10 INDIA
OMAN DAILY Observer
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2012
Pak Army wants peace, India should take lead: Musharraf
VENDORS set up stalls as policemen patrol at Charminar in the old city of Hyderabad yesterday. — AFP
Old Hyderabad peaceful, curbs eased HYDERABAD — The situation in the old city of Hyderabad, which witnessed violence on Friday, is peaceful, police said yesterday. The police lifted some restrictions on the movement of people and vehicular traf¿c around Charminar, where a mob indulged in stone throwing and arson after Friday prayers at the historic Mecca Masjid. Ten people including ¿ve
policemen were injured in stone throwing by mob and baton charge and ¿ring of teargas shells by the police. The mob also set a¿re several vehicles. Following the violence, the police had sealed all routes around the historic monument, leading to a curfew-like situation in the communally sensitive area. Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma said the situation
was peaceful and no untoward incident took place since Friday afternoon. The police yesterday morning removed barricades on roads leading to Charminar, providing relief to people reeling under restrictions for last few days due to tension over a temple abutting Charminar. Police also announced that shops can re-open in the area. However, prohibitory orders banning assembly of ¿ve
Liquor baron, brother dead in family feud
Muslims aid Hindu temple construction
NEW DELHI — Liquor and real estate baron Ponty Chadha, who hit the headlines for his political clout and extravagant lifestyle, and his younger brother Hardeep Chadha were shot dead in a family feud in a Mehrauli farmhouse in south Delhi yesterday, police said. “According to the details we have, ¿rst Hardeep shot Ponty and immediately Ponty’s gunmen shot Hardeep. The shooting was a result of a property dispute. The incident happened around 12.30 pm,” a police of¿cial said. According to police, the shootout took place on the lawn of the sprawling farmhouse at 42, Central Lane, DLF, Chattarpur farms, Mali village in Mehrauli on the southern edges of the capital. “Hardeep called on his brother Ponty at around 11.30 am today (Saturday) to discuss a real estate deal. The two had an argument, which turned into an altercation, following which the ¿ring took place resulting in the death of both,” a senior police of¿cial said. “Gurpreet Singh Chadha alias Ponty Chadha and Hardeep Chadha were brought dead to Fortis Hospital in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj and later both the bodies were taken to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for post mortem examination,” a police of¿cial said. — IANS
SITAMARHI, Bihar — While violence over the expansion of a Hindu temple near Charminar in Hyderabad’s Old City is hogging media attention, in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district, Muslims have been quietly helping Hindus construct a temple dedicated to diety Shiva, ahead of the Chhath festival. “Muslims are not only donating money for temple construction, they are also actively involved in ensuring that it should come up soon,” Rajkishore Raut, president of the Shiva Temple Construction Committee, said. Raut, a school teacher, said the construction of the temple was a ¿ne example of Hindu-Muslim brotherhood. Mohammad Sadre Alam Khan, a villager, said that dozens of Muslims, including village head Akbari Khatoon, have contributed in one way or another for the construction of the temple. “This is a positive development for the village as a whole,” Khan said. Another villager, Lalbabu Sah, said that villagers of both the communities were working jointly for the construction of the temple. “The construction of the temple will strengthen harmony between the two communities and pave the way for greater co-operation in future,” Sah said. Sitamarhi town, which had a history of communal conÀict, witnessed rioting in the mid-1990s. Muslims comprise around 16 per cent of the 105 million people of Bihar. Just months ago, Muslims observing Ramadhan helped in the construction of a Jain temple in Bhagalpur town in the state. Mohammad Janeshar Akhtar even demolished a portion of his house in Bhagalpur to enable the movement of a 70foot truck laden with a granite stone block meant for an idol in the temple. Other Muslims had helped widen the street so that the vehicle could reach the temple without dif¿culty. Earlier this year, some Muslims had helped in building a Hindu temple dedicated to deity Durga in Bihar’s Gaya district. Muslims there not only donated money but engaged in the actual construction of the temple. Earlier, a Muslim had donated land for a temple dedicated to deity Shiva in Begusarai district. Mohammad Fakhrool Islam had given his land for the temple in the Muslim-dominated Bachwara village. As Charminar and the Bhagyalakshmi temple abutting the 400-year-old monument get so much attention, these instances of collaboration between the two communities in temple construction cannot be ignored. — IANS
