'Godman' nabbed with six women, sex racket busted

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Friday claimed to have busted a sex racket allegedly run by a 'godman', Shiv Murat Dwivedi (39). One of the godman's aides and six women, including two airhostesses, have been arrested along with the godman.

According to police, the godman had set up a temple, out of which he ran his prostitution business, in south Delhi's Khanpur area. The accomplice, who police say is a pimp, has been identified as Praveen Kumar (28).

The godman's disciples call him Ichchadhari Sant Swami Bhimanand Ji Maharaj Chitrakoot Wale.

According to DCP (south) H G S Dhaliwal, of the six women, two are air-hostesses, one an MBA student and another an aspiring Bollywood actress. The aspiring actress has been taking regular acting classes. All the girls are between the ages of 22 and 25.

''The godman supplied high-class escorts. His clients often flew down to Delhi and stayed in five-star hotels,” said Dhaliwal.The entire gang was nabbed on Thursday after police received information that some pimps and sex workers were coming to PVR Saket to strike a deal. A sub-inspector was sent as a decoy customer. A deal was struck and the gang arrested.

According to Dhaliwal, Dwivedi comes from Chitrakoot in UP. He came to Delhi in 1988. ''He started working as a security guard at the Park Royal in Nehru Place and later shifted to a massage parlour in Lajpat Nagar. In 1997, he was arrested for being involved in prostitution. He was again arrested for receiving stolen property in 1998,” said Dhaliwal.

It was then that Dwivedi disguised himself as a godman and a disciple of Sai Baba. He constructed a 200-bed hospital and a temple in Chitrakoot.

The two airhostesses who were arrested have worked with leading Indian and international airlines and were living in huge apartments in posh south Delhi colonies.

Suicide bomber kills three in Pakistan: Police

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Two policemen and a civilian were killed and over 20 injured on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed a van packed with explosives into a police station in northwest Pakistan, police said.

"The attacker detonated his pick up van at the gate of the main police station in Karak town" of North West Frontier Province, local police chief Sajid Mohmand told AFP. "Two policemen and one civilian were killed."

At least 26 people were wounded, 21 of them are policemen, he added.

"We have received three bodies and 26 wounded," local hospital doctor Nazrul Islam said, adding that some of the wounded were in a serious condition.

'My name is Osama... And I am a Gujju trader'

For Muslims across the world, life changed drastically, and in many ways, after 9/11. Finding rented accommodation became increasingly difficult, a beard and skull cap invited wary stares on buses and trains, and the police randomly picked up innocent Muslim youth on suspicion of being involved in terrorist activities. It's the unfairness of the entire situation that makes Shah Rukh Khan's character in My Name is Khan repeatedly clarify: "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist."

But leave Khan aside. It's a movie, after all. What if your name is Osama, Saddam or Dawood in real life and you live in communally sensitive Gujarat? Do people immediately see the shadow of a terrorist lurking behind the name? These names had become popular at different points of time in the past. For instance, many children were named Saddam immediately after the first Gulf War in 1990, when the former Iraqi dictator was hailed as a hero in the Muslim world for taking on the might of the Western armies. These children have grown up today and what should have been just a name, suddenly isn't.

There's the baggage of ideology and an unhappy modern context to deal with. Muslims will tell you they don't face any problem with such names as long as they are confined to their ghettos. But step out of the ghetto and a name like Osama or Saddam raises eyebrows, leads to subtle ostracism and excessive questioning at high-security zones like airports. Life is a struggle for these people, and they don't have a film's poetic licence to fall back on for a happy ending.

People often double check with Ahmedabad businessman Usama Daruwala.Many ask, Osama bin Laden? The question usually comes with a smirk. "No, Usama bin Ibrahim," he corrects them. "My father's name is Ibrahim." It is obviously not easy to live with a name that resembles that of the most wanted terrorist in the world. But Usama, 30, insists he was named after a sahabi, a person who was a companion of the Prophet and looked after his needs. "When I was given the name, Osama bin Laden was nowhere on the horizon," Usama says. "But I am not bothered by what people say. My name has its roots in the Quran."

