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INTERNATIONAL Suspicion in Texas DA death shifts to white supremacists KAUFMAN: Two days after a Texas district attorney (DA) and his wife were found shot to death in their home, authorities have said little about their investigation or any potential suspects. But suspicion in the slayings shifted to a white supremacist gang with a long history of violence and retribution that was also the focus of a December law enforcement bulletin warning that its members might try to attack police or prosecutors. Four top leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas were indicted in October for crimes ranging from murder to drug trafficking. Two months later, authorities issued the bulletin warning that the gang might try to retaliate against law enforcement for the investigation that led to the arrests of 34 of its members on federal charges. Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife were found dead Saturday in their East Texas home. The killings were especially jarring because they happened just a couple of months after one of the county’s assistant district attorneys, Mark Hasse, was killed in a parking lot near his courthouse office. McLelland was part of a multiagency task force that took part in the investigation of the Aryan Brotherhood. The task force also included the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration as well as police departments in Houston and Fort Worth. Investigators have declined to say if the group is the focus of their efforts, but the state Department of Public Safety bulletin warned that the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is “involved in issuing orders to inflict ‘mass casualties or death’ to law enforcement officials involved in the recent case.” Terry Pelz, a former Texas prison warden and expert on the Aryan Brotherhood said killing law enforcement representatives would be uncharacteristic of the group. “They don’t go around killing officials,” he said. “They don’t draw heat upon themselves.” But Pelz, who worked in the Texas prison system for 21 years, added that the gang has a history of threatening officials and of killing its own CONNECTICUT: Police are positioned outside the home of Nancy Lanza in this December 18, 2012 file photo in Newtown, Connecticut. Detectives searching the Newtown school shooter’s house found that he and his mother kept a startlingly large arsenal of rifles, pistols and other weapons including swords, newly released details showed. — AFP Connecticut lawmakers unveil gun control plan HARTFORD: With an announcement of sweeping proposals to curb gun violence, Connecticut lawmakers said they are hoping to send a message to Congress and other state legislators across the country: A bipartisan agreement on gun control is possible. Legislative leaders on Monday revealed proposals spurred by the Dec 14 Newtown school shooting following weeks of bipartisan, closed-door negotiations. A vote is expected Wednesday in the General Assembly, where Democrats control both chambers, making passage all but assured. “Democrats and Republicans were able to come to an agreement on a strong, comprehensive bill,” said Senate President Donald E Williams Jr, a Democrat from Brooklyn, who called the proposed legislation the strongest, most comprehensive bill in the country. “That is a message that should resound in 49 other states and in Washington, DC. And the message is: We can get it done here and they should get it done in their respective states and nationally in Congress.” The massacre reignited the gun debate in the country and led to calls for increased gun control legislation on the federal and state levels. While some other states, including neighboring New York, have strengthened their gun laws, momentum has stalled in Congress, whose members were urged by President Barack Obama last week not to forget the shooting and to capitalize on the best chance in years to stem gun violence. The Connecticut deal includes a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six educators dead. There are also new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines and traveled to the state Capitol on Monday to ask lawmakers for it. The package also creates what lawmakers said is the nation’s first statewide dangerous weapon offender registry, creates a new “ammunition eligibility certificate,” imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state’s assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms and requires that a weapon have only one of several features in order to be banned. The newly banned weapons could no longer be bought or sold in Connecticut, and those legally owned already would have to be registered with the state, just like the high-capacity magazines. Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, a Fairfield Republican whose district includes Newtown, said Republicans and Democrats have understood they needed to “rise above politics” when they decided to come up with a legislative response to the massacre. “At the end of the day, I think it’s a package that the majority of the people of Connecticut I know will be proud of,” he said. The bill also addresses mental health and school security measures, including gun restrictions for people who’ve been committed to mental health facilities and restoration of a state grant for school safety improvements. After clearing the state legislature, the bill would be sent to Gov Dannel P Malloy, who has helped lead efforts to strengthen the state’s gun laws but has not yet signed off on the proposed legislation. Earlier Monday, Malloy voiced support for the Newtown families and their desire to ban the possession of largecapacity magazines. Ron Pinciaro, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, said his