or more people would continue in areas falling under seven police station limits. The police commissioner said 40 people were arrested in connection with Friday’s violence. Member of parliament from Hyderabad and Majlis-eIttehadul Muslimeen (MIM), however, alleged that police arrested several innocent youths and demanded their immediate release. — IANS
New dengue cases reported BHUBANESWAR — Health of¿cials yesterday con¿rmed 22 new cases of dengue in Odisha, taking the total number of people in the state infected with the disease to 2,051 this year. The highest number of new cases, seven, was reported from Jajpur district, M M Pradhan, joint director of the state health department, said. The death toll due to the mosquito-borne disease has, however, remained at six with no person dying of dengue in Odisha since the last week of October, Pradhan said. — IANS
NEW DELHI — Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf yesterday said that the Pakistan Army, widely seen as anti-India, was in favour of resolving the Kashmir issue, “the root cause of dispute”, and stressed that New Delhi should take the lead in creating peace between the two neighbours. Pushing for a new beginning in relations with India, Musharraf, who now shuttles between Dubai and London, stressed that resolving the disputes over the Siachen Glacier and Sir Creek marshlands, were “doable” and added that the right niyat (intention) was needed to solve these issues. “The festering wounds of Kashmir continue. We need to resolve the long-standing disputes. These are the causes of hatred, conÀict and war,” Musharraf said while delivering the lecture ‘Uniting South Asia: The Way Forward’ at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here. These disputes, which spawn religious fundamentalism, need to be resolved for socio-economic development of both countries, said Musharraf, who didn’t mention 26/11 attack even once in his long speech. Alluding to his four-point formula for resolving the Kashmir issue, that has seemingly been put in cold storage by his successor civilian administration, Musharraf stressed that this roadmap
MUSHARRAF addresses a press conference in New Delhi. was still the best way forward. The formula included, among other things, gradual demilitarisation along the Line of Control (LoC), giving maximum self-governance to the two halves of Kashmir, making LoC irrelevant by opening as many routes along the border as possible. Musharraf said he had proposed this formula to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he was in power, and added that there was “some progress” on it. He said the two sides were working on a draft agreement for 15-20 years, but admitted there were “some hitches”. Later, speaking to reporters, Musharraf said he had invited Manmohan Singh to
visit Pakistan in 2007 and sign some agreements, but he didn’t come. However, Musharraf stressed that he did not “feel let down” by Manmohan Singh as he had “the highest esteem for him”. “We were moving forward. There was a sincerity on both sides. In 2007, he was supposed to come to Pakistan. I told him that coming to Pakistan would be meaningless if no agreement was signed. But he did not come,” he said. Calling the resolution of disputes over Siachen and Sir Creek doable, Musharraf said had he come the two sides could have done deals on these issues. Stressing that he was not speaking for the government of Pakistan, he pitched for greater Àow of people and trade between the two countries to create enduring peace. To create the right atmosphere, Musharraf said intelligence agencies of both countries should stay away from damaging activities. In a statesman-like manner, Musharraf, who is better known in India as the architect of the Kargil misadventure, said peace was possible between the two countries if both displayed the right “niyat”, a word he used at least a dozen times during his lecture and a separate interaction with the media. “Compromise should come from the bigger party. India
