Opinion November 24, 1978, Forty Years Ago: Charan Clarifies

The front page of The Indian Express. (Archives)

Charan Singh gave the impression that he had not closed his options for rejoining the cabinet. Singh, on getting down from the plane for the short stop-over in Lucknow this morning, pulled up Raj Narain, who was present there to emplane for Patna, for making a categorical statement that he (Charan Singh) would not join the cabinet. Singh expressed his annoyance with Raj Narain before a large crowd of supporters and admirers, including more than a dozen State ministers and the chief minister.

Aligarh On The Boil

The explosion of an improvised bomb in a house, killing two children, 13 and 9, at Delhi Darwaza in Aligarh, shattered the fragile peace of the city once again. Police have also recovered the headless body of an aged woman, which was in a highly decomposed state. The father of the two children killed in the explosion is being interrogated by the police. This incident is a grim reminder of the fact that the peace imposed on the town through massive by police is not enduring.

Advertisement

Anti-Shah Riots

Police killed two persons and wounded five near the southern city of Shiraz in clashes with demonstrators demanding the ouster of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi amid simmering unrest in provincial areas, authorities reported in Teheran. Police opened fire on the protesters in the towns of Qir and Karzin, when they defied orders to disperse. The official news agency said that in the riots that followed, the anti-Shah protesters attacked government buildings and set several municipality cars on fire. Demonstrators burned a bank in the Persian Gulf oil refinery centre of Abadan, west of Shiraz, and attacked other banks and stores. Other anti-Shah demonstrations were reported in the holy city of Mashhad, near the Soviet border in north-east Iran, and Kermanshah, 416 km southwest of Teheran. Teheran remained calm with no protest reported.