Chand trapped me in love, alleges Fiza

Agencies

Chandigarh: Fiza, second wife of Chander Mohan alias Chand Mohammad, has said that the former deputy chief minister trapped her in his love.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, she showed love SMSs sent by Chand for the last three years. "Chand used to call me quite often," she said.

Taking a swipe at Chand, Fiza said she was receiving threatening calls from many quarters and planned to take legal action against them.

She also said Chand had deceived her and planned to leave the country any moment. Moreover, the sons of former chief minister Bhajan Lal do not know how to respect women and should not be given a reign of power. “Kuldeep Bisnoi, brother of former deputy CM, has unnecessarily dragged my name in the dirty politics. I had no ambitions in politics, said Fiza.


Haryana’s former deputy CM Chander Mohan was already married when he did a disappearing act and resurfaced a Muslim convert, Chand Mohammad, two months ago to wed Anuradha Bali, now called Fiza.

On January 29, Fiza screamed he had been abducted by his enemies. "He has been kidnapped," she told reporters. But all that had happened was probably a tiff between Chand and the woman for whom he left his wife and the larger Bhajan Lal family. The missing leader was traced to New Delhi’s Greater Kailash later in the day and told police he walked out of his Sector-48 Chandigarh home after a tiff. ‘‘I am not a kid who can be kidnapped,’’ he told reporters.

On Saturday, Haryana's former deputy chief minister Chander Mohan alias Chand said he was missing his first wife Seema and children and that he could not stay away from them. Chand, speaking outside Sector 14 residence of his brother Kuldeep Bishnoi, said: "I love my first wife and kids, and miss them."

However, he denied that his marriage with Fiza was on the rocks. "There is no pressure on me, neither is there any kind of misunderstanding between me and Fiza. She knows where I am. People do not know anything and say what they want," he said.

Chander Mohan (43) alias Chand Mohammad and Anuradha Bali (37), now called Fiza, converted to Islam and got married in Meerut last November. The much talked about affair and wedding cost them dearly. Both of them had to lose their high-profile jobs. Chand's father, former Haryana CM Bhajan Lal, disowned him and condemned the second marriage as a "shameless act".

While Chand lost his deputy chief minister's post, Fiza was sacked from her post as assistant attorney general. The duo had planned a honeymoon in Switzerland and residence in Delhi, and professed their love before the media, promising to live together till the last breath.

Meanwhile, Chand has refuted allegations that he converted to Islam to marry Fiza.

Ponting dropped or rested?

B D Narayankar

THE debate is fast raging worldwide. Has Australian captain Ricky Ponting dropped or rested for the next two one-day internationals against New Zealand.

Australia's four successive one-day defeats propped up a question mark on the abilities of Ricky Ponting's leadership. He was fine when old war-horses Glenn MacGrath and Shane Warne were at the helm of affairs, wrecking the opposition sides with their sheer aggressive performances.

Even the loss of Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden has left Ricky Ponting in the lurch. They were both devastating and aggressive players who could change the complexion of the game in Australia's favour.

It's been difficult for Ricky to lift the young and inexperienced side as he used to do with the help of Shane Warne, MacGrath, Gilchrist and Hayden.

A captain is successful and rated high when he is able to lift the morale of the team when the chips are down. The reason for Imran Khan and Sunil Gavaskar being the greatest captains of their era was they could elicit best out of the given resources. Gavaskar marshalled the resources to win Benson and Hedges World Series in Australia and Imran did it by uniting the Pakistan team to win World Cup in 1990s, from nowhere.

It's rather easy to be a captain of a champion side, but is tough to lead a young and inexperienced side. Ricky fails in this department. Just look at what has been his performance in the recent past with young turks - it's dismal.

He lost the one-day series against India and South Africa in the just-concluded test and one-day series. In this process, Team Australia also lost its number one status in one-dayers to South Africa.

Now it's up to Michael Clarke to prove his mettle and bring back glory to the Australians, who have been proud of for over one decade.

'Slumdog Millionaire is a cheap film'

Agencies

Director Priyadarshan has vehemently slammed Slumdog Millionaire by saying that it was a cheap version of a commercial Bollywood flick.

He said the film deliberately portrays the filthy side of Mumbai, without even showing the aesthetic side of the film city. " I am surprised that Mumbai is celebrating a film that shows only the city's underbelly," Priyadarshan lamented.

Indians are exercising prideful property rights over a film that denigrates Mumbai, he said. "If such cheap film would have been made by an Indian, he would have been blasted for good," the noted film director rued.

He also lambasted the Golden Globe and Oscars committees for choosing to honor the film. "It goes to show their ignorance of world cinema," Priyadarshan said.

Priyadarshan, whose much-acclaimed film on the silk weavers of Kanjeevaram was shown alongside Boyle's film at the Toronto Film Festival last year, feels Indians are exercising prideful property rights over a film that denigrates Mumbai.

"I saw the film with a mixed audience at the Toronto Film Festival. The Westerners loved it. All the Indian hated it. The West loves to see us as a wasteland, filled with horror stories of exploitation and degradation. But is that all there's to our beautiful city of Mumbai?"