That the men named Osama are mostly on the defensive now and unwilling to indulge in much talk about it is obvious. They will look at you suspiciously when you ask why they were called so. They will go out of their way to tell you that the terrorist did not inspire their name. Some will even refuse to talk to you if you start asking questions about the origin of their name.

Saddam Banjara, for instance, is clean-shaven and won't be mistaken for a Muslim until he puts on his white prayer cap. "Occasionally, a head turns in surprise when I tell people my name," says the 20-year-old motorcycle mechanic. "But I am proud of being named after Saddam Hussein."

And though 'Dawood' has almost disappeared in the last few years, partly because no one wants his child to be identified with the underworld don, there is nothing Dawood Ibrahim,a 65-year-old retired businessman from Bharuch, now settled in the UK, can do about it. He considered changing his name at one point, even telling friends in India it was a nightmare passing through immigration and security at the Mumbai airport. He is always frisked more than other passengers and has to answer many more uncomfortable questions.

Of the many Saddam Husseins in Ahmedabad, one is a 19-year-old roadside mechanic in Shahpur, specialising in fitting air-conditioners in cars. "Six months back, I visited a popular place in Gandhinagar with my friends, two of whom were Hindus and two Muslims. They let all my friends go, including those with names like Altaf and Mahir, but I was stopped. They questioned me for half an hour, took down my address and made a detailed check of my wallet. It was humiliating. I am never going back."

Usman Patel, a transporter who shifted from the small town of Modasa in Gujarat to Hubli in Karnataka, was about to catch a flight to Jeddah for Haj in 2002 when security officials stopped him and did not let him board the flight. Why? His son's name was Osama and he was travelling with him. "We were allowed to fly the next day, but I still carry the hurt of that experience," he says.

Osama Shaikh, a 15-year-old schoolboy, remains uncomfortable with the name he has been saddled with. "Because I live in a Muslim locality and (because) most students in my school are also Muslim, my name does not matter. But it becomes an issue the moment I have to go out, while visiting a doctor, for instance." The kid knows there's lot more in a name, especially in these uncertain days, than what Shakespeare would have you believe.

US favours direct India-Pakistan talks: Hillary Clinton

WASHINGTON: As the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan prepared to meet in New Delhi, the US said it had encouraged the two countries to resume direct talks at the highest political level.

"With respect to India and Pakistan, we've encouraged the resumption of the direct talks which were suspended when (Pakistan) President (Pervez) Musharraf left office," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Senate panel on Wednesday.

Those talks between Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "had actually been quite productive particularly in producing results on the ground in Kashmir", she said at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on her department's budget for Fiscal Year 2011.

"But they've been in abeyance now for I think slightly more than two years," Clinton said in reply to a question from Republican senator Judd Gregg who wanted to know what the US was doing on the issue of the India-Pakistan relationship.

"So we've encouraged both countries to begin a dialogue. They are going to be doing so. There will be a meeting within days as I recall the date," she said.

"We are sensitive to the concerns that they each have, that it's their issues that they have to address," Clinton said. "But we continue to raise it and make the case to each separately as to why it's in their mutual interest to proceed."

On US relations with India, she noted: "We've had a very successful start to this Administration building on, frankly, the success and the investment of the prior two administrations in working with India, creating more opportunities for investment, more relationship building between our two governments."

With Pakistan too US was "trying to create a new relationship with Pakistan that is of longer duration and making the Pakistanis know that we're in it for the long term".

"So I think that in these two areas, which are two of the most significant areas for America's long term security, we are working very hard and you know trying to make even very small but significant progress in any way we can," she said.

"What's going on in Pakistan right now is very significant," Clinton said, referring to "the increasing efforts by the Pakistani military and intelligence services to capture Taliban leaders" and "work with the United States both on the civilian and the military side, better to assist in what they're doing to reclaim territory from Swat to North Waziristan".

The $52.8 billion State Department budget, a $4.9 billion increase over 2010, includes $3.6 billion for supporting efforts in "frontline states", Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

The request for Pakistan includes $3.2 billion "to combat extremism, promote economic development, strengthen democratic institutions, and build a long-term relationship with the Pakistani people."

