The British government’s emergency committee is set to meet on Thursday after two attackers butchered a man in a brutal daylight attack in London that raised fears terrorism had returned to the capital.

Prime Minister David Cameron says there are strong indications it was an act of terrorism, and his top advisers will be examining the potential security implications of the attack, which took place near a London military barracks.

One of the attackers went on video to explain the crime — shouting political statements, gesturing with bloodied hands and waving a meat cleaver. Police shot and wounded the unidentified assailants and took them into custody.

Authorities did not identify the victim by name, but French President Francois Hollande referred to him as a “soldier” at a news conference in Paris with Cameron, who was visiting. Cameron would not confirm that, but British media say the victim was wearing a shirt in support of troops and Britain’s Ministry of Defense said it was investigating whether a UK soldier was involved.

Calling it “an appalling murder,” Cameron said there were “strong indications” it was an act of terrorism, and two other officials said there were signs the attack was motivated by radical Islam.

The incident unfolded on Wednesday afternoon when officers responded to reports of an assault just a few blocks from the Royal Artillery Barracks in the neighborhood of Woolwich.

Images from the scene showed a blue car that appeared to have been used in the attack, its hood crushed and rammed into a signpost on a sidewalk that was smeared with blood. A number of weapons — including butchers’ knives, a machete and a meat cleaver — were strewn on the street.

While there were moments of chaos — one local primary school went into lockdown when a teacher saw the victim’s body — the scene was striking in its normalcy. Pedestrians milled about with grocery bags and shopping carts as a body lay motionless in the street — and the attackers remained on the scene, wielding long knives.

Passers-by filmed what appeared to be one of the attackers, his hands covered in blood, making political statements about “an eye for an eye” as a body lay behind him.

Footage — obtained by ITV news and The Sun newspaper — showed a man in a dark jacket and knit cap walking toward a camera, clutching a meat cleaver and a knife. Speaking in English with a British accent, he apologized that women passers-by “have had to witness this” barbarity, saying that “in our land our women have to see the same.”

He gave no indication what that land was as he urged people to tell the government to “bring our troops back.” British troops are deployed in Afghanistan and recently supported the French-led intervention in Mali.

“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” the man declared. “We must fight them as they fight us.” The camera then panned away to show a body lying on the ground.

The Associated Press examined the footage to verify its authenticity, cross-referencing images from the scene, aerial shots, the location of a car behind the alleged attacker and the appearance of a body and a car in the background. There was no immediate way for the AP to verify who the cameraman was.

Other images showed the second suspect clutching a long knife as he engaged in conversation with a woman who British media said tried to intervene to prevent further bloodshed.

The Daily Telegraph identified the woman as Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, and said she confronted the attackers, telling them: “It is only you versus many people. You are going to lose.”

Saying she wanted to stop the suspect from attacking anyone else, she asked him if he “did it” and what he wanted.

“He said: ‘I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan. They have nothing to do there,”‘ she told the newspaper.

Britain has been at the heart of several terror attacks or plots in recent years, the most deadly being the 2005 rush-hour suicide bombings when 52 commuters were killed. More recently, Parviz Khan was convicted in 2008 of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier in Birmingham.

Some extremists have lashed out at Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Recently, groups have also criticized Britain’s assistance in the French-led mission to Mali to root out Islamic extremists in the north.

Britain’s prime minister said there were “strong indications” Wednesday’s attack was a terrorist incident.

“We have suffered these attacks before, we have always beaten them back,” Cameron said. “We will not be cowed, we will never buckle.”

Two UK government officials said the attack seemed to have been ideologically motivated by radical Islam, adding that the assessment was not based solely on video footage of one suspect making political statements against the British government. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.

Scotland Yard confirmed that counterterrorism officers were leading an investigation into the attack. Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the two men had been arrested and urged Londoners to remain calm. Both men were hospitalized, one in serious condition.

Late Wednesday, riot police fanned out in Woolwich as about 50 men waving the flag of the far-right English Defense League gathered, singing nationalistic songs and shouting obscenities about the Quran.

Muslim religious groups and charities were quick to condemn the attack and urged police to calm tensions. The Muslim Council of Britain called it a “barbaric act that has no basis in Islam,” adding that “no cause justifies this murder.”

