The violent death of Rajbir Singh, Delhi Police's much decorated police officer, threw the spotlight once again on India's Dirty Harrys who lived by the gun, earned their fame and notoriety through it and, as in Rajbir's case, died by it.
With over 50 extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals under his belt, Singh, 48, who was murdered Monday by a man said to be his friend of 20 years, earned the reputation in the last decade for taking on the "dirtiest" cases and resolving them - even if it involved the violation of the suspects' basic human rights.
"Dirty Harry" was a Hollywood movie on Inspector Harry Callahan (played by Clint Eastwood). Callahan's nickname, "Dirty Harry", was a reference to his reputation for taking on the "dirtiest" cases and resolving them even if it involved the violation of criminals' rights.
In Indian lexicon, these were called "encounter specialists", police sharpshooters who bumped off their criminal adversaries without legal sanction after making their 'encounters' with them look like shootouts.
Singh, Delhi Police's "encounter specialist", has also been accused of hiring out his services for builders and landlords and his brutal death proved his dangerous liaison with the latter.
His first brush with fame came in 1994 with the arrest of notorious and most dreaded criminal Virendra Jatta from Haryana, following which he was promoted to the rank of inspector.
The next big ticket targets were gangsters Rajbir Ramola and his accomplice Inder Pal Singh in March 1995. Ramola was accused in over 40 cases of murder, robbery, extortion and kidnapping.
A few years later Singh won more laurels for killing a rewarded criminal Ranpal Gujjar in Faridabad. The shoot-out brought another out-of-turn promotion for Singh, who joined Delhi Police in 1982 as a sub inspector.
Singh was promoted to assistant commissioner of police and was posted in west District. And with that the killings of more high-profile criminals continued unhindered.
The controversial cop killed at least 38 ultras and hard-core criminals in Delhi and its adjoining areas.
But in 2002 the ace sharpshooter became the cynosure of many watchful eyes with the "encounter" of two alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants at the sprawling shopping mall Ansal Plaza. An eyewitness, Sri Krishna stoutly maintained that the two alleged militants were shot at point blank range.
India's other Dirty Harrys are Mumbai's Daya Nayak and Pradeep Sharma and D.G. Vanjhara from Gujarat.
All these people flourished due to political patronage, with out-of-turn promotions and departmental benefits even as they gave protection to key political figures and indulged in actions that were not completely within their purview.
Daya Nayak, perceived as Mumbai's 'encounter specialist' cop, now faces prosecution over charges that he made millions by renting out his services.
Starting his life as a waiter in a small Udupi hotel in Mumbai, Nayak joined as a lowly sub-inspector in the Juhu police station and within no time worked his way into the charmed special squad.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) probing Nayak reportedly recovered at least Rs.90 million worth of illegal assets in separate raids.
Nayak's monthly salary was a mere Rs.12,000 but investigations revealed that he was a partner in a Dubai hotel, which boasted of a lavish dance bar and also had a flat in Switzerland in his wife Komal's name.
Nayak's colleague inspector Pradeep Sharma created a record of sorts with over 100 killings.
One of the rare Mumbai police officers to find a place in Time magazine for his action against the underworld, Sharma gunned down the gangsters in a span of nearly 14 years.
Gujarat's Vanjhara, a man who rose up the ranks, is alleged to have amassed assets amounting to Rs.1.5 billion including bungalows and hotels in and around Gandhinagar.
"It is clear that some policemen are increasingly functioning as the personal assassins of politicians. The cops are sometimes pressurized to carry out such orders in lieu of personal benefits," said a senior police officer
"The alleged encounter specialists deliberately choose to come closer to politicians for better postings and perks. The current system provides power to these ministers to transfer officials anywhere in the state," the official added.
Indo-Asian News Service
There is a new option for car-buyers in India. Maruti will launch its new model, the Swift D'Zire on Wednesday.
The sedan version of the Swift is expected to cost around Rs 75,000 more than the hatchback. It will be launched in both petrol and diesel options.
Suzuki is looking to compete in the entry-level mid-size segment with the Tata Indigo and Renault Logan.
With plans to further consolidate its position in the big-car segment, Maruti [Get Quote] Suzuki on Wednesday launched its new entry level sedan Swift DZire with an introductory price ranging from Rs 4,49,000 to Rs 6,70,000 (ex-showroom Delhi).
