CURRENT TOPICS

Our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says India is losing the battle against Maoist rebels. Mr Singh told a meeting of police chiefs from different states that rebel violence was increasing and the Maoists’ appeal was growing. The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of the poor. They operate in a large swathe of territory across central India, and in some areas have almost replaced the local government. More than 6,000 people have been killed during their 20-year fight for a communist state.

Admitting that the government had “not achieved much success” in containing left wing extremism, which he described as the “gravest internal security threat”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday also maintained that infiltration through various routes was going up.
“I have consistently held that in many ways, left-wing extremism poses perhaps the gravest internal security threat our country faces,” Mr Singh told a conference of Indian police chiefs in the capital, Delhi.

“We have discussed this in the last five years and I would like to state frankly that we have not achieved as much success as we would have liked in containing this menace.”

The prime minister said that despite the government’s best efforts, violence in Maoist-affected areas was going up. The prime minister admitted that the Maoists had growing appeal among a large section of Indian society, including tribal communities, the rural poor as well as sections of the intelligentsia and the youth.

Mr Singh said a more sensitive approach was necessary in dealing with the Maoists.

“Dealing with left-wing extremism requires a nuanced strategy – a holistic approach. It cannot be treated simply as a law and order problem.”

The rebels operate in 182 districts in India, mainly in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

In some areas they have virtually replaced the local government and are able to mount spectacular attacks on government installations.

Sixteen months after Arushi Talwar was found murdered in her Noida flat, the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch on Monday said it has found the teenager’s mobile phone.

The phone, officers said, was traced to a bank guard in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, two days ago. The man, identified as Ram Phool, has been arrested and is being questioned, a Crime Branch official said.

Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat confirmed: “Arushi’s mobile phone has been recovered and it has been handed over to the CBI.”

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which took over the investigations from Noida Police last June, had been unable to trace it for all these months. The agency’s joint-director Arun Kumar, who was leading the probe till recently when it was handed over to a new CBI team, had in fact said in a press conference on July 11 last year that the cellphones of Arushi and the family’s household help Hemraj had been “destroyed”.

Kumar had made the statement after arresting Rajkumar and Krishna, employed as helps in the area.

Crime Branch officials today said if it is proved that the phone found is Arushi’s, it would provide important clues about the murder. It could help the investigators ascertain the identity of those who got calls from the teenager the day she was murdered.

Arushi was found murdered on May 16 last year; Hemraj’s body was discovered on the building’s terrace the next day.

Phone ‘swept’ away?Crime Branch sources today said a sweeper from Noida had found the phone (a black Nokia N72 model, with SIM number 9910520630) from Arushi’s father Dr Rajesh Talwar’s house after the murders. She reportedly gave it to her brother Ram Phool, who is based in Bulandshahr.

“Her brother was using it off and on,” a source said. The police suspect he has been using it since this February and switched it off immediately after using it each time, according to the source.

The source in the Crime Branch said this time the phone was switched on two days ago. “A team of Special Operations Squad (SOS) of Delhi Police immediately went to Bulandshahr and nabbed the man,” the official said. “He is being questioned.”

Besides Arushi’s mobile, CBI had been unable to trace Hemraj’s cellphone as well. The agency had sent a request to Nepal to trace the two phones � Hemraj came from the neighbouring country but it did not yield any result.

CBI’s announcement of a reward of Rs 1 lakh for information about the mobile phones on September 9 last year also proved futile.

Interestingly, Crime Branch officials had last year tried to investigate the case on their own  a team had gone to the Noida spot � but pulled back after Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal reportedly took objection.

Terming it as a ray of hope, Aarushi’s mother Nupur Talwar said: “We have been waiting and we have been praying every day that something comes soon from the CBI. I am continuing to pray and hope that her killers will arrested soon.”

 ”I think the mobile phone was an important piece of evidence in the case and it will help in nabbing the culprit,” said Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar.

 Aarushi, 14, was found murdered in her Jalvayu Vihar apartment in Noida May 16, 2008. The family’s domestic help Hemraj, who was missing then and was suspected to have killed her, was found murdered a day later on the terrace of the house.

After a brief lull in attacks on Indians in Australia, two students and their uncle were “brutally bashed” by a group of around 70 youth while playing here.

26-year-old Sukhdip Singh, his brother Gurdeep Singh and uncle Mukhtair Singh were attacked by the group when they were playing pool in the eastern suburb of Epping on Saturday.

“At around 11′o clock my brother-in-law Sukhdip was playing pool along with few family members when they were attacked by around 70 locals who were attending a party,” the victim’s relative Onkar Singh told.

“They were quitely playing and were trying to avoid trouble even after these locals were trying to provoke them by passing comments,” he said.

The group started telling them to go back to their country. “When they reached the car park to leave the place a huge crowd attacked them and started bashing. The attackers were in their teens and around twenties,” he said.

Onkar claimed police have informed him that six of the 70 attackers have been arrested.

The attacks come a month after Australian government assured External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, during his visit here, that Indian students will be protected. Around 30 Indian students were attacked in various cities from June to August.