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DELHI, SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2015

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Regd. DL(ND)-11/6110/2006-07-08 ● RNI No. TNENG/2012/49940 ● ISSN 0971 - 751X ● Vol. 5 ● No. 3 ● CITY EDITION ● 20 Pages ● Rs. 8.00 ● www.thehindu.in

PM LAUNCHESDIGITAL VILLAGEPAGE 10

NEW DELHI: Reviving memo-ries of the 26/11 terror strikeon Mumbai, the Coast Guardon December 31 night inter-cepted a Pakistani fishingboat with explosives near themaritime boundary in theArabian Sea off the Porban-dar coast.

  At least four persons, whowere seen on the boat butdisregarded all warnings bythe Coast Guard to stop, arebelieved to be dead, after thecrew “blasted” the ship.

 “As per the intelligence in-puts received on 31st Decem-ber, a fishing boat from KetiBunder near Karachi wasplanning some illicit trans-action in the Arabian Sea,” astatement from the DefenceMinistry said on Friday.

 Defence Minister Mano-har Parrikar “compliment-ed” the Coast Guard forintercepting the “rogue ves-sel” in a “timely and precisemanner.”

 Based on the intelligenceinputs, Coast Guard Dornieraircraft undertook sea-air co-ordinated search and locatedthe suspect fishing boatabout 10-15 km inside Indian

waters. Thereafter, a CoastGuard ship on patrol was di-verted and it intercepted theunlit boat at about midnight,365 km West-South West ofPorbandar.

 However, there was no in-formation on how the illegaltransaction was to take place.

 The statement said, “TheCoast Guard ship warned the

fishing boat to stop for fur-ther investigation of the crewand cargo; however, the boatincreased speed and tried tomove away from the Indianside of [the] maritimeboundary.”

 The hot pursuit continuedfor nearly one hour and theCoast Guard ship managed tostop the fishing boat after fir-

ing warning shots. Due to darkness, bad

weather and strong winds,the boat and persons onboard could not be saved orrecovered. The boat burntand sank in the same posi-tion, in the early hours ofJanuary 1.   

Vessel sinks after cornered crew blow themselves up off Gujarat coastDinakar Peri

Explosives-laden Pak. boat intercepted HOT PURSUIT ON HIGH SEAS Coast Guard foils threat

The vessel burns in the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast in this photographreleased by the Ministry of Defence on Friday. — PHOTO: AFP

� SURVEILLANCE GRID PROVES ITSELF | PAGE 10

NEW DELHI: Indian and U.S. of-ficials are expected to meetin Delhi next week to dis-cuss two proposals made byIndia to clear the nuclearlogjam, with an added pushcoming from U.S. PresidentObama’s impending visit onJanuary 24.

The Hindu has learntthat the proposals were putforward during the first con-tact group meeting on civilnuclear issues held on De-cember 16-17 that had beentasked by President Obamaand Prime Minister Modiwith finding a way aroundU.S. objections to India’ssupplier liability law.

According to one officialpresent at the meeting, In-dia put up a revised proposalof an “insurance pool” usingGeneral Insurance Compa-ny (GIC) to alleviate the riskto U.S. suppliers. An earlierproposal had been madeduring the UPA govern-ment’s tenure in March2014, but had been rejected.Officials say the new offerwould include a pool of GIC,New India Assurance, Ori-

ental Insurance, NationalInsurance and United India,that would generate a riskcover of about $242 million.

A second proposal, thatUS officials have taken backto discuss with lawyers and

representatives of Americancompanies GE-Hitachi andWestinghouse, would entaila “clarification of Section46” of the law that has beendescribed as “vague” . Atpresent, Section 46 says that

nothing in the law will “ex-empt the operator from anyproceeding which might,apart from the act, be in-stituted against the oper-ator.” This has been read tomean that U.S. supplierscould face tort claims, thatis, be sued by victims of anaccident where the nuclearparts are deemed faulty. U.S.officials will bring both pro-posals back to Delhi nextweek.

Nuclear logjam: India, U.S. to work on new proposals Revised insurance scheme to reduce suppliers’ risk

Suhasini Haidar

� INDIA'S PROPOSALS FACERESISTANCE | PAGE 10

EXCLUSIVE

NEW DELHI: Intelligence reportshave indicated that at least eightgroups of terror suspects havebeen attempting to enter Indiaalong the International Borderunder the cover of firing byPakistan Rangers.

“There are strong reasons tobelieve that higher-ups in thePakistan Army are aware of theirpresence along the border andthat the terrorists are makingattempts to carry out spectacularattacks ahead of U.S. PresidentBarack Obama’s visit,” a seniorMHA official said.

On Friday, Union HomeMinister Rajnath Singh,answering a question frompresspersons on whether therecent ceasefire violations byPakistan were a cover-up forinfiltration bids by terrorists, saidthere was no doubt about it.Claiming that the BSF had beengiving a fitting reply to the firing,Mr. Singh said Pakistan hadstarted it.

Infiltration bid by8 terror groups National Bureau

SRINAGAR: Senior moderateHurriyat leader Abdul GhaniBhat met the patron of thePeoples Democratic Party,Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, atthe latter’s residence onThursday, setting off specula-tion in political circles.

