Thursday, June 24, 1999

3 Babbar ultras being brought to Punjab
BARODA, June 23 — Three suspected Babbar Khalsa militants, arrested here on June 12, are being taken to Punjab following the Punjab police obtaining their transfer warrants, officials said here.

BJP ad makes Cong see red
NEW DELHI, June 23 — The Congress today objected to an advertisement by the BJP, charging it with making an attempt to equate the death of Shyama Prasad Mukerji with the laying down of lives by soldiers in the Kargil battle.

Panel fines MCD for non-supply of water
NEW DELHI, June 23 — A city consumer court has asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to pay Rs 3,000 to a consumer for not supplying water in his top floor flat, despite paying minimum water charges.

Cryptomachines ‘not foolproof’
CALCUTTA, June 23 — The cryptomachines used by the Indian defence authorities to code and camouflage secret messages from enemies are not foolproof, fresh research findings here have indicated.

D.P. Yadav escapes attempt on life
LUCKNOW, June 23 — Mr D.P. Yadav Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, was attacked by some unknown assailants between Sambhal and Moradabad last night.

Protest against dam’s height
VADODARA, June 23 — Faced with the prospect of their land, home and forests getting submerged, hundreds of tribals and peasants have begun a protest on the banks of Narmada river against raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam.

MLA’s clarification
NEW DELHI, June 23 — The Supreme Court has stayed till further orders a Himachal Pradesh High Court order setting aside election of Congress candidate Krishna Mohini to the state Assembly from the Solan constituency in the 1998 poll.

Be ready for any situation: Advani

LUCKNOW, June 23 (PTI) — Home Minister L.K. Advani today equated the armed intrusion in Kargil to the Pakistani invasion of 1947 and said the country should be ready for any eventuality as “Pakistan is a rogue state having several centres of power.’’

In 1947, Pakistan had invaded Kashmir by sending its army in the garb of tribesmen whereas this time it had sent its army regulars to Kargil in the garb of militants, he told reporters here.

Asked why the government was not responding the way it had done in 1947, he said at that time the Pakistani army had reached up to Srinagar making it imperative for India to send its army to push them back. “This time the intrusion has been confined to some sectors of Kargil”, he said.

Not ruling out the possibility of a full-scale war with Pakistan, Mr Advani said the nation should be prepared for any eventuality as “several centres of power make Pakistan an irresponsible state.”

“I cannot say there could not be a war”, he said adding “prudence demands that the country should be ready to face any situation.”

Warning Pakistan against any attempt to escalate the ongoing armed conflict in Kargil, he said it would be made to pay a heavy price for any such “misadventure”.

“Pakistan would have to pay a stupendous price if it tried to escalate the Kargil conflict”, he said, referring to the statement of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that there would many Kargils if the Kashmir issue was not resolved.

Mr Advani said the “misadventure” in Kargil had proved to be the biggest fiasco for Pakistan as the latter had been completely isolated even “within that country (Pakistan)”.

He said the intention of Pakistan behind the intrusion was to capture as much land as possible in the area before pressing for a cease-fire. “Pakistan had thought that it would be able to alter the LoC making the Srinagar-Leh highway vulnerable”, he said.

He said Pakistan had also hoped that the international community, including the United Nations, would put pressure on India to declare cease-fire.

“Had that happened Pakistan would have achieved its aim of staying on in the areas already captured by them”, he said.

Mr Advani said Pakistan not only failed to achieve its aim, but had drawn flak from within the country, which was evident from news items appearing in the Pakistani press.

Stating that there had never been any dispute about the areas in Kargil, which was a part of Ladakh, he said the dispute between the countries centred only on the Kashmir valley.

“The international community has criticised Pakistan as the latter had made an attempt to generate tension in the area, which was never in dispute”, he said.

Referring to the possibility of further talks with Pakistan to resolve the issue, he said “there could be no meaningful talks unless the intruders vacate our land.”

To a question Mr Advani said by and large all opposition parties has supported the government on the Kargil issue.

Trade with Pak "not hit"

PATNA, June 23 (PTI) — Union Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde today said the Kargil conflict had not so far affected India's trade and commerce with Pakistan, but any escalation in the situation would hit the economies of the two countries.

"The military confrontation in Kargil has so far not adversely affected our trade and commerce with Pakistan, but it will definitely be hit if the situation snowballs into a full-fledged war," Mr Hegde told reporters here.

He said neither of the two countries would like to engage in a war as it would be detrimental to the interests of both.

"Our economy will most certainly be adversely affected by a war, but for Pakistan it will prove disastrous", he said.

