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India-Pakistan

Advani agrees to return

2013-06-12

[Bangla Daily Star]Lal Krishna Advani, one of the founders of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), yesterday agreed to withdraw his resignation, a day after he quit the key forums of the party. He had resigned apparently in protest at the appointment of controversial politician Narendra Modi as the chief of the party's campaign committee for the next general elections. BJP chief Rajnath Singh told the media here that Advani would accept the parliamentary party's decision late on Monday, rejecting the 85-year-old's resignation.

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India-Pakistan

Indian Opposition Leader Resigns

2013-06-11

[An Nahar] Veteran Indian opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani resigned on Monday, a day after his party chose hardliner Narendra Modi to lead next year's election campaign, a source in his office told Agence La Belle France Presse. Advani, the 85-year-old stalwart of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a former deputy prime minister, resigned from all his positions within the party, the source said. "He has submitted his resignation letter to the party chief," the source said on condition of anonymity.

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India-Pakistan

Indian PM assures countrymen of no more terror attacks in future

2011-07-15

(KUNA) -- The Government of India will take every possible step to prevent terror attacks in the future, said Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh while on a visit to the country's financial capital Mumbai, which faced serial kabooms Wednesday evening claiming 17 lives and injuring around 130 more. Singh also said that the perpetrators of the blasts would be pursued relentlessly and brought to book as soon as possible. Speaking to news hounds in Mumbai, the PM said "I assure the people that the government will do everything in its power to prevent such attacks in the future. I have asked the concerned authorities to coordinate their efforts and resources to relentlessly pursue the perpetrators. They must be brought to justice quickly and be subject to the rule of law that they have sought to subvert. "I seek the cooperation of all citizens in this effort. We owe this to the grieving families," he noted. Accompanied by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Premier also met the injured in the hospitals and enquired about their well-being. He announced financial assistance of nearly USD 4,500 for the kin of the dead and USD 2,250 for the injured, from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund. Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid finally brought their horses under control... prominent opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani castigated the Centre Government for not adopting a strict anti-terror policy to check terror attacks. "It is not an intelligence failure. I don't accuse the government of that as it is a failure of policy," he added.

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India-Pakistan

India jails 31 for life over 1998 blasts

2007-10-25

Think the Indians know something most Americans don't know? COIMBATORE, India - An Indian court sentenced 31 Islamists to life in prison on Wednesday for carrying out serial blasts aimed at a top politician that killed almost 60 in southern India a decade ago. Nineteen blasts rocked the city of Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, as then home minister Lal Krishna Advani arrived to campaign in support of his ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Syed Ahmed Basha and Mohammed Ansari, senior leaders of the banned Islamic Al-Umma group accused of masterminding the blasts, were among the first to be sentenced Wednesday. “The charge is proved,” Judge K. Utirapathi told the special court hearing the bombing cases, as he read out the sentences. Twenty-nine others, out of a total of 158 people convicted in August, were also sentenced to life in prison, while four more received 10-year jail terms. Unlike Y'urp, I think life means life in India. Perhaps John Frum can tell us more. Another 35 defendants were due to be sentenced on Thursday. Over the last two months the court had handed down sentences ranging from two to seven years to the remaining 88 people who were convicted on lesser charges. Basha lambasted the court after hearing the verdict. “Only the Muslims are being victimised and punished like this,” he said. “It’s a national shame.” Perhaps it's because the Muslims were the ones planting bombs. Just a thought. Advani, who survived unscathed when the bombs went off ahead of his arrival, now serves as leader of the opposition, with the BJP having lost power in general elections in 2004. Officials say the blasts, which also wounded 250 people, were aimed at driving a wedge between Hindus and Muslims in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where Coimbatore is located.

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India-Pakistan

Advani wants Syed Salahuddin deported to India

2006-05-16

Indian Opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani on Monday called for deportation of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin from Pakistan to India for trial in various militant acts. Citing reports of his recent arrest in Pakistan as proof of his presence in the country, Advani said Salahuddin's name was mentioned in the list of 20 wanted people, including Dawood Ibrahim, given to Pakistan. Right. The Paks are gonna give him up. This is just political background noise, a game of "you know that we know that you know..." Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on an adjournment motion on violence in Doda and Udhampur districts, Advani also opposed any proposal of 'redeployment' of forces in Jammu and Kashmir. "As Pakistan has always dubbed Salahuddin as an Indian since he had contested an election in Jammu and Kashmir, the Government of India should ask Islamabad to hand him over since he has been guilty of many terrorist acts in India," Advani said. Advani said India should ask Pakistan to dismantle 'terrorist infrastructure'. He referred to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement that 59 terrorist training camps still existed across the Line of Control (LoC).

