Month: September 2020

A police team from Old Delhi Railway Station arrested 10 alleged child traffickers and rescued 14 children in the age group of 12 to 14 years.

According to the police, a case has been registered under section 370 of Indian Penal Code and the rescued children taken to a quarantine centre in Lajpat Nagar as per the protocol.

“The children belonged to different parts of Bihar and the traffickers were taking them to different places in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab with the intention of making them work as labourers in factories,” the police added.

According to it, information was received from an NGO on September 7 about 14 minors being trafficked and being brought to Delhi by Mahananda Express Train from different districts of Bihar. After this, a joint operation was conducted at Old Delhi Railway Station

After the train arrived at the station, a few persons in suspicious circumstances were seen along with the children. Ten persons were detained and 14 children were rescued.

The medical examination of the children was conducted and they were taken to a quarantine centre in Lajpat Nagar.

Based on statements by the children, the case was registered and the 10 accused persons were arrested, the police further said.

During the interrogation, the accused revealed that these children belonged to different districts of Bihar.

“They had planned to take these children to different places in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. Owing to the shortage of labourers in factories due to COVID-19, they saw an opportunity to carry these children to work as labourers in the factories as there had been high demand of labour. They used to target poor families in Bihar, promising them jobs and supplied their children to different places for child labour. The investigation in this case is under progress,” the police added.

(picture for representational purpose only)

(ANI)

Ajit K Dubey

Engaged in a stand-off with the Chinese Army, the Indian Army has given instructions to field commanders that the Chinese should not be allowed to transgress at any cost and also directed them that troops should maintain utter discipline while protecting Indian territory.

The field commanders have also been told that while patrolling their respective areas of responsibility or accomplishing any task, there should not be any extra display of strength or overuse of force, government sources told ANI.

On the situation along the border, the sources said that the Chinese Army is carrying out firing practice well within territory controlled by them in Tibet but it can be heard on the Indian side at many locations along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.

Sources said that India has strengthened its defences along the positions occupied by the Indian Army near Rezang La and Rechen La heights by putting concertina wires and the Chinese troops have been warned that there would be consequences if they try to breach Indian defence, the sources said.

The Indian side has also taken up the issue of Chinese Army’s soldiers carrying stick machetes and spears along with them during the deployment close to the Indian positions during talks at the Brigade Commander level, they added.

Sources said the Chinese Army has deployed close to 50,000 troops along with heavy tanks and artillery.

On the opposite Indian side of Chushul, the Chinese have been lining up their tanks and infantry combat vehicles within their territory near the friction areas as they have brought in a lot of heavy weaponry to the area, they said. (ANI)

The master-plan to develop Badrinath Dham in a planned manner was presented to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, said Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday.

He said that this will help manage the surge of pilgrims and provide them with necessary amenities.

“The master-plan to develop Badrinath in a planned manner was presented to the Prime Minister today. This will help manage the increasing number of pilgrims to the place and provide them with necessary amenities,” said Chief Minister Rawat.

During the presentation, an update regarding the reconstruction work of Kedarnath Dham was also given to Prime Minister Modi.

The Prime Minister instructed to maintain the mythological and spiritual importance in the master plan of Badrinath Dham. (ANI)

Chinese officials are growing anxious as Myanmar government is taking cautious steps regarding the implementation of already-delayed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.

Recently Yang Jiechi, a Politburo member and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission under the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Central Committee, recently made a stop in Myanmar capital en route to Europe and conveyed that Myanmar has “set a high standard” when it comes to green-lighting BRI projects, reported The Irrawaddy.

Yang’s high status as a Politburo member gave the meetings a greater significance than Myanmar leaders’ discussions with previous visitors such as State Councilor Wang Yi and Song Tao, the head of the International Department of the CPC’s Central Committee, the report said. The meetings also gave Naypyitaw a rare chance to convey important messages to the highest levels in Beijing.

During the working meeting with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar side emphasized the need for quality investment from China.

The Irrawaddy, in an article, said that the government is proceeding cautiously with the BRI projects and the pace of implementation remains slow.

China has proposed 38 projects under CMEC and Myanmar so far has approved only nine.

Since last year senior Myanmar officials said that Myanmar will only implement the projects that can guarantee mutual benefits for both sides.

Myanmar is demonstrating caution and resistance to China, which has been attempting to deepen its influence through the China Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC).

Beijing is eager to see the implementation of its delayed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects start before elections in Myanmar in November, sources said, adding that the Chinese are also concerned with the growing influence of other partners in Myanmar namely the US and Japan.

“Beijing is well aware that both Myanmar officials and the public are wary of the BRI projects and has taken note of the steady rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar,” the article noted.

A recent increase in the military capabilities of armed ethnic groups in northern Myanmar is causing serious concern among Myanmar’s military leadership. Since last year, the military has seized several caches of Chinese made weapons near the northern border.

China is supplying funds and sophisticated weaponry to armed groups in Myanmar and the Naypyitaw-designated terrorist group, the Arakan Army, to have leverage over Myanmar and India, Licas News had reported.

