Bangalore, Tuesday April 16, 2013, Pages 26

www.deccanherald.com Vol 66 No 105 4.00 B

Tight win for Chavez heir

Spectrum
FROM GRASSROOTS TO GALAXIES

Maduro
P13

In a spot of bother?
Adam Scott ends Aussie jinx with Masters win
SPORT P18

blast accused convicted Monday sees rush Bakery Punishment to lone conspirator to be pronounced on April 18 to file nominations
MUMBAI: Three years after the German Bakery blast that left 17 dead and over 60 injured, a sessions court in Pune on Monday held Himayat Baig, the lone arrested conspirator, guilty in the case.

Congress nominee Siddaramaiah on his way to le nomination papers from Varuna constituency in Mysore on Monday. KPN

BSY, Kumaraswamy among candidates

BANGALORE: Monday witnessed a rush of candidates with political heavyweights Siddaramaiah, G Parameshwara, B S Yeddyurappa and H D Kumaraswamy making a beeline for designated electoral offices to file nomination papers for the May 5 Assembly elections.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Ibrahim elded from Bhadravati

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Monday night named former Union Minister C M Ibrahim for Bhadravati and controverisal corporator Muniratna Naidu for Rajarajeswarinagar seats while replacing Srirangaptana candidate in the third list of candidates for the May 5 Assembly elections. Details on Page 5
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Businessmen-turned-netas Anand Singh, Uday Garudachar and Murgesh Nirani also filed papers. A festive atmosphere prevailed in many segments. While nominations opened on April 10, most candidates decided to file papers on Monday as it was considered auspicious. The candidates took out processions, padayatras, visited temples and paid obeisance to their favourite deities before filing nominations. They crowd-

ed roads causing traffic jams, especially in Bangalore. From April 10 till date 1,022 filed the papers. Monday alone saw 766 candidates rushing to file the nomination papers. Candidates, Page 9

Politics has become a rich mans domain, if one were to go by the affidavits on assets and liabilities filed by various leaders along with their nomination papers. Many leaders who had contested in 2008 are candidates this time, too. Their assets have increased manifold. They have liabilities which are much lower than their assets. Businessmen, contractors, realtors, mining tycoons and owners of educational institutions are among those jostling for space in the legislative Assembly through the 2013 elections. One of the richest candidates till now is 29-year-old sitting MLA Priya Krishna of the Congress. He filed his nomination papers on Monday from the Govindrajanagar constituency.

Delivering the judgment, Additional Sessions Judge N P Dhote said Baig would be sentenced for murder, criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder, forgery and other crimes. He said the quantum of punishment would be fixed on April 18. Baig has been convicted under Sections 302, 307, 435, 474, 153(A), 120(B) of the IPC and the Explosives Act. He may be awarded death sentence as well as a long imprisonment. The other suspects in the case, the elusive Yasin Bhatkal, Mohsin Choudhary, Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, reportedly members of Indian Mujahideen, along with suspected LeT operative Faiyaz Kagzi, are still at large. Strangely enough, despite naming Zaibuddin Ansari aka

German Bakery after the blast on February 13. AFP FILE PHOTO

Abu Jundal in its 2,500-page charge sheet, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has not arrested him in the case. Jundal was deported from Saudi Arabia and taken into custody in Delhi in June 2012 in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. As per the charge sheet, Jundal had trained Baig, a resident

of Maharashtras Beed district, in manufacturing bombs in Sri Lankan capital Colombo. He had also borne expenses of Baigs travel and given him cash to purchase chemicals needed for making explosive devices. Throughout the trial, the defence lawyer sought to stress that the evidence furnished to substantiate the Colombo con-

Dutt asks SC for more time to surrender

NEW DELHI: Actor Sanjay Dutt

nection was flimsy. However, the court dismissed the defences argument and agreed with the prosecution that the blast was the result of a carefully planned and executed attack calculated to terrorise the TODAYS MATCHES public in general by causing extensive damage to life and Kings XI Punjab property and the primary obvs Kolkata Knight Riders jective was to undermine and 4 pm Mohali reduce faith of the common citizen in the elected government Royal Challengers and destabilise the system of vs Delhi Daredevils law. 8 pm Bangalore Baig, the alleged chief of LeTs Maharashtra unit, was MONDAYS RESULT taken into custody by the ATS from his Global Cyber Cafe 1 Pune Warriors: 159/5 in 20 overs Super Kings: 135/8 in 20 overs shop in Udgir town in Latur district. Soon after his arrest, Pune Warriors won by 24 runs the ATS claimed to have recovered 1,200 kg of explosives at his instance. It also claimed that the bomb that ripped apart the German Bakery was assembled in Global Cyber Cafe with the help of Petrol prices cut by Yasin Bhatkal and Mohsin Choudhary. The trio later left Re 1, excluding VAT for Pune and Yasin planted the Petrol price was on Monday bomb at the famous eating cut by Re 1 per litre, effective from midnight the third rejoint on February 13. DH News Service duction in rates in one month. The reduction in prices excludes the local taxes, which varies from state to state. In Bangalore, it will cost Rs 72.63 per litre, down from Rs 73.94.

