KHADOOR SAHIB: A jailed Sikh separatist leader is contesting India’s general election from prison and drawing good support, his campaign managers said, in what could become a concern for New Delhi which has sought to stamp out any revival of Sikh militancy.
Amritpal Singh, 31, is detained in a high-security prison in Assam, nearly 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from his Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab state, where villages and towns are dotted with posters depicting him with swords and bullet-proof vests.
Singh was arrested last year and jailed under a tough security law after he and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms, demanding the release of one of his aides.
A win for him in an election to parliament could give Singh some legitimacy and spark concerns of a revival of a militancy that killed tens of thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s.
“People will make their decision on June 1,” Singh’s father Tarsem, 61, said referring to the voting in the constituency on Saturday. “They will send an important message to those who have maligned his image, to those who are defaming our community and our Punjab.”
Tarsem Singh spoke inside a Sikh temple set beside wheat fields and a river canal. Portraits of Sikhs who were killed during the militancy in Punjab, called “martyrs” by Singh’s supporters, were pinned on the walls.
Sikhs are the majority community in Punjab but they constitute just 2 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people. Sikh militants began agitating for an independent homeland in the 1970s but the insurgency was largely suppressed by the early 1990s with harsh crackdowns.
However, Sikh separatism has made global headlines in the last year as Canada and the United States have accused India of being involved in assassination plots against Sikhs in those countries, charges New Delhi has denied.
Singh said in a 2023 interview that he was seeking a separate homeland for Sikhs and the people of Punjab, where the religion was founded more than 500 years ago.
SINGH’S ‘TSUNAMI’
To be sure, Singh’s campaign is focused on fighting Punjab’s drug problem, freeing former Sikh militants from prison and protecting the Sikh identity in Hindu majority India. His father and aides are careful to avoid any mention of the idea of a Sikh homeland.
“There is a tsunami in the name of Amritpal Singh, anyone who stands against him will be swept off,” said Imaan Singh Khara, 27, Singh’s lawyer.
Community leaders pushed Singh to contest from Khadoor Sahib, a historical center for Sikhs on the border with Pakistan, despite his initial hesitation, his aides said. Indian law allows undertrials to contest polls.
Singh is contesting as an independent and his main rivals — also all Sikhs — belong to the opposition Congress party, the Sikh-centric Shiromani Akali Dal, Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Amritpal Singh may have some support but not enough to win, said BJP candidate Manjit Singh Manna. “People have seen the militancy days, they don’t want those days to return,” Manna said.
Demand for a separate Sikh nation has more support abroad, but a rise in support for Singh risks giving new legs to extremist politics at a time when mainstream parties are wrapped in their own rivalries, analysts say.
“Once you weaken the moderates, people get articulation through these fringe radicals, which is a danger signal,” said Pramod Kumar, chairperson of the Institute for Development and Communication, based in the city of Chandigarh.
“Amritpal may win, in a four-cornered contest he may win.”
Sikh separatist contests India election from jail, a worry for government
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Sikh separatist contests India election from jail, a worry for government
- Amritpal Singh, 31, is detained in a high-security prison in Assam, nearly 3,000km from his Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab
- Singh was arrested last year and jailed after he and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms
Ukraine brings back long rolling power cuts after major Russian strike
- Russia unleashed its largest missile attack on Ukraine in almost three months
- Temporary power cuts across the country were announced on Sunday
Russia unleashed its largest missile attack on Ukraine in almost three months on Sunday, killing seven people and further hobbling an already damaged energy system.
“The situation is most difficult in Odesa and Odesa district. Unfortunately, it is not yet technically possible to supply power to the critical infrastructure in the Kyivskyi and Primorskyi districts of the city,” power distributor DTEK wrote on the Telegram messenger.
As of Monday morning some 400,000 homes had power restored while 321,000 consumers remained without service, DTEK said.
Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said the water supply and heating was being gradually restored across the city with 445 shelters offering necessary services to residents.
Russia has attacked the Odesa region for months, hitting port and energy infrastructure.
Attacks in the autumn of 2022 left the region without electricity for several days and also triggered curbs on energy use in the winter of 2023.
