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#1 Newindpress.com, December 21, 2003, Sunday Persons guilty of human sacrifice to be sentenced to death: SC PTI NEW DELHI: Condemning in the most severe words the act of a tribal sacrificing a nine-year-old child to appease a deity in Jharkhand, the Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty awarded to him and said that in such cases the extreme punishment "should be the rule." A Bench comprising Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat, upholding the death sentence to Suhsil Murmu, said, "This is an illustrative and most exemplary case to be treated as `rarest of rare cases' in which death sentence is and should be the rule with no exception whatsoever." Murmu had sacrificed Chirku Besra before Goddess Kali on December 11, 1996 and dumped the head in a pond. Advocate Anil Kumar Mittal, counsel for Murmu, had contended that though superstition was not expected and encouraged in a modern society, yet an illiterate tribal brought up in an atmosphere surcharged with superstition should not be awarded death penalty. Rejecting the plea, Justice Pasayat, writing for the Bench, said, "Superstition cannot and does not provide justification for any killing, much less a planned and deliberate one." "No amount of superstitious colour can wash away the sin and offence of an unprovoked killing, more so in the case of an innocent and defenceless child," he added. The apex court said that a bare look at the fact situation of this case showed that Murmu was not possessed of the basic humanness and completely lacked the psyche or mindset which could be amenable for any reformation. He had at the time of occurrence a child of same age as of the victim and yet he had diabolically designed in a most dastardly and revolting manner to sacrifice a very hapless and helpless child of another for personal gain and to promote his fortune by pretending to appease the deity, the Bench said. Justice Pasayat said, "Even if the helpless and imploring face and voice of the innocent child did not arouse any trace of kindness in the heart of the accused, the nonchalant way in which he carried the severed head in a gunny bag and threw it in the pond unerringly shows the act was diabolic of most superlative degree in conception and cruel in execution." The act of the accused "borders on a crime against humanity indicative of greatest depravity shocking the conscience of not only any right thinking person but of the Courts of law, as well." While upholding the death sentence awarded to Mumru, the apex court said, "Criminal propensities of the accused are clearly spelt out from the fact that similar accusations involving human sacrifice existed at the time of trial." "Though the result could not be brought on record, yet the fact that similar accusation was made against the accused Murmu for which he was facing trial cannot be lost sight of," it added. --------------------------------------------------------------- CHRO UNCOMPROMISINGLY OPPOSE ALL STATE EXECUTIONS/JUDICIAL MURDERS. PLEASE RAISE YOUR VOICE FOR ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. ----------------------------------------------------------------- #2 Rediff News/PTI, December 21, 2003, Sunday ULFA threatens to attack Bhutanese in India The United Liberation Front of Asom on Sunday said it would serve 'Quit notices' to Bhutanese who are either settled in the Northeast or had business interests in the region. In a message e-mailed to Guwahati-based mediapersons, the banned outfit's chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa called for immediate suspension of trade with Bhutan and severance of ties till the Royal Bhutan Army stopped all operations. "The Bhutanese who have now become our enemy's friend and an enemy of the Assamese, Bodos and Kamtapuris. The operations have destroyed the age-old ties that existed between the people of the Northeast and Bhutan," The ULFA leader also claimed, "It is known to all that it is a joint operation of the Indian Army and Royal Bhutan army." He alleged that the 'norms of the Geneva Convention have been blatantly violated during the operations and even innocent women and children have not been spared'. He denied 500 ULFA militants have so far surrendered before Bhutanese authorities and asked that they be produced before the media to verify this claim. ----------------------------------------------------------- Newindpress.com, December 21, 2003, Sunday Militants warn of counter-attack on Bhutan IANS GUWAHATI: Anti-India rebels facing a military offensive in Bhutan Sunday warned they could launch a counter-attack, claiming they still controlled many of their bases in the Himalayan kingdom. "We have not lost our strength yet and are only in a self-defence mode," Paresh Baruah, military commander of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), told reporters here by telephone from an undisclosed location. "Bhutan should be aware of the fact that we have enough strength to attack the kingdom as and when the situation warrants. "Any operation by the troops will not make an end to the ULFA and we still have enough power to resist the military crackdown," he claimed. The ULFA and two other Indian separatist groups - the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) - are facing a military offensive by Bhutanese troops since December 15. The rebels have also threatened retaliation against Bhutanese nationals residing in Assam. "All Bhutanese nationals residing in Assam should quit immediately and from now on we are severing all ties with Bhutan," Arabinda Rajkhowa, the ULFA chief, said in a statement received by IANS. The three rebel groups, fighting for independent homelands, had set up well-entrenched bases in southern Bhutan. The ULFA and NDFB are militant groups from the northeastern state of Assam and KLO is from West Bengal. Bhutan claimed it had smashed all 30 rebel camps, but admitted the militants were still holed up inside the kingdom. "Militants are still hiding in Bhutan, unable to flee into India because of the heavy presence of Indian troops along the border," a Bhutanese foreign ministry spokesman said