MUMBAI: Nihar Thackeray, a grandson of Shiv Senasupremo Bal Thackeray, has been booked under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA). He is believed to be the owner of a ladies' bar in Santa Cruz (West) from where nine women were rescued after a raid by the police in the early hours on Wednesday. The women are believed to have been pressed into prostitution, and are being treated as victims.
Nihar is the son of the Sena supremo's eldest son Binda, a film producer who died in a road accident in 1996. A police officer said Nihar--who the cops are searching for--had interests in several bars in the city. He maintains his own household in Bandra (East).
The officer said that most ladies' bars in the city are a cover for dancing (which is banned) and "other immoral activities". They are owned by powerful politic Nihar Thackeray, a grandson of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, has been booked under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA). He is believed to be the owner of a ladies' bar in Santa Cruz (West) from where nine women were rescued after a raid by the police in the early hours on Wednesday. The women are believed to have been pressed into prostitution, and are being treated as victims.
The officer said that most ladies' bars in the city are a cover for dancing (which is banned) and "other immoral activities". They are owned by powerful politic Nihar Thackeray, a grandson of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, has been booked under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA). He is believed to be the owner of a ladies' bar in Santa Cruz (West) from where nine women were rescued after a raid by the police in the early hours on Wednesday. The women are believed to have been pressed into prostitution, and are being treated as victims.
Nihar is the son of the Sena supremo's eldest son Binda, a film producer who died in a road accident in 1996. A police officer said Nihar--who the cops are searching for--had interests in several bars in the city. He maintains his own household in Bandra (East).The officer said that most ladies' bars in the city are a cover for dancing (which is banned) and "other immoral activities". They are owned by powerful politicians, who come from all parties, which is why they are seldom raided.Wednesday's raid was conducted at 12.30 am at Sangeet Bar. The police had quite a task at hand. "We were confident about finding the women, since we had specific input," said DCP (zone IX) KMM Prasanna, who led the team. "We had to demolish a wall made of concrete to reach the room where the women were kept."
The police have booked the management. They arrested Ramesh Shetty, Harish Shetty and Arjun, and are looking for Anu Shetty, who manages several such bars.
This year's International Women's Day comes at a difficult time. The brutal sexual assaults and harrassments described by women at Cairo's Tahrir Square last month were a visceral reminder of the ongoing subjugation suffered by so many women and girls around the world. Abuse and humiliation of women is an outlet for rage, addiction, dominance and control and, at times, a tactic of war. As my friend and writer Nicholas Kristof recently wrote in his forward to my memoirs: "The central moral challenge of the 19th century was slavery, and in the 20th century it was totalitarianism. In this century, the equivalent moral challenge is to address the oppression that is the lot of so many women and girls around the world."
We are all guilty of discounting difficult realities. At home in the United States, we often ignore the unacceptable daily facts facing women worldwide -- the thousand women who die each day in pregnancy or childbirth, the tens of millions of girls who are kept out of school, and the millions more who are regular victims of violence and abuse. A few years ago, in my role as Global Ambassador for the health organization PSI (Population Services International), I visited a Kenyan brothel -- it was a scuzzy flea-bag flophouse on a teeming street in a broken-up, tough part of town. Rooms were rented in 15-minute intervals to exploit prostituted women who often fought over clients, so desperate were they to survive.
I met a woman there name Shola, who was not as hardened as many of the other women I've met in brothels in 13 countries. Shola was a teenager -- six-feet tall, rail thin and heartbreakingly gorgeous. She was one of seven children. Her mother died in an accident when she was 12; when she was 15 her father died of tuberculosis. Her father's relatives took their land and she was left alone, in charge of her siblings. She dropped out of school and tried to make do. At 15, she found out she was pregnant. At 18, she was pregnant again. This time, her boyfriend left her.
Two months pregnant, hungry, with no education, no skills and her health collapsing, Shola made a poor and disempowered woman's classic "choiceless choice." Every day at 9 a.m. she would take the bus to the crowded street where Imet her, and she would sell herself to strange men for sex while a neighbor watched her child. She earned a dollar on her back, two dollars on her hands and knees. Struggling to feed her growing toddler for whom her breast milk was not enough, she worked until her eighth month of pregnancy, and was having exploited sex again a month after delivering. She was innocent and fragile. And she was so ashamed of what she was doing.