The DZire, the seventh model Maruti Suzuki has launched in the last three years, comes in both in diesel and petrol variants powered by 1.3 litre engines.
The petrol variant will cost Rs 4,49,000 to Rs 5,90,000 and the diesel Rs 5,39,000 to Rs 6,70,000.
"It has a special place in our product strategy. Millions of Indians own compact cars. With growing incomes and better lifestyle, many of them want to upgrade to a sedan. But on Wednesday, they are not able to find an entry level sedan that offers style, features and performance. The DZire offers all this, and at an attractive price," Maruti Suzuki India Managing Director S Nakanishi said.
The DZire, which offers features, including integrated stereo, steering mounted audio controls, automatic climate control, power windows and dual airbags, has come as replacement of MSI's earlier mid-size sedan Esteem.
It is being launched at a time when the company has managed to race past competition in the mid-sized sedan segment (A3) selling nearly 41,000 units in the April-February period of this fiscal.
While continuing to lead India's small car market, Maruti Suzuki has emerged as the market leader in the A3 segment as well during 2007-08.
The car boasts of added leg room and more space in the boot and is said to be the replacement for the Esteem. The Esteem was phased out in the later half of 2007 on account of poor demand.
However, whether this Swift sedan will ever make it out of India is doubtful now that Suzuki has already debuted the SX4 sedan in North America and Europe.
A US satellite has captured chilling images of over 400 square kilometres of Antarctica's massive Wilkins Ice Shelf collapsing because of rapid climate changes.
The area is part of the much larger shelf of nearly 13,000 square kilometres that is now supported only by a narrow strip of ice between two islands.
"If there is a little bit more retreat, this last 'ice buttress' could collapse and we'd likely lose about half the total ice shelf area in the next few years," warned Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In the past 50 years, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the biggest temperature increase on earth, rising by 17.27 degrees Celsius per decade.
The university said NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer captured the images.
"We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up," said Scambos, who first spotted the collapse earlier this month.
Satellite images indicate the Wilkins began its collapse on Feb 28. Data revealed that a large iceberg, measuring 41.03 by 2.41 kilometres, fell away from the ice shelf's southwestern front, triggering a runaway disintegration of 569.79 square kilometre of the shelf interior.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula roughly 1,600 kilometres south of South America.
The edge of the shelf crumbled into the sky-blue pattern of exposed deep glacial ice that has become characteristic of climate-induced ice shelf break-ups such as the Larsen B ice shelf break-up in 2002, said Scambos.
A narrow beam of intact ice about 5.95 kilometres wide was protecting the remaining shelf from further break-up as of March 23, he added.
Scientists track ice shelves and study collapses carefully because some of them hold back glaciers, which, if unleashed, can accelerate and raise sea levels, Scambos said.
"The Wilkins disintegration won't raise the sea level because it already floats in the ocean, and few glaciers flow into it. However, the collapse underscores that the Wilkins region has experienced an intense melt season."
With Antarctica's summer melt season drawing to a close, scientists do not expect the Wilkins to further disintegrate in the next several months.
"This unusual show is over for this season," Scambos said. "But come January, we'll be watching to see if the Wilkins continues to fall apart."
Indo-Asian News Service
Army's help has been sought to rescue the two-year-old girl Vandana who fell into a 45-foot borewell at Tehra village in Agra on Tuesday night while playing with her friends.
The rescue operation started soon after the villagers complained about the incident to the authorities. The Army and the civil authorities have so far succeeded in sending in oxygen for the girl with the help of a tube.
Armed personnel manning the rescue operation said that the child was breathing and could be heard crying.
Agra Commissioner Sitaram Meena said, "The rescue team has managed to dig a 40-feet hole. I think it is just a matter of another two hours before the child can be pulled out to safety."
Agra District Magistrate Mukesh Kumar Meshram said, "We have been able to provide the child with glucose water and biscuits. She is conscious right now. Work is also being done to dig a parallel well as an alternative means of rescue."
Earlier, in a similar incident, a five-year-old boy, Prince, fell into a 53 feet and 1.5 wide shaft in Shahbad, Haryana in July 2006. He was rescued from the pit after over two days of continuous rescue operations by the Army.
Army personnel had dug up a 56-feet deep, 15-feet wide parallel tunnel from a dried up well alongside the shaft to rescue Prince after almost 50 hours.
