New Delhi, May 20India today said comments made by a Pakistani minister that “action cannot be taken against terrorist outfits like the JuD and JeM as the state itself was involved with them” corroborated New Delhi’s view that Islamabad had been supporting anti-India extremists.Vikas Swarup, spokesperson for Ministry of External Affairs, said this when asked about his response to the remarks by Pakistan Punjab’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah. “If the Minister indeed said so, it sadly corroborates the view that we have always held about the support and freedom available to anti-India terrorist groups in Pakistan, including globally sanctioned terrorist groups and individuals,” he said. — TNS

RETURNING to Jaffna last week after three decades, on a visit to see the reconstruction after the end of the brutal civil war, was an emotional experience. My first visit to Jaffna, accompanying the Indian force commander, Lt Gen Depinder Singh, was in October 1987. The sound of AK-47 rifle fire, as our helicopter landed in Jaffna, is etched in my memory. Things were very different now, when I landed at Jaffna’s Palaly Airport. While the wounds of war will take decades to heal, one could not but be impressed at the manner in which things have changed. There is an air of expectation of better times, as Jaffna is now a bustling town, with children cycling to school and the university looking forward to better times. There is an assured supply of electricity and water, and even a brand new hotel full of visitors! Happily, there is now an Indian Consul General in Jaffna, to oversee the comprehensive rehabilitation assistance that India is providing.India’s imaginatively crafted development assistance to Sri Lanka, particularly to the war-torn Northern and Eastern provinces, has been a little publicised success story, which few,  even in India, are aware of. India has helped around 46,000 Tamil families to move into new homes. Moreover, rehabilitation assistance has also been extended to small businesses across the Northern Province, together with the establishment of an industrial estate in Jaffna. Indian assistance has included the construction and equipping of hospitals, clinics and water supply projects. Tamil fishermen in the Jaffna Peninsula have been assisted with the supply of boats, fishing nets and cold storages. These fishermen make no secret of their anguish at the manner in which fishing trawlers from Tamil Nadu, equipped with lethal wire nets, are denuding their fishery resources and depriving them of their livelihood by reckless exploitation of their fishery resources. Jaffna residents speak of Indian fishing trawlers operating within sight. This is a genuinely humanitarian issue on which they expect some understanding and support from their brethren in Tamil Nadu.After clearing up the Kankesanthurai harbour and renovating the Palaly airfield, there are now possibilities of Indian investment in converting the Palaly airfield into a hub for tourism across the Palk Straits. Moreover, one cannot but be impressed by the speed and efficiency of the restoration of the railway link to Jaffna from Colombo, with Indian assistance. Power shortages could be addressed soon, if an expeditious decision is taken in Colombo on the long-pending Sampur Power Plant in the Eastern Province, to be built in collaboration with the NTPC. Moreover, there is need for some imaginative thinking on how India can join in regional efforts to make Trincomalee a regional hub, given the fact that it has an interest and role in the development of petroleum storage facilities in the strategically located port. The Petroleum Minister, Mr Dharamendra Pradhan, is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka. This will, no doubt, be an important item on his agenda.Following provincial elections, the Northern Province now has an elected government with a distinguished Chief Minister, Justice Vigneswaran. There are predictably complaints about the need for greater devolution of power to the provincial government. While the government in Colombo is committed to significant political changes, it would be unrealistic for the Tamils in the North to expect a merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, as virtually the entire Tamil Muslim population has fled to the East and has little interest in living with their erstwhile northern neighbours. Any call for merger of the north and east will be rejected in any referendum by a combination of Sinhalas and Tamil Muslims in the Eastern Province. In the meantime, Sri Lanka seems headed for major constitutional changes. The new Constitution will hopefully address issues, which led to ethnic alienation in the past. The new Sririsena-Wickremasinghe dispensation, which unites both national parties, the UNP and SLFP in Sri Lanka, came together because people across the political spectrum were alienated, by the authoritarian Rajapakse family dispensation. It is to their credit that many of the authoritarian excesses of the previous government have been discarded, through steps, which have won widespread public support. It is still not clear if such a broad coalition will enter the next elections in a similarly united manner. But, the present dispensation has been sensitive to India’s security concerns. This should be acknowledged and reciprocated. While it will be unwise and unaffordable to look at every Chinese initiative in Sri Lanka with suspicion, New Delhi has to ensure that it retains its influence in Trincomalee, while ensuring that China’s presence in Colombo and elsewhere does not pose a security challenge. Sri Lanka has avoided acquiring Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 fighter aircraft. It is prepared to look at acquiring the superior Indian Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) instead.  No effort should be spared to ensure that Sri Lanka receives a sufficient number of Indian LCA expeditiously.Trade and investment ties with Sri Lanka are steadily growing. India is today Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner. Investment ties are growing, or set to grow in areas like retail, petroleum and petro-chemicals, tyres, cement and infrastructure. There is now an Indian Consulate and promising prospects for Indian investments in areas like sugar refineries, even in former President Rajapakse’s constituency, the Chinese built port of Hambantota. What one should never forget is that a vast majority of Sri Lankans are devout Buddhists. India could act much more imaginatively in not only cultivating the Buddhist clergy, but also in focusing on its shared spiritual heritage with countries in the Bay of Bengal rim, including Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand.  The next BIMSTEC Summit meeting is to be held in New Delhi later this year. Members — India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand — have a shared Buddhist heritage and developing this entire region as a tourism hub would be of immense interest to the estimated 535 million Buddhist population spread across the world. Heritage tourism is now becoming increasingly popular worldwide. And recent estimates suggest that there are 250 million practicing Buddhists in China alone. Sadly, India has a along way to go before it can be regarded internationally as being an attractive tourist destination, especially in comparison to its eastern neighbours.

