The Army also recovered weapons from the spot. PTI file
Tribune News Service
Jammu, September 16
Two militants were on Saturday killed as the Indian Army foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in Machhil sector in Kashmir
Army said troops noticed suspicious movement along the LoC and challenged the intruders, leading to a gunfight in which the two militants were killed.
Weapons have been recovered from the slain militants.
More details awaited.
TARN TARAN: A 35 year-old soldier’s body was found in a dry canal of Uppal village in Khadoor Sahib sub-division on Wednesday night.
The Tarn Taran police are claiming it to be a ‘blind murder’. According to the police, the deceased Harpreet Singh of Fatehpur Badesa village had been deployed at Leh Ladakh as a sepoy in the army and was on leave for the last few days.
Harpreet had gone to Rayya town in Amritsar on Wednesday evening for some work by his Maruti Suzuki Alto K10 car but didn’t come back home, said the cops, as per the information, from the family members.
“After waiting till late night, the victim’s kin started searching for the victim from their village to the Rayya town,” said assistant sub inspector (ASI) Lakhwinder Singh.
“The victim’s family found his car abandoned, with broken windows, at the bridge of a canal in Uppal village. Harpreet’s body was found in the dry canal,” he said.
The police reached on the spot and started the investigation.
“A case under Section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against unidentified person(s) and the body has been sent to Tarn Taran civil hospital for post-mortem,” said assistant sub inspector (ASI) Lakhwinder Singh.
“Preliminary investigation suggest that Harpreet was strangled to death but we are investigating into the matter,” he said.
NEW DELHI: Granted bail by the Supreme Court in a blast case on Monday, Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit could be back serving the army.
The army would review his suspension, which could be revoked, and he could be posted to a unit in due course, army officials said on Monday.
Purohit was arrested for his alleged involvement in the September 29, 2008 blast in Maharashtra’s Muslim-majority town of Malegaon that killed six people.
The officer, who participated in counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir and was also with military intelligence, spent almost nine years in judicial custody.
The first serving army officer to be arrested on charges of terrorism, Purohit was granted bail on a personal security of ₹1 lakh and two sureties of the same sum.
The court directed the officer to surrender his passport and cooperate with the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the attack that came to be known as an act of “Hindu terror” along with six more cases.
The army suspended the officer shortly after his arrest in the Malegaon case. He was drawing 25% of his pay and allowances while under suspension but it was later revised to 75% following an order by the armed forces tribunal, sources said.
The officer would be attached to an army unit soon and allowed to wear his uniform, sources said.
“An officer under suspension is under the same restrictions as an officer under open arrest during a general court martial. During open arrest, an officer has to wear his uniform though he may be permitted to wear civilian clothes,” an army man said. Granting him bail, the court said there were variations in the charge sheets filed by the Mumbai anti-terrorism squad, which initially probed the case, and the NIA.
The trial was likely to take a long time and Purohit had been in prison for about eight years and eight months, it said.
Opposing the bail, the NIA said Purohit was the main conspirator and there was sufficient material to prove his involvement in the blast, which amounted to waging war against the state, and, that too, by violent means.
To keep the camaraderie alive, Citizen of Noida, paid homage to their 36 Martyrs, on Independence Day, at Shaheed Smarak Memorial in Sector 29 Noida. It is the only, triservice memorial in our country dedicated to the Nation by Services chiefs in 2002.
The chairman, Lt General Bakshi (V) PVSM, laid the first wreath followed by families of the martyrs, heads of institutions,residents of Noida, students and members of sanstha. It was a sight to watch as some of them stood in solemn silence and paid homage to the soldiers unknown to them including granddaughter of Col VN Thapar. The national Flag and flags of three services were fluttering majestically and adding to the great ambience of the memorial.