"Why are we taking this treatment? Just because a white man has made 'Slumdog Millionaire', we're so happy with it? I've read Vikas Swarup's novel 'Q&A'. It should have been made by Mani Ratnam. Then you'd have seen what he would have done with Mumbai."

The angry director wonders why there isn't a single shot in 'Slumdog...' that shows the more aesthetic side of Mumbai?

"Why has Danny Boyle not taken one shot of Marine Drive? Do his slumdwellers exist only within their slums? And look at the absurdities...A boy becomes a national hero on a game show. One cop takes him under arrest and interrogates him relentlessly. Where is everyone else? Is this kind of confinement possible in this day and age when television cameras enter your bedroom? If one of our filmmakers had made the same film we would have blasted him out of business."

"Let them give as many Oscars as they like. We don't need to be impressed," ends Priydarshan angrily.

Yuvraj Singh cleared of dissent

Agencies

Colombo: After reviewing video evidence, ICC cleared Yuvaraj Singh off the charges of showing dissent at an umpriring decision in the second one-day internationals against Sri Lanka at Premadasa Stadium.

Yuvraj had been charged under Level 1.3 of the ICC Code of Conduct, which refered to showing dissent at an umpire's decision. But at the resultant hearing, Chris Broad of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees cleared him of the charge," the ICC said in a statement.

The incident happened yesterday when Yuvraj was adjudged leg before wicket to Sri Lankan pacer Nuwan Kulasekara, a decision that apparently didn't amuse the left-hander, who stood at the crease for a while before leaving.

On-field umpires Brian Jerling and Gamini Silva and third umpire Kumar Dharmasena reported the incident to Broad who gave a clean chit to Yuvraj.

"After reviewing video evidence of the incident, I am of the opinion that there was no conclusive evidence that Yuvraj showed dissent at the decision," said Broad.

"He did stay at the crease but the delay in departing was not excessive and I felt he showed a level of disappointment rather than dissent," he said.

Apart from Yuvraj, India coach Gary Kirsten and team manager Prakash Dixit also attended the hearing.

Kasab's custody extended till February 13

B D Narayankar

THE police custody of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the 26/ 11 terror strikes, has been extended till February 13.

Kasab, was last remanded in police custody on January 19, for his involvement in the shootout at the Cama and the Albless Hospital in South Mumbai.

Kasab has been in police custody since his arrest on the night of November 26 and has been booked in 12 cases by the city police.

Earlier, additional Metropolitan Magistrate N Shrimangale and Additional Public Prosecutor E B Dhamal were shifted to an undisclosed location for the hearing. Kasab was not brought to for security reasons.

"It was argued that the police had to carry out further investigations in the case for which custody was needed," Dhamal said.

Kasab and Ismail Khan attacked the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus on November killing 58 persons and injuring over 100.

DLF office space is cheaper now

Agencies

Mumbai: The country's largest developer DLF has put its office space in Delhi for sale at discounted price to investors, at Jasola and Saket. "We have brought down sale prices at Jasola from Rs 18,000 per square feet (psf) to around Rs 14,000-15,000 psf," said the company's chief marketing manager Rajneesh Sharma.

This is a fall of 15-20 per cent. Without giving any figures, he also said that prices have shown corrections at Saket.

Office spaces at Saket are selling at Rs 40,000 psf, he said. However, investors and brokers operating at these places said that the prices have corrected by 30 per cent at both places.

"The rates went up to Rs 22,000 at Jasola and Rs 42,000 at Saket," said a broker. The fall in prices is being attributed to the higher vacancy level.

"The vacancy levels at both places are around 40 per cent", Sharma said. Brokers, on the other hand, said that the vacancy level is roughly around 50-60 per cent.

FBI pleads probing Ansari for Mum attack

Agencies

New Delhi: Officials of Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have made a request to interrogate two militants arrested earlier by the Uttar Pradesh Police and questioned by Mumbai Police in connection with the 26/11 terror strikes. The FBI made the request through proper channels for questioning Fahim Arshad Ansari and Sabbauddin, militants of banned Lashker-e-Taiba, who were brought to Mumbai in December last year as a follow up to the probe into the 26/11 attack, official sources said.

35-year-old Ansari had told his interrogators that he was asked by Pakistan's ISI to identify all the terror-hit places on "Googlemap.Com" and is believed to share the extreme mindset of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda chief.

He claimed to be an ardent follower of Laden and had grown a beard like the global terrorist. "After joining my job in Dubai, I also used to discuss about Jehadi activities and appreciate the actions of Osama.

My co-workers called me as Osama as I was keeping a beard like him," the militant is said to have told in his interrogation. The FBI now wants to know whether the Mumbai terror strikes was a deep-rooted conspiracy for which planning had been done from earlier last year.

Ansari and another Lashkar militant, Sabbauddin, were arrested by central security agencies in February and April last year respectively. The FBI has already questioned Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab, the lone Lashker-e-Taiba militant involved in November 26 terror strikes, for over nine hours recently to ascertain about his role and handlers in Pakistan.