The barracks near where the attack took place houses a number of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery and independent companies of the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. They were the site of shooting events during the 2012 London Olympics.

Fred Oyat, 44, who lives in a high-rise nearby, said he heard four gun shots and went straight to the window.

“I saw one man lying there bleeding, another lying on the pavement being disarmed. A policeman was pointing a gun at him. A third man was lying further up the street. … He was bleeding profusely,” Oyat said. “There were four knives on the ground — big kitchen knives. The knives were very bloody.”

David Dixon, headmaster at a nearby primary school, said he saw a body lying in the road outside. After making sure all students were inside, he quickly put the school into lockdown. He then heard shots fired, he told the BBC.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is called in when officers are involved in shootings, confirmed it was investigating the attack.

Witnesses recounted seeing the suspects — armed with meat cleavers and possibly a firearm — rushing toward police when officers arrived on the scene.

“He ran towards police before they could even get out of the car,” Julia Wilders told Britain’s Press Association.

Graham Wilders said he saw one of the suspects pull out a handgun.

“He didn’t fire the gun,” Wilders told the BBC. “They went for the police with a handgun. The police were the only ones who did any shooting.”

An FBI agent shot and killed a man of Chechen origin who turned violent while being questioned on Wednesday about his connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two Chechen brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.

A friend of the dead man identified him to local media as 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, who had previously lived in Boston and knew Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers suspected of planting two bombs at the marathon on April 15. Three people were killed and 264 injured in the attacks.

The shooting occurred in an apartment complex near the Universal Studios theme park, where the FBI and members of other law enforcement agencies including the Massachusetts State Police were interviewing the man about the marathon bombing.

“A violent confrontation was initiated by the individual,” the FBI said. A special agent, it said, “acting on the imminent threat posed by the individual, responded with deadly force. The individual was killed and the special agent was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.”

Authorities were also stepping up their investigation into possible connections between Tsarnaev, who died in a shootout with police, and an unsolved 2011 triple homicide in a Boston suburb that investigators believe was drug related.

NBC News reported on Wednesday that the man killed in Florida had confessed to the FBI that he had played a role in the 2011 murders. A U.S. government official close to the investigation had no immediate comment.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar are suspected of setting off two pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line. Dzhokhar is being held at a prison hospital west of Boston awaiting trial on charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

‘THEY JUST KNEW EACH OTHER’

The friend of the man who was shot Wednesday, Khusn Taramiv, said Todashev knew Tsarnaev because both were mixed martial-arts fighters but had no connection to the bombing.

“Back when he used to live in Boston, right, they used to hang out,” Taramiv told Central Florida News 13. “He met them few times ’cause he was MMA fighter the other guy was boxer, right. They just knew each other, that’s it.”

Taramiv said Todashev and others in the complex, some of whom were of Chechen origin, had been questioned several times by law enforcement agents since the day the Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the bombing suspects.

Law enforcement officials have also interviewed another person of Chechen origin, ex-rebel Musa Khadzhimuratov, at his home in New Hampshire, the New York Times reported last week. Khadzhimuratov had also had contact with Tsarnaev.

MURDER INVESTIGATION

Law enforcement agencies are also looking for clues linking Tsarnaev to a Sept. 12, 2011, triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts, where three men including a close friend of Tsarnaev were found stabbed in the neck in an apartment.

News reports said that marijuana was strewn over their bodies.

The possibility that Tsarnaev was connected to the Waltham murders is “being looked at seriously,” said Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the counter-terrorism and intelligence subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee. Other U.S. officials confirmed the investigation did involve Tsarnaev’s possible role.

A source said, however, that while Tsarnaev’s connection to the Waltham killings was actively under investigation, at this point there was no evidence to suggest the murders had any connection to the Tsarnaev brothers’ possible motives or actions in allegedly carrying out the marathon bombings.

A spokeswoman for the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, where the murders occurred, said that her office had been conducting an open and active homicide investigation in the case since 2011, and that local and state police investigators were involved. She declined to comment on possible involvement of federal agencies.