Later, three more similar incidents were also reported in Madhya Pradesh. (ANI)
Indian history abounds in lores of brave women who sacrificed themselves to protect the honour of the country, clan, family and personal dignity. But rarely has a woman of Indian origin defended a foreign country and allowed herself to be tortured and shot to death by enemy forces - not out of compulsion, but out of choice.
London-based journalist Shrabani Basu's non-fiction "The Spy Princess" chronicles the extraordinary tale of India's lone allied spy in Europe during the World War II, Noor Inayat Khan, a Sufi girl who was shot dead by the Gestapo at the infamous prison of Dachau.
A descendant of Tipu Sultan, Noor was awarded the George Cross, the highest British civilian honour, posthumously. Nafisa Ali released the paperback edition of the book Tuesday evening at the Oxford Bookstore in the capital.
"On Sep 13, 1944, Noor Inayat Khan, the first female wireless operator to be flown into occupied France, was shot at Dachau. Noor was born in Moscow and was raised in the Sufi style of Islam. From this unlikely background, she became the only secret agent in Europe in World War II.
"Brought up in France and Britain, Noor joined the Red Cross when the war broke out. She felt that she had to do more to oppose the horrors of fascism. In Britain, she trained as a wireless operator before being recruited by the SOE (Special Operations Executive)," goes the gist on the book jacket.
She was known as agent Nora Baker and then became Madeleine for the French Resistance - one of the few tough agents the Germans could not crack. And till her death, the Nazis knew her by no other name apart from Madeleine.
Shyam Benegal is making "The Spy Princess" into a movie.
"More than anyone else, I want children to read the book so that they can learn about the virtues of courage and sacrifice," the author, who has worked for more than 20 years as the London correspondent of the Ananda Bazar Patrika group, told IANS.
"I have received a book from Year 6 primary school students in UK. It is a project titled 'Liberty' about the life of Noor Inayat based on the book. It is full of imaginary conversations.
"I want it to happen in India too, but I have too little time to promote it personally. I want to see postage stamps of Noor Inayat and comic strip series on her life - like the Amar Chitra Katha," Basu said.
She will be touring the East and the West coasts of US with the book where Omega Publishing is releasing it next month.
However, Basu refuses to divulge details about the movie. "The cast has not been decided and I will have to go through the final screenplay. I leave characters and the cast to your imagination," laughs the author.
The book is the result of three years of relentless research.
"Actually two years of compiling documents and a year of writing," Basu says.
The inspiration was an innocuous newspaper clipping announcing 50 years of Noor Inayat's death.
"There were five lines. 'Noor Inayat, wireless operator, George Cross winner of Indian Muslim origin...' It set me thinking and I started researching about her. It is difficult to believe that she went through all this," recalls the author.
Eyewitness accounts, interrogation, records of war crime tribunals, Noor's telegrams - and three letters that described what happened to Noor helped Basu thread the story.
Basu was helped by Noor's family, which provided her with details of her childhood. "I interacted a lot with them," she said.
"She was so beautiful that everyone, including her code maker, was in love with her," says Basu.
Noor Inayat had two failed relationships.
"But I am sure that there was a mystery man in her life because before she left for France she had said she would marry upon her return. But she did not come back. I searched high and low for the man but could not find. My guess is he died or else he would have been in touch with her family," Basu said.
The author is working on her new non-fiction, a volume on Queen Victoria and "someone".
"It is more exhaustive than 'Spy Princess'. Doing a non-fiction is so much more fun. It is rooted in life," Basu said.
Indo-Asian News Service
Assistant Commissioner of Delhi Police Rajbir Singh was shot dead on the outskirts of the national capital allegedly by a property dealer following a dispute over money.
The suspect, Vijay Bhardwaj, has been arrested and the weapon used in the crime has been recovered, the police said.
The incident occurred Monday evening when Singh, known as an "encounter specialist" for the number of alleged criminals he had shot down, had gone to collect Rs.6 million from Bhardwaj at his office on Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road here.
Singh, who otherwise had top security cover (Z plus category) due to threats from various terrorist organisations, had only one personal security officer (PSO) with him when he went to meet the property dealer.
According to police sources, Singh and Bhardwaj had shared a drink before exchanging heated arguments over a dispute involving property.