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India-Pakistan

Indian opposition battling sex scandal

2005-12-28

India's beleaguered main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been dealt another blow, this time a scandal involving the alleged sexual high-jinks of an avowedly celibate official. Whoa! Caught him with a doxie, did they? The Hindu nationalist party is holding a five-day meeting to celebrate its 25th anniversary, but the media has instead trumpeted the resignation of Sanjay Joshi, a party secretary. Joshi stepped down on Tuesday after an allegedly sexually explicit CD with an unidentified woman made the rounds among BJP members and the media. And they got him on tape. It was prob'ly a setup, but he didn't have to take his pants off... "Keeping in view Joshi's request, he was being relieved of his responsibility till the completion of a probe," Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP president, told party leaders at their meeting in Mumbai, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Joshi, who is also a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP's hardline Hindu backers, had apparently taken a vow of celibacy as some full-time RSS workers do. I'm not sure why, but I guess it's like Islam: once you sign up, there's no going back... The sex scandal may also overshadow the official announcement of a new party president to replace Advani, expected to take place after the close of the party meeting on 30 December. Rajnath Singh, a low-key party member, has reportedly been chosen to succeed the hawkish Advani. But it is not clear whether he will able to end the turmoil which has hit the BJP since its election defeat by the Congress party in May last year. Since then, the party has become polarised between moderates wanting the party to move to the centre, and hardliners who feel a return to the core values of hardline Hindutva (Hinduness) will win more votes.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Pakistani diplomats caught in Indian 'honey traps'

2005-02-04

A former top Indian intelligence official has penned his memoirs detailing the exploits of Pakistani diplomats between the sheets. "Shaujaat. Chaudry Shaujaat..." 'Open secrets — India's intelligence unveiled' by Maloy Krishna Dhar, former joint director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), details the intelligence games between Pakistani and Indian agents since 1956, including the "honey traps" used by both sides to gain information. The book contains several sensational claims about current Indian politicians that are causing a stir here. "You doinked that hussy at the SAARC summit! Patel, how could you!" Dhar writes how, as head of the Pakistan desk at the counter-intelligence wing of the IB, he tailed and video-taped several Delhi-based Pakistani diplomats in bed with various women. One diplomat had seduced the sister of a reputed journalist who was close to then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. "Oh, take me, Mahmoud!" "She had succumbed to the blackmailing of a Pakistani diplomat of NWFP origin. The Pakistan Counter Intelligence Unit documented several of their intimate meetings with appropriate light and sound. The tape was played for the prime minister and he took action..." writes Dhar in his book, an advance copy of which was made available to Daily Times. "Tell, me, madame, what are we to make of these pictures?" "That is not my butt!" "The lighting is very good. And the sound is superb. Are you sure this is not your butt?" Another Pakistani diplomat had seduced the daughter-in-law of a reputed arms peddler and defence contractor. "She had arranged two meetings of the Pakistani diplomat with a serving major general of the Indian Army," Dhar writes. "Uncle Mukkerjee, this is my lover, Shaujaat. Shaujaat, this is Uncle Mukkerjee, the very model of a modern major general..." Indian agencies also used "honey traps" to target Pakistani diplomats based in New Delhi. One Pakistani diplomat had pierced deep into Indian defence targets and was a great headache for Indian agencies. "His behavioural peculiarities were studied over a period and it was found he was fond of a certain lady from old Delhi. The beauty was recruited and taught certain trade secrets. A trap was laid and the diplomat was caught fabulously on celluloid," writes Dhar. He adds that the woman was later used in operations inside the high security Pakistani High Commission. "What kind of operations?" "Sensitive operations!" In a claim that tears apart the stand of Hindu nationalists (Sangh Parivar) and the government, the book says that the demolition of Babri Masjid was planned 10 months in advance by top leaders of the RSS, BJP and VHP. "Around February 1992, soon after the flop 'ekta yatra' of Murli Manohar Joshi, I was directed to arrange technical coverage of a key meeting of the BJP/Sangh Parivar. The meeting was to be attended by Lal Krishna Advani, MM Joshi, Rajju Bhaiya (then RSS chief), KS Sudarshan, Vijayaraje Scindia, HS Sheshadri, Vinay Katiyar, Uma Bharati and Champat Rai," the author says. "Along with three dozen hookers from Peshawar and Quetta, of course." About operations in Kashmir, Dhar says Indian democracy "has never given a sincere try to the goodwill of the people of Kashmir". He writes that India's Kashmir policy has remained hostage to the interests of the Nehru-Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah families, together with certain peripheral Kashmiri Muslims and core Pandits (Kashmiri Hindus) and a few intelligence bureaucrats. He says that around 1989, intelligence production in that state had dried up. When called to assist, Dhar writes, he raised some intelligence assets in the valley. "I deftly used the services of a Delhi-based Muslim lady to recruit a couple of Kashmiri Muslim assets. These assets were engaged in fruit and carpet trading and lived around Muslims ghettos in the Lajpat Nagar and Okhla localities of Delhi," he writes. "I can't seduce him!" "Oh, c'mon! Why not?" "He smells like old bananas!" "Well, try the carpet guy, then."

