INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2016 Passport forgers charged with hiding body in Bangkok BANGKOK: Three foreign men belonging to a sus- ing to police. Police then rounded up a cache of police said. A Burmese couple detained with the including passports,” he added. Thailand has long pected passport forgery ring were charged yester- drugs and guns and discovered the bagged body group told police they were hired to clean the served as a base for foreign criminals and fugitives day after police found them with drugs, guns and a parts of a man, described as a blond foreigner, building three times a week and ordered not to lured by its porous borders, lax visa require- dismembered body stashed in the freezer of a inside a padlocked freezer on the ground floor. open or move the freezer where the dead body ments and notoriously bribable police force. A Bangkok building. Police said they are working to “They are charged on five counts including was found. thriving forged documents trade has also helped confirm the nationalities of the English speakers, attempting to kill an official on duty, resisting The couple have not been charged with any shield countless crime syndicates that populate the who were found with multiple passports, but sus- arrest, illegal possession of firearms and ammuni- crime and are being treated as witnesses, said kingdom’s vast underworld. pect they are American or British. A US Embassy tion, forging official documents and concealing a Bangkok’s deputy police commander Suwat In February Thai police arrested an Iranian man spokesman said he was following the case but corpse,” said Chanin Vachirapraneekul, command- Jangyodsuk. Forensic officers are working to identi- known as “The Doctor” who crafted pristine pass- could not comment due to privacy concerns. er of the police station in Bangkok’s Phra Khanong fy the deceased and expect to have autopsy results ports from his home in a Bangkok suburb and sold One of the men grabbed a gun and opened fire district where the men were taken. The men, two today. “As of now we suspect that they are a pass- the documents to thousands around the globe- during Friday’s raid on the alleged crime den, injur- of whom have grey hair according to photos pub- port forgery gang,” Suwat said of the three men in including gangsters, rebels, refugees and migrant ing one officer who has been hospitalized, accord- lished in local media, have denied all charges, custody. “We seized more than ten fake documents, workers. — AFP ’s activist Mevani demands land for landless ‘Without land, we have no power’

MUMBAI: When Indian Prime Minister visited his home town in state to mark his birthday over the weekend, the national media focused on the detention there of a young Dalit rights activist. In just a few months since he led a protest after four Dalit youths were stripped and flogged by upper-caste Hindu men in Una, Gujarat, for allegedly skinning a dead cow, Jignesh Mevani has become the poster boy for Dalit rights in the country. After first calling for dignity for the marginalised low-caste community, Mevani, 35, is now demanding land for landless and has MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistani rescuers and army soldiers use a crane to try to recover a threatened a wider protest from Oct 1. bus that fell into a river in Nausehri, some 45 kilometres (27 miles) north of “When we started the Una agitation, it was a Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir yesterday. —AFP protest against the increasing caste violence, and about justice for the community,” said Mevani, a former lawyer who was placed under house arrest Pakistan air force jet by police as a “precautionary measure” during Modi’s trip to Gujarat. “But the injustice is related to crashes, killing pilot landlessness: when you are landless, you have no power, and you’re vulnerable to abuse and PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A Pakistan Air Gilgit killing seven people, including two exploitation and violence,” he told the Thomson Force fighter jet crashed in the country’s foreign ambassadors. Reuters Foundation over the phone. India banned restive northwest yesterday, killing the caste-based discrimination in 1955, but centuries- pilot, the air force said in a statement. The Bus plunge old attitudes persist, and lower-caste groups incident occurred around 31 kilometres Pakistani police say a speeding bus has including Dalits are among the most marginalised (20 miles) west of Peshawar city. The fight- plunged into a fast-flowing river in communities. Dalits were once barred from public er jet was on a routine operational training Pakistan’s part of Kashmir, killing at least 24 places including temples and water taps frequent- mission when the accident happened, passengers. Local police official Aslam Khan ed by higher-caste Hindus. Many were restricted to Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani leads a protest in . authorities said. said the bus fell into the Neelum river jobs that were considered dirty or dangerous, such jobs traditionally thrust upon them. Since then, he said. Mevani, who sports