Before the Boston bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been listed on multiple U.S. government databases, including a master list of potential terrorism suspects. U.S. authorities also were asked twice by Russia to investigate Tsarnaev for possible involvement with Islamic militants, U.S. officials have said.

Also, on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to meet in Washington with Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russia’s interior minister. The meeting’s agenda was unclear, but U.S. investigators are anxious to learn what Russian authorities knew about the Tsarnaevs and about what Tamerlan Tsarnaev did during a six-month trip to Russia last year.

Twelve people, including eight police personnel, were killed and over 20 injured on Thursday in a powerful bombing in Pakistan‘s Quetta city.

The deafening explosion took place in Bhosa Mandi area of Quetta Thursday morning, DawnNews reported.

Fayyaz Sumbal, a senior police official, said militants targeted the vehicle of police‘s Rapid Response Force (RRF) through a remote control bomb.

The explosives were planted in a car that was parked on the roadside.

“When vehicle of RRF reached the spot there was a huge blast,” he was quoted as saying.

The blast destroyed police vehicles and nearby buildings.

“More than 100 kgs explosives were used in the blast,” a bomb disposal squad official told the daily.

The bombing took place when Pakistan is hosting the high-profile visit of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who arrived in Islamabad on a two-day trip on  Wednesday.

Two men with butcher knives hacked a man to death on Wednesday near a London military barrack and one of the attackers then went on video to explain the crime – shouting political statements, gesturing with bloodied hands and waving a meat cleaver. Soon after, arriving police shot and wounded the unidentified assailants and took them into custody.

The brutal daylight attack galvanized this city and raised fears that terrorism had returned to London.

Authorities did not identify the victim by name, but French President Francois Hollande referred to him as a “soldier” at a news conference in Paris with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron would not confirm that, but British media reported that the victim was wearing a shirt in support of troops and Britain’s ministry of defense said it was investigating whether a UK soldier was involved.

Calling it “an appalling murder,” Cameron said there were “strong indications” it was an act of terrorism, and two other officials said there were signs the attack was motivated by radical Islam.

The Cabinet’s emergency committee was immediately convened and security was stepped up at army barracks across London. Cameron cut short his Paris trip to return to London and his office said he would chair another session Thursday.

The incident unfolded Wednesday afternoon when officers responded to reports of an assault just a few blocks from the Royal Artillery Barracks in the neighborhood of Woolwich.

Images from the scene showed a blue car that appeared to have been used in the attack, its hood crushed and rammed into a signpost on a sidewalk that was smeared with blood. A number of weapons – including butchers’ knives, a machete and a meat cleaver – were strewn on the street.

While there were moments of chaos – one local primary school went into lockdown when a teacher saw the victim’s body – the scene was striking in its normalcy. Pedestrians milled about with grocery bags and shopping carts as a body lay motionless in the street – and the attackers remained on the scene, wielding long knives.

One British broadcaster ran video taken on a cellphone of what appeared to be one of the attackers, his hands covered in blood, making political statements about “an eye for an eye” as a body lay behind him.

Footage – obtained by ITV news and The Sun newspaper – showed a man in a dark jacket and knit cap walking toward a camera, clutching a meat cleaver and a knife. Speaking in English with a British accent, he apologized that women passers-by “have had to witness this” barbarity, saying that “in our land our women have to see the same.”

He gave no indication what that land was as he urged people to tell the government to “bring our troops back.” British troops are deployed in Afghanistan and recently supported the French-led intervention in Mali.

“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” the man declared. “We must fight them as they fight us.” The camera then panned away to show a body lying on the ground.

The Associated Press examined the footage to verify its authenticity, cross-referencing images from the scene, aerial shots, the location of a car behind the alleged attacker and the appearance of a body and a car in the background. There was no immediate way for the AP to verify who the cameraman was.

Other images showed the second suspect clutching a long knife as he engaged in conversation with a woman who British media said tried to intervene to prevent further bloodshed.

The Daily Telegraph identified the woman as Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, and said she confronted the attackers, telling them: “It is only you versus many people. You are going to lose.”

Saying she wanted to stop the suspect from attacking anyone else, she asked him if he “did it” and what he wanted. 