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Pakistan and India, best of friends

2004-03-26

Peace with Pakistan is permanent and the South Asian rivals are unlikely ever to fight again, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on Friday in a bid to capitalize on a thaw in ties ahead of elections. Vajpayee was speaking at an election rally in Amritsar, after his deputy, Lal Krishna Advani, swept into the Sikh holy city at the end of the first leg of a nationwide campaign tour. "I don’t think we will fight ever again. This peace will be permanent, the friendship will last. There is no other way out for neighbors but to live peacefully," Vajpayee told a crowd of more than 5,000 people. "Had anyone imagined that we would have such good ties with our neighbor and play cricket with them?" Vajpayee asked, referring to an ongoing cricket series between India and Pakistan, the first between the rivals in 14 years. Hey, it’s good that they’re talking this way but... mark me down as skeptical.

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India-Pakistan

Book on Indo-Pak conflict borrows from Indian report on ISI

2004-03-02

A secret White Paper on Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) prepared by the Indian Bhartiya Janata Party government some time ago may have leaked to a think tank in India that has just published a new book on "The costs of the Indo-Pak conflict", say analysts. India's deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani, had told the Indian parliament that the white paper was being prepared, but he stopped talking about it when he realised that publishing it might compromise the Indian intelligence agencies' "hard work" in keeping tabs on alleged ISI agents and activities in the country. Now a Mumbai-based think tank has come out with a book that may have taken information about the ISI's alleged activities from the secret paper. The book details "ISI activities in India carried out with the help of madrassas" but it doesn't indicate the source of its information. It tries to paint the madrassas in a bad light, which is what the BJP and its front organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal have been doing for years. The book published by the Mumbai-based 'Strategic Foresight Group of the International Center for Peace Initiatives' claims that "India identified enhanced ISI activities in nine states and an active network of ISI-sponsored illegal madrassas throughout the country" and that the ISI had 60 centres in India employing as many as 10,000 spies. The states identified are: Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Jharkhand. The book, described as a study report, claims that Kerala has the highest number of nearly 10,000 madrassas, followed by 6000 in Madhya Pradesh. The states of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Gujarat and Rajasthan have around 2,000 madrassas each, close to 1,000 each in Delhi, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and on the Indo-Bangladeshi border while the lowest number, 122, is in Jammu and Kashmir. It said the ISI spends Rs 600 million each year on funding these madrassas in India, noting that "India's fragile communal fabric is quickly becoming the primary target of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, in addition to its Jihad-e-Kashmir operation and Lashkar-e-Taiba launched Jihad-e-Hind operation in early 2003 signifying the shift of LT focus from Kashmir alone to the rest of India." The book quotes Pakistani scholars as saying that if the ISI manages to persuade even one per cent of the Muslim population (1.5 million) to take up arms, 1.5 million people would create unprecedented internal turmoil in India.

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India-Pakistan

Gazi Baba cornered in Srinagar?

2003-08-30

At least four Islamic rebels and an Indian soldier died on Saturday when troops raided a Kashmir building they believed housed a mastermind of the 2001 attack on India’s parliament. One rebel remained in the house in the summer capital Srinagar with troops due to launch a final assault seven hours into the gunbattle, said Vijay Raman, a senior officer of India’s paramilitary Border Security Force. "We got information that Gazi Baba of Jaish-e-Mohammad, suspected mastermind of the parliament attack, could be inside," Raman told Star News television. That would be enjoyable, wouldn't it? He said four rebels and one BSF trooper were killed but did not specify if Baba was among the casualties. Probably would have if he had been, assuming there's enough of the body left to recognize... Jaish-e-Mohammad and another Islamic radical group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, were blamed by India for the December 13, 2001 attack on its parliament that left 15 dead including the five assailants and set off a military stand-off with Pakistan. Islamabad one month later banned the two militant groups. We knew that... Raman said BSF troops would soon storm the building in Srinagar’s Danamazar Safakadal area after all civilians were brought to safety. BSF spokesperson Tirtha Acharya earlier said two women and four children had been rescued from the house. The obligatory women and children... The tension between Indian and Pakistan set off by the parliament attack began to recede in April when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Srinagar and offered Islamabad a "hand of friendship." But Vajpayee on Friday ruled out talks with Pakistan until "normalcy" returns to Kashmir, following a three-day violence-wracked visit to the disputed province. By now, a daily Korpse Kount is "normal"... A gunbattle broke out between Islamic militants and security forces late Wednesday at the Greenway hotel, just five kilometres from the venue of a conference of state officials chaired by Vajpayee and his deputy Lal Krishna Advani. Four people including one rebel were killed and 11 injured in the gunbattle and ensuing fire that torched the hotel.