The sources said Singh had asked his PSO to remain outside the room while he was talking to Bhardwaj.
After killing Singh, Bhardwaj called the media and the police to confess the murder.
Bhardwaj in his statement recorded at the Sector 40 police station here, has admitted that a scuffle broke out between them over a money dispute following which he pumped two bullets into Singh's body.
"Rajbir Bhai Sahib, ACP Delhi Police, and I had some long standing money dispute and he (Rajbir) was pressurising me for the past five-six months to pay the money or else face dire consequences," Bhardwaj told reporters outside his office.
"I was too scared. Once I tried to commit suicide but my family prevented me. Monday was the deadline for arranging the money but I failed," Bhardwaj said before he was whisked away by the police.
Singh's body has been sent for post-mortem examination and forensic teams were collecting evidence from the scene.
He headed the special operations squad of the Delhi Police's crime branch and was also involved in the successful investigation of terrorist attack on parliament in 2001.
Singh, who had served for six years with the Delhi Police special cell, had earlier been transferred to Delhi Armed Police (DAP) and later to the traffic department after tapes of his purported conversations with a contractor on a land deal were made public.
Later, a vigilance probe gave him a clean chit stating that a retired police official connived with others and recorded his phone calls illegally to settle scores with him.
He started his career as a sub-inspector in 1982 and climbed up the hierarchy through a series of shootouts. Singh was involved in nearly 50 shootouts.
Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said officials were investigating why security officers did not accompany Singh, when they were supposed to.
Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police (Crime Branch) Anil Shukla said: "We received the call from the Gurgaon police about the incident. A team was rushed to Gurgaon to confirm the victim's identity.
"We are providing full support to the Gurgaon police in their investigations."
Indo-Asian News Service
His rise from a sub inspector to a high profile assistant commissioner of police was as sensational as the violent end to his life. Delhi Police's 'encounter specialist' Rajbir Singh was murdered Monday night - ending a career that was as controversial as it was illustrious.
ACP Rajbir Singh, who was allegedly shot dead by a property dealer in the suburb of Gurgaon, had courted many controversies during his otherwise remarkable career that began in 1982 when he entered the Delhi Police as a sub inspector.
Shunted out of the Crime Branch following his alleged links with a drug mafia and touted as a 'property grabber', Rajbir Singh last year returned as the head of the newly established Special Operation Squad, a special anti-terror cell.
Rajbir, who had over 50 'kills' to his credit, had become the face of counter-terrorism operations in the capital. He was the man instrumental in cracking the attack on parliament in 2001 and the Red Fort in 2000.
Rajbir was the only officer in the police history to be promoted to the rank of ACP in just 13 years.
His first brush with fame came in 1994 with the arrest of notorious criminal Virendera Jat following which he was promoted to the rank of inspector. The next big ticket targets were gangsters Rajbir Ramola and Ranpal Gujjar. He was then posted as ACP (operations) in west district.
"Rajbir Singh was an able police officer of the Delhi Police and had two promotions during his career," ACP Rajan Baghat said.
The word 'encounter' entered the lexicon in the mid-1990s when gangsters from western Uttar Pradesh began making forays into the capital. Rajbir was among the most prominent 'encounter specialists' at the time.
He came into the limelight Nov 3, 2002 when he allegedly killed two 'terrorists' in basement of the Ansal Plaza shopping mall in south Delhi. A man, Hari Krishna, who claimed he saw the deaths labelled it fake. Later, suspicions were raised about the genuineness of the operations supervised by him.
Rajbir's alleged links with a drug trafficker came to the fore after a telephonic conversation between them -- tapped by the narcotics wing -- was leaked to the media. An inquiry headed by the joint commissioner of police (Vigilance) was ordered.
The Delhi High Court also issued notices to him and other officers on charges that he and his colleagues manhandled some people in west Delhi's Kirti Nagar in connection with a property dispute.
Despite the many controversies, Rajbir was not shifted out of the Special Cell.
But circumstances, and maybe one of the many controversies that dogged him, caught up with him Monday night.