should have a big heart because it is the bigger country. When the smaller party makes the compromise, it can have negative connotations,” he said. Let India take the lead with a clean, large and magnanimous heart, he said. For creating enduring peace, he outlined three prerequisites that included a “sincere niyat”, downsizing the roles of bureaucrats and intelligence agencies, since they “¿nd it dif¿cult to break from the past” and a strong leadership. Musharraf, however, did not regret the Kargil adventure, indicating that it was a retaliation for India’s role in dividing Pakistan in 1971 by creating Bangladesh. It was the same niyat when you went to East Pakistan and Siachen,” he replied when asked what was the niyat behind the 1999 Kargil conÀict. In candid talk, Musharraf said that despite what India may think, some insurgent groups like the Lashkar-eTaiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa and other insurgent out¿ts enjoyed tremendous public support in Pakistan. Against the backdrop of the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, Musharraf, however, warned India against trying to create an anti-Islamabad Afghanistan and underlined that both India and Pakistan “should stop proxy war” in the violencetorn country. — IANS
Four-day Chhath festival begins PATNA — Chhath, the four-day festival of Bihar, began yesterday amid tight security with hundreds of thousands of devotees, mainly married women, thronging river banks and water bodies for a ritual bath before cooking a traditional meal. “The much-awaited Chhath has formally started with the age-old ritual of Nahai-Khai — preparing traditional food after the bath — across thousands of villages and hundreds of towns spread all over the state,” Vinita Singh, a devotee busy preparing the ritual meal of boiled rice and pumpkin on a hand-made earthen hearth after a bath in the Ganga said. Dressed in a new cotton sari, Vinita said “Nahai-Khai” symbolises purity and discipline. “We use only dry wood from mango
trees and bamboo baskets for cooking the traditional meal on the ¿rst day of Chhath,” another devotee, Sarda Devi, said. In Patna alone, hundreds of roadside vendors, mostly poor men and women, sold the items that go into the Chhath celebrations. Today, the second day of Chhath, ‘kharna’, another ritual, is observed, as the sweet dish called ‘kheer’ is cooked and distributed among neighbours, friends and relatives. The main offering — argya — when devotees stand waist-deep in water, offering prayers to the Sun deity on the banks of rivers or other water bodies, will take place tomorrow. Chhath, celebrated six days after Diwali, is a time of worship of the deity Sun.
During the festival, married women observe a fast for 36 hours and devotees offer wheat, milk, sugarcane, bananas and coconuts to the sun. The administration has set to work, along with dozens of voluntary organisations, to clean the roads leading to the banks of rivers ahead of the festival. District authorities have declared 32 ‘ghats’ in Patna unsafe and dangerous. There are over 70 ghats along the Ganges in Patna. “All district magistrates have been directed by (Chief Minister) Nitish Kumar to accord top priority to the safety of devotees,” an of¿cial said. Over the years, Chhath has come to be closely identi¿ed with Bihar — on the lines of Bihu in Asom, Pongal in Tamil Nadu and the Ganesh festival in Maharashtra. — IANS
Old couple shot dead LUCKNOW — An old couple was shot dead in Allahabad late on Friday night, police said yesterday. The aged couple — R B Patel, 70, and his wife Kailashpati, 65, lived by themselves in the Nawabganj area. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mohit Gupta said that the couple belonged to Rasoolpur-Chandipur Lakhariya village; the assailants appeared to be members of their family. Patel had a ¿ve bigha plot which he wanted to sell, but his nephews resisted its sale. Prima facie, the needle of suspicion pointed to the nephews, who were also absconding. — IANS
A LABOURER unloads raw bananas from a truck at a wholesale banana market ahead of the festival of ‘Chhat Puja’ in Kolkata yesterday. Bananas are used by devotees as they pray for the betterment of their family and society. — Reuters