Cong's charge

HYDERABAD: The BJP's attempt to politicise the Kargil issue and "cash in on it" in the coming election will boomerang, Congress leader Syed Sibtey Razi said here on Wednesday.

Mr Razi, also a former Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, told reporters that the BJP was "desperately trying to politicise the Kargil issue by making baseless charges against the Congress.

MLCs' gesture

BANGALORE: Members of the Karnataka Legislative Council are to contribute their one-month salary towards the welfare of the bereaved families of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country in Kargil sector.

A resolution in this regard was passed in the House on Wednesday. The members also observed a minute's silence as a mark of respect to the martyrs.

Nawaz's effigy

HUBLI: A group of BJP activists burnt an effigy of Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif here on Wednesday.

The activists led by the district president, Mr Prahalad Joshi, raised slogans against Mr Nawaz Sharif's attitude towards Kashmir.

In Dharwad also, the Pakistan Premier's effigy was brunt by BJP activists, Mr Joshi said.

Arms display

A huge cache of deadly weapons, which was put on display by the Army here as "trophies from Kargil front", bore see-saw tales of close range fights successfully raged by the troops against Pakistani intruders.

Many of the mortars, universal machine guns (UMG), AK-56 and AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-launchers of Pakistan, Romania and Chinese origin bore bullet marks showing the nature of close combats between the intruders and Indian troops, a defence official said.

Relief fund

State governments, legislators and different organisations have come forward with donations towards the welfare of families of soldiers killed in Kargil.

The Tamil Nadu Government has set up a Kargil Soldiers' Relief Fund and called for contributions from all sections of society.

Cong seeks White Paper on Kargil
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, June 23 — The Congress today demanded that the “caretaker” Vajpayee government bring out a White Paper on the Kargil conflict and convene a special session of the Rajya Sabha to discuss the entire affair.

Charging the government with covering up the facts regarding the conflict, the chairman of the Congress department on foreign affairs, Mr K.Natwar Singh, told The Tribune that the Vajpayee government had committed too many mistakes and the nation should know about it.

While reiterating the Congress support to the action in the Kargil sector, he said the Nehru government too, had brought about half a dozen White Papers following the Indo-China war in 1962.

He recalled that during 1962, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was at the forefront of a campaign to demand a White Paper on the Indo-China war. The Rajya Sabha was also convened during the conflict to discuss the issue, he said.

Terming the euphoria of the Vajpayee government about the G-8 statement as “misplaced” he said the Pakistan Government was also claiming that the statement by the world’s eight powerful nations was a victory for their diplomacy.

A careful study of the G-8 statement showed that the stand taken by the G-8 was not entirely supportive of India.

For instance, “the G-8 has called for ceasefire and so has Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz. The G-8 has asked for negotiations to end the conflict, and so did Mr Aziz. So did Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina”, he said.

Mr Natwar Singh said the G-8 countries had nowhere said that the Pakistan had crossed the Line of Control (LoC) They had said that who ever crosses the LoC was “irresponsible”.

The former Minister of State for External Affairs said when US President Bill Clinton asked India to exercise restraint, what he meant was that India should not cross the LoC.

Mr Natwar Singh said there was no change in the basic attitude of the G-8 and it did consider Kashmir as a disputed territory.

“Is this not internationalisation of the Kashmir issue?,” he asked.

The Congress leader was of the opinion that India was in no position to throw out the armed intruders until the Indian security forces crossed the LoC.

The “careless, caretaker, and defeated” government was reading too much into the G-8 statement. He said the government would have to await the stand taken by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) expected day after tomorrow, to know its success on the diplomatic front.

On individual statements by G-8 countries, like Britain and Germany, he said none of them had made statements in Islamabad. The government should ask its “friends” to tell Pakistan to withdraw. They should ask the UN Secretary-General to warn Pakistan.

According to a UNI report, the Congress today said it had decided to postpone a post-mortem on Kargil developments till the intruders were driven out of the territory.

Talking to newspersons senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said it was the incompetence of the BJP which has let the enemy into hundreds of kilometres of our soil.

Another train derails near Jalpaiguri

NEW JALPAIGURI, June 23 (PTI, UNI) — West Bengal Home Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee today confirmed "active involvement of the ISI" in the New Jalpaiguri railway station blast, even as there was a fresh derailment of a tanker train between New Domohini and Jalpaiguri road railway stations of the Northern Frontier Railway.

The minister told the state Assembly in Calcutta that a high-level inquiry was being instituted to probe yesterday’s blast, which left nine persons, including three Kargil-bound army jawans dead and 80 others injured.