In brief

Details on Page 15

Many CMs shun Shinde meeting

NEW DELHI: A chief ministers |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

on Monday sought six months time from the Supreme Court for returning to jail to serve the remaining tenure of his sentence in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case. In a criminal miscellaneous application, the 53-year-old actor urged the court to grant him time to honour his professional commitments. Dutt claimed that he would require about 196 days to complete shooting for films, in which Rs 278 crore was at stake. A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan on March 21 awarded Dutt fiveyear imprisonment for possessing illegal arms and directed

him to surrender within four weeks. Dutt has already spent 18 months in jail during pendency of the trial. Dutt said he has to finish shooting for Policegiri, Zanjeer, Vasooli and Dwand. He also claimed to have donated a lot of money for social causes like ensuring the wellbeing of cancer patients and children, who were likely to suffer due to his incarceration. This court may extend the time to surrender in terms of order dated March 21, 2013, by a period of six months upon an undertaking of the petitioner to surrender on expiry of the extended period and upon such terms and conditions as this

Sanjay Dutt

court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case, stated the application, which is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday. Dutt also clarified that the application was based entirely Dutt, Page 9

on humanitarian grounds as it sought to invoke extraordinary jurisdiction of the apex court under Article 142 of the Constitution. Unless the prayer of the petitioner is granted, he and others would suffer serious loss and prejudice and livelihood of several families would be affected, the application claimed. Meanwhile, Zaibunnisa Anwar Kazi and two others, also held guilty under the Arms Act and awarded similar punishment, approached the apex court seeking suspension of their sentences on the ground that the President was yet to decide on their mercy petitions.

Beni attacks Mulayam again

In a new charge, Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma accused Mulayam Singh Yadav of conniving with L K Advani in the run-up to the demolition of Babri Masjid.

Gold prices slump to 15-month low

Gold prices tumbled by Rs 750 to Rs 27,600 per 10 grams to hit an over 15-month low due to persistent selling by stockists triggered by a heavy sell-off in global markets.
Details on Page 15

meeting here on Monday, which was billed as an extremely important event by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, turned out to be a damp squib with only seven incumbents turning up. Home ministers and senior officials filled in for the missing chief ministers. No words can express the importance of this conference, Shinde had said. The conference also saw the chief ministers taking on the government for trying to disturb the federal structure in the name of police reforms. The chief ministers who attended the event at Vigyan Bhavan were Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Tarun Gogoi (Assam), Vijay Bahuguna (Uttarakhand), Manik Sarkar (Tripura), Nabam Tuki

Who skipped?
Mamata Banerjee (WB) J Jayalalitha (TN) Akhilesh Yadav (UP) Narendra Modi (Gujarat) Nitish Kumar (Bihar)

Shivraj Singh Chouhan (MP) Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) Omar Abdullah (J&K) Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan) Prithviraj Chavan (Maharashtra) |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

(Arunachal Pradesh), Mukul Sangma (Meghalaya) and Neiphiu Rio (Nagaland). The meeting was being viewed as the UPAs attempt to hear the stakeholders views on the 153 CMs, Page 9

suggestions in the Fifth Report on Public Order of Second Administrative Reform Commission (ARC). Many chief ministers, irrespective of their political affiliations, had taken exception to the commissions recommendations. They viewed it as an intrusion into their domain since law and order was a state subject. Nitish Kumar, who was in Delhi till Sunday to attend the JD-U national executive, decided against attending the conference since he was disgruntled over the unilateral withdrawal of CRPF personnel from Bihar. It was learnt that chief ministers of Himachal Pradesh and Manipur skipped the event despite confirming attendance.

Lions to have second home: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday directed re-introduction of Asiatic lions from Gujarats Gir forest to the Kuno sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. It wanted the sanctuary to be developed as a second home for the big cats to safeguard them from extinction. A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and C K Prasad considered various factors, including technical studies, prey density and relocation of 24 villages with about 1,547 families, undertaken by the Madhya Pradesh government, to justify the relocation. The Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary was found to be a historical habitat for Asiatic lions. The court also rejected the Gujarat governments opposition to such a move. There is an uniformity in the views expressed by bioscientists of the Wildlife Insti|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Saving big cats

The translocation of Gu-

jarat lions has to be done within the next six months. A panel of experts will decide the number of lions to be translocated from one location to another. The Supreme Court felt the lions should have a second home especially if an The apex court rejected epidemic or fires wipe out the Gujarat governments the endangered species opposition to the translocafrom one location. tion. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

tute of India (WII), National Board of Wildlife, Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and other experts that to have a second home for the endangered species like Asiatic lions is of vital importance it (Kuno-Palpur) has been found to be the most ideal habitat, the bench said. The court noted that in

case of an epidemic, it would be very difficult to save the lions from extinction, given smaller area of the Gir forests. It further pointed out that possibility of diseases spreading to Girnar, Mityala, Rajula, Kodinar and surrounding areas cannot be ruled out.
Lions, Page 9