India police seek Sikh leader, arrest separatist supporters

Sikh men hold Indian national flags during a protest in New Delhi against the supporters of radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, on Monday. (AFP)
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Updated 24 March 2023

India police seek Sikh leader, arrest separatist supporters

  • Singh has been on the run since the search for him began on Saturday.

New Delhi: Indian police are searching for a separatist leader who has revived calls for an independent Sikh homeland, stirring fears of violence in northwestern Punjab state where there’s a history of bloody insurgency.

Police have accused Amritpal Singh, a 30-year-old preacher, and his aides of creating discord in the state, which is haunted by the memories of an armed insurgency in the 1980s for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. The insurgency had prompted a controversial military operation by the Indian government that killed thousands of people, according to official estimates.

Authorities have deployed thousands of paramilitary soldiers to the state and suspended mobile internet services in some areas to prevent unrest, Sukhchain Singh Gill, the inspector general of police for Punjab, said Wednesday. He said police have so far arrested 154 supporters of Singh and seized 10 guns and ammunition.

Singh has been on the run since the search for him began on Saturday.

Singh, who has said he supports the Khalistan movement, captured national attention in February when hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station in Punjab with swords and guns to demand the release of a jailed aide.

Very little is known about Singh, who for years drove a truck in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He emerged in 2022 in Punjab and began leading marches calling for protecting rights of Sikhs who account for about 1.7 percent of India’s population.

His speeches have become increasingly popular among supporters of the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India. Officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. Even though the movement has waned over the years, it still has some support in Punjab and beyond — including in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, which are home to a sizable Sikh diaspora.

On Sunday, supporters of the movement pulled down the Indian flag at the country’s high commission in London and smashed the building’s window in a show of anger against the move to arrest Singh. India’s Foreign Ministry denounced the incident and summoned the UK’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi to protest what it called the breach of security at the embassy in London.

On Wednesday, police removed temporary security barricades outside the British High Commission in New Delhi, news agency Press Trust of India reported. There was no immediate comment from the police or the government whether it was in retaliation to the incident in London.

The supporters of the Khalistan movement also vandalized the Indian Consulate in San Francisco on Monday.

Singh claims to draw inspiration from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh militant leader accused by the Indian government of leading an armed insurgency for Khalistan. Bhindranwale and his supporters were killed in 1984 when the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion.

Singh also heads Waris Punjab De, or Punjab’s Heirs, an organization that was part of a massive campaign to mobilize farmers against controversial agriculture reforms being pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The legislation triggered a year of protests that began in 2020, as farmers — most of them Sikhs from Punjab state — camped on the outskirts of New Delhi through a harsh winter and devastating coronavirus surge. The protests ended after Modi’s government withdrew the legislation in November 2021.

Waris Punjab De was founded by Deep Sidhu, an Indian actor who died in 2022 in a traffic accident.


Five Greek police officers in custody pending trial for assisting illegal migrant crossings

Updated 03 June 2023

Five Greek police officers in custody pending trial for assisting illegal migrant crossings

  • The five officers had been testifying before an examining magistrate since Saturday morning at the border town of Orestiada
  • Agents from the internal affairs division of the Greek police had been monitoring the five officers since October 2022

THESSALONIKI, Greece: Five police officers accused of cooperating with human traffickers to facilitate the entry of at least 100 migrants into Greece are being held in custody pending trial.
The five officers had been testifying before an examining magistrate since Saturday morning at the border town of Orestiada, in northeastern Greece.
Agents from the internal affairs division of the Greek police had been monitoring the five officers, who serve in a special border guard unit, since October 2022. They also listened into their phone conversations, whose transcripts run into over 2,000 pages. The officers had aroused suspicion by volunteering to patrol at certain times, together.
Authorities say the offices facilitated at least 12 border crossings, collaborating with four traffickers of undetermined nationality who operated from Turkiye.
Authorities allege that the accused officers took a cut from the money the traffickers received from the migrants to take them across the border. When the officers were arrested last Monday in the border town of Didymoteicho, police confiscated some 26,000 euros ($28,000) in cash, and nearly 60 mobile phones.
Almost all the land border between Greece and Turkiye is formed by the Evros River, called Meric in Turkiye. The Evros is a key crossing point into Greece for people seeking a better life in the European Union. Greece has built a high fence along much of the border to prevent migrants crossing, and is planning to further extend it.


Greek police find €3.2 million of cocaine in banana containers

Updated 03 June 2023

Greek police find €3.2 million of cocaine in banana containers

  • Police seized two suspect containers at the port of Piraeus
  • The drugs are estimated to be worth about €3.2 million, police said

ATHENS: Police in northern Greece have seized dozens of packages of cocaine stashed in containers laden with bananas that had been shipped from Latin America, they said on Saturday.
Police seized two suspect containers at the port of Piraeus and, after taking them to the port of Thessaloniki, found 100 “bricks” of concealed cocaine, weighing 161 kilos.
The drugs, which would have been distributed across Greece and other European countries, are estimated to be worth about €3.2 million, police said.
The consignment was found as part of an investigation Greece launched last month with North Macedonia authorities and the US anti-drug agency, following the seizure of about 100 kilos of cocaine also hidden in banana containers at a warehouse in Thessaloniki. Some 14 people have been arrested in that case.