“He said: ‘I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan. They have nothing to do there,’” she told the newspaper.

Britain has been at the heart of several terror attacks or plots in recent years, the most deadly being the 2005 rush-hour suicide bombings when 52 commuters were killed. More recently, Parviz Khan was convicted in 2008 of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier in Birmingham.

Some extremists have lashed out at Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Recently, groups have also criticized Britain’s assistance in the French-led mission to Mali to root out Islamic extremists in the north.

Britain’s prime minister said there were “strong indications” Wednesday’s attack was a terrorist incident.

“We have suffered these attacks before, we have always beaten them back,” Cameron said. “We will not be cowed, we will never buckle.”

Two UK government officials said the attack seemed to have been ideologically motivated by radical Islam, adding that the assessment was not based solely on video footage of one suspect making political statements against the British government. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.

Scotland Yard confirmed that counterterrorism officers were leading an investigation into the attack. Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the two men had been arrested and urged Londoners to remain calm. Both were hospitalised, one in serious condition.

Late Wednesday, riot police fanned out in Woolwich as about 50 men waving the flag of the far-right English Defense League gathered, singing nationalistic songs and shouting obscenities about the Quran.

Muslim religious groups and charities were quick to condemn the attack and urged police to calm tensions. The Muslim Council of Britain called it a “barbaric act that has no basis in Islam,” adding that “no cause justifies this murder.”

The barracks where the attack took place house a number of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery and independent companies of the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. They were the site of shooting events during the 2012 London Olympics.

Fred Oyat, 44, who lives in a high-rise nearby, said he heard four gun shots and went straight to the window.

“I saw one man lying there bleeding, another lying on the pavement being disarmed. A policeman was pointing a gun at him. A third man was lying further up the street. … He was bleeding profusely,” Oyat said. “There were four knives on the ground – big kitchen knives. The knives were very bloody.”

David Dixon, head master at a nearby primary school, said he saw a body lying in the road outside. After making sure all students were inside, he quickly put the school into lockdown. He then heard shots fired, he told the BBC.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is called in when officers are involved in shootings, confirmed it was investigating the attack.

Witnesses recounted seeing the suspects – armed with meat cleavers and possibly a firearm – rushing toward police when officers arrived on the scene.

“He ran towards police before they could even get out of the car,” Julia Wilders told Britain’s Press Association.

Graham Wilders said he saw one of the suspects pull out a handgun.

“He didn’t fire the gun,” Wilders told the BBC. “They went for the police with a handgun. The police were the only ones who did any shooting.”

Elections to Panchayat Raj bodies, municipalities and corporations in Andhra Pradesh will be held in the next three months.

The Panchayat elections will be held next month followed by polls to municipal, city corporations, mandal and Zilla Parishads in August, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy said here today, speaking at a convention of party leaders organised by the state Congress.

The local body polls got delayed due to legal issues over quota of reservation for weaker sections.

He called upon Presidents of blocks, mandals, municipalities and city units of Congress, who gathered for the meet, to work unitedly to ensure the victory of party candidates in the much-awaited polls.

Referring to surveys conducted by some media organisations that predicted an unimpressive show by ruling Congress in AP, Reddy said there is no reason to feel disappointed over such findings.

Maintaining that surveys are not true representatives of public mood, he pointed out that Congress fared very well in the recent cooperative elections.

The Chief Minister stressed that grassroot level workers are like the foundations of an edifice.

Hitting out at YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), he said the party had the pictorial depiction of schemes in its flag which are already being implemented by the Congress Government.

The schemes were launched when late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was Chief Minister and his Government has further improved them.

Price of rice under a food security scheme has been reduced to Re 1 per kg from Rs 2/kg earlier and more funds have been provided for health insurance plan for the poor, the CM maintained.

Hitting out at TDP, Reddy alleged that the main its president, N Chandrababu Naidu, considered his ‘padayatra’ to be more important than the ‘SC/ST Sub-Plan Act’, which was passed by Assembly late last year in his absence in the House.

Speaking on the occasion, AICC Secretary K B Krishna Murthy asked the party cadres to inform the masses about various welfare programmes run by the state government.

“They say, ‘Modi is coming, Modi is coming’. We should be cautious,” he said.

