MEA declines info under RTI on Lalit Modi's passport issue

Srinagar, Jun 30: On the deadly attack at Karachi Stock Exchange on Monday morning, a Kashmiri social activist and journalist warned that the incident is a stark reminder to all those in Pakistan supporting Jihad and attacked Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan for ignoring development agenda in Balochistan.

Yana Mir, the editor-in-chief of The Real Kashmir News, said, "Karachi Stock Exchange attack is a reminder to all those in Pakistan supporting Jihad. Remember @imrankhan that Youth is restless and they want development agenda. These young boys of BLA are also looking for a life which is settled and peaceful. Wake up Imran Khan and you Kashmiris also. Pakistan is going to finish you. Open your eyes."
Four heavily armed terrorists attacked the busy Pakistan Stock Exchange building in Karachi with grenades today, killing four security guards and a police officer before being shot dead in an exchange of fire, authorities said.

The terrorists, who arrived in a car, stormed the Karachi Stock Exchange building by firing indiscriminately and lobbed grenades at the main gate of the multi-storey building situated in the city's high-security commercial hub.

Balochistan is a well-known region rich in natural resources but the Balochis have always been deprived of basic facilities. No hospitals are available in Balochistan. If there are some then medical facilities and equipment are not available in hospitals. The education system is pathetic and similar is the case with the infrastructure: the roads, water system, agriculture and almost all fields of life.

It is pertinent to mention that enforced disappearances and abductions by the Pakistani military establishment have also been carried out regularly and for innumerable times in Balochistan. Leaders, activists, and vocal members of various student organizations have been detained by the security forces and kept in confinement. While others have been shot dead.

This crime against humanity has been going on for so long and so systematically in Balochistan that it has come to be considered as a normal state of affairs in the province. Many social and human rights activists have flagged the issue of oppression by the Pakistani establishment before the United Nations and other international agencies.

According to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, an entity established by the Pakistani government, about 5,000 cases of enforced disappearances have been registered since 2014. Most of them are still unresolved.

Independent local and international human rights organisations put the numbers much higher. Around 20,000 have reportedly been abducted only from Balochistan, out of which more than 2,500 have turned up dead as bullet-riddled dead bodies, bearing signs of extreme torture.

Before being elected as Prime Minister, Imran Khan had admitted in multiple interviews about the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in enforced disappearances as well as extrajudicial killings and vowed to resign if he was unable to put an end to the practice, holding those involved responsible. But times have passed and only reports are available to narrate the true story.

New Delhi, May 19: Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said that as the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus scare began from Monday, his thoughts were with the people of Kashmir who were in a "terrible lockdown within a lockdown."

The senior Congress leader said that at least now, the people in the rest of India will understand that he dubbed the "enormity of the injustice" done to those who were detained in Kashmir and those still under detention" immediately before and after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019.

Chidambaram said that former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was the "worst sufferer" of preventive detention and even courts had shirked their constitutional duty with respect to detainees.

"The worst sufferers are Mehbooba Mufti and her senior party colleagues who are still in custody in a locked-down state in a locked-down country. They are deprived of every human right," he said in a statement.

"I cannot believe that for nearly 10 months, the courts will shirk their constitutional duty to protect the human rights of citizens," he added.

The detention on Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act (PSA) had been extended for three more months on May 5. Booked under the stringent PSA, she was initially kept at the Hari Niwas guesthouse in Srinagar but later shifted to a Tourism Department hut in the Chashma Shahi area.

She was shifted to her Gupkar Road official residence on April 7.

Besides Mehbooba Mufti, two other former Chief Ministers -- Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah -- were also detained under the PSA but later released.

Lucknow, Jan 6: Undeterred by the large scale protests that claimed as many as 20 lives in the state, Uttar Pradesh government has started the process of implementing the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

According to sources in the government, the district magistrates have been directed to identify the migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who have been living in their districts.

Sources said that the state home department has given oral instructions to the district magistrates. ''No written orders have been issued,'' said a senior official here preferring anonymity.

The official said that the district magistrates would be preparing a list containing names of those minorities, who had migrated from these countries following their persecution and had been living without obtaining the citizenship of India.

According to sources, the government expected that the migrants, who could be eligible for the Indian citizenship in accordance with the CAA, could be more in number in the districts, including Rampur, Ghaziabad, Shahjahanpur, Lucknow and some others.

''The list will be sent to the union home ministry,'' the official added.

Sources said that the state government will also inform the centre about the ''illegal Muslim migrants'' for their ultimate deportation to their countries of origin.

Different parts of UP had witnessed large scale violence last month during the protests against the CAA. At least 20 people, mostly youngsters, were killed allegedly in police firing and many others were injured. The state government had denied the charge. 

Alleged police excesses during and after the protests triggered a nationwide outrage with several rights organisations and activists slamming the BJP government and demanding a high-level probe into the allegations.