Word: bihar
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...years before that he had secured his first cousin's release from another gang. So Salahuddin knew exactly what was happening when 10 armed men surrounded his Jeep on March 25 as he drove to a party meeting in a remote corner of India's northeastern Bihar state. Holding him at gunpoint, they yelled: "Move and we'll shoot!" Salahuddin recalls: "There was nothing I could do. In some ways I wasn't even surprised...
...Kidnapping for ransom is Bihar's biggest and, these days, only industry. Between 1992 and 2001, the last year for which figures are available, local police recorded 24,338 cases of kidnapping in the state, an average of more than six a day. Officers admit the real figure may be 10 times higher than that: kidnappers typically threaten to return if the victims go to the authorities. Police say Bihar has more than 100 kidnap gangs, and they don't prey solely on the rich or famous. In Salahuddin's district of Champaran, the center of Bihar's bandit country...
...Adding to the sense that Bihar is perilously out of control is the fact that even some politicians may be getting in on the kidnap game. Superintendent Shoba Ohatker, who has busted more kidnap gangs than any other officer, says that in her three years on the job, she has arrested suspected kidnappers hiding in the homes of local politicians four times. And she adds that her inquiry into a doctor's abduction last December led her to arrest and charge one assembly member with "15-20 cases of arms smuggling, kidnapping and murder." (His case has not yet come...
...With law and order strictly a state affair and Bihar under the control of an opposition party, the national government in New Delhi has little authority or motive to intervene. But without some outside help, there is almost no hope of anything dislodging kidnapping as the state's most popular career choice. Though Bihar is India's third-largest state, it has attracted no investment or industry to speak of, and unemployment is chronic. Meanwhile, those Biharis who still have jobs are often paralyzed by insecurity: across the state, fear of kidnapping has emptied schools of teachers, fields of laborers...
...pilots when their aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff. Three other ministers were injured. Caracas One person was killed and at least 12 wounded after a suspected bomb exploded near a pro-government rally in the Venezuelan capital. Patna A deadly monthlong cold spell led the Indian state of Bihar to declare a disaster. Some of the lowest temperatures in three decades have killed more than 1,800 people in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Kabul After a 10-year ban Afghan women regained the right to drive. Thirty female officials passed the first four-month driving course. Colima At least...