South Asia Citizens Web

People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) condemns the arrest of Sri Dandapani Mohanty, who acted as one of the interlocutors on behalf of the Maoists, both in the abduction of Malkangiri Collector and that of the two Italian tourists. The way the Odisha police arrested Sri Mohanty, violating all rules pertaining to arrest and detention, shows its highhandedness and utter disregard for the law of the land. Moreover, Sri Mohanty’s arrest at this juncture raises several questions which the Odisha government must answer.

Some readers, whose intelligence I respect, took my last op-ed to be dismissive of corruption as a cause of Pakistan’s social decay. I apologise for having failed to express myself adequately: I certainly do not dispute that Pakistan is reaping the terrible consequences of wholesale corruption. Corruption, by definition, expropriates that which rightfully belongs to others. By doing so, it hurts the poor more than the rich, lowers productivity, creates mistrust of authority, breaks down the social contract and leads towards ungovernability. We all know that the average Pakistani is frustrated and that he encounters corruption while reporting a crime, seeking justice in a traffic accident, getting an electricity or gas connection, securing admission to school for children, or getting a business contract signed. We have kunda mafias, tanker mafias, and mafias of all shapes and forms that raise the collective blood pressure.

Wasn’t it? Yesterday I mean. Spring announced itself in Delhi. The sun was out, and the Law took its Course. Just before breakfast, Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament Attack was secretly hanged, and his body was interred in Tihar Jail. Was he buried next to Maqbool Butt? (The other Kashmiri who was hanged in Tihar in 1984. Kashmiris will mark that anniversary tomorrow.) Afzal’s wife and son were not informed. “The Authorities intimated the family through Speed Post and Registered Post,” the Home Secretary told the press, “the Director General of J&K Police has been told to check whether they got it or not.” No big deal, they’re only the family of a Kashmiri terrorist.

We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, are shocked by the reports of sexual harassment and sexual violence perpetrated by the police (in tacit association with some supporters of Narendra Modi), through its words, gestures and actions, on students who were protesting outside Shri Ram College of Commerce and at Maurice Nagar Police Station on February 6, 2013.

Mr Praveen Togadia, the international secretary general of VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) is sitting pretty. It has been more than a week that a FIR has been filed against him for his alleged hatespeech in Bhokar town but since then there has been no progress. A newsitem which appeared in a leading daily mentioned in the beginning describes the game of ping pong which is going on between the police officials and the home minister over l’affaire Togadia.