Cdr N Mahajan(V)
Director, Shaheed Samarak Sanstha, Noida
M 305 Sec 25 Noida
9818315422
Harish Khare
Seventy years ago, two nations were created in the Indian sub-continent. A new nation, Pakistan, was carved out; this ‘moth-eaten’ new nation was to be home to the Muslims of the British India. A truncated India became the successor state to the British imperial order, its pretensions, its institutions, its boundaries and its flawed control model. The grand hope was that after these cartographic rearrangements in the East and the West, the two new states and their newly endowed citizens would rediscover the joys of civilizational co-existence. That hope got definitely belied by all the bloodshed, dislocation, riots, violence, massacres that attended the Partition. Seventy years later the two nations are yet to find a modus vivendi to live in benign comfort with each other. In 1971, India helped Pakistan’s eastern wing to discover its separate national identity; consequently, Pakistan became a much more compact nation. It is much more a natural state today than it was before 1971. And, it now has a huge historic grievance against India to sustain its national narrative; it continues to define itself as a nation — internally and externally — in hostile terms towards India.For seventy years, we in India had permitted ourselves a glorious air of grand superiority over Pakistan. As long as Jawaharlal Nehru lived, his aura, political legitimacy, global stature, mass popularity and dedicated leadership gave us in India a new sense of collective equanimity. We were imaginatively engaged in creating a new India, building its new “temples” and inculcating a scientific temper in this ancient land of medieval superstition and ignorance. For seventy years, or most part of it, we could legitimately assure ourselves that we were better than Pakistan. We have had a Constitution and its elaborate arrangements; we were a democracy and held free and fair elections to choose our rulers; we had devised a dignified political culture of peaceful transfer of power among winners and losers after each election at the Centre and in the States; we had committed ourselves to egalitarian social objectives; we were determined not to be a theocratic State; we were proudly secular and we put in place procedures and laws to treat our religious and linguistic minorities respectfully; we had leaders who drew their legitimacy and authority from popular mandates; our armed forces stayed in the barracks; we had a free and robust judiciary; a mere high court judge in Allahabad could unseat a powerful prime minister. And, when a regime tried to usurp the democratic arrangement, the citizens threw the offending rulers out at the first opportunity. For seventy years, we had every reason to believe that we were superior to Pakistan. Above all, we were not Pakistan. In recent decades, we became even more smug about our superiority as we have unthinkingly bought into the Western narrative that Pakistan was a “failing state” or a “failed state” — that too with nuclear weapons. What we have failed to appreciate is that Pakistani elites, too, have devised a working political culture best suited to its genius. Pakistani elites are not untroubled by inequities and inequalities in the land. We may bemoan that the Army has emerged as the senior partner in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi axis; nonetheless, it is a state that remains unwavered in its animosity towards us but still runs a coherent foreign policy and maintains internal order. Its elites have perfected the art of taking the Western leaders for a ride and have seen off super-powers’ intervention in neighbouring Afghanistan. There is a certain kind of stability in Pakistan’s perennial instability. Seventy years later we in India find ourselves itching to move towards a Pakistani model, notwithstanding our extensive paraphernalia of so many constitutional institutions of accountability. In recent years, we no longer wish to define ourselves as a secular nation; our dominant political establishment is exhorting us to shed our ‘secular’ diffidence and to begin taking pride in us being a Hindu rashtra. Just as in Pakistan, the dominant religion has come to intrude and influence the working of most of our institutions.For seventy years our political class looked down upon Pakistan for its inability to keep its Generals in their place. Seventy years on, we are ready to ape those despised “Pakis.” Our Army was never so visible or as voluble as it is now; our armed forces are no longer just the authorised guardians of our national integrity, they are also being designated as the last bulwark of nationalism. Consequently, as in Pakistan, we no longer allow any critical evaluation of anything associated with the armed forces. Those who do not agree with the armed forces’ performance or profile stand automatically denounced as ‘anti-national.’ What is more, we are thoughtlessly injecting violence and its authorised wielders as instruments of a promised renaissance. Seventy years later, we are cheerfully debunking all those great patriots and towering leaders who once mesmerised the world in the 20th century world and who were a source of our national pride and who had forged an inclusive political community across the land by instilling in us virtues of civic togetherness. As Pakistan has done, we too now seek national glory and garv from re-writing our history books to cater to our religious prejudices. Just as Pakistan has institutionalized discrimination, we too are manufacturing a ‘new normal’ in which it is deemed normal and natural to show the minorities their place at the back of the room. Seventy years later, the most complex legacy of the Partition — Kashmir — remains unresolved. It continues to bleed both Pakistan and India, financially, politically and spiritually. All these years we had allowed ourselves to believe that for Pakistani elites the Kashmir dispute provides a dubious platform of a meretricious coherence; not to be left behind, we in India are increasingly content to use the Kashmir problem to help us redefine the content and contours of our edgy and brittle nationalism. Worse, Kashmir continues to take a toll on our collective sensitivities. As a nation, we are getting comfortable in the use of violence and coercion to resolve differences at home and abroad. Seventy years ago we were determined to be different from Pakistan; seventy years later we are unwittingly beginning to look like Pakistan. Mohammed Ali Jinnah must be permitting himself a crack of a smile at our unseemly hurry to move away from Jawaharlal Nehru and his founding legacy.