Temporary power cuts across the country were announced on Sunday between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. by national grid operator Ukrenergo which said workers were repairing the damage as quickly as possible.
Engineers restored power to almost 150,000 consumers following yesterday’s attack, the energy ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
Authorities said most regions would face blackouts on Monday of up to eight hours, including the capital Kyiv.
Power cuts of six hours were expected in the central Ukrainian region of Cherkasy and cuts of four to six hours in Sumy in northern Ukraine.
No cuts were planned in five western regions.
EU needs to keep up dialogue with Israel, Dutch foreign minister says on Borrell proposal
- Disagreeing with the EU’s top diplomat who proposed to pause the dialogue with the country
PARIS: The European Union needs to continue its diplomatic dialogue with Israel amid tensions in the Middle East, Dutch foreign Caspar Veldkamp said on Monday, disagreeing with the EU’s top diplomat who proposed to pause the dialogue with the country.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week proposed that the bloc suspend its political dialogue with Israel, citing possible human rights violations in the war in Gaza, according to four diplomats and a letter seen by Reuters.
Pakistan’s top cleric says use of VPNs is against Islamic laws as the government seeks to ban them
- VPNs are legal in most countries, however they are outlawed or restricted in places where authorities control Internet access
- Million of Pakistanis have been unable to access the X social media platform since February 2023
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top body of clerics has declared the use of virtual private networks, or VPNs, against Islamic laws, officials said Monday, as the Ministry of Interior sought a ban on the service that helps people evade censorship in countries with tight Internet controls.
Raghib Naeemi, the chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, which advises the government on religious issues, said that Shariah allows the government to prevent actions that lead to the “spread of evil.” He added that any platform used for posting content that is controversial, blasphemous, or against national integrity “should be stopped immediately.”
Million of Pakistanis have been unable to access the X social media platform since February 2023, when the government blocked it ahead of parliamentary elections, except via VPN — a service that hides online activity from anyone else on the Internet
Authorities say they are seeking to ban the use of VPNs to curb militancy. However, critics say the proposed ban is part of curbs on freedom of expression.
VPNs are legal in most countries, however they are outlawed or restricted in places where authorities control Internet access or carry out online surveillance and censorship.
Among users of VPNs in Pakistan are supporters of the country’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who have called for a march on Islamabad on Sunday to pressure the government for his release.
Pakistan often suspends mobile phone service during rallies of Khan’s supporters. But Naeemi’s weekend declaration that the use of VPNs is against Shariah has stunned many.
Naeemi’s edict came after the Ministry of Interior wrote a letter to the Ministry of Information and Technology asking for the VPN ban on the grounds that the service is being used by insurgents to propagate their agenda.
It said that “VPNs are increasingly being exploited by terrorists to facilitate violent activities.” The ministry also wants to deny access to “pornographic” and blasphemous content.
Last week, authorities had also asked the Internet users to register VPNs with Pakistan’s media regulator, a move which will allow increased surveillance on the users of Internet.
Pakistan is currently battling militants who have stepped up attacks in recent months.
On Friday, a separatist Baloch Liberation Army group attacked troops in Kalat, a district in Balochistan province, triggering an intense shootout in which seven soldiers and six insurgents were killed, according to police and the military. The BLA claimed the attack in a statement.
UK police probe royals Windsor Estate burglary
- The burglary is the latest security breach at Windsor, where William and his family live year-round and was the favored residence of the late Queen Elizabeth II
LONDON: UK police said on Monday officers were investigating a break-in last month on the grounds of the royal Windsor Estate, reportedly while Prince William and his family were at home.
Thames Valley Police said the intruders stole two vehicles from a farm building on the estate west of London on October 13 and that no arrests had been made.
“At around 11:45 p.m. on Sunday 13 October, we received a report of burglary at a property on Crown Estate land near to the A308 in Windsor,” the force said in a statement, referring to the castle grounds.
“Offenders entered a farm building and made off with a black Isuzu pickup and a red quad bike.
“They then made off toward the Old Windsor/Datchet area. No arrests have been made at this stage and an investigation is ongoing.”
