Cyprus goes high-tech in search for people missing from past conflict
The Committee on Missing Persons leads a team of archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists to help ascertain the fate of 2,002 people who went missing during inter-ethnic strife in the 1960s and a Turkish invasion that followed a Greek-inspired coup in 1974. Many were killed and buried in unmarked graves across the island.
Relying heavily on witnesses who are assured anonymity, the exhumation and identification of victims have waned in recent years, in part because of discrepancies in witness accounts, the passage of time and rapidly changing landscapes.
"We plan to enhance our capacities to find answers through new technologies," said Pierre Gentile, the U.N. representative on the CMP, which also includes a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot representative.
Gentile said the CMP would use artificial intelligence to scour digitalized archives for new lines of inquiry and would consider further use of ground-penetrating radars to help find burial areas.
Established in 1981, the CMP started looking for mass graves around 2006. By the end of June 2025 it had located and exhumed 1,707 individuals, with 1,270 remains returned to their families for burial by May 2025.
Although missing persons remain one of the most sensitive issues stemming from Cyprus's division, it is also one of the few areas where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work together on a common humanitarian goal.
"It is a very delicate humanitarian issue and the work we are doing is holy," said Hakki Muftuzade, the Turkish Cypriot CMP representative. "We are fully aware of the duty we have to fulfil," he said.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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The Print
2 hours ago
- The Print
A year after Bangladesh's Monsoon Revolution, a parched summer looms ahead
Even as Bangladesh prepares to mark the first anniversary of the so-called Monsoon Revolution — the violent rebellion that forced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed to flee the country — disquiet is mounting over the legacy of those dramatic events. The de facto Prime Minister, Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus, has announced that elections will be held in April. But no one knows for sure if this will halt the country's descent into chaos and the disintegration of its multicultural ethos. 'The doors of hell were forced wide open,' the elderly Saraswati Sarkar recalled to a team of jurists , 'They chased women, children, men like ferocious, blind, and passionate brutes, hungry for blood and murder, and the flesh of women.' Truckloads of dead bodies were driven past Nitaiganj, Kshirodi Bala Dasi later remembered , to be tossed into the river Lakha, not far from the Isphani Jute Mills. Vultures, kites, and crows gorged themselves through the day as the bodies rotted; at night, jackals would gather to feast. There was no one left to help. The few local Hindus who had escaped the massacres had fled into the woods, leaving behind their burned-down homes. Finding drinking water was almost impossible: the river stank of death for weeks, until the end of 1964. Large-scale mob violence, journalists Arafat Rahaman and Sajjad Hossain write, has claimed 179 lives in the last ten months, often in the presence of police. The victims include politicians, members of religious minorities, women accused of dressing improperly, purported blasphemers, and, in one case, a person suffering from psychiatric illness. Women's football matches have had to be cancelled due to mob threats, Hindu shrines have been vandalised, and national monuments, like founding patriarch Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman's home, burned down. Islamist groups, meanwhile, are growing in power. The Jamaat-e-Islami, proscribed under Prime Minister Hasina for its role in war crimes during 1971, has cashed in on the anti-establishment, populist sentiments that drove last year's youth protests. The release of cleric Jashimuddin Rahmani, an al-Qaeda-inspired ideologue who preached violence online, has given renewed space to jihadist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, and Hizb ut-Tahrir. To end the chaos, a political outcome is needed, one that is inclusive and empowers the institutions of governance. But former Prime Minister Hasina's Awami League has been banned, leaving a substantial section of Bangladesh's voters without representation in the April elections. The party had previously been proscribed three times — by Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1958, General Yahya Khan in 1971, and General Ziaur Rahman in 1975. Little imagination is needed to see that the fascist impulses that overpowered Bangladesh in 1964—just seven years before the Liberation War, which cast it as a hero of secular-democratic politics—could be unleashed, should a genuine restoration of democracy prove illusory. A million and a half refugees came to India in 1950; more than 6,00,000 in 1951-52; another 1.6 million between 1953 and 1956. Largely landless Muslims also streamed into the east, but didn't leave behind properties that could be used for rehabilitation. India considered using its military to seize territory in Khulna and Jessore, historian Pallavi Raghavan has written, but concluded that war would mean even more refugees. The 1964 killings, however, sparked a ferocious communal response in India, with 264 people reported killed in Kolkata alone. Also read: Coup rumours are circulating in Dhaka. Here's why the army isn't keen on it Fragmenting democracy The road to disillusionment has been a short one for Bangladeshis. In 1990, a mass uprising—involving future Prime Ministers Hasina and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party rival Khaleda Zia—overthrew