by telephone from capital Thimphu. "The offensive is continuing and has reached a decisive stage." ULFA leader Paresh Baruah ruled out peace talks with India. "There will be no talks without the question of sovereignty. We will not change our stand on talks," he said. The Indian Army, which is providing logistics and medical support to Bhutanese troops, has reported the deaths of 123 rebels and eight Bhutanese troops or logistical personnel since the kingdom launched the offensive. The ULFA, however, denied this and said it had lost a limited number of cadres in the operations. "We don't have any bases in Bangladesh," Baruah said. This is Bhutan's first military operation against a foreign force since 1865, when the kingdom lost part of modern day Assam to Britain in the five-month Dooar War. King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, commander-in-chief of the Royal Bhutan Army, has personally toured the battlefield after ordering 6,000 troops to flush out the militants, who defied six years of Bhutanese warnings to leave. The largely Buddhist, peace-loving kingdom had long hesitated to make good on its threats of military action, fearing the rebels would retaliate against Bhutanese civilians. Over 10,000 people have died in insurgency in Assam during the past two decades. --------------------------------------------------------- #3 The Hindu, December 21, 2003, Sunday Judgment on Coke plant to have far-reaching impact By K.P.M. Basheer Kochi, Dec. 20. The Kerala High Court??™s directive on Tuesday in the Coca-Cola plant at Plachimada to stop extraction of groundwater, which had led to the drying up of village wells, will have a fare-reaching impact on the water agitations across the country. And, for the people??™s movements in Third World countries which have been looking to the 606-day-old Plachimada agitation as a sequel to the Kochamba (Bolivia) water resistance, it is significant victory in the fight against globalization and multinational corporations. For, Justice K. Balakrishnan Nair??™s directive to Coca-Cola is the victory of a small village panchayat headed by a Dalit against one of the largest companies in the world. The judge??™s assertion that groundwater is a public property and that no one has the right to overexploit it and that the panchayats have a duty to protect groundwater against excessive exploitation could be used as a judicial weapon in the water struggles in the country. The landmark judgment, which has deep implications for the people??™s right to drinking water, was on a writ petition filed by the panchayat of Perumatty (that includes Plachimada), a village close to the Tamil Nadu border in Chittoor taluk of Palakkad district. The panchayat had challenged the State Government??™s intervention in its decision to cancel the licence it had given to the Coca-Cola plant. Its move to get the plant closed, which was opposed by the State Government, was on the realization that the plant had been overexploiting groundwater to the detriment of several hundred households in the Plachimada and nearby areas. The panchayat??™s move echoed the demand of the ongoing agitation by the Plachimada people that the Coca-Cola plant should be wound up. The judge upheld the panchayat??™s responsibility to protect groundwater. He asserted that nobody has the right to overexploit groundwater which is a public property. If every person in the village were to be allowed to draw groundwater as the Coca Cola plant did, the village would turn barren, the judge observed. The company had told the court that it was drawing 510 kilo liters of water daily. (However, the Plachimada agitationists claim the withdrawal was two or three times this figure). The judge said this was illegal. He said groundwater belonged to the people and the Government could not allow a private party to extract such a large quantity of water. The Coca-Cola plant was commissioned in March 2000 in a region which gets only a third of Kerala??™s average rainfall. The Perumatty panchayat as well as all political parties had welcomed the advent of the plant. However, in less than two years, the local people realized that because of the overexploitation of groundwater by the plant the water table in the area had dipped and a large number of wells in the plant??™s neighbourhood had gone dry. The plant had permission to have one bore well but it now has six, apart from two very large open wells. Its daily withdrawal of water is said to equal 20,000 persons??™ per capita water use. The Plachimada inhabitants who protested the overexploitation launched an agitation in front of the plant in April last year. The panchayat and the political parties which earlier had not been favourable to the cause, started backing it as the agitation gained momentum and received all India support. Leaving environmental, human rights and social activists visited Plachimada offering their support. The panchayat had on April 7 this year decided to cancel the company??™s licence against which the latter had gone to the High Court. Two developments had given a boost to the Plachimada agitation. One, the finding by the Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi??™s finding of pesticides residues in Coke. Two, a BBC report that the sludge supplied by the Coca-Cola plant at Plachimada to the local farmers as manure contained heavy doses of toxic metals ??“ cadmium and lead. Following these, Plachimada grabbed international attention and water resistance movements across the world keenly watched the agitation. After the Silent Valley agitation against setting up a huge hydel project and the Chaliyar struggle against the Mavur Gwalior Ryons factory, the Plachimada resistance has been the longest environmental agitation in the State. for CHRO Mukundan C. Menon Secretary General CHRO 3, Rams' Cottage Ambalathumukku Pettah Thiruvananthapuram-695 024 (Ph.: 0471-2476262) |
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| << December21, 2003 - [India Thinkers Net] Fascist Bajrangi cultural police disrupt fashion show. |
December23, 2003 - [India Thinkers Net] CHRO updates Dec 23rd >> |
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