India and China have been locked in a face-off in the Doklam area of the Sikkim sector for the last 50 days. AFP file
Beijing, August 10
China will make no “compromise” on ending the Doklam standoff, top PLA analysts said, as they launched a propaganda blitz on a group of Indian journalists here on how New Delhi has “misjudged” Beijing’s resolve by sending troops to what it claims to be Chinese territory.
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India and China have been locked in a face-off in the Doklam area of the Sikkim sector for the last 50 days after Indian troops stopped the Chinese People’s Liberation Army from building a road in the area.
China claimed it was constructing the road within its territory and has been demanding immediate pull-out of the Indian troops from Doklam. Bhutan says Doklam belongs to it but China claims sovereignty over the area. China also claims that Thimphu has no dispute with Beijing over Doklam.
Top Chinese military experts and South Asia scholars, during an interaction with the media, said the Chinese government, people and the military were “angry” over India’s “dangerous” move in Doklam which is not an Indian territory.
“China so far has not used the world ‘invasion’. We have only used words like ‘trespass’ or ‘incursion’ and that is the goodwill of China,” Senior Colonel Zhou Bo said.
“We hope for the best but we—the Chinese government and the military—do not have any room to make any compromise on the matter. So for the well-being of the two peoples and the amity of the two countries, India must withdraw unconditionally,” he said.
His hardline comments were echoed by Senior Colonel Zhao Xiaozhou, Director at the Centre on China-America Defense Relations of the Academy of Military Science, who said Beijing has no room for compromise on the Doklam standoff.
“If you want this issue to be resolved, the Indian Army must pull back or otherwise this issue can only be resolved by the use of force,” Zhao asserted.
The Chinese military scholars also kept on harping that India has “trespassed” into Chinese territory and there was no basis for it to send its soldiers when Bhutan has “not invited” New Delhi to act on its behalf.
The Chinese military scholars also raked up the issue of Kashmir.
“Pakistan is a friend of China. If China crosses the Indian border or the India-China border on behalf of Pakistan I don’t know how you will react to that,” Zhao said. His comments came a day after a top Chinese Foreign Ministry official also raised the Kashmir issue.
Needling India, Wang Wenli, Deputy Director General of the Boundary and Ocean Affairs of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had raised the Kashmir issue and also referred to the Kalapani dispute between India and Nepal.
“We think it is not doable for the Indian side to use tri-junction as an excuse,” she had said, referring to Indian External Affairs Ministry’s assertion that the road building at the China, India and Bhutan tri-junction in the strategic narrow Chicken’s Neck area changes the status quo.
“The Indian side has also many tri-junctions. What if we use the same excuse and enter the Kalapani region between China, India and Nepal or even into the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan,” she had said.
The Chinese military experts said India’s actions have “severely affected” the political trust between the two countries and New Delhi had to face the “consequences” of its “dangerous” move as it “misjudged” the resolve of Beijing in defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity. PTI
Fifty-three Indian soldiers and a bulldozer were present at the Doklam area, a report in a state-run daily said on Wednesday quoting the Chinese foreign ministry.
The ministry, according to the Global Times, asked India to withdraw its troops and equipment from what it called the “Chinese territory”.
Citing the ministry, the daily said that 53 people and a bulldozer from the Indian side remain in “Chinese territory” as of Monday.
“India should withdraw its troops and equipment…They have gravely infringed on China’s sovereignty,” the ministry was quoted as having said by the daily.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang last week said that “there were 48 Indian soldiers and one bulldozer” in Doklam area as of August 2.
“In addition, there are still a large number of Indian armed forces congregating on the boundary and on the Indian side of the boundary,” Geng had said.
A 15-page fact sheet issued by the Chinese foreign ministry had earlier said that there were over 40 Indian border troops and one bulldozer in the area by the July end.
Countering Chinese contention, sources in New Delhi last week maintained that around 350 Indian Army personnel have been in Doklam for last six weeks after China tried to build a road in the area, triggering the standoff.
India and China have been locked in a face-off in the Doklam area of the Sikkim sector for over 50 days after Indian troops stopped the Chinese Army from building a road in the area.