At the meeting, party members raised issues like recognition for dedicated workers, party unity, effective campaign of government schemes, resolution of Telangana issue without further delay and filling up of nominated posts.

State Congress President B Satyanarayana said district-level party meetings will be held to take feedback from the participants.

Attacking YSR Congress, state Finance Minister A Ramanarayna Reddy said every Congress worker should become a “newspaper or news channel” to counter the campaign against Congress Government.

Krishna Murthy also launched the website of state Congress on the occasion.

A 27-year-old woman in Mumbai has committed suicide by hanging herself; her partner was witness to the tragedy via webcam.

The incident took place yesterday after the woman reportedly had an argument with her partner.

Police say the couple had secretly married in court recently, but the woman had continued to stay with her parents.

Her parents have alleged that there was a demand for dowry, and per their complaint, a dowry death case has been registered at the Juhu police station.

The woman‘s laptop has been seized and sent for examination.

More details are awaited.

Janta Party president Dr Subramaniyam Swami on Wednesday asked people of Kashmir to “forget Pakistan and live like true Indians”.

“The Kashmir problem is (Pt Jawaharlal) Nehru’s special gift to India. India, however, is not going to compromise on Kashmir. It is our part and we will take back that part of Kashmir as well which has been occupied by Pakistan illegally,” he said in a press conference in Srinagar on Wednesday.

Threatening “to wage a war with Pakistan“, he said the NDA government, which will come to power in the country, will form the next government will reconsider its policy on Kashmir. “What Nehru and Vajpayee did was past but from onwards there will be no talks on Kashmir issue with Pakistan. We will ask the NDA to change Kashmir policy,” he said.

“Kashmir is not a dispute. There should be no talks. It is our part and people of Kashmir should understand it well,” said Swami, an allay of the BJP.

He also claimed that Nehru took the issue of Kashmir yo the UN “without taking the then Cabinet into confidence”. “So those people who seek plebiscite should contact Nehru and not India for this purpose,” he added.

Swami, however, favoured dialogue with China saying that the talks between India and China involve border dispute and not Kashmir issue.

]]> http://canindia.com/2013/05/forget-pak-live-like-true-indian-swami-to-kashmiris/feed/ 0 http://canindia.com/2013/05/2006-malegaon-blasts-nia-overturns-version-of-maharashtra-ats-and-the-cbi/ http://canindia.com/2013/05/2006-malegaon-blasts-nia-overturns-version-of-maharashtra-ats-and-the-cbi/#comments Thu, 23 May 2013 07:06:19 +0000 Web Editor http://canindia.com/?p=95132 MUMBAI/NEW DELHI

The National Investigation Agency has charged four arrested right wing radicals for the 2006 Malegaon blasts, including two men described by Home Secretary RK Singh in January as those who were associated with Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.

This could now pave the way for the discharge of nine Muslim youth arrested earlier in the case.

Blasts in Malegoan on 8 September 2006 killed 31 people. The four men charge sheeted on Wednesday — Lokesh Sharma, Dhan Singh, Rajendra Chaudhary and Manohar Narwaria — are all residents of Indore.

In January, Singh had described Sharma and Chaudhary as former RSS functionaries in Madhya Pradesh. Two more persons listed as absconders and masterminds by NIA in their charge-sheet, Ramchandra Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, were also described by Singh then as ex-RSS functionaries.

The charge sheet, however, makes no mention of the RSS. The NIA charge sheet meanwhile completely overturns the theory of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the CBI, who had charge-sheeted nine Muslim men for the 2006 blasts. It is the only such case where Muslim youth were actually charge-sheeted for the crime by not one but two premier investigating agencies and the NIA has now overturned that version.

Wajahat Habibullah, the chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, told it was unfortunate that the innocent youth had to spend years in jail.

“This case is a blot on our policing system and on the fabric of our democratic system. The suspicion is that these innocent men were targeted only due to their religion. Indian state owes it to them to ensure their rehabilitation and reintegration in society. We could recommend compensation for them,” Habibullah told.

Maharashtra ATS had arrested nine Muslim youth for the Malegaon blasts saying it was a SIMI plot to cause a communal divide. The ATS filed a charge sheet on 21 December 2006 against the nine under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) in which confessions to police are admissible.