Nearly 300 killed in one of India’s worst rail disasters in history

Updated 03 June 2023

Nearly 300 killed in one of India’s worst rail disasters in history

  • Two trains carrying thousands of passengers collided with a freight train
  • Odisha observes day of mourning after the ‘unimaginable scale’ disaster

NEW DELHI: Nearly 300 people have died and hundreds of others were injured in eastern India when three trains collided in one of the worst rail disasters in the country’s history, authorities said on Saturday.

The accident took place in Balasore district of Odisha state on Friday, when the Coromandel Shalimar Express from Kolkata to Chennai derailed after hitting a parked freight train. Another train, the Howrah Superfast Express, traveling in the opposite from Yesvantpur to Howrah, then hit the overturned carriages.

The Coromandel Shalimar Express had 2,000 people on board and the Howrah Superfast Express at least 1,000, according to their passenger manifests.

Rescuers work at the site of passenger trains that derailed in Balasore district, in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, on June 2, 2023. (AP)

The state government of Odisha sent 200 ambulances, hundreds of first responders to the scene as it mobilized dozens of doctors to attend to the injured as it said the accident was a “disaster of unimaginable scale.”

The South Eastern Railway which has jurisdiction over the area confirmed on Saturday afternoon that at least 261 people were killed in the crash.

“Another 650 injured passengers are being treated at various hospitals in Odisha,” SER spokesperson Aditya Chowdhury told reporters.

Rescuers who continued to dig through debris to find survivors feared that the toll might still increase.

Rescue workers gather around damaged carriages at the accident site of a three-train collision near Balasore, about 200 km (125 miles) from the state capital Bhubaneswar in the eastern state of Odisha, on June 3, 2023. (AFP)

Dr. Sudhanshu Sarangi, director general of Odisha Fire Service, said the aftermath of the accident was “extremely distressing” and many of the rescued were critically injured.

“So many dead bodies, the smell, the rigor mortis, it’s its terrible. We won’t be able to sleep for a few nights. It’s a terrible tragedy,” he told Arab News.

A day of mourning was observed in Odisha on Saturday as top officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw arrived in the crash site.

The accident has caused disruptions in the movement of hundreds of trains from eastern India to the rest of the country.

India has the largest network of railway tracks in the world with over 13 million people traveling 70,000 kilometers of track in more than 14,000 trains every day.

Each year several hundred accidents are recorded on the country’s railways, but the one in Odisha was the worst since August 1999, when two trains collided near Kolkata killing at least 285 people.

In August 1995, at least 350 people are killed when two trains collided 200km from Delhi.

The country’s worst train disaster took place in June 1981, when seven of the nine coaches of an overcrowded train fell into a river during a cyclone in the eastern state of Bihar. 

A rescue worker looks into a damaged carriage at the accident site of a three-train collision in Balasore district in the eastern Indian state of Odishaut. (AFP)

 


Two killed in shelling of Russian region on Ukraine border

Updated 03 June 2023

Two killed in shelling of Russian region on Ukraine border

  • Belgorod border villages have been hit by unprecedented shelling, and the latest deaths bring the overall toll to seven this week
  • The Shebekino area has been the hardest hit by the shelling

MOSCOW: Ukrainian shelling killed two people on Saturday in Russia’s Belgorod, a border region that has been hit by repeated attacks this week, the local governor said.
Belgorod border villages have been hit by unprecedented shelling, and the latest deaths bring the overall toll to seven this week.
“Since this morning, the district of Shebekino has been under shelling of the Ukrainian armed forces,” said Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
He said an “elderly woman” was killed in the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka and another woman died from her wounds in the village of Bezlyudovka.
Two other people were wounded in the shelling.
The Shebekino area has been the hardest hit by the shelling, and residents from the area have been pouring in to displacement centers in the regional capital of Belgorod.
The Russian army on Thursday said it had used its air force and artillery to repel an attempt from the Ukrainian army to invade Belgorod.


Turkiye to send commando unit to help quell unrest in Kosovo

Updated 03 June 2023

Turkiye to send commando unit to help quell unrest in Kosovo

  • The request came from NATO’s Joint Force Command Naples, the ministry said
  • A defense ministry official said around 500 Turkish troops would be going to Kosovo

ANKARA: The Turkish defense ministry announced Saturday it will be sending a commando battalion to northern Kosovo in response to a NATO request for troops to help quell violent unrest.
The request came from NATO’s Joint Force Command Naples, the ministry said in a press statement posted on its official Twitter account, and the battalion will join the alliance’s peacekeeping mission in the region, known as KFOR, as a reserve unit.
A defense ministry official said around 500 Turkish troops would be going to Kosovo. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with ministry regulations.
NATO announced on Tuesday that it would be sending 700 troops to bolster the force in the area. KFOR currently consists of almost 3,800 troops, including some 350 from Turkiye.
Violent clashes with ethnic Serbs on Monday left 30 international soldiers — 11 Italians and 19 Hungarians — wounded, including fractures and burns from improvised explosive incendiary devices.
The clashes grew out of a confrontation that unfolded earlier after ethnic Albanian officials elected in votes overwhelmingly boycotted by Serbs entered municipal buildings to take office and were blocked by Serbs.
“We urge restraint and dialogue to resolve these developments in northern Kosovo which endanger regional security and stability,” the Turkish statement read. The Turkish commando battalion will be deploying to the Sultan Murat Barracks in Kosovo on Sunday and Monday.