The 10 policemen, who were ambushed by Maoists in a remote Bihar village on Monday, flouted standard guidelines issued by the district administration, government officials said on Tuesday."We had asked the police department not to participate in functions in remote villages and not accept any request to become the chief guest of any function there. It is one of the basic and standard warnings that we give to the policemen," Nawada District Magistrate Yogendra Bhakt said.
Turns out that "sapinda" ('spinda' being, I assume, the pronunciation of whichever Punjabi wrote the form) is a blood relationship of a certain order: five generations of ascent on the paternal side, three on the maternal side. Turns out they were asking, on that government form, whether ours was an incestuous relationship, as defined by a very complicated set of Hindu social rules.
'Tanhaji has so much fun recreating a bygone legend and fictionalising history, authenticity and spellings, it gets infectious,' feels Sukanya Verma.
Ahead of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's rallies in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday, security forces averted a possible landmine explosion, as they diffused two Improvised Explosive Devices weighing 50 kg in the Dantewada area of the state.
Stepping up the momentum of their advance to capture the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam stronghold of Kilinochchi, the Lankan troops on Tuesday claimed to have killed scores of rebels after smashing through a string of LTTE bunkers. Government troops of the 53 Division, advancing from Kilaly village near Jaffna, carried out the ambush in the morning, a defence ministry official said
"The boat has been traced deep inside the Balimela reservoir in Malkangiri district," said deputy inspector general, South-Western range, Sanjeev Panda, adding that the body of two missing commandoes has been extracted from the waters.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday called Maoists a 'national challenge' which he said the government has accepted and will fight it. On a day-long visit to Chhattisgarh, a day after Maoists killed 14 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Sukma district, he also announced a compensation of Rs 38 lakh each to the kin of victims of the Naxal ambush and Rs 65,000 each to the injured.
Bodies of 11 hostages, slain after their abduction last week, were recovered from two different sites of the Kurram tribal region in Pakistan. The bodies were recovered on Monday, claimed local media reports.Unidentified assailants shot dead eight persons and threw their bodies in a deserted place near Faqir Khamsa village in lower Kurram area. All the slain persons were kidnapped by unidentified miscreants, during an ambush on a trucks convoy carrying foodstuff.
Tension in the state escalated after militants ambushed Manipur Police and other state forces in the last few days that left three policemen dead and 14 others injured last Thursday.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games will adopt security methods similar to those used at last year's Beijing Olympics, its chief said on Wednesday, allaying fears the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team could scupper the event. Commonwealth Games Federation chairman Suresh Kalmadi said 'modern methods' which were also used in the Beijing Olympics last year will be adopted.
Jawans belonging to the 170 Battalion of the force who were on duty were fired upon by the ultras and the resulting skirmish left at least seven personnel dead, they said.
Six militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Pulwama district on Saturday. On a tip-off, the police assisted by army and CRPF cordoned Lurgam-Tral village, 45 km from Srinagar.
'If you accept that situation you don't require the judiciary, the criminal procedure law, the Indian Penal Code or even the Constitution because there is somebody who decides who gets to live and who gets to die.'
The blast caused smoke to rise above the city and triggered an alarm in the US Embassy.
'Maoists are enraged that the media is reporting the truth.' 'They want to physically isolate the media and psychologically isolate the villagers who have found the confidence to speak to the press about the real situation.' 'Like terrorism ended in Punjab, Naxalism will end in Chhattisgarh,' the AIIMS doctor-turned IPS officer and SP of Dantewada tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
Here's the chronological list of all major terror attacks on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in the last two decades.
Five personnel of the Border Roads Organisation, including a lieutenant colonel and an engineer, were gunned down by militants at Symbham top, the highest point on the Srinagar-Kishtwar Highway, in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday evening.
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said the assault is being investigated as a hate crime.
Umpire Ahsan Raza has said he wants to forget the horrific 2009 terror attack, where he was shot at twice.
At least 13 security personnel were killed on Friday when Naxals triggered a blast and then opened fire on a patrol party near Tongada village, bordering Andhra Pradesh, in the Maoist-affected district of Bijapur in Chhattisgarh. The patrol party, comprising 21 police personnel, was returning from Terla village when the rebels unleashed the attack.
As Pakistan gets ready to host Zimbabwe in its first proper home series in six years, the Federation of International Cricketers' Association warned against international teams touring the country, stating its security experts have said the "risk is unmanageable".
A fragile truce in the Swat valley of northwest Pakistan collapsed on Wednesday as troops targeted militant hideouts with artillery and helicopter gunships, killing at least 20 insurgents. The attacks on armed followers of pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah in and around Matta were launched after the militants carried out overnight attacks on police posts near Kabal and Saidu Sharif, officials said.
The operation was conducted between June 23 and 25, the police said.
Four Central Reserve Police Force personnel, including a sub inspector, were killed on Saturday in an ambush laid by the Maoists in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. "When a CRPF party was on a combing operation, the Maoists triggered land mines blasts and opened indiscriminate firing in Brahmabeda jungle of Narayanpur district, about 275 km from the state capital," CRPF sources told PTI. A sub inspector and three constables were killed on the spot, they said.
A free press is not necessarily an unbiased press. The media curates what it presents to the public, and that curation is driven by multiple considerations, argues Devangshu Datta.
Seven terrorists were gunned down by the army at Bashbari in Dhubri district of western Assam bordering Bangladesh at around 3.15 am on Friday and a huge cache arms and ammunition was recovered. Security sources informed that acting a tipoff that a group of terrorists was passing in the area, the amy laid an ambush in Bashbari area.
The border observation post of BSF in Sambha sector in this region came under heavy firing on Thursday night from the Pakistani side following which the force lodged a strong protest with Pakistani Rangers. BSF authorities met their counterparts and lodged a strong protest with them over heavy firing at the post. During the meeting, BSF gave details of the firing pattern from the Pakistani side on its BoP while the Pakistan authorities denied their involvement.
At least 11 persons, including two Army soldiers and nine militants, were killed in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday in three different encounters between militants and security forces.
Though the identity of the insurgents was not known, police said it suspected that they belonged to the banned United National Liberation Front.
Five militants were killed in an encounter with the police at Cleave Colony in the heart of Shillong on Tuesday.
Police said militants sprayed a volley of bullets from automatic weapons at the vehicle of Yugal Manhas, sub-divisional police officer Mendhar, near the local police station.
Reports from the NATO forces in Afghanistan of the presence of increasing numbers of Uzbeks, Chechens and Uighurs with the Neo Taliban forces operating in Afghan territory added to the pressure for action. Responding to these pressures, the Pakistani government started sending further reinforcements to the area.