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 17

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has stayed, till further orders, disciplinary proceedings initiated for a second time against an Armyman after it was contended that he had been tried and sentenced by a court martial for the same offence earlier.Justice Fatehdeep Singh today observed that the petitioner, Munish Kumar, was tried under military law on the basis of a chargesheet dated Decmeber 12, 2014, leading to sentence by a summary court martial. Again the impugned chargesheet dated May 12, 2016, on the same very allegations has been issued. The Summary Court Martial, which had held the petitioner, a naik posted to an artillery regiment, guilty for allegedly using criminal force on a person subordinate to him, had ordered that he be reduced to the ranks.

Saint-Nazaire (France): The world’s biggest-ever cruise ship, the 120,000-tonne Harmony of the Seas, capable of accommodating more than 8,000 passengers and crew in the most luxurious conditions, was set for delivery on Thursday from a French boatyard. At 66 metres, it is the widest cruise ship ever built, while its 362-metre length makes it 50 metres longer than the height of the Eiffel Tower. The floating town has 16 decks and will be able to carry 6,360 passengers and 2,100 crew members. AFP‘World’s ugliest dog’ wins Hero award London: Mugly, crowned as the world’s ugliest dog in 2012, has won the Hero award for serving as a therapy dog and helping adults and children with disabilities. The 12-year-old Chinese Crested dog has been working as a voluntary therapy pet for the past six years, participating in reading programmes for children and visiting adults with physical disabilities and learning challenges. Mugly was abandoned by a breeder when he was three days old. PTI

Jagrup Singh (right), whose father, TADA undertrial Sarvjit Singh, was beaten to death inside the Pilibhit district jail. Photo: Shahira Naim