big-framed spectacles “The pilot, flight lt Omar Shahzad, sus- Friday night and rescuers had so far found as manual scavenging and the disposal of animal has kept up the attacks with fiery speeches and and a stubble, and often wears a colourful scarf tained fatal injuries and embraced shaha- only four bodies. He said the other bodies carcasses. At least half of India’s lower-caste popu- rallies. Earlier this week, hundreds of Dalits rallied knotted at his neck, has found support from the dat (martyrdom), no loss of civilian life have been swept away by the water and lation is landless. Landless Dalits are at the bottom in Ahmedabad in Gujarat to demand land that is national Dalit rights movement and is also being and property has been reported on search efforts were underway. Khan said a of the age-old social hierarchy, making them vul- due to them. “We are asking for just five acres of wooed by various political parties. “What we are ground,” the statement said. There will lone survivor told rescuers that 25 passen- nerable to discrimination and attacks by upper- land for each landless Dalit family, which is legally seeing in Gujarat is a spontaneous response by now be an enquiry to determine what gers were aboard when the bus fell into caste Hindus, including recent ones by hardline their due,” said Mevani, who has filed a petition in the community that has given momentum to the caused the accident, it added. Last the river about 50 kilometers (30 miles) “gau rakshak” vigilantes who regard cows as the Gujarat high court over the issue. cause,” said Ramesh Nathan, general secretary of August, 12 people were killed when a hel- north of Muzaffarabad, the capital of sacred. “If the Gujarat (Agricultural) Lands Ceiling Act is the National Dalit Movement for Justice in New icopter belonging to the army crashed in Pakistan’s part of Kashmir. Deadly acci- imposed properly, there is enough excess land Delhi. “Land for the landless has been a long- northwest Pakistan. And in May last dents are common in Pakistan, mainly FIVE ACRES that can be distributed among landless Dalits in standing demand of ours, and Mevani is helping year, a Mi-17 army helicopter crashed at a because of bad road infrastructure and Mevani led thousands of Dalits in protest after the state. There’s also government land that has mobilize the community and focus everyone’s holiday resort in the picturesque hills of reckless driving habits. — Agencies the Una incident, pledging to boycott the “dirty” been allotted on paper, but not handed over,” he attention on this issue,” he said. — Reuters Building of new city in S India raises fears of debt bondage

CHENNAI: The building of Indian Prime Minister space with residential Action. “The project report a new capital city in the Narendra Modi laid the areas spread across 8,050 for the new city talks about southern Indian state of foundation stone of hectares. money being spent and Andhra Pradesh will fuel Amaravati, on the banks of “Building of this mod- grand ideas, but it does demand for migrant labor Krishna river, in June 2015. ern city will attract workers not talk about the people and put thousands of poor Construction has from some of the poorest who will build it,” Daniel workers at the risk of debt already started on the site, districts of the country,” told the Thomson Reuters bondage, campaigners where 5,558 hectares of said Umi Daniel, a migrant Foundation. said, demanding a “digni- land will be developed as rights activist with cam- Tens of thousands of fied work policy” for them. commercial and industrial paign group Aide Et labourers are trafficked each year to work in brick kilns to feed India’s flour- ishing construction indus- try, campaigners say. Traditionally, thousands of poor workers from India’s eastern state of Odisha migrate every year to the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh, where they cut, shape and bake clay-fired bricks, mostly by hand. Many of them are duped into offering them- selves for work as security against a loan they have taken or a debt they have inherited. Campaigners calling for workers’ rights to be protected in Andhra Pradesh, are demanding hygienic living conditions, a safe working environ- ment and guaranteed wages for labourers in the process of being employed to build Amaravati. Many brick kiln owners have set up operations at the site of the new city, getting ready to cash in on the construction boom, campaigners said. “To ensure there is no exploita- tion, special officers, including labour inspec- tors have been appointed and the inter state migrant workman’s act will be implemented,” said labour official Ramachandra Murthy. The need for a new capi- tal city arose after Andhra Pradesh was split into two - Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014. At pres- ent, Hyderabad city is the joint capital of both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In a first, “A Bricks Initiative” was set up to invite the public to invest in the con- struction of Amaravati by paying for the bricks that will build the city. To date, 226,289 people have donated more than five million bricks. — Reuters