Indian-American prof indicted Ireland promises co-operation in probe WASHINGTON — An Indito optimise horizontal and between January 2008 and States in 1991. an-American professor at vertical highway routes, and July 2009, and involved He then earned a master’s deMorgan State University ultimately, to commercialJha’s lying on grant appligree in mechanical engihas been indicted by a fedise the result,” according cations about his intention neering from Old Dominion eral grand jury in an alleged to prosecutors cited by the to take leave from Morgan University in 1993, became scheme to defraud the NaBaltimore Sun. State to work on the proa registered professional tional Science Foundation Jha received $200,000 to conposed project and about the engineer in Maryland in of hundreds of thousands of duct the research but instead University of Maryland’s 1997 and earned a doctordollars in grant funding. allegedly made personal being a collaborating reate in civil engineering in Manoj Kumar Jha, 45, who mortgage and credit card search institution. 2000 from the University of oversees the university’s payments, paid his wife He also allegedly lied about anMaryland. transportation engineering $11,000 for work she didn’t other Morgan State profes- He worked for seven years at graduate programme allegdo and wrote himself a sor’s serving as a scienti¿c the Maryland State Highedly fabricated an elaborate $6,000 cheque, prosecutors adviser on the project and way Administration, where research proposal on behalf said. about receiving $100,000 in he served as the “Year 2000 of a private company he Jha, who is also the founding matching funds from a third Risk Manager,” accordfounded and then applied for director of Morgan State’s party, a requirement of NSF ing to his biography on the funding through the NSF’s Centre of Advanced Transgrants, prosecutors said. Morgan State website. Small Business Technology portation and Infrastructure According to the university’s Jha faces a maximum 20 years Transfer programme Engineering Research, also website, Jha was born in in prison for each of ¿ve “The stated purpose of Jha’s applied for $500,000 more a village in India in 1967. wire fraud counts, a mail proposed project was to for the project but did not After obtaining a bachelor’s fraud count and a falsi¿caenhance current models receive it, prosecutors said. degree in engineering, he tion of records, prosecutors used by highway planners The alleged fraud occurred immigrated to the United said. — IANS
NEW DELHI — Ireland has said it will work closely with the Indian mission and cooperate on all aspects with regard to the death of Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar in an Irish hospital after being denied abortion. This was conveyed to Indian Ambassador Debashish Chakravarti who met Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore on Friday evening in Dublin. Gilmore told the Indian envoy that his country was “sensitive to the impact of the tragedy on public opinion and civil society” and said that an enquiry being conducted on the October 28 death of Savita “would be completed at an early date”.
Savita’s death has sparked outrage in India as well as across the world. Ambassador Chakravarti conveyed “the deep concern of the government of India at the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar and expressed the hope that steps would be taken so as not to allow such an incident to recur”, an of¿cial source said here yesterday. “He conveyed the desire of the government of India for an independent inquiry to be conducted into the matter and requested to be kept updated about progress,” the source added. Gilmore conveyed the “deepest sympathies of Ireland” over the death of Savita and “requested that these be conveyed to the family”.
“He indicated that they were sensitive to the impact of the tragedy on public opinion and civil society. He assured that the enquiry being conducted by the Health Services Executive would be assisted by an independent medical professional. He said that the investigation would be completed at an early date. The Irish side would work closely with the Indian Mission and co-operate on all aspects,” the source said. Savita arrived on October 21 with back pain at Galway University Hospital in Ireland where she was found to be miscarrying at 17 weeks. She died of septicaemia on October 28. Doctors in the hospital refused to abort her foetus on grounds that “this is a Catholic
country”. On Friday, India summoned Irish Ambassador Feilim McLaughlin and hoped that an inquiry into the tragedy would be independent. The Irish envoy was summoned by M Ganapathi, secretary (west) in the external affairs ministry. During his meeting with the Irish ambassador, Ganapathi expressed India’s concern and angst about the untimely and tragic death of Savita, of¿cial sources said here. Ganapathi stressed that people in India were unhappy that “a young life had come to an untimely end”. Overseas Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi also stressed that a high-level inquiry should be done and the culprits brought to book. — IANS