Shahira Naim

Now 27, Jagrup Singh was five when his father, TADA prisoner Sarvjit Singh, was beaten to death inside the Pilibhit district jail and uncle Trilok Singh virtually debilitated.Growing up on the horror stories of that fateful day, Jagrup’s only mission in life is justice for his family.Their land in Jagat Kundro village under Amaria police station went under water in a subsequent flood, rendering the family landless. He now earns a living driving a truck for a transporter in Sitarganj in Uttarakhand.After reading a news item in a local paper last month about the jail staff of Pilibhit district jail going scot-free after beating to death his father and six other prisoners, he wrote a letter to the head of the Shiromani Gurdwara Committee of the historic Nanak Mata Sahib near Sitarganj in Uttarakhand, asking to ensure the reopening of the murder cases against the Pilibhit jail staff.He also asked the gurdwara management to press for compensation for the families of the victims and jobs for their children.Showing a copy of the letter, Jagrup brings out stacks of sepia-coloured papers relating to the case. He has preserved every bit of paper related to the case at his rented house in Bara Dunwa village, not far from his village.A father of two, Jagrup regrets that his mother Jasbir Kaur died three months ago before she could see him getting the guilty punished.The family lives with his maternal aunt while he works in Sitarganj. Tarsem Singh, brother of the maternal aunt’s husband, had brought his father’s body from the Pilibhit hospital in his tractor in 1994.“The sole of his feet had been reduced to pulp. The nails had been pulled out. The police did not let us call anyone for the last rites and insisted on disposing of the body quickly,” he recalls.Jagrup’s uncle Trilok Singh, who survived the beating, cannot walk without support. After being released from Pilibhit jail in 1997, he shifted to Rasul Kalan village under Jandiala police station in Amritsar. Speaking to this reporter from Amritsar, he said that fateful night inside the jail ruined his life. “I have rods inside my leg; I am in pain most of the time and can barely walk with a stick.”He lives with his brother Lakhwinder Singh, who retired from the Border Security Force. Similarly, there was another set of brothers incarcerated under TADA from Saddarpur village under Amaria police station. Jeet Singh was killed inside the jail while his younger brother Harbhajan Singh was brutally beaten up and moved to Amritsar after he left the prison. The wife and family of the third brother, Gurmej Singh, now live in the family house and look after a 10-acre farm.“Our whole family split up after that incident,” reminisces Sukhwant Kaur. She recalls that Jeet had been married for barely four years. After his death, his widow remarried when Harbhajan did not marry her.Too bitter by the experience, Harbhajan sold off his share of the family property and moved to Punjab. Sukhwant Kaur says that he neither keeps in touch with the family, nor has anything to do with Pilibhit.“Pained by all this, my husband died of a heart attack eight years ago. Since then, I and my children are fending for ourselves”.Recalling the horror of those days Sukhwant says that one lived in constant dread.“So-called terrorists from Punjab hid in the fields and forests out here and demanded food from us. If we obliged, the police would get us and if we refused, they gave us hell.”In her family’s case, some alleged terrorists were hiding in their fields and caught hold of her brothers-in-law when they had gone to water the fields. “We were forced to feed them and they went away. After some time, SHO of Amaria police station Rajinder Singh and SI Harpal Singh came in a jeep and started questioning us about that incident. My brothers-in-law refused having sheltered any terrorist. Just then this man came out of the police jeep and reminded them of the food that they had provided. The police immediately arrested and took away both my brothers-in-law,” recalls Sukhwant Kaur.Incidentally, the SO and SI who had visited her house to pick her brothers-in-law are among the policemen sentenced to life imprisonment by a CBI special court for carrying out fake encounters in 1991 in Pilibhit.Jail staff chargesheetedVindhyachal Singh Yadav (Jail Supdt)

Shahjehan Hussain Jafri (Jailor)

Ram Kishore Tripathi

Munna Lal Dwivedi

Liaqat Ali

Bharat Singh Chaudhury

Rajendra Prasad Dikshit

Hem Chand

Girija Shankar

Harpal Singh

Hardwari Lal

Chote Lal

Janki Prasad Gangwar

Rameshwar Dayal 1

Bhagwan Das

Yashwant Singh

Mohammad Sulaiman

Mohan Lal

Ram Swaroop

Rameshwar Dayal 2

Rampal

Anil Kumar Singh

Rampal Singh

Parmanand

Ram Bahadur

Hira Singh

Shanti Swarup

Mewa Ram

Krishan Pal

Sukhlal

Janki Prasad

Lal Bahadur

Jagat Narayan

Kallu Singh

Nokhey Singh

Bharatji

Gangaram

Shyam Singh

Malkhan Singh

Devi Singh

Khempal Singh

Anokh Singh