[Anhad Team led by prominent Social activist Shabnam Hashmi, Navaid Hamid and others recently visited Goplagunj, Ladumka and adjoining villages in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district. A worst ever carnage took place after minority Muslim Meos and dominant Hindu Gujars clashed over the dispute over kabristan (Graveyard) land. A communally-biased police force was instigated by political leaders bearing communal mindset, resorted to indiscriminate firings leading to gory incidents reminiscent of post-1947 riots. Meos were targeted, butchered, some of them burnt alive, and mosque ransacked . A number of Meos were killed in police firing. And, all this happened right under the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress Party government in the state, which boasts of being savior of minorities and upholder of secularism. The mainstream media as usual has shut its eyes on the macabre Bharatpur riots and decided to instead better focus on Gujarat CM Narendra Modi’s ‘Sadbhavna Mission’ fast only because huge amount of money were doled out through advertisements. The Bharatpur Riots have surely raised the important issue of immediate passage of Communal Violence Bill 2011. Will the Rajasthan government act soon enough to ensure speedy justice to the riot-hit victims? Will the mainstream media take up the issue forcefully in the same way as they are spending their energy on projecting Narendra Modi as future Prime Minister of India? Is anybody listening?

We are producing the Press Release verbatim and Photos sent by Anhad for the benefit of our readers and also to those who are equally concerned and accountable hoping that urgent action will be taken and justice meted out to the victims.

There was tension, fear, apprehension and a strange smell in the atmosphere
An Anhad Team comprising of Navaid Hamid (Member, NIC), Shabnam Hashmi (Social activist), Mohan Kumwat (Documentary film maker), Apoorv Pandey (Anhad Production Housing), Ashim (NCDHR), Zakir Hussain, Ramzan Choudhury, Arif and Bashir & others visited Goplagunj, Ladumka and adjoining villages.

We read reports about the dispute over kabristan land, followed by clashes between Meos and Gujars. The official reports coming out in the media were very different from what we were hearing from the ground. Anhad has been working in Mewat for over two years and we received innumerable calls from local social activists, villagers about police firing, killings of Meos and a heavily biased attitude. It was on the basis of these phone calls that we decided to visit the area.
Our vehicle was stopped before we entered Rajasthan. The police officer said we have orders to stop you. It took us one and a half hours of negotiations, shoutings, several telephone calls to the CM and principle secretary’s office, and conversations with the collector before we were allowed to proceed. Meanwhile 7 jeeps full of policemen and a bus arrived to stop us from going any further.

The police throughout tried their best to misguide us and not to let us enter the villagers, they forced us to go to some madarsa saying victims were there. Again after a battle of words and shouting matches we were finally allowed to enter the mosque. As we were going in the police officer literally threatened us, if you take too much time we will leave, conveying that we won’t be responsible for your safety. Our team promptly told them to leave as we did not need their security.
There was nothing inside the mosque which was not broken. Inside and on the roof at least on 8-10 places there were big blood marks and marks of either the injured or dead being dragged. Some of them leading to dead wall ends from which obviously bodies/ injured must have been thrown down. The outside wall had more than 15-20 bullet marks and so did the inside walls. There were torn pages of Quran scattered in two places, broken glasses, bricks, blood soaked clothes , utensils etc.

In the villages we were heard stories of indiscriminate police firing on Meos, petrol being thrown on people before burning them, people missing, search for bodies still scattered over places etc. The villagers were constantly being threatened by the police not to give any information. Where ever we went the police force in hundreds reached before us.

There was tension, fear, apprehension and a strange smell in the atmosphere.

The police kept on threatening us and asking us to leave. The collector called and said I advise you to leave immediately. We told him we will take another half an hour.

Then we went to the Eidgah which was so far locked but was opened for some time and the police was inside.
Courtesy: Indian Muslim Observer

In a statement expressing condolences and support, the State Department made the familiar observation about the ”remarkable resiliency and courage (of the people of India) in the face of horrific violence.” Repeated reference to Indian resilience irks a growing constituency in India seeking hard-line response to terrorism.