It's easy to distance ourselves from Shola's agonizing lot in life and to ignore her story on a day like today. But we must remember that her life is not so different from our own. She is a woman with incredible potential, dreams and hopes. My own mother was a high school senior when she found out she was pregnant. She took money out of her piggy bank to secretly hire a cab to visit our family doctor and confirm the pregnancy. When the doctor found out she was pregnant he wept; when my grandmother found out, she screamed. Like Shola, my mother had to drop out of school and was forced to move out of her family's home.
Fortunately for my mother, she was born here in the United States, And unlike Shola, my mother had grandparents who, despite the dramas, pitched in to help, and a boyfriend -- my father -- who adored and helped care for his girls.
Thanks to these important blessings, in spite of her own considerable hardships, my mother was able to raise a healthy, productive family. Shola doesn't have those same opportunities, and her situation puts her life and her family's at risk. Every day, she's exposed to lethal sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and further unintended pregnancies. And when she is not healthy and strong, her children can't be either. Children who lose their mothers at a young age are 10 times more likely to die prematurely than those who have not. For Shola and millions like her, the onus lies on us to help as much as we can to create opportunities for her and her family to live healthy and happy lives. If we want peace, we must.
As a start, I encourage all of you to honor and remember Shola today by educating yourselves and those around you. I read a perplexing poll that said that the majority of Americans believe that 25 percent of our federal budget goes to foreign aid. Actually, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) receives only one half of 1 percent of the federal budget for foreign aid. I hope you'll take some time to learn where that money goes and how USAID and all Americans are improving the health of millions of people in the developing world in HIV/AIDS, malaria, child, maternal, reproductive health, and tuberculosis. I also hope you'll focus on what more still needs to be done to help women like Shola. Even if all you can do is spread the word, it's something. Eli Weisel said to fail to transmit an experience is to betray it. In a world of difficult problems, that is a challenge that you can meet. The time is now, and our sisters across the world are waiting.
Ashley Judd is an actor and philanthropist currently serving on the board of directors for the global health organization PSI (Population Services International, as well as other NGOs). Read more about Shola and Ashley Judd's other travels in her upcoming memoirAll That is Bitter and Sweet.
By Abdul Hafiz Lakhani
The judgment in the Godhra train carnage case by the Special Court has been postponed to February 22, 2011.
According to official sources, the judgment, which was earlier scheduled on February 19, has been deferred by three days. The reason for the deferment was not immediately known.
The Special Court judge, P. R. Patel, is now expected to deliver the judgment in camera in the high security Sabarmati central jail in Ahmedabad on February 22, the sources said.
In view of the expected judgment, Collector of Panchamahals Millind Torwane, on Thursday imposed certain restrictions on the coverage of the event by the media, particularly the electronic media. The Collector had banned showing the footage of the scenes from the Godhra train carnage of February 27, 2002, while covering the judgment.
As many as 103 accused were being tried by the Special Court. While five of the accused have died while five others were still absconding.
The carnage had left 59 people, mostly the karsevaks of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, dead in the fire in S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express on the outskirts of the Godhra railway station.
Over 1,100 people were killed in the gory communal riots in different parts of Gujarat that followed the Godhra carnage.
Visually-impaired undertrial Iqbal Mamdu’s father Ishaq Mamdu (75) is excited that next month his son might come home after spending eight years in jail. Similarly, for the relatives of 80 undertrials in the case relating to the burning of Sabarmati Express at Godhra in 2002, this topsy-turvy route of litigation characterised by their initial labelling as terrorists, changing witness statements, deaths, prison fights, political upheavels, has not shaken faith in judiciary.
And to capture the mood, a contingent of news correspondents and cameramen from all over, including foreign countries, has already landed amid a heavy deployment of police to ensure peace in the town which triggered the 2002 communal riots in the state after 58 persons, mostly kar sevaks, were burnt to death when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was set ablaze.
Relatives of most of the accused have been fasting as if it was the holy month of Ramzan.