A military source with experience in South-East Asia confirmed that China is providing approximately 95 per cent of Arakan Army funding. He further revealed that the Arakan Army has approximately 50 MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems) surface-to-air missiles.

Even as it promises to assist Myanmar’s ongoing peace process, China continues to back ethnic insurgents based in northern Myanmar. (ANI)

US President Donald Trump has been nominated for 2021 Nobel Peace Prize following his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The nomination was submitted by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament. He nominated Trump citing his “key role in… creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan”.

In an exclusive interview to Fox News, Tybring-Gjedde praised Trump for his efforts towards resolving protracted conflicts worldwide.

“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of Parliament who also serves as chairman of the Norwegian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, told Fox News in an exclusive interview.

In his nomination letter to the Nobel committee, Tybring-Gjedde said that the Trump administration has played a key role in the establishment of relations between Israel and the UAE. “As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game-changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity,” he wrote.

Also cited in the letter was the president’s “key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and … creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.”

Tybring-Gjedde, further, praised Trump for withdrawing a large number of troops from the Middle East. “Indeed, Trump has broken a 39-year-old streak of American Presidents either starting a war or bringing the United States into an international armed conflict. The last president to avoid doing so was Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter,” he wrote.

On Tuesday, a White House official announced Trump will hold a signing ceremony on September 15 for a groundbreaking Middle East agreement normalising relations between Israel and the UAE.

In a deal brokered by the US, Israel and the UAE last month had agreed to normalise their relations, and an agreement on the mutual establishment of embassies is expected to follow in the coming three weeks. In exchange, Israel said it would halt its plans to formally annex parts of the West Bank.

There were 318 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2020. Out of that 211 were individuals and 107 are organisations.

Those eligible to nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize are public figures, including national politicians, professors and former prize winners.

In February and March each year, nominations are shortlisted. The winners are announced in October. (ANI)

Pakistan Taliban’s recent reunification of various breakaway factions will pose threats to projects linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in northwestern Pakistan and create internal security issues in the region, according to analysts.

The recent development has led to concerns regarding the safety and security of Chinese nationals and projects, an Islamabad-based security official told the Nikkei Asian Review on condition of anonymity.

“In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s various remote areas, several Chinese development projects, mainly in the field of hydro-electricity generation and infrastructure, are going on. The Pakistan Taliban’s recent reunification has increased concerns about the safety of Chinese nationals and projects,” the official said.

The three major factions of Pakistan Taliban or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, the Hizb ul-Ahrar and Hakeemullah Mehsud group. They had split in 2014 due to leadership issues. However, it was announced that the factions were coming back together last month and were also joined by a faction of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned terror group operating in Balochistan province.

Since its formation in 2007, the TTP, a strong ally of al-Qaeda, became an umbrella organisation for terror groups and has been involved in several terror attacks.

The TTP’s initial footprints were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and in semi-autonomous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. However, the group later expanded its presence in other parts of the country but were countered in a military operation in 2014, forcing the group to take sanctuary over the border in Afghanistan after its command and control structure was shattered in tribal areas.

According to analysts, several TTP splinter groups recognised they would no longer be viable alone in a changing political scenario in Afghanistan. To honour its commitment to stop harbouring foreign terrorists, the Afghan Taliban will not be able to shelter the TTP anymore.

“The self-realisation of the threats for its survival in the changing political landscape of Afghanistan, and then possible pressures from the Afghan Taliban, could have played a more significant role behind this process of reunification,” Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based researcher on jihadi groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, told Nikkei Asian Review.

The TTP’s reunification has put China in a tight spot, given the fact that they were pressing Pakistan to crack down on ethnic separatist groups in Balochistan and Sindh due to projects linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a part of the BRI.

Chinese companies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are involved in many infrastructure and energy projects including the Karakoram Highway Phase II. The Suki Kinari Hydropower Station and the Havelian Dry Port lie along the highway, which ends at the Khunjerab Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan. It then becomes China National Highway 314 after crossing the border, leading to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province in northwestern China.

“The TTP often issues detailed statements against the China state, condemning the situation faced by Chinese Muslims in their own country. More importantly, targeting CPEC projects can create severe economic problems for the Pakistani state — destabilising it is the ultimate goal of TTP and its allied anti-state jihadists,” Sayed said.

At China’s request, Pakistan in 2013 had banned three terror groups linked to al-Qaeda — the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Islamic Jihad Union. Beijing believed these groups had established sanctuaries in tribal areas of Pakistan with TTP’s assistance.

While China was initially less of a concern for the TTP than American and Pakistani security forces, some transitional actors operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas have encouraged the group to target Chinese projects as retaliation for mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese government, analysts said.

The TTP has already killed and kidnapped several Chinese nationals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. As the TTP reunites, Pakistani security forces have been deployed to protect the Chinese present in the region, according to security officials.

“The TTP’s reunification can pose a threat in some districts of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the terror group has networks in these areas,” Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based think tank, told Nikkei Asian Review.

According to a PIPS report, TTP and its splinter groups carried out 97 terror attacks in 2019, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan, which claimed 209 lives. (ANI)

Detailed locations of as many as 15 detention camps for Uyghurs have been unearthed in Turpan city of the northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang, the region where several scenes of Disney’s new film ‘Mulan’ were filmed, according to a Washington-based Uyghur group.

This is a significant development as Disney has come under fire for shooting in Xinjiang province, the region where Chinese government is accused of carrying out a brutal campaign of repression against Uyghur Muslims.

The movie, slated for release across China on September 11, garnered controversy after Disney thanked Turpan Public Security Bureau and the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China’s “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” Committee in the film credits, which are Chinese government entities directly involved in mass internment of Uyghurs and others, said the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement (ETNAM).

Mulan’s lead actor, Liu Yifei, has also been criticised for backing the Hong Kong Police crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.

ETNAM had publicly released the coordinates of 182 concentration camps, 209 prisons and 74 Bingtuan (Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps) labour camps across East Turkistan in November last year. The group has now shared the exact locations of 10 concentration camps and five prisons located nearly 130 kilometres radius of Turpan region.

It said there were five concentration camps and two prisons operating in Turpan City alone. In Pichan County of Turpan, four concentration camps and two prisons are present while one concentration camp and one prison are present in Toqsun County of Turpan.

These facilities have been operating since 2017 and many of the concentration camps have been expanded in 2018. According to testimonies of former detainees in concentration camps and prisons and their size, these facilities easily hold more than 100,000 people, mostly Uyghurs, according to ETNAM.

Salih Hudayar, the group’s founder and president said, “By filming the movie in Turpan, East Turkistan, where there are possibly hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs being detained in concentration camps and prisons, Disney is not only helping promote Chinese government propaganda but it is also helping the CCP whitewash the genocide faced by Uyghurs and demonising the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples of East Turkistan as ‘barbarians’ and as enemies of China and the Chinese people.”

Last December, China had claimed that everyone in the so-called “re-education” concentration camps across Xinjiang had “graduated”. However, these concentration camps and prisons are still operating based on the satellite image seen from March to July this year.

ETNAM has called on the people all over the world to boycott ‘Mulan’ and asked Disney to cancel its screenings of the movie as soon as possible. The group has also demanded a formal apology to the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples of East Turkistan.

China has been criticised globally for cracking down on the Uyghurs by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forceful re-education or indoctrination. (ANI)

The United Nations Human Rights Office on Tuesday expressed its concern over the increasing instances of threats of violence against journalists and human rights activists in Pakistan.

“We have followed with increasing concern numerous instances of incitement to violence – online and offline – against journalists and human rights defenders in Pakistan, in particular against women and minorities. Especially worrying are accusations of blasphemy – which can put accused individuals at imminent risk of violence,” said a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Rupert Colville in a briefing.

He also cited that last month many women journalists in Pakistan have warned about the “concentrated campaign” of Social Media attacks against “those critical of government policies”, the Dawn reported quoting the spokesperson.

“Pakistani women journalists last month publicly warned of what they described as a “coordinated campaign” of social media attacks against those who have been critical of Government policies,” the spokesperson said.

One of the journalists and Human rights defender Marvi Sirmed “received numerous messages on social media containing highly derogatory and violent language, including gender-based slurs and death threats”.

“Accusations of blasphemy on social media were followed by actual police complaints filed against Sirmed, whose personal details were also revealed on Twitter,” he added.

Colville further said that in 2019, at least four journalists and bloggers were killed in connection with their reporting. Among them was Arooj Iqbal, a woman who was shot dead in Lahore as she sought to launch her own local newspaper. “Last Saturday (5 September), journalist Shaheena Shaheen was shot dead by unidentified men in Balochistan’s Kech district,” he informed further.

“In the vast majority of such cases, those responsible have not been investigated, prosecuted and held to account. We have raised our concerns directly with the Government and we have urged immediate, concrete steps to ensure the protection of journalists and human rights defenders who have been subjected to threats,” he said.

Colville further stressed on the need for “prompt, effective, thorough and impartial” investigations with a view to “ensuring accountability” in cases of violence and killings.

“Victims and their families have the right to justice, truth, and reparations. We welcome that in the case of Shaheen, a number of high-level Government officials have condemned the murder and pledged to bring to justice the perpetrators,” he added.

The UN rights office also called on the Pakistani Government to “unequivocally condemn incitement to violence against religious minorities”. “We call on them to encourage respect for diversity of opinion. We encourage the Government to address impediments to the active protection of the right to freedom of expression, including by carrying out legal reforms,” the spokesperson said further.

In July, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris-based non-profit organization, has warned Pakistani authorities from targetting the country’s journalists based abroad and if anything happens to them or their families, the authorities will be held responsible.

Pakistan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index, three places lower than in 2019. (ANI)