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India-Pakistan

Pakistan urges India not to politicise Mumbai blasts

2003-08-27

"Now don't go blamin' that on us!" Pakistan has urged Indian leaders to save the infant peace process between the two countries and avoid seeking political mileage out of twin bomb attacks in Mumbai by blaming Pakistani-linked groups. "This is not the time for finger-pointing, nor should Indian leaders try to take political mileage out of this gruesome tragedy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told the BBC. "There is a thaw; and I think we should maintain the momentum that has been generated and therefore I think leaders in India should avoid issuing negative statements because these are unhelpful." The thaw is why the blasts took place — they had nothing to do with the Ayodhya temple. If there's a thaw in Indo-Pak relations, there's a chance Pakland will actually crack down on Hafiz Saeed and his stable of killers. Can't let that happen... No group has claimed responsibility for the bombs that tore through lunch-time crowds in India's financial capital Monday, killing 52 people and injuring 150. But India's Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani has linked it to the Laskhar-e-Taiba group of Muslim militants. He demanded Islamabad hand over 19 "wanted terrorists," and accused Pakistan of waging a terror campaign in India. Pakistan denied the 19 men were on its soil while its spokesman accused Advani of a "knee-jerk reaction" that ran against four months of conciliatory moves by the prime ministers of both countries. One of them is Dawood, who demonstrably is on Pak soil. Another's Azhar, who's also on Pak soil, leading Jaish-e-Mohammad. Without looking it up, I'd guess the rest are in Pakland, too, except for the ones that're on business trips to the UAE. If you're going to lie, at least lie about something that's not common knowledge... "Pakistan categorically rejects such allegations," Mr Khan said in a formal statement. "Knee-jerk reactions and blaming Pakistan for all wrongs in India is a familiar refrain that only tends to vitiate the atmosphere. It serves no purpose to point accusing fingers at Pakistan, and even worse to try to make domestic political capital from such a gruesome tragedy." Except that Paks are behind it, and behind them is probably the ISI... Pakistan denied harbouring anyone on India's wanted list, presented last year at the height of the military standoff between the nuclear rivals. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't us." "Pakistan has already made it clear that the suspects are not on its soil ... India has so far not provided any evidence about the presence of Indian suspects in Pakistan," Mr Khan said. Lashkar-e-Taiba, founded in Pakistan but banned by Islamabad in January 2002, is blamed by India for most of the attacks on its troops in Kashmir, and for a deadly attack on its parliament in December 2001. Mr Advani said the radical Muslim Students Islamic Movement of India had been working with Lashkar and could be behind the Mumbai attacks. "The progress made by India in the past 50 years is hurting Pakistan and because of this they have waged this war of terrorism against us," Mr Advani said.

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India-Pakistan

Analysis: U.S: India may shift geostrategy

2003-06-10

(edited by me for brevity) India's Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani, begins three days of talks in Washington with the Bush administration that will touch on a project, which if realized, would shift the geostrategic tectonic plates of Asia. The importance the administration has given to Advani's visit, which begins on Monday, is indicated by whom he will see. They are Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who he has already met, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. When Advani sees Rice, President Bush is expected to drop by. The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and its attendant Islamist terrorism, will certainly figure in the talks. The administration wants to see an end to this source of instability in South Asia, the cause of two wars between India and Pakistan and that has come close more than once to starting a third. Important as Kashmir is, Advani and his American interlocutors will also be talking about something much grander. Rice gave a vague hint of what was in the air when she told the media early this month the talks would reflect the fact that India is the world's biggest democracy "and we share a lot in value." As well as sharing a lot in value, the United States and India share a lot in interests. These include instability in Pakistan where, in Indian eyes at least, President Pervez Musharraf is a spent force and Islamist violence is threatening the country. But more important still is a shared uneasiness, if not downright fear, of China, seen as aspiring to become the regional hegemon.

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