group will live with the lawmakers’ decision not to ban them as other states have done. He said the leaders made their decision based on what was politically feasible. “We have to be satisfied. There are still other things that we want, we’ll be back for in later sessions,” he said. “But for now, it’s a good thing.” Robert Crook, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition of Sportsmen, contended the bill would not have changed what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where gunman Adam Lanza fired off 154 shots with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle within five minutes. He went through six 30-round magazines, though half were not completely empty, and police said he had three other 30-round magazines in addition to one in the rifle. “They can register magazines and do all the rest of this stuff. It isn’t going to do anything,” he said. Gun owners, who’ve packed public hearings at the state Capitol in recent months, voicing their opposition to various gun control measures, are concerned they’ve been showing up “for virtually nothing” after learning about the bill, Crook said. —AP member or rivals. He suggested if the Aryan Brotherhood was behind the slayings in Kaufman County, some sort of disruption in the gang’s operations might have prompted their retaliation. That disruption might have come last year, when federal prosecutors in Houston in November announced indictments against 34 alleged members of the gang, including four of its top leaders in Texas. At the time, prosecutors called the indictment “a devastating blow to the leadership” of the gang. Meanwhile, deputies escorted some Kaufman County employees into the courthouse Monday after the slayings stirred fears that other public employees could be targeted. Law enforcement officers were seen patrolling outside the courthouse, one holding a semi-automatic weapon, while others walked around inside. Deputies were called to the McLelland home by relatives and friends who had been unable to reach the pair, according to a search warrant affidavit. When they arrived, investigators found the two had been shot multiple times. Cartridge casings were scattered near their bodies, the affidavit said. Authorities have not discussed a motive. “I don’t want to walk around in fear every day ... but on the other hand, two months ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” County TEXAS: Law enforcement officials walk out of the home of Kaufman District Attorney Mike McLelland near Forney, Texas. McLelland and his wife were both murdered at their home Saturday. — AP NUEVO LAREDO: The bodies of nine men, most of them dismembered, were found inside a sport utility vehicle with Texas license plates in northeastern Mexico, prosecutors said Monday. Authorities made the discovery after receiving a report late Sunday of an abandoned vehicle near Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, the state prosecutor’s office said in a brief statement. Northern Mexican states are the scene of turf wars between powerful drug cartels vying for control of lucrative trafficking routes to the United States, with decapitations among the brutal fear tactics. More than 70,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006, with the cartels fighting each other, as well as troops deployed by the government to combat the gangs. Elsewhere in Mexico, officials said five people, including a 45-year-old US man, were killed in two bar shootings in the western city of Guadalajara late Sunday. Prosecutors suspect organized crime was behind those two attacks. MEXICO BAR SHOOTINGS A 45-year-old US man was among five people killed in two bar shootings in Mexico’s second biggest city, with a grenade used in one of the attacks, authorities said Monday. Officials said a total of 45 rounds were fired off with 9mm handguns in the attacks in the western city of Guadalajara late Sunday, wounding another 17 people. Witnesses said a single gunman opened fire outside the bar in each attack. The shootings took place 15 minutes apart and appeared to be aimed at the owners of the bars, who are related, said senior prosecutor Jorge Villasenor. He added that investigators suspect organized crime was involved “due to the type of weapon that was used.” “The attack was Judge Bruce Wood, the county’s top administrator, said Monday at a news conference. The killings also came less than two weeks after Colorado’s prison chief was shot to death at his front door, apparently by an ex-convict. Law enforcement agencies throughout Texas were on high alert, and steps were being taken to better protect other DAs and their staffs. In Harris directed at these places, not at a specific person. This is the line of investigation that we are looking into,” he said. The two bar owners are being questioned in order to determine a possible motive. Two people, including the American, were killed when a gunman opened fire on the “Gol” bar where people had watched the Chivas- America football derby, prosecutors said. The American was identified by a female companion as Jeff Lydell Comer. The other victim was a 20year-old Mexican man. Both were customers at the bar. Fifteen minutes earlier, a gunman attacked the “Ruta 66” bar in a different neigh- WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, <strong>2013</strong> County, which includes Houston, District Attorney Mike Anderson said he accepted the sheriff’s offer of 24-hour security for him and his family. Anderson said he also would take precautions at his office, the largest of its kind in Texas, with more than 270 prosecutors. “I think district attorneys across Texas are still in a state of shock,” Anderson said Sunday. McLelland, 63, was the 13th prosecutor killed in the US since the National Association of District Attorneys began keeping count in the 1960s. Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes would not give details Sunday of how the killings unfolded and said there was nothing to indicate for certain whether the DA’s slaying was connected to Hasse’s. El Paso County, Colo., sheriff’s spokesman Sgt Joe Roybal said investigators had so far found no evidence connecting the Texas killings to the Colorado case, but added: “We’re examining all possibilities.” Colorado’s corrections director, Tom Clements, was killed March 19 when he answered the doorbell at his home outside Colorado Springs. Evan Spencer Ebel, a white supremacist and former Colorado inmate suspected of shooting Clements, died in a shootout with Texas deputies two days later about 100 miles from Kaufman. In an Associated Press interview shortly after the Colorado slaying, McLelland himself raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang. McLelland, elected in 2010, said his office had prosecuted several cases against such gangs, particularly one known as the Aryan Brotherhood. The groups have a strong presence around Kaufman County, a mostly rural area dotted with subdivisions, with a population of about 104,000. No arrests have been made in Hasse’s Jan 31 slaying. After that attack, McLelland said, he carried a gun everywhere around town, even when walking his dog. He figured assassins were more likely to try to attack him outside. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert. — AP Nine bodies found in US vehicle in Mexico US man among 5 dead in bar shootings CARACAS: Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles on Monday accused acting president Nicolas Maduro of unfairly using state media and money in his campaign to succeed the late Hugo Chavez. The accusations come two weeks before voters choose a new president following the death of Chavez, the flamboyant leader who governed oil-rich Venezuela for 14 years and launched a self-styled leftist “revolution.” “The state media have become a propaganda wing of a political party,” Capriles alleged, referring to the socialist party of Maduro, Chavez’s handpicked successor. In free and fair balloting, candidates are supposed to have the same access and the same rights, Capriles told a press conference. But Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, is relying on “all of the state’s resources ... and all of the state’s power structure” to run his campaign, Capriles charged. The campaign does not officially began until yesterday, but Capriles said Maduro had spent 46 hours on state TV since Chavez’s death on March 5. Capriles went on to urge the National Electoral Council to be impartial and enforce campaign rules ahead of the April 14 vote. Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas fired back on Twitter, saying state television had broadcast Capriles’s press conference live “despite his orders to prevent access for journalists” from state media. Villegas also again invited Capriles to be interviewed on state television, after the opposition candidate denied an earlier request, saying state media is biased against him. GUADALAJARA: Forensic personnel work at the scene of a crime where four people were shot dead, in a bar of Guadalajara, Mexico. — AFP Later Monday night, Capriles joined a march against insecurity in the country, railing against the government for failing to address the pressing issue. borhood, firing shots and throwing a grenade. A 28-year-old customer and a 30-year-old employee were found shot dead outside the bar while a 23-year-old waitress later died of her gunshot wounds. The explosion injured an unspecified number of people. The prosecutor’s office said 17 people were wounded but did not specify how many in each attack. Four other men were killed in other attacks on Sunday across Guadalajara, which has endured some of the drug-related violence that has left 70,000 people dead in Mexico since December 2006. — Agencies Capriles cries foul ahead of Venezuelan election CARACAS: Venezuelan opposition candidate for the upcoming April 14 presidential election, Henrique Capriles Radonski gestures during a night march in Caracas. — AFP “There is not a single proposal for the government to defeat violence and give peace to Venezuelans,” Capriles said before a crowd of hundreds of thousands. In the first three months of the year, Venezuela recorded 3,400 murders, interior and justice minister Nestor Reverol said Monday on state television. In 2012, the country saw 16,000 homicides, a 14 percent increase over the year before, he added, vowing to strengthen security measures. Unofficial tallies put the figure even higher, with the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence citing 21,000 murders in 2012. Maduro, 50, formerly served as Chavez’s foreign minister and vice president. Miranda state governor Capriles, 40, lost to Chavez in an October election. Chavez, who came to embody a resurgent Latin American left while channeling Venezuela’s vast oil wealth into social programs for the poor, died last month after a long battle with cancer. During his 14 years in power Chavez developed a vast media apparatus consisting of at least five television broadcast channels, two newspapers and dozens of local radio stations carrying the government’s message. Maduro leads Capriles by a 20-point margin, according to a poll out Monday by Hinterlaces, which indicated Maduro would win 55 percent of the vote compared to Capriles’s 35 percent. A previous survey on March 19 gave Maduro a similar margin of 18 points. In an exclusive interview with AFP over the weekend, Maduro insisted the “revolution” was united behind him. “I trust that people will go to the polls to vote for Maduro because we are like a family that lost its father,” he said. —AFP