China claimed it was constructing the road within their territory and has been demanding immediate pull-out of the Indian troops from the disputed Doklam plateau. Bhutan says Doklam belongs to it but China claims the area belongs to it and says Thimphu has no dispute with Beijing over it.
Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Doklam, while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.
The military standoff between China and India in the Doklam region has lasted for almost two months now, and there is still no end in sight, the Chinese daily added.
India’s position on the issue was made clear by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj recently, saying both sides should first pull back their troops for any talks to take place, favouring a peaceful resolution of the border standoff.
The last rites of Major Kamlesh Pandey, who laid down his life fighting terrorists at Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir, were performed at the Chitrashila ghat in his hometown of Haldwani on Friday.Maj Pandey’s brother, also an army man, lit the pyre amid presence of a large number of people. A contingent of the Kumaon Regiment sounded the Last Post to pay respect to the martyr.Transport Minister Yashpal Arya, MLA Basidhar Bhagat and senior officials of the administration laid wreath at the mortal remains of Maj Pandey.The martyr is survived by his wife Rachna Pandey and two-year-old daughter Bhumika, who live in Ghaziabad, UP.Inconsolable, father of the martyr Mohan Chand Pandey said his son spoke to him before he left for the operation. Dehradun, TNS
The BJP under Narendra Modi-Amit Shah is making fresh political conquests by the day but is leaving behind the odious residue of discord, conflict and impunity. The latest to raise the flag is a group of over 100 retired officers from all the three services who have penned a collective letter to the Prime Minister protesting the relentless vigilantism that is sweeping parts of the country. This is not the first time that superannuated officers, with no ostensible axe to grind, have cautioned the Modi government about the social discord unleashed in towns and villages of the country. Last month 65 retired bureaucrats of all India and Central services, who were at pains to point out that they had no political affiliation, had expressed their deep disquiet over the erosion of the credo of impartiality, neutrality and commitment to the Indian Constitution.What makes the latest missive different is that all of its backers are retired officers from the three services, the constituency completely claimed by the ruling dispensation. These former officers also say the compelling reason for penning the note of protest is the current climate of divisiveness behind which is the cultivated buildup of climate of hate and distrust. Like their retired civilian colleagues, these officers have also done some plain speaking on the browbeating of the media and the targeting of Dalits and Muslims.Success is a major disincentive for changing course, especially in a hard-fought profession like politics. The Prime Minister referred to communalism in his latest broadcast to the nation but it was water off the duck’s back for the Hindutva vigilante crowd. The formula worked brilliantly in UP and Assam and reaped a decent harvest in Bihar that subsequently came in handy. This approach is overlaid with the sauce of hyper-nationalism in which it is proclaimed that the armed forces are co-opted partners as they chip away at the Constitution’s liberal and secular values. Now it is that very section which says it can no longer look away in silence while diversity, the glue of cohesion for the nation and the armed forces, is under attack.
Barbs to-fro on lynching in LS
Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 31
Combative Treasury and Opposition benches today exchanged barbs in the Lok Sabha during a discussion on “atrocities and lynching in mob violence”, with Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju saying the Congress suffers from “selective amnesia”.He cautioned that BJP’s popularity would grow with attacks on the government.(Congress and other Opposition members staged a walkout when Rijiju took the floor to reply to the six-hour debate. The Treasury benches periodically stepped in to defend PM Narendra Modi.Rijiju said the Congress was indulging in double standards. On the allegation of government inaction, he said Modi had already made public condemnation of the incidents and urged CMs to deal firmly with culprits.“The Centre has also issued an advisory to states to take action and its role is limited. Law and order is a state subject. The states must take strict action,” he said.Responding to concerns raised by Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge that the incidents had sullied India’s image abroad, Rijiju said the atrocities were part of the continuing trend of several years.“You try to avoid discussions on incidents that happen in states ruled by you,” he said, and questioned CPM cadres’ fatal attacks on RSS and BJP workers in Kerala.“The Opposition is bereft of issues. It raised issues like intolerance and attack on churches, which on investigation were found to be bogus. This was to defile Modi’s image,” he added.Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan reminded the Opposition of the anti-Sikh riots.The tone of the Opposition’s belligerence was set by Kharge, who said the Centre was giving tacit support to the perpetrators of the crime. “The VHP, Bajrang Dal and local cow protection samitis are behind cow vigilantism.”