The Sun tabloid, which first reported the incident, said the “masked raiders” struck while William, his wife Catherine, Princess of Wales, and their children slept in their nearby home on the estate.
The newspaper reported last month that armed police officers from the Metropolitan Police’s diplomatic protection unit had been removed from the two main gates of the Windsor Estate.
It comes as the force faces a shortage of firearms officers, with far fewer candidates joining up, the tabloid said.
The Metropolitan Police, which is responsible for royal security, said it does “not comment on any security arrangements for protected individuals or sites.”
But in a statement, a spokesperson said the arrangements were “kept under constant review to ensure we take into account the latest threat and risk information and assessments that are available to us.”
The burglary is the latest security breach at Windsor, where William and his family live year-round and was the favored residence of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
On Christmas Day, December 25, 2021 a man armed with a loaded crossbow was found on the grounds, telling an armed officer at the scene that he was there “to kill the queen.”
The man, Jaswant Singh Chail, was last year jailed for nine years, with the sentence to be served in the high-security Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.
The former supermarket worker had “lost touch with reality so that he had become psychotic,” judge Nicholas Hilliard had concluded.
Disgraced Singapore oil tycoon sentenced to nearly 18 years for fraud
- Lim Oon Kuin was convicted in May in a case that dented the city-state’s reputation as a top Asian oil trading hub
- His firm was among Asia’s biggest oil trading companies before its sudden and dramatic collapse in 2020
SINGAPORE: The founder of a failed Singapore oil trading company was sentenced Monday to nearly 18 years in jail for cheating banking giant HSBC out of millions of dollars in one of the country’s most serious cases of fraud.
Lim Oon Kuin, 82, better known as O.K. Lim, was convicted in May in a case that dented the city-state’s reputation as a top Asian oil trading hub.
His firm, Hin Leong Trading, was among Asia’s biggest oil trading companies before its sudden and dramatic collapse in 2020.
Sentencing him to 17 and a half years in jail, State Courts judge Toh Han Li said he agreed with the prosecution that the offenses had the potential to undermine confidence in Singapore’s oil trading industry.
The amount involved “stood at the top-tier of cheating cases” in the city-state, a global financial hub, he said.
The judge shaved off a year due to Lim’s age but did not give any sentencing discount on account of his health, saying the Singapore Prison Service has adequate medical facilities.
Lim, however, remained free on bail after his lawyers said they would file an appeal before the High Court.
State prosecutors had sought a 20-year jail term, saying “this is one of the most serious cases of trade financing fraud that has ever been prosecuted in Singapore.”
The defense had argued for seven years imprisonment, playing down the harm caused by Lim’s offenses and citing his age and poor health.
The businessman faced a total of 130 criminal charges involving hundreds of millions of dollars, but prosecutors tried and convicted him on just three – two of cheating HSBC, and a third of encouraging a Hin Leong executive to forge documents.
Prosecutors said he tricked HSBC into disbursing nearly $112 million by telling the bank that his firm had entered into oil sales contracts with two companies.
The transactions were, in fact, “complete fabrications, concocted on the accused’s directions,” prosecutors said, adding that his actions “tarnished Singapore’s hard-earned reputation as Asia’s leading oil trading hub.”
Lim built Hin Leong from a single delivery truck shortly before Singapore became independent in 1965.
It grew into a major supplier of fuel used by ships, and its rise in some ways mirrored Singapore’s growth from a gritty port to an affluent financial hub.
The firm played a key role in helping the city-state become the world’s top ship refueling port, observers say, and it expanded into ship chartering and management with a subsidiary that has a fleet of more than 150 vessels.
But it came crashing down in 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic plunged oil markets into unprecedented turmoil, exposing Hin Leong’s financial troubles, and Lim sought court protection from creditors.
In a bombshell affidavit seen by AFP in 2020, Lim revealed the oil trader had “in truth... not been making profits in the last few years” – despite having officially reported a healthy balance sheet in 2019.
He admitted that the firm he founded after emigrating from China had hidden $800 million in losses over the years, while it also owed almost $4 billion to banks.
Lim took responsibility for ordering the company not to report the losses and confessed it had sold off inventories that were supposed to backstop loans.