KABUL: As the one-year countdown to Afghan elections begins, the man who lost out last time in a corrupt and chaotic poll is weighing up whether to risk another shot at the presidency. Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the second round of the 2009 election after massive voterigging by President Hamid Karzai’s supporters that badly shook the US-led international effort to rebuild Afghanistan. The next election is due on April 5, 2014, but many doubt it will be held on schedule. There are no front-runners and foreign donors fear another flawed poll could bury gains secured since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. Abdullah, an urbane former eye surgeon, remains embittered towards Karzai and doubts the president will step down without a fight-despite the fact he is barred from standing for a third term. He accuses Karzai, 55, of plotting to deceive the electorate in spite of repeated pledges to step down next year. “President Karzai will make an effort to extend his tenure,” the 52-year-old predicted in an interview at his heavilyguarded private residence in Kabul. “The president’s best option is to create an emergency security situation so every- one says ‘under these circumstances how can we have elections?’, then he calls a jirga (tribal meeting) to support him staying on,” Abdullah said. “He doesn’t show any signs of being someone who is now leaving in one year’s time.” Abdullah served as Karzai’s foreign minister from 2001 to 2005, but is now leader of the National Coalition of Afghanistan, the closest thing to an opposition group in a country where central government is traditionally weak. A former aide to the late anti-Soviet fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdullah commands support among minority Tajiks but not the Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group from which Karzai and most members of the Taleban hail. Recalling the turbulent 2009 election, Abdullah said he was wary of campaigning again for the presidency. The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) threw out around one third of votesabout half a million-cast for Karzai, sparking the run-off from which Abdullah ultimately withdrew “in the best interests of the nation”. “I don’t want any candidate to go through what I did during the elections,” said Abdullah, who collected just over 30 percent of the first round vote. INTERNATIONAL Karzai’s old rival edges towards 2014 election run KATHMANDU: A Nepalese Hindu woman worships and offers fruit to a cow, regarded as an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess of prosperity Laxmi, during the Tihar (Diwali) festival in Kathmandu. Police in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu have launched a campaign to round up cows roaming the streets, blaming the sacred animals for car accidents and traffic jams. — AFP Nepal traffic police herd Kathmandu’s holy cows KATHMANDU: Police in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu have launched a campaign to round up cows roaming the streets, blaming the sacred animals for car accidents and traffic jams. “The stray cows and oxen have been a big nuisance in Kathmandu streets. They not only cause accidents, but also make the streets untidy,” Pawan Giri, spokesman for the Kathmandu Metropolitan Traffic Police said. “We see traffic jams because the drivers who try to avoid the cows often crash into other vehicles.” He said the captured animals would be detained until their owners paid a fine of approximately $60 for their release. Cows are a regular sight in the smog-choked capital and are often found eating from piles of garbage on the roadside. Regarded as an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess of prosperity Laxmi, the beasts are treated as sacred in Nepal, where the majority of the population is Hindu. During the annual Tihar festival in the autumn, Hindus spend a day worshipping them by offering food and gifts. The traffic police say they have rounded up 18 animals since launching the operation Monday and they plan to continue this drive for several weeks. While the abolishment of a Hindu monarchy in 2008 launched a secular era, Nepalese authorities still routinely arrest people for killing cows, mainly in rural areas. Cow slaughter remains illegal in Nepal and can carry a prison sentence of up to 12 years. — AFP Indian court ends travel ban on Italy ambassador NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court lifted yesterday a three-week order banning Italy’s ambassador from leaving the country after Italy sent two marines back to India to face trial over the deaths of two Indian fishermen. The court had earlier banned the ambassador, Daniele Mancini, from leaving after Italy announced it would not send the accused marines back after a home visit. But the Italian government changed its mind and sent the two back on March 22. “It’s good news,” Diljeet Titus, a lawyer representing the Italian marines, said of the court’s decision. “The travel restriction on the ambassador has been vacated as the undertaking was complied with, Italy kept its word.” The accused, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, are charged with murder for shooting the two fishermen off the coast of the southern state of Kerala last year while serving as security guards on a cargo ship. They say they fired warning shots at a fishing boat believing it to be a pirate vessel. The case has caused outrage in Italy, which says the incident happened in international waters and the men should not be tried in India. Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi resigned over the decision to return the pair to India. The marines are due to be tried in a special federal court in New Delhi, but the court has yet to be established. “The government has sought time, saying they are taking steps to form this special court. But they have nothing to show for it,” said Titus. Rome’s right wing mayor plans to turn off the lights of ancient landmarks the Colosseum and the Imperial Forum for the first time on Wednesday to “draw attention to the shameful case of the two marines”. Also today, Italian neo-fascist group Casapound is due to protest in front of the seat of government in Rome, calling for Italy to close its embassy to India and to expel the Indian ambassador. The group also wants outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti to resign his position as Senator for life. — Reuters Court frees three monks after anti-Muslim attack COLOMBO: A Sri Lankan court yesterday freed three Buddhist monks and 14 others suspected of torching a Muslimowned clothing store in an attack that scaled up the country’s religious tensions. In the latest in a wave of attacks targeting minority Muslims, an angry mob of hardline Buddhists vandalized and set fire to the store in a suburb of Colombo, leading police to boost security for Muslim businesses nationwide. “The case was dropped because the parties (police and the victim) did not want to proceed,” a court official said, declining to be named, after the 17 suspects were discharged. “The magistrate warned the monks to follow Buddha’s teachings or face serious consequences,” the official said. The owner of the smashed Fashion Bug store was not immediately available for comment, but the management had previously said that they suffered extensive damage and their staff were living in fear after Thursday’s attack. Local television footage, some of it posted on YouTube, showed a Buddhist monk bringing down a store CCTV camera in front of a cheering mob outside the store, watched by at least four police constables. Another monk is seen threatening a news cameraman who was later hospitalised after being assaulted by the mob. Sri Lanka’s main Muslim political party in the ruling coalition said the attack was a “sequel” to an ongoing hate campaign against minority Muslims. Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the country’s 20 million population, the second largest minority after the mainly Hindu ethnic Tamils. Seventy percent of the population are Sinhalese and mostly Buddhists. — AFP Afghan opposition leader, Abdullah Abdullah “In one district 5,000 people voted one by one, while in the next district officials under the supervision of the police just provided 5,000 votes. If the elections are rigged this time, it is a recipe for a major crisis.” Many observers suggest Abdullah offers few solutions to Afghanistan’s many problems and has not cultivated enough support to have a chance of winning. But, with a year to go until the scheduled poll he said he was PESHAWAR: Dozens of suspected militants attacked a major power station in northwest Pakistan with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades and killed seven people, police said yesterday. The assault, in the run-up to May 11 general elections, destroyed the biggest power station in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, suspending electricity supply to half of the major city of Peshawar. It served as a reminder that Pakistan’s leaders have failed to tackle a Taleban insurgency that remains potent despite a series of security crackdowns. Pakistan’s Taleban, which is close to Al-Qaeda, has threatened to escalate violence ahead of the polls, including attacks on political rallies. Police official Mohammad Ishaq said two people, a policeman and a security guard, were killed on the spot and five others died after being kidnapped in Monday’s incident. The bullet-riddled bodies of the captives have been recovered, the official added. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. “They entered the grid station and started setting ablaze each and every thing. They kidnapped nine people and killed five of them later and threw their bodies in the fields,” Ishaq said. Four Water and Power Department employees who were kidnapped were still missing, he said. The militants had destroyed the entire grid station, said Shaukat Afzal, a spokesman of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company. “People may face some extra power load shedding in the coming days,” he added. Pakistan’s military has failed to break the back of the Taleban, despite numerous offensives against their strongholds in the semiautonomous tribal areas near the Afghan border. SECURITY CONCERNS Meanwhile, Pakistan’s outgoing ruling party yesterday called off a major public rally designed to kickstart its re-election campaign in favor of smaller events, officials said. The Taleban have directly threatened the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its secular coalition partners, and a string of recent attacks is raising fears that violence could mar the run-up to May 11 elections. The PPP said last week it would start its working hard behind the scenes and-if he were to stand-would not this time back down in the event of a run-off. “It would not be like the last time when I said I would swallow this bitter pill for the sake of the country,” he said. “I haven’t said I am a candidate. I am doing what candidates do-talking to people, networking, expanding supporters, but a decision has not happened yet.” While it is not yet clear who will run in 2014, the campaign with a public rally in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, the village housing the Bhutto family mausoleum, on the anniversary of the hanging of its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on April 4, 1979. The party holds public rallies on the anniversary every year. But yesterday, a party spokesman in the nearby town of Naudero said the gathering would take place in a hall and would be closed to all