Advocate Raual Amin Hathila’s brother, Maqsood Hathila, told on the day of Eid-E-Milad that his sister-in-law Hathila’s now adult son and other relatives have been fasting for the past 10 days so that court rules in their favour. “We trust the judiciary. We know that witness statements changed. They could not identify any of our people during the identification parade. We have seen many of these ups and downs. Now, we need some prayers for all these who are locked up in Sabarmati jail,” says Maqsood.
Ghanchi Muslim Community president Firdous Kothi is optimistic but cautious. “We have asked for their clothes. They need to change clothes now. It has been nine long years in the custody,” he says, adding the community would be looking after bone tuberculosis patients who contracted the disease while in jail.
On Thursday, Mamdu’s father Ishaq was interviewed by foreign news channel’s correspondent who has been camping at the city’s circuit house since last Sunday. “I just want Iqbal to return home. This time, I will make sure someone is always there to accompany him so that policemen do not take him away for burning a train,” said Mamdu.
Rehanna Giteli, wife of 40-year-old Illyas Sikander Giteli who died in prison on January 12, 2009, has gone silent. When contacted, she refused to speak. They have their reasons. Sister Taheera Giteli fears any statement from them might damage their prospects of a relief from the judgment.
Meanwhile, police said they have asked for four companies of State Reserve Police Force to be deployed across the city on the day of the verdict. “We will be in full control so that nothing untoward happens on the day,” said Superintendent of Police J R Mothaliya.
The biggest question and real dilemma is after all who are the real accused behind the Godhra incident? Are these framed innocents?
At least 20 of the accused persons were arrested as members of the mob, several hours after the event, without any statement or complaint naming them at the time
Five of the Godhra accused are shown as identified by a witness, Dilip Ujjambhai Dasariya. A schoolteacher, Dasariya has stated on affidavit that he was not present at the spot but on duty 25 kilometres away when the incident took place. The school where he teaches has certified to this fact. The prosecution has however refused to place this fact on record. Aminabibi, the wife of accused, Saeed Abdulsalam Badam, a resident of Chikhodra village in Godhra taluka, has filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court stating that her husband, a poor labourer, has been falsely implicated based on the solitary statement of Dilip Dasariya who, by his own admission, was not present at the scene of the crime on February 27, 2002.The plight of those accused in the Godhra train arson is indeed a sorry one. Accused No. 54, Ishaq Mohammed Mamdu, is totally blind. In 1997, years before the train arson took place, the civil surgeon at the district hospital issued a certificate confirming that Mamdu suffered from 100 per cent blindness, following which he received assistance as a handicapped person from both the state and central governments. Mamdu’s father has made applications for reinvestigation into his arrest but this has not been done. On the contrary, in a pathetic attempt to justify Mamdu’s arrest, the state of Gujarat has obtained a doctor’s statement dated June 2002 that states, vis-a-vis the 1997 certificate, that though Mamdu is blind his eyesight allows him to see up to a distance of one metre. Moreover, there is no record of a physical examination being conducted on Mamdu prior to the doctor’s certificate being issued. The state’s contention is that he was part of the mob. Despite this, and though the only allegation against him is that he was part of the mob, Ishaq Mamdu’s bail application has been consistently rejected.
Another of the accused person, 42-year-old Fakruddin Musalman, died while in judicial custody on April 30, 2003. Fifty-year-old Siraj Abdulla Jamsa, a cancer patient, passed away after he was granted bail. Gulzar Agnu Ansari, aged about 23, suffers from tuberculosis even today. Maulana Hussein Umerji, aged about 60, suffers from kidney malfunction, high blood pressure and arthritis. Siddiq Abdulla Badam, aged about 38, suffers from bone tuberculosis. Anwar Mohammed Menda, aged about 33, suffers from serious mental depression. Idris Ibrahim Charkha, aged about 32, also suffers from serious mental depression. Anwar Hussein Ahmed Pittel, aged about 30, suffers from severe haemorrhoids. Leaders of the minority community who played a significant role in providing relief to victims of the post-Godhra carnage were specifically targeted and arrested without evidence. Maulana Umerji, Harun Abid and Harun Rashid are some examples
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