”Terrorism is a scourge that affects us all,” the statement said, adding that the U.S. government ”stands ready to offer any and all assistance to Indian authorities.”

Although there was no reference to the origins of the attack and no assignation of blame, some western analysts have suggested that every attack on India puts the focus on Pakistan as long as the latter continues to foster terrorist groups on its soil as part of its ”strategic depth” policy.

While some Wikileaks cables show growing cooperation on terrorism between US and India, increasingly, many experts, including some US lawmakers, are calling for punitive action against Pakistan for its refusal to act against terrorist groups, some of which are openly regrouping in that country. Although the Obama administration has shown greater sense of purpose and urgency acting against terrorist supporters and sympathizers in the U.S, some interlocutors want Washington to wield its financial lever on Islamabad to force a course correction in Pakistan.

On Tuesday, a freshman Senator from Illinois, untouched by the Cold War legacies and compromises of Washington DC pols, made the strongest case yet for the US dumping Pakistan because of what he bluntly said is its history of lying about its support for terrorism.

”Let me be clear: many Americans died in Afghanistan because of Pakistan’s ISI,” Senator Mark Kirk, a naval intelligence commander who served as a reservist in Afghanistan said in a speech on Tuesday that departed from the usual Washington script about Pakistan being an ally. ”As much as the Pakistani officials claim otherwise, the Haqqanis (one of the terrorist groups) are backed and protected by Pakistan’s own intelligence service. Statements by Pakistani government officials to the contrary are direct lies.”

Kirk said in such an environment, and ”with our deficits and debt, aid to Pakistan seems naive at best and counter-productive at worst,” adding, ”should Pakistan not change its ways, we can also do one other thing: an American tilt towards India to encourage the world’s largest democracy to bankroll an Afghan government that fights terror and the ISI.”

Such a blunt pro-India prescription is being voiced with increasing frequency in Washington DC even though New Delhi itself is seen as shying away from it. Kirk went on to acknowledge that Pakistanis would object to this ‘pro-Indian’ outcome, but ”they will only have their own ISI to blame. September 11th teaches us that neither the United States nor India can tolerate a new, formal Afghan terror state.”

”It’s too bad Pakistan looks like it has chosen to back the losing side, Afghan terrorists, against the Afghan people and the two largest democracies on earth,” he added.

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NEW DELHI: Exactly 111 days ago, on May 25, there was a low-intensity blast at Gate No. 7 of Delhi high court. It wasn’t taken seriously; in fact, it was considered a failed attempt and a sign of the reduced strike power of terrorists. Now, it seems that the attack – whose perpetrators have still not been arrested – was just a dry run for a murderous strike by a band of determined killers.

At 10.15am on Wednesday, as Delhi High Court’s reception counter near Gate No. 5 milled with people, terrorists detonated a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) placed in a briefcase, leaving 11 dead and 91 injured. It was the first major terrorist attack in the Capital in almost three years, though it came less than two months after the serial blasts in Mumbai on July 13.

Most of the casualties on Wednesday were among litigants, some as distinguished as Commander Ronald Nagar, who was once Rajiv Gandhi’s co-pilot in Indian Airlines, and some as nondescript as a band of hawkers who had come to the court in appeal for a licence to sell their wares.

Late at night there was word that the police might have a lead. Sources said Delhi Police was looking for a gray Hyundai Accent car, DL 9CA 6034, which was being driven by a man in white shirt and black trousers – an attire possibly used by the killer/s to pass off as lawyers.

A couple of hours earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had revealed on his way back from Dhaka that the investigators already “have some early leads on the blast.” He, however, admitted that there were “some weaknesses in the system”, although a few “innovative measures” have been put in place post 26/11. He informed that the newly set up National Investigation Agency (NIA) would be handling Wednesday’s case.

