Pak troops kill two jawans, behead one IB Had Tipped Off Army On Infiltration Bid

Rajat Pandit & Josy Joseph TNN

New Delhi: An Indian soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed over into Indian territory in the Mendhar sector of Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday, in a grim reminder of the brutality perpetrated during the 1999 Kargil conflict which can make peace making even more difficult.
    The Pakistani Army’s “border action team’’ took advantage of the thick fog in the thickly-forested mountainous region to sneak 500 to 600 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) before they were driven back after a fierce gun-battle and close-quarter combat with Indian troops that lasted over 30 minutes shortly before noon on Tuesday.
    The incursion and ceasefire violation seemed to be a diversionary manoeuvre to push infiltrators into J&K, as has been the earlier practice of the Pakistani Army. But, it met with stiff resistance from the Indian troops who, tipped off by the Intelligence Bureau, were fully alert to thwart any nefarious design.
    After the gun battle, the bodies of Lance-Naiks Hemraj and Sudhakar Singh, part of an “area domination patrol’’ of the 13 Rajputana Rifles, were found. One of them was badly “mutilated’’. Although the Army did not give more details of the barbarism, sources said the retreating Pakistani soldiers had “chopped off the head’’ of one of the Indian soldiers and taken it back with them.
    An outraged Indian Army dubbed the crime “yet another grave provocation’’ by the Pakistanis, and said that the matter would be “taken up sternly through official channels’’. Given the gravity of the situation, PM Manmohan Singh, who was in Kochi this afternoon, was briefed over the phone.“We condemn the provocative action. The government will take up the incident with the Pakistan government. We expect Islamabad to honour the ceasefire agreement (which came into force in November 2003) strictly,’’ the defence ministry said.
    Predictably, the Pakistan military denied its troops had crossed over into India or indulged in a truce violation on Tuesday. India to summon Pak official
NewDelhi:“It looks like Indian propaganda to divert world attention from the raid conducted by Indian troops on one of our posts on Sunday, in which one of our soldiers was killed,’’ it said.
    But the decapitation of the Indian soldier on Tuesday evoked memories of the barbaric way in which during the 1999 Kargil conflict Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his badly mutilated body to India. Kalia’s father is still fighting to get Pakistan to punish the soldiers responsible for his son’s brutal torture.
    The defeat in Kargil did not chasten the Pakistani security establishment into mending its ways and stop violating the Geneva Convention which lays down how captured soldiers should be treated. In February 2000, Pakistani terrorist and al-Qaida member Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Army’s “Ashok Listening Post’’ in the Nowshera sector killing seven Indian soldiers.
    Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry, as a trophy. He is believed to have been honoured by General Pervez Musharraf himself at a ceremony later.
    On Tuesday, the defence ministry said the directorgeneral of military operations (DGMO), Lt-General Vinod Bhatia, had taken up the issue “directly” with his Pakistani counterpart. With the PM landing back in New Delhi later on Tuesday, the ministry of external affairs is likely to summon a top Pakistani official on Wednesday to lodge a strong protest over the matter. Sources said Army chief General Bikram Singh briefed national security adviser Shivshankar Menon on the “significant escalation’’ in ceasefire violations by the Pakistan Army in recent days. “Pakistan Army is regularly giving covering fire to help terrorists infiltrate into J&K, especially in the Rajouri, Uri and Keran sectors. If there were 61 such violations in 2011, as many as 120 have been recorded in the last one year,’’ an official said.