but state media. PPP politicians would also hold separate events in other districts, he said. “We are not organizing a big national-level rally this time. Meetings are being held at district level separately,” Ghulam Mustafa Leghari said. Zulfiqar’s daughter and former PPP Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, was killed in a gun and suicide attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi in 2007. The PPP was elected in 2008 on a wave of public sympathy. President Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s widower, will address Thursday’s meeting in Naudero, Leghari said, but he did not confirm whether Bilawal, chairman of the party and Bhutto’s son, would also attend. “Only official media will be allowed to cover WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, <strong>2013</strong> lengthy list of possible candidates includes Karzai’s brother Qayyum, warlord turned provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor, and former interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali. At least 26 people were killed in sporadic attacks on polling day in 2009, and Karzai was only declared the winner 10 weeks later, after fraud investigations, delayed results and Abdullah’s eventual withdrawal. Recent visitors to Kabul including US Secretary of State John Kerry have stressed that Afghanistan must hold a legitimate vote or risk being abandoned by Western governments after foreign combat troops withdraw next year. One growing concern has been Karzai’s plan to scrap the UN-backed ECC, which includes foreign representatives, in favor of a new all-Afghan tribunal. Last week the UN called for an impartial electoral dispute body to be set up at once and for a respected figure to be appointed head of the Independent Electoral Commission, which is currently leaderless. “Either we have rule of law or we are a failed state. This election is an opportunity and a real test ahead of us,” Abdullah said. — AFP Militants attack Pakistan power station; Seven die Pakistan party scraps rally amid security concerns DHAKA: Bangladesh police have arrested three atheist bloggers for defaming Islam and the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), police said yesterday, amid demands from religious fundamentalists for an Internet crackdown. The arrests of the three, who were paraded in hand-cuffs at a press conference yesterday, came after pressure from Islamists who have organized a march to the capital to demand the death penalty for atheist bloggers. “They have hurt religious feelings of the people by writing against different religions and their prophets and founders including the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH),” deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Molla Nazrul Islam said. The three could face 10 years in jail if convicted under the country’s cyber laws, which outlaw “defaming” a religion, Islam said. He denied the arrests were linked to the threats from Islamists whose march to the capital is set to take place on Saturday. The debate between militant atheists and fundamentalists has been a popular subject in Bangladesh’s blogosphere and on social media for years, but it took a deadly turn in February when an atheist blogger was murdered. The arrests came as the nation has been hit by protests over a war crimes tribunal trying leading figures during the 1971 war of independence. Protests encouraged by secular bloggers have seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets demanding the execution of leaders of the Jamaat-e- Islami party, the country’s largest Islamic party PESHAWAR: A Pakistani man looks at the destroyed electricity power plant following an attack by gunmen in Badh Bher, a suburb of Peshawar yesterday. Dozens of gunmen attacked an electricity plant in northwest Pakistan, killing seven people and disrupting power to 100,000 people overnight. — AFP and key opposition. Islamists have in turn held demonstrations demanding the trials be halted and have also begun targeting bloggers. The government has blocked about a dozen websites and blogs to stem the violence. It also set up a this meeting. Other media can stand outside and take the feed from Pakistan Television,” Leghari added. Local party officials denied the rescheduling had anything to do with security concerns and senior spokesmen were not immediate reachable. “It (the change) is only a technical reason. Our candidates are busy with paperwork, scrutiny and the election campaign,” said Lateef Mughal, PPP information secretary in Zardari’s home town Karachi. Last week, main PPP spokesman Qamar Zaman Kaira said that 24-year-old Bilawal, who is too young to contest a seat, would make few public appearances “due to security concerns”. The revised arrangements for tomorrow stand in stark contrast to the major campaign rallies that the PPP’s main rivals have already held. On March 25 opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, widely tipped to win the election, attracted tens of thousands in the northwestern town of Mansehra. Cricket legend Imran Khan, contesting elections for the first time and considered a possible kingmaker after the polls, has also pulled in crowds of tens of thousands at major public events across the country. — Agencies Bangladesh arrests 3 atheist bloggers panel, which included intelligence chiefs, to snoop for blasphemy in the social media. Last week the country’s telecoms regulator ordered two sites to remove hundreds of posts of seven bloggers whose writings it said offended Muslims. — AFP RAJSHAHI: Students of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islam beat a police officer in the northwestern city of Rajshahi, about 260 kms from the capital Dhaka yesterday. — AFP
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