A few hours after the blast, an outfit calling itself Harkat-ul-Jehadi (very similar to the notorious HuJI – Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami) sent an email to a TV channel claiming responsibility for the blast. It demanded the release of Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru who has been sentenced to death. It also threatened to target all major high courts in the country and the Supreme Court. Sources say the email has been sent from Mumbai where a team is being sent for further investigation.

Police said the IED used on Wednesday was possibly made with three to four kilograms of ammonium nitrate laced with PETN, shrapnel and an electronic timer device. It was placed in a black briefcase near the reception counter where around 150-200 people had queued up for gate-passes. Sources said the bomb was “very sophisticated and has been made by experts.” They added that “such a bomb has been seen after a long time in the last few years”.

The possibility of RDX being used is not being ruled out as the impact of the explosion was terrific and there was a thick pall of smoke after the blast. The impact left a 4-feet crater with 1-metre diameter. Around it was a horrible mess of blood and flesh.

Home minister P Chidambaram said the NIA would investigate the case and a written directive was sent to Delhi Police asking it to assist NIA. By evening, Delhi Police released sketches of two suspects prepared on the basis of description given by eyewitnesses. One suspect is 26 and the other 50. Chidambaram hinted at gaps in the security system when he said that Delhi Police had been given intelligence inputs in July and the attack happened despite the fact that the capital was on high alert.

As it was a day for public interest litigations (PIL), there was a higher number of litigants at the reception counter. The explosion took place near the senior citizens’ counter, ripping off the reception area. Several persons who were standing near the deadly briefcase were killed on the spot.

The injured were rushed to different hospitals – 57 to Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. There were some injured in AIIMS, Moolchand hospital, Apollo, Safdarjung, Ganga Ram and R&R Army hospital.

Teams of forensic experts, Delhi Police’s special cell, crime branch, as well as the police and NIA brass were at the blast site, carrying out an extensive examination for leads. A NSG team with sniffer dogs was also drafted in the operation. NIA has formed a team of 20 officers to probe the case.

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NEW DELHI: In his haste to reach the high court on Wednesday morning, law student Amanpreet Singh Jolly, 21, left his black robe behind. The mistake caught him his life, as security guards made him queue up for an entry pass among the litigants outside gate no. 5, minutes before the bomb went off.

Aman, a law student at Ghaziabad’s INE College, was interning under lawyer SP Yadav at the high court. “Aman was an extremely bright boy. He had been doing quite well at college and did not have to go to court everyday. It was sheer chance that he went to the court on Wednesday, and without his robe at that. Had he remembered to take it, he would have directly walked inside,” said his uncle Rana.

Aman’s father, cousins and several uncles stood outside RML Hospital’s operating theatre for several hours before his father Manmohan Singh was called inside to identify his body. Shortly before this, they had experienced relief for a few minutes on not finding his body in the common area on the ground floor, where other bodies were kept for identification. But when Manmohan identified his son’s body inside the OT, the family members were immersed in grief. Aman’s father is a builder and they lived in a joint family on Jail Road in Janakpuri. He was the second of three brothers.

Courtesy Times of India

“We received a call from the hospital saying that he was injured, so obviously he died in the hospital. His condition was reported quite critical. Aman’s parents are in a bad shape and his mother, especially, has not stopped crying. She keeps breaking down every few minutes,” said his uncle Gurmeet.
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“The test has achieved the expected objective,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying on Tuesday.

The report on the “ground-based mid-course missile interception technology” comes amid tensions over US arms sales to Taiwan.

Last week the US cleared a sale of advanced Patriot air defence missiles to Taiwan despite opposition from Beijing, a move which could chill ties at a time when China and the US are also wary about trade disputes and economic strains.

Shi Yinhong, a Chinese expert on US-Sino ties from Renmin University of China, told Al Jazeera that there was “a connection” between the missile interceptor test and the US-Taiwan arms sales.

He said China’s missile tests were an “indirect reaction” to the weapons sales, noting that it was difficult for Beijing to take direct action against the US.

Andal Ampatuan Jr is facing 41 counts of murder for allegedly leading the attack on a convoy of political rivals and a group of accompanying journalists in Maguindanao province.