Finally, Akbar arrested MLA Taken To Nirmal; Tension In Old City

Hyderabad: Almost 10 days after the hate speeches of MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi delivered in Nirmal town of Adilabad and Nizamabad town in December last triggered a national outrage, the AP Police finally swung into action and arrested the legislator on Tuesday evening.
    At the end of a day of high drama, the Nirmal police effected the arrest at Gandhi Hospital in Musheerabad where he was brought for a medical check-up in the morning. Akbaruddin has been charged under sections 121 (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting the waging of war, against the Government of India) and 153-A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for his December 22 speech in Nirmal town. Both the sections are non-bailable. If proven guilty, under section 121 of IPC, an accused would either get death penalty or life sentence along with fine. These sections are usually booked against terrorists and militants, who either plan or execute terror strikes in the country.
    Soon after the arrest, even as an uneasy calm descended on Old City and shops downed shutters for the day, Akbaruddin was taken by road to Nirmal and lodged in the police station there for the night after the convoy arrived there at 9.40 pm. The police then recorded the MLA’s statement and he was scheduled to be produced before Nirmal munsif magistrate Ajesh Kumar.
    MIM leaders and workers kept the Nizamabad and Adilabad administrations on tenterhooks throughout the night. At Sone bridge, the Nizamabad-Adilabad border, MIM activists led by its elected representatives attempted to disrupt the convoy procession and order was restored after some time. Two MIM MLAs and MLCS were later detained at the Sone police station. And when the convoy reached Nirmal town, three MIM MLAs led by Afsar Khan were waiting there. According to reports, these legislators were also detained. MIM has called for a bandh in the region on Wednesday. Waiting gets on Akbar’s nerves
Hyderabad: Things finally moved on Tuesday after chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, who has been maintaining a studious silence on the issue despite the national clamour for Akbaruddin’s arrest, secured clearance from the Congress high command in the morning to go ahead with the arrest. After getting the green signal, the chief minister called on governor E S L Narasimhan and then summoned DGP Dinesh Reddy to his office.
    In the meantime, the Nirmal police had brought the MIM MLA to Gandhi Hospital for a medical test in the morning and the legislator’s arrest was finally shown at 5 pm. “Tired of being made to sit around, an exasperated Akbaruddin had told the cops a few minutes earlier to either arrest him or let him go home,” said police sources.
    Throughout the day, scores of MIM supporters including MLAs gathered outside Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad and the restless and angry cadres grew violent at least on two occasions and damaged an RTC bus. After Warangal range IG AB Venkateshwar Rao announced Akbaruddin’s arrest at 5.45 pm and when the MLA was being brought out in a bulletproof vehicle from the hospital premises to be taken to Nirmal, MIM cadres grew violent and tried to converge on the convoy. The cops then had to resort to lathicharge to disperse the protesters.
    Apprehending trouble en route, Nirmal police imposed section 144 and set up checkpoints across the town to prevent any kind of untoward incidents. In Hyderabad, all police personnel in the city have been asked to remain on duty, while patrolling was intensified in communally-sensitive Old City. Over 100 history-sheeters were rounded up at several areas in the city as a precautionary measure and the cops expect the tense situation to prevail on Wednesday as well.

‘Cell use, towers health hazard’

New Delhi:Your fear about excessive use of mobile phones causing serious health problems was not ill-founded after all. Months after World Health Organization classified radiofrequency electromagnetic field (EMF) as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’, another global report has red-flagged the use of such technology, citing health risks, including growth of brain tumour and loss of fertility in men.
    BioInitiative 2012 — which is a collaborative effort by 29 authors from 10 countries, including the chair of the Russian national committee on non-ionizing radiation, a senior adviser to the European Environmental Agency and two professors from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi —calls for a review of public safety limits.
    It says “bio-effects” occur in the first few minutes of use at levels associated with cell and cordless phone use. These can also take effect after just minutes of exposure to mobile phone masts or cell towers that produce whole-body exposure.
    Infants, children, elderly, those with pre-existing chronic diseases and those with developed electrical sensitivity have been described as being the ‘sensitive population’ that should have the least exposure to this radiation.
    “Many of these bio-effects can reasonably be presumed to result in adverse health effects if the exposures are prolonged and chronic... they interfere with normal body processes, prevent the body from healing damaged DNA (and) produce immune system imbalances, metabolic disruption and low resilience to disease,” the report says.
BUZZING DANGERS
    Prolonged exposure to radiation from cellphone towers, other wireless technologies can cause imbalance in immune system, metabolism, reproductive system
    Low exposure Can cause headaches, difficulty in concentration, behavioural problems in children and adolescents, sleep disturbances
    Radiation can also affect male fertility. At risk are men who carry a cellphone in their pant pockets, or wear it on their belts

Stung by Nirbhaya, CJI wants faster rape trials Delays Have Led To Rise In Such Crimes, says Kabir In His Letter