While Mr. Bhat refused toacknowledge the meeting, itwas confirmed by PDP sourc-es. Mr. Bhat, a former Profes-

sor , has beenlargely relegatedto the backgroundin Kashmir’s polit-ical landscape, buthis meeting withMr. Sayeed gains importancegiven the political uncertaintyafter the recent Assemblyelection.

Mr. Bhat, who was a class-mate of Mr. Sayeed in Kash-mir and then at the AMU inAligarh, told journalists that

even if he met the PDP leader,it was as friend and not aspolitician.

Mr. Bhat’s organisation,Muslim Conference, is a con-stituent of the moderate Hur-riyat, which is opposed toelections. “Polls and forma-tion of the government can inno way affect the veracity ofthe Kashmir issue,” he said.

Zahid Rafiq

Abdul Ghani Bhat meets Mufti

� LIMITED NUMBERS FORCE BJPOVERTURES TO PDP | PAGE 10

DELAY IN TRAINS

Mumbai commuters goon the rampageMUMBAI: A violent protest by

commutersdisruptedsuburban trainservices formore than sevenhours in Mumbai

on Friday.

NEWS | PAGE 10

SPURS STUN CHELSEA PAGE 16

'VOTE FOR THEKNOWN DEVIL'PAGE 12

CREMATORIUMLIES UNUSED PAGE 4

INSIDE �

� RANGERS KILLED IN COLD BLOOD,SAYS PAKISTAN; BSF REPLIES TO PAK. FIRING | PAGE 10

NEW DELHI: The year when Uberrape case brought the spotlightback on women’s safety, theCapital registered nearly 500more rape cases than 2013 — a31.70 per cent jump over thepreceding year.

Statistics reveal that from1,571 rape cases registered in2013, the number grew to 2,069in 2014. A rise was also seen inthe number of molestationcases which went up by 25 percent to 4,179 from 3,345 theyear before.

The overall crime rate in thecity in 2014 too shot up to al-most double the correspondingnumber in 2013. It also crossedthe one lakh mark for the firsttime in the city’s history.

At the annual police pressconference here on Friday,Commissioner B.S. Bassi re-vealed that a whopping 1,47,230cases were registered till De-cember 15 last year, nearlytwice the 73,902 cases regis-tered till the same date in 2013.

A break up of the 1.47 lakhcases thus registered illustratesthat on an average as many as421 crimes are reported in thecity every day.

He attributed the staggeringrise to greater emphasis on“truthful registration” of casesunder his leadership. In othermajor crimes, the number ofmurders was 561 in 2014, com-pared with 486 the year before.

It was during the year thatseveral major robberies such as

the Rs. 7.7-crore one in LajpatNagar and the still unsolvedATM robbery-cum-murdercase in Kamla Nagar were re-ported.

But with only 29.5 per cent ofthe cases solved in the entireyear, it seems investigation hasnot kept pace with the registra-tion. There is a dip in this figureas in 2013, 48.86 per cent of theregistered cases were solved.Calculation in absolute termsestablishes that a total of 36,109were solved in 2013. The num-ber went up by nearly 7,000 to43,433 till December 15.

Evading a pointed reply to aquestion related to the progressof investigation in the SunandaPushkar death case, which con-tinues to remain a mystery, Mr.Bassi said the police had done“whatever was needed”.

City sees a jump in rape casesCity Bureau

� RELATED REPORTS | PAGE 3

LUCKNOW: The gang rape of a14-year-old girl allegedly bytwo constables in a police sta-tion on New Year’s Eve hasbrought Badaun district backin the news again for thewrong reasons.

The victim’s mother saidthe accused policemen, VirPal Singh Yadav and AvnishYadav, took the girl away in acar and raped her in a room inthe Musajhag police station.

A senior official said thepolicemen had been sus-pended and the process todismiss them from serviceinitiated.

Station House Officer RamLakhan Singh has been sus-pended from service.

Inspector-General of Po-lice (Law and Order) A. Satish

Ganesh told presspersonsthat the girl’s mother, in hercomplaint filed on Thursdayalleged that the two consta-bles took away her daughterwhen she was standing out-side her house.

The girl underwent a med-ical examination in the dis-trict hospital. “Preliminaryreports point to sexual as-sault,” he said adding that theincident occurred between 8p.m. and midnight of Decem-ber 31.

The State government hasordered an inquiry.

Constables kidnap, rapeminor in police stationAtiq Khan

The incident tookplace in Badaundistrict on NewYear’s eve

NEW DELHI: Violence, racial re-marks and gestures againstpeople from the Northeast arelikely to be made punishableoffences.

The government move is inaccordance with the M.P. Bez-baruah Committee report ondiscrimination against thepeople of the Northeast. It wasset up following the murder ofa 19-year-old from ArunachalPradesh, Nido Tania, in SouthDelhi about a year ago.

“The proposal for insertionof Section 153-C [cognisableand non-bailable] and Section509-A [cognisable and baila-ble] in the Indian Penal Codeis under consideration,”Union Home Minister Raj-nath Singh said on Friday.

The proposed Section 153-Cmakes acts causing or likely to

cause fear or feeling of insecu-rity among the communitypunishable with up to fiveyears’ imprisonment. Theproposed Section 509-A pro-vides up to three years’ im-prisonment for words, gestureor act intended to insult amember of any race.

Racial remarks against N-E people to be punishableNational Bureau

� PART OF CURRICULUM | PAGE 10

Rajnath Singh

METROPLUS-MELANGE- 4 pages