Police officer, Maoist killed in encounter

BANKURA (WB): A police officer and a Maoist were killed and two others injured in a gunfight between the security forces and the ultras at Sarenga in Bankura district, police said on Thursday.

A group of armed Maoists shot at and injured local CPM leader Tarashankar Patra late last night.

On getting the information, police and joint forces rushed to the spot.Another team of joint forces from Lalgarh came and a gunbattle with the security forces ensued.

Inspector-in-charge of Sarenga police station, Rabi Lochan Mitra and a Maoist cadre Dule were killed in the encounter, Superintendent of Police Vishal Garg told PTI.

Another guerrilla Mithun was injured in the gunfight, Garg said.

Patra has been admitted to Bankura Sammilani Medical College and Mithun was taken to Sarenga hospital, police said.

M F Husain given Qatar nationality

NEW DELHI: India's eminent artist M.F. Husain, who has been under attack from Hindu fundamentalists for his paintings of Hindu goddesses and has been living in Dubai and London, has been given Qatar nationality, it was reported here on Thursday.

"I, the Indian origin painter M.F. Husain at 95, have been honoured by Qatar nationality," the celebrated artist wrote above a line sketch of a horse, the leitmotif of much of his work. The black and white drawing was carried by The Hindu newspaper.

In a signed article, The Hindu editor N. Ram wrote that the artist had given him the news from Dubai "by reading out the few lines he had written on a black-and-white line drawing that he released to The Hindu".

According to the report, Husain did not apply for the nationality but it was conferred on him at the instance of the emirate's ruling family.

Photographer, designer and activist Ram Rahman, who is close to the Husain family, responded to the news by saying: "The citizenship has been offered by the sheikha, the wife of the sheikh of Qatar, and it has several implications.

"On a personal note, I feel it is quite clear that the man who is 95 years old and cannot return to his country to die, there is no point of him remaining an Indian citizen."

"It would be a tragedy. He has not given up his Indian citizenship yet but if he decides to take up the Qatari offer, he will not remain an Indian citizen anymore. It is also a reflection of our legal system because the cases against him will drag on for 20-30 years.... so it is justified if he takes up the Qatari offer," Rahman told IANS.

14 months after 26/11, India, Pakistan begin talks

NEW DELHI: The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan on Thursday began official talks here, the first formal engagement since the Mumbai terror attacks 14 months ago.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao greeted her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir at Hyderabad House as the two top officials along with their delegations sat down for talks, aimed at breaking the deadlock in bilateral ties.

"We look forward to our talks," Rao told reporters outside Hyderabad House.

"Hyderabad House is a familiar venue. We look forward to a very, good constructive arrangement," a smiling Bashir added before going inside for the talks.

Besides Rao, the Indian team included India's High Commissioner to Islamabad Sharat Sabharwal, joint secretary in charge of Pakistan Y.K. Sinha, ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vishnu Prakash and other officials of the MEA.

The Pakistani delegation comprised Afrasiab, director-general of the South Asia division and a former deputy high commissioner to India, Pakistan's High Commissioner Shahid Malik, Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesperson Abdul Basit and other senior officials.

The delegation-level talks are expected to last for at least two hours.

Rao will host a lunch for the Pakistani delegation.

The two sides have made it clear that although they have their differing core concerns, they are going into these crucial talks with "an open mind".

For India, the core concern is terrorism and the alleged use of Pakistani territory by anti-India terror outfits, but it is willing to discuss other issues. Pakistan has made it clear that it will focus on the Kashmir dispute and other issues like sharing of river waters.

The Pakistani delegation will also call on National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, a former foreign secretary and a former Indian envoy to Islamabad, on Thursday evening. On Friday morning, the Pakistanis will call on External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna before heading back to Islamabad.

The outcome of the talks is expected to determine the future trajectory of engagement between the two neighbours.

Indian and Pakistani leaders met at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt last year. But this is the first structured dialogue since the Mumbai attack in November 2008 that put the brakes on the composite dialogue between the two countries.