New Delhi: The brutal rape of Nirbhaya and resultant public outrage stirred Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir to ask the High Courts to fast track trials in all the cases relating to crime against women and warned that delay often reduced deterrence effect of law into insignificance.
    The CJI wrote to the heads of state judiciary reminding them about the spontaneous outburst of outrage and anger over the Delhi gang-rape incident and said, “A large number of cases pending in various High Courts and trial courts in respect of offences against women and, in recent times, there is a marked increase of such cases.”
    “Delay may be one of the factors contributing rise in the number of such cases, in as much as, on account of such delay deterrence pales into insignificance. Time has come when these cases have to be dealt with expeditiously, lest we should fail in our endeavour to arrest the sharp increase of crimes of violence against women,” the CJI said in an anguish-filled letter seeking to assure citizens, especially women, speedy justice.
    Justice Kabir in his January 5 letter said the incident shook the nation’s conscience and asked the CJs ensure that “cases relating to offences against women are fast tracked and taken up for hearing on priority basis, both at the High Court and district levels”. Significantly, the CJI has also taken a New Year initiative to revive the important annual conference of Chief Justices, which was discontinued for more than two years during his predecessor Justice S H Kapadia’s tenure.
    The CJI in his January 2 letter to the CJs had said the April 5-7 conference would focus on “fast tracking of matters relating to offences against women”. Not satisfied with the letter fixing agenda for April meeting, the CJI wrote to the CJs against just three days later asking them to begin the process of fast-tracking the trial in crime against women cases forthwith without waiting for the Conference’s outcome.
    On January 2, the CJI had inaugurated the first of the five fast-track courts at Saket in New Delhi to deal with cases relating to offences against women. The Delhi government has already taken steps to appoint 150 new judicial officers with 1,085 support staff.
    Three days later, he was writing to the CJs requesting them to take steps to immediately set up fat-track courts to deal exclusively with cases of offences against women by deputing officers from existing pool of judicial officers.
    However, Justice Kabir said the CJs must undertake the exercise to identify the number of sessions Judges and Magistrates along with number of support staff for the additional fast-track courts needed to be set up to speed up trial in cases relating to crime against women and approach the state governments for requisite increase in strength of judicial officers and support staff.
    “I am sure that, judging the present day scenario, the state government/Union Territory will not decline the genuine demand of the Judiciary,” he said. At present, 3,670 posts of trial Judges and over 250 post of High Court Judges are lying vacant.

Cops in a fix over Akbar speech Don’t Have Tech To Authenticate Hate Video

Hyderabad:Hours before Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) leader Akbaruddin Owaisi appears before investigators in Nirmal, Adilabad, for his alleged hate speech, police claim that they are in a catch-22 situation. They neither have first-hand evidence nor the necessary wherewithal to authenticate Akbaruddin’s video floating on the
internet. This is being taken as a clear indication by analysts that Owaisi will go scot free. Meanwhile, the MIM MLA is likely to arrive in the city in the early hours of Monday and later proceed to Nirmal to face the investigators.
    Investigators claim that they are left with no option, but rely on eye-witnesses since the Adilabad and Nizamabad district police had not even bothered to videograph the proceedings of MIM Jalsa. As a result, they are now at the mercy of media personnel and others who attended the meeting. And in all probability, none of the MIM activists might depose against their leader.
    “It is a fact that police had not recorded Akbaruddin Owaisi’s speech. Also, at the same time we cannot rely on YouTube video, since it will be secondary. Instead, we will use the footage captured by personnel who attended the meeting. We think that it will stand good enough as evidence since the video was taken when the MIM Jalsa was underway,'' an officer, who is part of the investigation team in Nirmal, told TOI.
    Forensic experts said in the given situation it would be a challenge to prove lip synchronization with the voice of Akbaruddin in the video. Besides, establishing the location where Akbaruddin gave the speech would be another uphill task.
    “The person who recorded the video himself would have to depose to prove from which camera he had shot the proceedings on the day of offence,” a senior officer said. Caught on the wrong foot, police have decided to rely on eye-witnesses in the given situation, but doubts persist whether anyone would courageously stand up and testify against Akbaruddin for his hate speeches in Nirmal and Nizamabad.
    The Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science Laboratory (APFSL) is still in the process of procuring advanced audiovideo voice detection tools, which could address several lacunae, as the existing tools are reportedly not completely foolproof.
WANTED PROOF Investigators have to rely on eyewitnesses as the speech was not videographed by police
Video on YouTube cannot be taken as proof as it’s second-hand evidence
APFSL doesn’t have fool-proof technology to authenticate the video footage