Indo-Asian News Service
In a rare signed piece, India TV Editor-in-Chief Rajat Sharma has suggested a rethink on elitist, insensitive and hypocritical judgements against television news channels. The signed piece will appear in the FICCI-FRAMES publication which has been produced by indiantelevision.com. FICCI-FRAMES kicks off at Mumbai on March 25, 2008 and Mr Sharma will be a key speaker there. The text of the piece is reproduced below --
The Pot and The Kettle
By Rajat Sharma
When my friend Amit Mitra invited me to speak at FICCI-FRAMES on, "Is News Entertainment: changing face of television news in India," I hoped that he will have a similar session for the print media.
I was wrong!
Perhaps, FICCI doesn't see the need to put our friends in the print industry in the dock. Yet, it sees merit in putting together four founders and news managers of India's top TV channels, on Tuesday, to defend ourselves and our editorial credentials.
As I prepare myself for the challenge of accepting Amit's invitation, there is little left to my imagination on what FICCI thinks of me and my tribe of television journalists (read Hindi television journalists).
The inaugural brochure is judgemental! In the three sentences introducing our session, the brochure says "The very concept of news delivery and content has changed to the extent that there is now a thin line between news and entertainment channels."
What thin line, how thin, and defined by whom hasn't exactly been left to our collective imaginations: The next and final line of the brochure promises that "this session will discuss the present scenario of `news' and future trends."
The use of single inverted commas to describe TV news, tells me what FICCI thinks of TV news (read Hindi TV news)!
For me, the inverted commas isn't just about two punctuation marks. It represents an elitist mindset and insensitivity to the information needs of millions of Indians.
In fact, let me go beyond elitism and insensitivity. Let me add a third dimension, ie, hypocrisy.
A brief comment on all three--
First, I disagree with the elitist mindset of describing news on (Hindi) TV channels in single inverted commas, because it tells me that only a few hundred intellectuals (influenced by print publications, columnists and niche channels in our country) know what really news is.
Next, I talk of insensitivity because intellectuals who rue over the state of news channels forget the niche audiences that they serve (usually in thousands and at the most of a few lakhs) against the several millions of that a top Hindi television news channel like India TV does.
Finally, the hypocrisy behind the single inverted commas hurts, when I consider the one hour that I spend in the morning reading the most respected dailies and news weeklies in our country. Let me rest my case with a recent example. Printed below a long, self-righteous news story on democratic rights of Tibetans was this unprintable sms joke asking why women like gold more than they like boys! (The reply said something about `the number of carrots' that gold has.in my view so repulsive that it spoilt my morning). Yet, no one has called this respected newspaper a `news'paper!?
It's time some of us did. Between now and the next FICCI-FRAMES, I suggest that those who punctuate the word news on (Hindi) TV channels in single inverted commas should do the same to our top `news' magazines who place lurid sex surveys on their covers. These lovers of single inverted commas should question lewd stills of Paris Hilton's lip locks on the colour pages of our important newspapers. Not to mention instructive details of Ms Hilton's sexual preferences, usually with pointers on Page 1. How about questioning the acres on `news' space devoted to Pam Anderson, with no rationale to support the flesh? What of Bipasha Basu longingly lying over her beau on the covers of our most venerated film magazine, helpfully advertised in the sister newspaper?
Suffice to say that unlike our friends in the print, Hindi television news informs, as per TAM's representative sample of what ordinary people want to know; and in the idiom of the news consumer, without the elitism, the insensitivity and the hypocrisy.
The kettle doesn't call the pot black. Should the pot do the same? We'll see next year. Right, Amit?
About Rajat Sharma and Independent News Service Private Limited (INS):
Rajat Sharma is Chairman of Independent News Service (INS) and Editor-in-Chief of India TV. INS was co-founded by Mr Sharma and Ritu Dhawan in 1998. Mr Sharma edited important publications before entering television in 1992 with the iconic 'Aap Ki Adalat' and India's first private news bulletin.
With 20 years of work behind her, Ms Dhawan is one of India's senior most television producers.
INS launched India TV in August 2004. Today it has a talent pool of 400+ personnel. As per TAM, India TV is a leader, on the Elite Panel and in the C&S Hindi news market in terms of shares, TVRs, time spends and audience reverts.
In March last year Fuse+ Media, an entity of ComVentures, a leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital and private equity group with over $1.5 billion of assets under management, had placed an equivalent of Rs 50.9 crore of FDI in INS for a 19.17 per cent stake, taking INS's enterprise value to Rs 270 crore. Earlier this year, after another strategic investment, INS's enterprise value stood at Rs 500 crore.