First arrests in India under new security law

Press, 21 October 1980, Page 8

First arrests in India under new security law

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi The first arrests under India’s controversial new national security ordinance in the north-east ■ Indian state of Assam, have been; reported by the Press Trust of India. • .

Quoting official sources in the Assam state capita! of Gauhati, the agency said that 17 people, including a college principal, had been arrested under the ordinance last week. The action was taken after reports that they were allegedly involved in giving and receiving arms training, the sources said. ■ Talks in Delhi last week between the Government andi leaders of a year-old agita-l tion in Assam against illegal j foreign immigrants failed to I

reach agreement. However, the Home Minister (Mr Zail Singh) said that the doors were still open for fresh negotiations on the issue.

Officials in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said last week a total of 700 people, including black-marketeers and hoarders. had been arrested under' the ordinance introduced last month after riots in northern' India. Earlier, the Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi) picked a new Cabinet Minister and added six, junior !Ministers to her 23-member Government.

i Mrs Gandhi, under attack (for what the Opposition (calls the inefficiency of her (Government, also reshuffled,

the portfolios of five Cabinet colleagues and' gave additional jobs to three others.

The Government ' changes liAve come nine months after Mrs. Gandhi was sworn in for a five-year term.

The delay, according to newspapers, was because of the paucity of talent in Mrs Gandhi’s ruling Congress (I) Party from which many of her senior colleagues broke away after differences with her.

Of six Cabinet portfolios vacant since Mrs Gandhi named her Government last January only one was filled yesterday. S. B. Chavan, aged 61, former chief minister of Maharashtra state, was named Education Minister.