The Importance Of Being Brajesh
The Opposition and the Sangh Parivar launch an attack on the Prime Minister's Office by targeting the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra. The Vajpayee camp finds itself fighting a grim political battle to retain credibility even as the Establishment tries to discredit the Tehelka allegations. An analysis.

Supercrat In His Labyrinth
There are 240 secretaries to the Government, but N. K. Singh is always a cut above-in style, networking, and power. The economic policy wizard gets defensive.

The Ways And Means Of Ranjan
Ranjan Bhattacharya's role as nursemaid to Atal Bihari Vajpayee gives the fun-loving foster son-in-law
the image of one who dabbles in government decisions.

Congress' Coalition Flight Grounded
With sceptic constituents, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's
plan to form an alliance just before the assembly elections in five states, may backfire.

Desperately Seeking loopholes
The Bharatiya Janata Party and Samata Party find discrepancies
in the charges levelled against them by Tehelka. But it's just details.

Nursery Of Hate
The week-long violence in Kanpur has cooled down, but the spectre of the Students Islamic Movement of India still looms large. A look at the reach of India's in-house Taliban.

Vroom Service
The four-stroke motorcycle overtakes middle-class India's greatest icon since the valve radio set, as sales of the doughty old scooter stagnate in spite of a spirited fightback.

George Cross
The FIR against Sonia Gandhi's private secretary is a plain corruption issue says the CBI. But, an embarrassed Congress complains of vendetta.

Nothing Official About It
The payment crisis is temporarily stemmed, but clandestine financing ticks like a time bomb.

CRIME: NRI CONTRACT KILLINGS

Feudal Retaliation

Meticulously planned and clinically executed, the Jassi murder had all the elements of a feudal retaliation against an errant daughter. Jaswinder Kaur belonged to a Jat Sikh family that had migrated to Canada. A 25-year-old trained beautician in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Jaswinder nee Jassi had earned the wrath of her family after she married Sukhwinder Singh alias Mithoo from a modest background against her parents' wishes during a trip to her native village in Ludhiana district.

Mohinder Singh holds a picture of his son RANJIT SINGH, stabbed on the orders of Bahadur Singh (top right). Police believe it was a grudge killing carried out by Anil Kumar (right).

Within three months of the wedding, Jassi's body-with the throat slit-was recovered from a canal near Ludhiana on June 10. She had been kidnapped by a group of assailants who waylaid the couple and left her injured husband for dead. Mithoo survived to help the police complete the jigsaw of the plot that was hatched in Canada. Inspector Joginder Singh, then posted with the Criminal Investigation Agency at Ludhiana, had brokered the killing for a fee of Rs 5 lakh, paid by Jassi's maternal uncle Surjit Singh, also a Canadian national. Interrogation of the 11 people charged with murder last month provided the police graphic details of how her mother Malkiat Kaur had told the assailants on a mobile phone to kill her defiant daughter.

Apart from the money angle, NRI contract killings appear to be prompted by a smug belief that Indian law cannot easily reach them. Knowing the way the criminal justice system works in India, NRIs may be finding it convenient to commit crimes here. Two weeks ago, a police team from the UK was in Punjab to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Avtar Kaur Atwal, a customs officer at London's Heathrow airport.

A mother of two, Atwal had come to her husband's native place in Gurdaspur district with her mother-in-law, Bachan Kaur, also a British national. On her way to the IGI airport on December 14, 1998 she disappeared without a clue. Her relations with her husband, who is accused of foul play by her parents, were reportedly strained. The First Information Report (FIR) that was registered names Atwal's husband and mother-in-law but police investigation has reached a dead end. In any case the fir is too weak to make a case for their extradition.

Indeed, the police often run into a brick wall when it comes to extraditing accused NRIs to face trial in India. Being a tedious and drawn out process requiring thorough investigation and meticulous documentation, the extradition proceedings get invariably bogged down, often at the preliminary stage. Much hinges on the quality of evidence that the police gathers to wangle an extradition. Given the slipshod investigation procedures, police officials say it is extremely difficult to meet the standards that the authorities of the countries-with which India has extradition treaties-expect for considering extradition requests.

The problem with NRI contract-killing cases, according to police officials, is that the accused can at best be charged with criminal conspiracy. Besides, having made payments through hawala, it is difficult to link them to the murder. The NRI criminals know this too well. "Adducing specific evidence to substantiate the conspiracy part is an uphill task," says Punjab Police Intelligence Chief M.P.S. Aulakh. "The problem lies with the antiquated Indian Evidence Act which makes a confession made before a police official non-admissible in court."

Police officers point out how it took the Indian authorities more than 14 years to get two terrorists, Sukhwinder Singh and Ranjit Singh-who were involved in the Lalit Maken murder in Delhi-extradited recently from the US. "If extraditing even dreaded terrorists can take such a long time, the case of others wanted in similar crimes can well be assumed," says a senior police official with the Punjab Police crime wing.

Clearly, NRI contract killings are low priority cases, and throwing the book at the culprits remains a pipedream for the police and a source of frustration for the victims' families.

MetroScape
The Itch For Kitsch
When Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai opened to an overflowing house at Delhi's India Habitat Centre last week, people didn't quite know what to expect.
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Looking Glass


Delhi Exhibition: Unbuilt India-Vision 2001

Delhi Music:
Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival, 2001

Delhi: Showroom
Interiors Espania

The 457-acre estate of the Roerichs near Bangalore is in a pathetic condition. But does anyone care, asks INDIA TODAY's Principal Correspondent Stephen David in Despatches.