Today’s derailment of four empty tankers of a Guwahati-bound train occurred barely 70 metres from the spot of the Monday’s accident involving a goods train, when seven wagons had jumped the rails, said Northern Frontier Railway General Manager Rajendra Nath here.

He said the Monday’s derailment was caused by a bomb. Evidence of the blast was found as powder marks were seen on the derailed wagons, carrying foodgrain.

Meanwhile, experts sifting through the rubble of the yesterday’s blast have determined it was caused by RDX hidden in a suitcase and set off with a timer.

Official sources said the remains of a suitcase, a transistor and a clock were found from the spot, where a four-member team of the Central forensic laboratory and a CID bomb disposal unit were working.

Mr Bhattacharjee said 11 persons had been arrested in connection with the explosion. The explosives were planted in a briefcase which was left on the platform near the New Delhi bound Mahananda Link Express.

He said the police stations, border outposts and railway protection force throughout the state had been put on maximum alert in view of the explosion and recovery of explosives from the railway track in north Bengal.

"We are also contemplating a high-level inquiry into the explosion once our team returns from the spot,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, life in Siliguri and adjacent Jalpaiguri district was paralysed today in response to a dawn-to-dusk bandh called by the ruling Left Front in protest against the yesterday’s explosion.

A report from Siliguri said shops, business establishments, educational institutions, banks and government offices remained closed. Vehicular traffic was also off the road.

The bandh also crippled transport services between Siliguri and Darjeeling hills and between Siliguri and Sikkim.

Weather officials, EC hold meeting

NEW DELHI, Jun 23 (PTI) — The Election Commission (EC), intensively involved in poll preparations, had a meeting with senior officials of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) today to discuss the weather situation in September-October when the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to be held.

The officials gave a detailed presentation to the EC on the weather conditions and forecast during the period.

Besides Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill, two Election Commissioners G.V.G. Krishnamurty and J.M. Lyngdoh were also present at the meeting.

The IMD officials have already had a number of working group meetings with the commission officials.

The IMD has also done a 30-year study to give the commission reliable indications of the likely weather situation in different parts of the country at that time.

This is the first time in the Indian election history that detailed data and forecasting inputs are being analysed for the election commission.

Mr V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, Department of Science, Dr R.R. Kelkar, IMD Director-General, and a weather forecasting specialist represented the weather office at the meeting.

Mr Gill had said in an interaction with mediapersons yesterday that the weather conditions and the availability of paramilitary forces would be among the major criterion for deciding the poll schedule.

3 Babbar ultras being brought to Punjab

BARODA, June 23 (PTI) — Three suspected Babbar Khalsa militants, arrested here on June 12, are being taken to Punjab following the Punjab police obtaining their transfer warrants, officials said here.

Of the three, Kulwant Singh and Sarabjeet Singh are wanted in connection with several cases in Punjab and other parts of the country, while the third, Jasbir Singh, was charged with providing them shelter, the police said.

Kulwant Singh was allegedly involved in a bomb blast in a bus at Bathinda in which 15 persons had been killed.

Sarabjeet Singh was an accused in the murder of transporter Sukhdev Singh in Orissa last year.

The police said the three, during interrogation, had confessed that they were planning to rob a local branch of Bank of Baroda and an office of the Sardar Sarovar project.

Following this, assistant engineer of the project, Kaniayalal Vanvasi, peon of the bank Navin Shanker and Bansi Lal Sharma, alias Fauji, were arrested on Monday.

BJP ad makes Cong see red
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, June 23 — The Congress today objected to an advertisement by the BJP, charging it with making an attempt to equate the death of Shyama Prasad Mukerji with the laying down of lives by soldiers in the Kargil battle.

Reacting strongly to the advertisement inserted in prominent dailies by the BJP which is observing “Kashmir Day” today, the Congress said it was “unwarranted and uncalled for”.

The advertisement said it was “a tribute to all those who made the supreme sacrifice for our motherland” and went on to state that the first one to do so in 1953 was Dr S.P. Mukerji who on this day, “became one of the first martyrs for the cause of Kashmir”.

The Congress contended that the cause for which the advertisement claimed the late leader had courted arrest was not to demand full integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India but the Nehru-Liaqut Ali pact of 1950.

The party also charged the BJP with having launched a campaign aimed at “deriving narrow partisan political advantage for itself from the martyrdom of hundreds of jawans on the snow-covered slopes of the Himalayas.”

The AICC General Secretary, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, said the martyrdom of the brave young men in the Kargil battle had nothing in common with the death of a political leader 50 years ago.

The attempt was an insult to the memory of the young soldiers who had met their end owing to the inexperience and immaturity of a government whose many errors of omission and commission had led to its losing the confidence of Parliament and the country,” he said in a statement.