military dictator Husain Muhammad Ershad. Elections saw Prime Minister Khaleda take power, beginning what scholar Ali Riaz, now an advisor to Yunus, has called the country's new democratic era. Five years later, Khaleda peacefully conceded power when the Awami League won the next election. From the outset, though, there were cracks in the new system. First, as Riaz notes, both major parties discarded the allies who had backed them during the struggle against General Ershad. This narrowed the reach of the political system. Second, both parties launched mass movements against the government while in opposition, undermining its legitimacy. Khaleda's victory in 2001 created new imbalances. Although the electoral margin was razor-thin, the first-past-the-post system gave the BNP a substantial majority in Parliament. Hasina alleged electoral fraud and initially refused to join the new Parliament. Her MPs later took their oaths, but in 2006, the parties deadlocked over appointing a caretaker government to supervise elections. In early 2007, the Awami League announced it would boycott the polls. Faced with this impasse—and widespread street violence that left dozens dead—the military stepped in. Army chief General Moeen Ahmed persuaded the President to declare a state of Emergency. Former World Bank official Fakhruddin Ahmed took charge as Chief cases were filed against both Zia and Hasina in what was initially hailed as a campaign to clean up the country's system. Islamist rise Two principal forces benefitted from this democratic collapse. First was the Jamaat-e-Islami, heir to the Pakistan Army's war crimes in 1971. During 2001-2005, scholar Devin Hagerty notes, the Jama'at leveraged its 18 MPs to secure control over the ministries of agriculture and social welfare. This, together with remittances from supporters in the Middle East, allowed it to set up a massive network of seminaries, economic institutions, and welfare organisations. For all practical purposes, the Jama'at became 'a state within a state.' Islamists outside the political mainstream also flourished. Closely linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh drew hundreds of recruits from Salafist seminaries. In August 2005, the group set off an estimated 500 bomb explosions, targeting 300 locations in 63 of the country's 64 districts. The organisation's hopes of setting up an Islamist mini-state were crushed by security forces, but it laid the foundation for persistent threats to Bangladesh, as well as India. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, led by diaspora elements in the United Kingdom, brought caliphate ideology to elite campuses. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansarullah Bangla Team later began assassinating progressive activists. The new authoritarianism After returning to power post-Emergency, Prime Minister Hasina built an order designed to insulate her regime from political and security threats. The Awami League cracked down on BNP street protests, jailed opposition leaders, and used force ahead of the 2014 elections. For the most part, judicial independence was erased through political control of appointments and threats. The caretaker governance system, established in 1996 to ensure impartial elections, was abolished in 2011. To insulate itself from jihadist and Jamaat-e-Islami attacks, Hasina's government allied with Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, a movement of clerics and madrasa students. Hefazat's demands included Islamic language in the Constitution, gender segregation in public spaces, and capital punishment for blasphemy — eating into Jamaat's traditional support base. The Awami League's strategy to crush the opposition worked in 2018 and again in 2024. But in July, what began as a student protest against job quotas evolved into a mass movement to oust Hasina and her increasingly authoritarian regime. The government responded with violence. Eventually, fearing the cracking of the country's social edifice as well as state, the army forced Hasina out. For the upcoming elections to matter, they must mark the beginning of an inclusive political revival and the rebuilding of a multicultural society. There is no roadmap, but there are plenty of reminders of what failure will look like. Eleven hundred people were killed in East Pakistan in 1964, official estimates say. An American Peace Corps nurse counted 600 bodies at a single hospital in Dhaka. Each of those bodies is a reminder that Bangladesh's Arab Spring could all too easily give way to a long, parched summer. Praveen Swami is contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets with @praveenswami. Views are personal. (Edited by Prashant)
India Today
5 hours ago
- India Today
162 trips abroad, 25 shell firms, Rs 300 crore scam: Fake envoy's web of deceit
Harshvardhan Jain, who masqueraded as the 'ambassador' of several micronations and ran a fake embassy out of a posh bungalow in Ghaziabad, took 162 trips abroad over a decade and may have links to a Rs 300-crore financial scam, an ongoing probe by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) has years, Jain (47) operated with impunity, thanks to fictitious titles from little-known micronations like Westarctica, Seborga, Poulvia, and Ladonia. His two-storey bungalow bore foreign countries' flags, he drove around in luxury cars bearing diplomatic plates, and introduced himself as 'Baron of Westarctica'.advertisementThis elaborate facade crumbled last week when he was arrested, and his 'embassy' was exposed as a front to defraud individuals with promises of overseas jobs, business deals, and international influence, in return for large commissions. But Jain was not just a globetrotting fake diplomat. He's a serial fraudster who exploited his (fake) diplomatic immunity, forged documents, and spun elaborate schemes involving shell