Author: Agencies
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: September 8, 2000
Nepal quietly extradited
a Pakistani to India after police recovered 35 kg of RDX from him and others
in a hotel here, a local daily said on Wednesday. The daily Himalayan Times
on Wednesday, quoting an anti-terrorist squad, identified the Pakistani
national as Mustaq alias Safi, who is an alleged member of a terrorist
outfit. He was extradited to India on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, "police are
interrogating Shiba Khadka and Habib Malik who have been arrested in a
joint operation of the Nepali and Indian police", the newspaper Khadka
is a Nepali national but the nationality of Malik is yet to be ascertained.
Nepalese Home Ministry
officials refused to comment on the incident, but police said an investigation
was under way. Police confirmed they had arrested three people on Saturday
night for carrying 35 kg of RDX on their way to India. It is the biggest
RDX haul in Nepal so far by police.
Hasina appeals for Indo-Pak
peace
Bangladesh Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina Wajed has said the world's two newest nuclear powers, arch-rivals
India and Pakistan should divert their attention away from their ongoing
rivalry to pursuing peace and alleviating poverty in the region.
Speaking ahead of the
UN millennium summit here on Tuesday, she urged both countries to find
a peaceful solution following their respective nuclear explosions in 1998
which prompted international condemnation.
"Peace should be restored,
be cause our problem is poverty. So we must work together to eradicate
poverty and for human development," she told CNN in New York.
She added that nuclear
tension in the region fell following her visit to both countries immediately
after the tests.
The Bangladesh Prime
minister is due to meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and
Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of the summit.
Scribe assaulted in Bangladesh
Another journalist has
been attacked in Bangladesh, following a spate of assaults on those in
the profession here. Senior Bangladeshi journalist Shahriar Kabir was stabbed
after reportedly refusing to follow a group of four young men who approached
him on his scooter. Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontiers'
(RSF) has expressed concern over the attack and asked the Government to
take action. In an E-mailed message sent to AFP from Paris, RSF general
secretary Robert Menard said they had written to Bangladesh's Home Minister
Mohammad Nasim asking him "to conduct an investigation to establish the
motives for the attack, identify those responsible and punish them".
Bangladeshi rights group
Ain-O-Shalish Kendro, in a recently published report, said 28 Bangladeshi
journalists were victims of assault or death threats in 1999.
Kabir, who heads the
main anti-fundamentalist Ekatturer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee, told
AFP on Wednesday that "they (the attackers) were not muggers as they did
not ask for my watch or money and also did not take away the bag I was
carrying, but asked me to get down from the scooter and follow them". He
said when he refused, he was stabbed in the face and hand.
Asked who he thought
they were, the freelance journalist said, "definitely they are members
of the (fundamentalist) Harkatul Jihad organisation ... they have been
doing this (in India) and are starting it in Bangladesh". The Harkatul
Jihad is believed to have Links with the Taliban.