According to prosecutors, at least 10 witnesses have said Ampatuan Jr led 100 of his armed men in the ambush on the convoy on November 23.

Prosecutors allege they then murdered 57 people, including the wife and two sisters of political rival Esmael Mangudadatu.

The dead were killed and buried in shallow pits or dumped in grasslands just near the national highway in Maguindanao province.

Choe Jin-su, the North Korean envoy to China, said the sanctions were “an expression of distrust” between Pyongyang and Washington, and cautioned that the US must also agree to peace treaty talks.

“Only concluding a peace treaty can eradicate the hostile relations between the [North] and the United States and rapidly and actively advance denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula,” Choe said in a rare briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

The North conducted its second-ever nuclear test in May 2009, drawing international condemnation and a fresh round of UN sanctions.

“Only if the sanctions on [North Korea], these barriers expressing discrimination and distrust, are removed can the six-party talks resume,” Choe said.

“If the sanctions are lifted, then the six-party talks can resume immediately. The key word is immediately.”

Rights groups welcomed the remarks by Elbegdorj Tsakhia on Thursday, hailing the move as a step toward outlawing executions.

Citing two recent cases Elbegdorj said “the state would have killed innocent citizens” if the appeals courts had not overturned death sentences and dropped them altogether.

“The majority of the world’s countries have chosen to abolish the death penalty. We should follow this path,” he said in a speech.

“From tomorrow, I’ll pardon those on death row,” he added. “I suggest commuting the death penalty to a 30-year severe jail sentence.”

Before Thursday’s announcement, Mongolia had been considering changing its criminal code to limit the death penalty to cases of assassination and premeditated murder.

Currently, the eight crimes that carry the death penalty include treason, espionage and certain cases of rape.

The reported break-in follows a series of attacks on churches in the wake of a court ruling that overturned the government’s ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah”.

A church in southern Johor state was also attacked on Thursday with unknown assailants throwing red paint at the building before dawn, local police said.

A day earlier a Sikh temple was attacked, apparently because Sikhs also refer to God as ”Allah”.

At least eight other churches have been firebombed or vandalised since the court ruling allowing the Malaysian Catholic weekly newspaper, the Herald, to use the word “Allah” to refer to God in its Malay-language edition.

In a statement the White House said it supported the search giant’s threat to possibly pull out of the country, saying the issue was important both from a point of view of the free flow of information and from a business perspective.

On Thursday US State Department officials repeated demands for an explanation from Beijing on the matter, summoning representatives from the Chinese embassy in Washington.

An official told reporters the US had expressed its “serious concerns” over the issue.

China meanwhile has said that foreign internet firms are welcome in the country provided they comply with Chinese laws barring access to censor certain sites deemed politically or socially unacceptable.

Beijing also said that Google’s move to scrap its filtering of search results and possibly shut down its China operation would not affect overall economic and trade ties with the US.

‘Principles’

Google announced on Tuesday that it would stop bowing to Chinese internet censors and could shut down its operations in the world’s largest online market after it uncovered a series of cyber attacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

The move is a major about-turn for the California-based company which began operations in China in 2006 saying it would abide by Chinese censorship rules.

“It seems to me that the principles that Google is trying to uphold are not just important in a moral or rights framework, but are also of very considerable economic importance,” Lawrence Summers, a senior White House economic adviser told reporters on Thursday.

His comments came as David Shear, the US deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, met a Chinese diplomat in Washington to seek an explanation about the cyber attacks and censorship.

“The incident raises questions about both internet freedom and the security of the internet in China,” PJ Crowley, a State Department spokesman said.

“We have serious concerns about this and its ramifications, and we’re going to continue our dialogue with China on these and other kinds of issues.”

Crowley added: “There are… business standards and expectations, international norms that you expect your business partners to live up to.”

China meanwhile has declared its internet to be “open” but defended its censorship regulations.

“The Chinese government administers the internet according to the law and we have explicit stipulations over what information and content can be spread over the internet,” Jiag Yu, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters.