Fishermen clash leaves three injured in Pondicherry
Pondicherry
June 25 2002
Tension gripped Pillaichavadi, a fishermen ' s village, located on the Tamilnadu-Pondicherry border, during a Draubadi Amman Temple festival last night when two groups of fishermen were engaged in a clash leading to hurling of petrol bombs that left three fishing boats and fishing nets fully damaged.
Three persons sustained injuries and were hospitalised, even as heavy police from Tamilnadu and the Union Territory had been deployed to restore normalcy.
At present, an uneasy calm prevails and a battalion of policemen are camping at the village to ensure that no further incidents take place.
The clash took place at the temple festival where crowds, mostly fishermen from the Tamilnadu side and from Pondicherry, converged.
A quarrel is said to have taken place between the two groups and that degenerated into a brawl that turned worse with members from each group throwing petrol bombs and engaging in an armed battle.
As things went beyond control, Tamilnadu and Pondicherry police rushed to the village and brought the situation under control. The reason behind the cause of the quarrel was not immediately known.
High Court denies bail to Ayesha
Chennai
June 25 2002
The Madras High Court today refused bail to Ayesha, a suspected Islamic fundamentalist, who was arrested by a CB-CID team from Bihar in March, 2001 after she had gone underground in 1998.
In her petition, Ayesha said that in the wake of recovery of bombs outside the Police Commissioner ' s office, Egmore, and TVS bus stop, Chennai, the city police raided a house at Kodambakkam and recovered huge quantities of explosives in 1998.
Six persons, including a woman Arifa Begum, were arrested in connection with the incident.
The police said Ayesha and her husband too were involved in the incident and a hunt was on to catch them. The police described Ayesha as a ' human bomb ' .
Stating that she was a Hindu who had changed her name from Sangeetha to Ayesha after she married a Muslim boy against her parents ' wishes, the petitioner said ' I went underground as the police spread a rumour that I was a ' human bomb. ' She said that since Arifa Begum had been enlarged on bail, she too should be granted bail.
Justice R Balasubramanian dismissed her bail plea on the ground that she was absconding for over three years.
Ambani suffers stroke today
Mumbai
June 25 2002
The patriarch of Reliance Industries Dhirubai Ambani is critically ill after he suffered a stroke and is under constant medical supervision at the Breach Candy hospital here.
69year old Ambani, whose over Rs 65,000 crore Reliance Group is the first private Indian company to be eligible for a slot in Fortune 500, was admitted to Breach Candy hospital here last night.
The shares of Reliance Industries dipped marginally as word of Ambani's medical condition spread in this commercial city.
The Reliance share which opened at Rs 280 this morning fell by three per cent to touch Rs 270 before staging a slight recovery at Rs 274.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh of Samajwadi Party, the Singhanias and former Chief Minister Sharad Pawar visited the hospital.
Record breaking planting bid in rain
Udhagamandalam (ooty)
June 25 2002
Around 300 volunteers, led by Nilgiris district collector Supriya Sahu, have completed a gigantic task - that of planting 41,000 saplings on an 80 acre site within 24 hours in a bid to enter the Guinness Book of Records.
The collector told sources that the saplings had been planted at Kurthukulli village near here. The operation commenced at 1700 hrs on June 23 and was completed by 1700 hrs last evening, she said.
What made it all the more creditable was that the whole exercise had been carried out in heavy rain, she said.
The former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr M R Srinivasan, the chairman and managing director of a public sector undertaking, Brig Chaithanya Prakash and district wildlife warden Ashok Upretti were present as observers on behalf of the Guinness authorities.
The present record was set on May 18, 1999, near the central staging area of the blackfoot provincial recreation centre in Albena, Canada, where 34,083 white spruce seedlings were planted by 293 people.
RI for constables, doctor in custodial death case
Pondicherry
June 24 2002
The Second Additional District and Sessions Judge of Pondicherry, G. Rajasurya, today convicted and sentenced three police constables, Ravichandran, Ramayya and Arumugham of Odiansalai station here, to undergo seven years rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000, or in default undergo another six months RI, in the case of death of a fruit vendor in police custody in December 1993.
Sundararasu, Devaraju a head constable and Lakshmanan, another constable of the same station and Srinivasan of the govt hospital, who conducted the post-mortem, were also convicted and sentenced to undergo one year rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs. 1000.
The fruit vendor, Chandrasekar, was brought to the police station in connection with a case and later found dead. The cause of death was given as over consumption of arrack. A second post-mortem conducted at the JIPMER revealed that the death was owing to beating.
An investigation was instituted and a trial launched against the accused.
They were all charged under Section 201 IPC, the Public Prosecutor, K. Shanmugham, said.
The then sub-inspector of the station, Gopal Chander, who was also an accused, died while the case was on trial.
The Judge acquitted three constables Narayanasamy, Thanigasalam and Ramu.