companies and foreign bank to sources, Jain travelled to 19 countries between 2005 and 2015, visiting the UAE 54 times and the UK 22 times. He also flew to other countries including Mauritius, France, Cameroon, and Seborga, a self-styled micronation in Europe, under the guise of diplomatic web of deceit was far-flung. The STF uncovered 25 shell companies linked to Jain across the UK, UAE, Mauritius, and Cameroon. Some of the names include State Trading Corporation Ltd, East India Company UK Ltd, Island General Trading Co LLC in the UAE, and Indira Overseas Ltd in have zeroed in on 10 foreign bank accounts in Jain's name: six in Dubai, three in the UK, and one in Mauritius. Twelve forged diplomatic passports from Seborga, Ladonia and other self-proclaimed micronations were also seized from his Ghaziabad said Jain operated on an international scale, aided by Hyderabad-born Turkish national Ahsan Ali Syed, with whom he registered several overseas companies. Syed is accused of masterminding a Rs 300-crore scam targeting financially struggling companies in Switzerland. The two allegedly lured these firms with promises of loans and siphoned off large sums in the are probing the full extent of the scam and identifying how the Rs 300 crore was laundered through hawala channels, shell companies, and foreign also had links with notorious Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, police sources said. Between 2002 and 2004, Khashoggi is believed to have transferred Rs 20 crore directly into Jain's accounts. The STF is reportedly investigating the purpose and usage of those STF has approached court for Jain's custody remand, with a hearing scheduled for Monday. Police sources said the investigation's scope may broaden as more layers of his global operation are uncovered.- EndsTrending Reel
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First Post
6 hours ago
- First Post
300 crore scam, overseas bank accounts and 162 foreign trips: Startling details of Ghaziabad's fake embassy probe
Police are now probing Jain's role in this massive scam, having already found he used the fake embassy to lure victims with job promises read more A man has been arrested in Ghaziabad for running a fake embassy and conning people. News18 Harshvardhan Jain, arrested for operating a in Ghaziabad for eight years, is now under investigation for a possible Rs 300 crore ($34.6 million) scam, 162 foreign trips over a decade, and multiple overseas bank accounts, revealing startling details. Last week, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) arrested Jain at a rented two-storey house in Ghaziabad, which he claimed was an embassy. The probe uncovered his alleged role in a job racket and money laundering through the Hawala network. During the raid, police seized four cars with fake diplomatic number plates, forged documents, and a collection of luxury watches. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Authorities plan to seek Jain's custody in court tomorrow. According to police, the scam could be worth nearly Rs 300 crore. A fake embassy uncovered The Ghaziabad building bore a nameplate reading 'Grand Duchy of Westarctica' and 'H E HV Jain Honorary Consul,' adorned with flags of India and Westarctica, a micronation in Antarctica not recognised by any sovereign nation. Investigators say Jain used this facade since 2017 to network and entice people with fake overseas job offers. More from India 'Baron of Westarctica': How a UP man ran fake embassy from a Ghaziabad bungalow for 7 years To maintain appearances, he organised charity events like bhandaras (community feasts) outside the 'embassy,' which he had rented six months prior, though the fake embassy operation spanned eight years. The raid revealed photos of Jain with controversial 'godman' Chandraswami and Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Chandraswami, a self-styled spiritual leader influential in the 1980s and 1990s, advised three Indian Prime Ministers—PV Narasimha Rao, Chandra Shekhar, and VP Singh. He faced scrutiny for financial misconduct, was arrested in 1996, and was linked to Khashoggi through a raid on his ashram. Chandraswami was also accused of involvement in funding the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. A sprawling scam The UP STF discovered that Chandraswami introduced Jain to Khashoggi and conman Ahsan Ali Sayed, a Hyderabad-born Turkish citizen. Sayed allegedly collaborated with Jain to establish 25 shell companies for money laundering. Sayed's Switzerland-based Western Advisory Group promised companies loans in exchange for brokerage fees, reportedly collecting 25 million pounds—roughly Rs 300 crore—before fleeing. Sayed was arrested in London in 2022. Police are now probing Jain's role in this massive scam, having already found he used the fake embassy to lure victims with job promises. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Westarctica, the micronation Jain claimed to represent, has distanced itself from the entire episode. 'In 2016, Mr HV Jain made a generous donation to Westarctica and was subsequently invited to join our team of international volunteers who advance our environmental and charitable mission in their home countries. His official title was 'Honorary Consul to India'. He was never granted the position or authority of 'ambassador',' the statement read. It added, 'During his recent arrest for fraud and other crimes, Mr. Jain was found to be in possession of diplomatic number plates, passports, and other items bearing the seal of Westarctica. As an Honorary Consul, he was not authorized to create these items. Westarctica, itself, does not utilize number plates or passports and we have never permitted or encouraged our representatives to do so themselves. By calling his home an 'embassy', Mr Jain was in violation of Westarctica's protocol for our representatives.'
