaric”.

Indian PM Manmohan Singh has demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

Sarabjit Singh had been convicted of spying and over his role in bomb attacks that killed 14 people in Pakistan in 1990.

His family always insisted he was innocent and had strayed into Pakistan by mistake when he was arrested.

The issue risks stirring fresh tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours and long-time rivals, correspondents say.

Meanwhile a Pakistani prisoner, Sanaullah Haq, suffered critical head injuries after he was attacked by a fellow inmate at the high-security Kot Bhalwal jail in Jammu, in Indian-administered Kashmir.

He has been admitted to intensive care at a Jammu hospital and doctors say he is in a coma.

Police say Haq has been in prison for the past 17 years on militancy-related charges.

His attacker, police say, is a former Indian army soldier convicted of murder. Reports said the attack happened on Friday morning after the two men argued.

‘Brave son of India’

The body of 49-year-old Sarabjit Singh was flown to Amritsar, northern India, from Lahore on Thursday.

Hundreds of mourners waited at the airport, describing Sarabjit Singh as a “martyr”.

His death triggered protests in India, as people burned Pakistani flags and accused Islamabad of a conspiracy to kill him.

His body was handed over to his family in the village of Bikhiwind for Friday’s cremation.

In a statement, Manmohan Singh called Sarabjit Singh “a brave son of India” and said the attack was “barbaric”.

“It is particularly regrettable that the government of Pakistan did not heed the pleas of the government of India, Sarabjit’s family and of civil society in India and Pakistan to take a humanitarian view of this case,” he added.

He was referring to mercy petitions which had been rejected by Pakistani courts and former President Pervez Musharraf.

Sarabjit Singh’s sister Dalbir Kaur called her brother’s death “a murder by Pakistan”.

Ms Kaur said she would continue to fight for the release of other Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails.

Espionage accusations

Sarabjit Singh fell into a coma after last Friday’s attack in Lahore’s Jinnah hospital and died on Thursday morning.

He was assaulted as he and other prisoners were brought out of their cells for a one-hour break.

Two inmates have been charged over the attack and two officials suspended.

The Pakistani foreign ministry said Sarabjit Singh had received “the best treatment available” and that “medical staff at Jinnah Hospital had been working round the clock… to save his life”.

Tensions between the two countries had already increased in the past six months with the execution in India of Kashmiri Afzul Guru over the 2001 attack on India’s parliament, and of Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, a Pakistani who was the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Sarabjit Singh’s lawyer Owais Sheikh said his client had received threats after Guru’s execution.

Pakistan and India frequently arrest each other’s citizens, often accusing them of being spies after they have strayed across the land or maritime border.

In recent years, several Indians returning from Pakistani jails have admitted to spying.

Indian ‘spy’ attacked in Pakistan jail dies

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May 022013
 

Indian 'spy' attacked in Pakistan jail dies An Indian national on death row in Pakistan who was attacked last week by fellow inmates has died from his injuries, his lawyer and a doctor said.

Sarabjit Singh, who was sentenced to death in 1991 on espionage charges, died early on Thursday, after lying in a comatose state for the last five days, a senior doctor at Jinnah hospital in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore.

“The criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on Sarabjit Singh must be brought to justice,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on his official Twitter page.

Singh’s relatives are calling for his body to be returned.

The prime minister added that New Delhi would make the necessary arrangements to bring his body home for funeral rites, after earlier negotiations to treat the jailed spy in India or a third country failed.

Singh’s lawyer Owais Sheikh confirmed the 49-year-old’s death and said that his body “has been moved to the hospital mortuary”.

The doctor who spoke to AFP said arrangements were under way for an autopsy.

Singh sustained several injuries, including a fractured skull, when six prisoners attacked him on Friday last week, hitting him on the head with bricks.

“[His death] was already feared. His condition was more than critical and he had less chances of survival,” Sheikh said.

Pakistan insists regular consular access was granted to Singh and said doctors did everything possible to save him before his death from cardiac arrest.

There were angry protests in Singh’s native Bhikhiwind village in northern Punjab state, where Pakistan flags were burned.

His lawyer earlier said that his client had received threats following the execution of a Kashmiri separatist in India.

Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged in New Delhi on February 9 for his part in a deadly Islamist attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

Mercy petitions

Singh was convicted for his alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks in Pakistan’s Punjab province that killed 14 people in 1990. His mercy petitions were rejected by the courts and former president Pervez Musharraf.

His family insisted he was a victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border while drunk.

Four members of Singh’s family – his wife, two daughters and his sister – who travelled to Lahore on Tuesday have since returned to India, according to Indian media.

A senior official in Delhi had said diplomats from the high commission in Islamabad were not allowed to visit Singh in hospital, and had also complained about a lack of information on the prisoner’s condition.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry, however, insisted Indian diplomats in Lahore were given access to Singh on two occasions.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the attack on Singh as a “dastardly act” and called on the government to make a thorough inquiry into the matter and punish the guilty persons.

“The authorities have obviously failed to do their elementary duty” of providing him safety and security, the commission said in a statement.

The attack made front-page news in Indian newspapers, with Indian television stations running frequent updates on his condition.

Pakistan last year released an Indian man who had served three decades in a Pakistani jail on espionage charges.

It is unclear how the death will affect the relationship between Pakistan and India, two nuclear-armed neighbours who are longtime enemies, who have fought three major wars since they achieved independence from Britain in 1947.

In recent years relations have warmed somewhat, especially with regard to trade.

Family visits Indian spy in Pakistan prison

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Apr 292013
 

Members of the family of an Indian citizen on death row in Pakistan have visited him in hospital after he was attacked in jail.

Sarabjit Singh’s wife, two daughters and sister visited him at Lahore’s Jinnah hospital on Sunday, a Pakistani government statement and a senior doctor at the hospital said.

“He was still in a coma and his condition was critical,” the doctor said.

Singh, 49, was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit on Friday with a serious head injury after a group of fellow inmates in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail reportedly hit him with bricks.

Singh had been sentenced to death in 1991 for spying, and for his alleged role in serial bomb blasts in Lahore and Faisalabad in 1990.

Also, the Pakistan foreign ministry said late on Sunday that Indian diplomats in Lahore had been given access to Singh for a second time, following an earlier meeting late on Friday.

Consular access

Earlier, Indian government officials said Pakistan had denied consular access to Singh, who was admitted to hospital with multiple wounds, according to AFP news agency.

On arrival in Pakistan, Singh’s sister Dalbir Kaur thanked the Pakistani people for their prayers for her brother’s recovery and hoped that he would get well soon and be allowed to return to India.

Singh’s lawyer, Owais Sheikh, earlier told AFP that his client had received threats following the execution of a Kashmiri separatist in India. Mohammed Afzal Guru was hanged in New Delhi on February 9 for his part in a deadly attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

Singh was convicted over a string of bomb attacks in Punjab province in Pakistan which killed 14 people in 1990. His mercy petitions were rejected by the courts and former President Pervez Musharraf.

His family says he is a victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border.

 

India foreign minister Salman Khurshid to visit China

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Apr 252013
 

India’s Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has said he will visit China in May amid tensions near the de facto border in the Himalayas.

Mr Khurshid’s trip comes ahead of a scheduled visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to India.

It comes at a time when India has asked China to withdraw troops it says have moved into a territory near the border.

China denies violating Indian territory. The two sides are holding talks to resolve the row.

“I believe we have a mutual interest and we should not destroy years of contribution we have put together,” Mr Khurshid was quoted by AFP news agency as telling reporters on the sidelines of a business event.

“I think it is a good thing that we are having a dialogue.”

Mr Khurshid said he would be visiting China on 9 May, ahead of Mr Li’s visit on 20 May for his first overseas trip, reports say.

India says Chinese troops erected a camp on its side of the ill-defined frontier in Ladakh region last week.

China has dismissed reports of the incursion as media speculation.

The two countries dispute several Himalayan border areas and fought a brief war in 1962. Tensions flare up from time to time.

They have held numerous rounds of border talks, but all have been unsuccessful so far.

The BBC’s Soutik Biswas in Delhi says there has not been a fatality in skirmishes along the undefined India-China boundary since 1967, but the memories of the crushing defeat inflicted by the Chinese on India in the 1962 war have not faded from the minds of some Indians.

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