An accused, Abrar Ahmed Sayyed, confessed under MCOCA the involvement of all nine youth but later retracted saying he was made to confess under duress. The case was transferred to the CBI in 2006, which filed another charge sheet on 11 February 2010 against the same men.

In a dramatic turn of events in January 2011, a priest named Swami Asimamand confessed before a magistrate that the blasts in 2006 was the handiwork of right-wing terror elements and that Malegaon was chosen as a target as it would hit Muslims on Shab-e-Baraat day after Friday prayers.

The case was then transferred to NIA on 6 April 2011. Seven of the nine in jail since 2006, finally walked out on bail in November 2011. Two are still in jail. Last December, NIA arrested Rajendra Chaudhary and Dhan Singh from Madhya Pradesh. Investigations revealed that both of them had planted explosives on a bicycle in Malegaon in 2006.

Manohar Nawaria bought the explosives and transported them. The fourth accused, Lokesh Sharma, is also an accused in the Samjhauta, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer blasts. The ATS and CBI, besides charge-sheeting nine arrested Muslim youth for the Malegaon blasts, had also listed four Muslim men as absconders, including a Pakistan-based terrorist named Muzammil.

The suspension of a police inspector who had filed a case against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s son in the run-up to the elections has triggered a controversy and threatens to snowball into a political storm.

The Nazarbad police inspector, Mohan, had filed a case against Mr. Siddaramaiah’s son, Rakesh, on May 3 consequent to a complaint filed by Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) candidate K.P. Siddalingaswamy, who contested against Mr. Siddaramaiah in the Varuna Assembly constituency.

The complainant had alleged that he was stopped and attacked by Congress workers, including Mr. Rakesh, when he was coming to Mysore.

He had also staged a protest in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office seeking action against the Congress workers.

Following the complaint, a case was filed against 14 Congress workers, including Mr. Rakesh, on the charge of attempt to murder under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code.

The case is still under investigation but the police inspector was placed under suspension recently and a section of police have attributed this to the case filed against the Chief Minister’s son.

There is speculation that Mr. Siddaramaiah brought pressure on the police as he was incensed by the police inspector’s action of filing a case on the charge of attempt to murder.

Commissioner of Police K.L. Sudheer was not available for his reaction.

Meanwhile, the issue has come in handy for politicians to take on the Congress government.

State Janata Dal (Secular) president H.D. Kumaraswamy during his campaign at Periyapatana, which is going to the polls on May 28, said that the suspension of the police inspector for doing his duty amounted to misuse of political power.

Mr. Kumaraswamy wondered how government officials or the police could discharge their duty in such an atmosphere.

President Pranab Mukherjee will visit this hill town for one-and-a-half days beginning Thursday. During his stay, he will get a taste of British era heritage.

Mukherjee will stay at The Retreat, the summer holiday resort of the president, on the outskirts of Shimla, an official said.

Constructed in 1850, The Retreat was once the summer residence of the British viceroys when this hill town was the summer capital of British India.

“The president will visit the historic Barnes Court, the Vidhan Sabha, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and Himachal Pradesh University Friday,” the official said.

Barnes Court is where the Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan was inked after the 1971 war. It is now the residence of Governor Urmila Singh, who is hosting a dinner in honour of Mukherjee Thursday.

Constructed in 1832, this elegant building was the residence of former lieutenant governor of Punjab Sir Louis Dane.

 During his visit, Mukherjee will address the assembly.

The Council Chamber, the building which houses the state legislative assembly, was inaugurated by Lord Reading, the then viceroy of India, August 27, 1925.

The President will also deliver a lecture at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS) that is housed in the century-old Viceregal Lodge.

Built during the viceroyship of Lord Dufferin, the Viceregal Lodge is among the most impressive buildings built by the British here.

“President Pranab Mukherjee will deliver the first Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Lecture and open a study centre-cum-museum dedicated to the life and works of Rabindranath Tagore,” said IIAS’s public relations officer A.K. Sharma.

Later, the President will visit Himachal Pradesh University where he will be the chief guest and deliver the convocation address.