He said the Congress did not wish to demoralise the armed forces as the Jan Sangh had done in the 1962 war with the Chinese.

Panel fines MCD for non-supply of water

NEW DELHI, June 23 (PTI) — A city consumer court has asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to pay Rs 3,000 to a consumer for not supplying water in his top floor flat, despite paying minimum water charges.

The complainant Wg Cdr (retd) V.C. Sodhi, in his complaint had said the MCD was charging the minimum rate of Rs 7.50 in 1989 despite low water pressure and also that the water did not reach the overhead tanks of top floor flats. Even the direct supply lasted for around one hour daily.

The court penalised the MCD for its failure to supply water to Wing Commander Sodhi and directed the civic body to return the minimum deposits it received way back in April 1989 with 18 per cent interest, pay Rs 2,000 as compensation for the mental sufferings and Rs 1000 as litigation cost.

The consumer dispute redressal forum-ii also took serious note of the complaint that booster pumps installed illegally by residents in collusion with the MCD staff had reduced the pressure in the supply lines, thus, denying the top floors the required quantity of water.

“The MCD should get all suspected flat owners checked up and arrange for the removal of the boosting pumps, installed unauthorisedly in any flat,” it said.

The authorities in the MCD have been directed to ensure that their field staff complies with this order scrupulously and in case any one of the field staff members is found guilty, he should be properly dealt with not only departmentally but an appropriate action should be taken against him”, the court President, Mr T.C. Gupta, and members Mr S.P. Chopra and Mr N.R. Kumar observed in a recent judgement.

Cryptomachines ‘not foolproof’

CALCUTTA, June 23 (PTI) — The cryptomachines used by the Indian defence authorities to code and camouflage secret messages from enemies are not foolproof, fresh research findings here have indicated.

The coded lingo with hidden messages can be easily decoded by hackers and tappers with just a little effort, a team of scientists studying how safe the machines are for transmitting top secret information, has said.

The team working under a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) project “attacked” coded texts from defence sources with the help of a common decoding formula and “easily” cracked the information.

“These cryptomachines are generally attached to defence computers and phone lines to tap incoming and outgoing messages, converting them into secret ‘cypher texts’ from plain texts,” the project leader Dr Bimal Roy of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) told PTI.

D.P. Yadav escapes attempt on life

LUCKNOW, June 23 (UNI) — Mr D.P. Yadav Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, was attacked by some unknown assailants between Sambhal and Moradabad last night.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (Moradabad range) O.P. Singh, said here today that his motorcade was attacked by car borne assailants. At least six rounds were fired from automatic weapons. However, no one was injured in the firing, he said.

The assailants managed to sneak under the cover of darkness while a massive manhunt had been launched by the police, the DIG said. No arrest had been made in this connection, he added.

Protest against dam’s height

VADODARA, June 23 (UNI) — Faced with the prospect of their land, home and forests getting submerged, hundreds of tribals and peasants have begun a protest on the banks of Narmada river against raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam.

Supported by activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and other peoples organisations, they lighted lamps and ‘offered’ them to the river at Domkhedi village in Maharashtra and Jalsindhi village in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday.

The villagers pledged that they would not leave their homes for ‘an ill-conceived project.’ Raising the dam height to 88 metres was ‘unjust’ and unacceptable to them.

MLA’s clarification

NEW DELHI, June 23 (PTI) — The Supreme Court has stayed till further orders a Himachal Pradesh High Court order setting aside election of Congress candidate Krishna Mohini to the state Assembly from the Solan constituency in the 1998 poll.

A Vacation Bench comprising Justice G.B. Pattanaik and Justice D.P. Wadhawa, while admitting Mohini’s statutory appeal on Monday against the High Court order of May 12, allowed the legislator to attend the Assembly.

In a press release here today, the appellant stated that no condition had been imposed on the functioning of the MLA in the Assembly.

Two naxalites killed in AP
HYDERABAD: Two naxalites, including a top functionary of the People’s War Group (PWG), were killed in separate incidents in Andhra Pradesh since Tuesday, the police said on Wednesday. B Saraiah alias Bose, deputy central organiser of the PWG in Nelutla village of Warangal district, was killed in an encounter with the police. — PTI

Railway employees honoured
NEW DELHI: Two railway employees, Mr P.P. Muthu and Mr Birpal, working in the Delhi division of the Northern Railway, have been honoured for displaying exemplary sense of dedication and honesty for helping a journalist to get back his lost baggage. The two were honoured with commendation certificates and a cash reward of Rs 2,500 each by the Railway Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar, at a function here on Tuesday. — PTI