Regional

Chandigarh, Feb 26 (IANS) Hours after the broad daylight high-profile killing of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Haryana President and two-time MLA Nafe Singh Rathi and his associate by car-borne in Bahadurgarh, the police has booked seven persons.

Also a CCTV footage has emerged which shows the movements of assailants in a Hyundai i10 just before the crime.

The case was registered against former Bahadurgarh MLA Naresh Kaushik, Ramesh Rathi, Sathish Rathi, and Rahul, among others.

INLD Chief’s son Jitendra Rathi said they will not perform the last rites of his father until the names of the accused mentioned in the FIR are arrested and the family is provided security. He blamed local politicians behind the crime.

This case has been registered on the statement of Rathi’s car driver and his nephew Rakesh.

Police said that five teams led by two Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSPs) to arrest the accused.

The police have also examined the CCTV footage near Barahi village in which the assailants were seen parking the car behind Rathi's car and they were seen running away in the same car after the crime.

Nafe Singh Rathi was sitting in the front seat of his SUV when the assailants waylaid the vehicle near the Barahi level-crossing and opened indiscriminate firing from close range.

--IANS

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Kolkata, Feb 26 (IANS) Ajit Maiti, the local Trinamool Congress leader from Sandeshkhali, who was detained by the police, was finally arrested on Monday.

Maiti was detained on Sunday evening to keep him safe from the rage of local women.

Officially, the district police have claimed that he was interrogated throughout the night on the allegation of illegal and forceful land grabbing against him by the local villagers and finally was officially arrested on Monday morning.

He will be presented at a lower district court on Monday only where police will seek his custody.

Maiti is the third Trinamool Congress leader from Sandeshkhali who has been arrested following allegations of forceful grabbing of farmland, illegal conversion of land into pisciculture farms and sexual harassment of women.

Earlier, the cops arrested two other local Trinamool Congress leaders, Uttam Sardar and Shibu Hazra.

Maiti’s rescue by the cops in the form of detention on Sunday evening was packed with high drama. Chased by the local villagers, especially women, Maiti locked himself in a room. The villagers assembled in front of the locked room.

Even as the police made all attempts to persuade the villagers to move away from the place, the villagers did not relent, and continued assembling on the doorsteps of Maiti's residence.

Eventually, when the people calmed down a little, the police intervened.

The police personnel persuaded Maiti to come out of his room. After he stepped out, he was detained and was taken to the police station.

--IANS

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Prayagraj, Feb 26 (IANS) The Allahabad High Court on Monday rejected the plea filed by Muslim side challenging the Varanasi court order allowing Hindu parties to offer prayers and puja in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi Mosque.

Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal delivered the verdict.

The single-judge had reserved order in the matter on February 15.

The plea was filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee challenging a January 31 district court order, permitting the conduct of Hindu prayers in the southern cellar or basement (tehkhana) of the Gyanvapi Mosque.

The said order was passed amid an ongoing civil court case involving conflicting claims over the religious character of the Gyanvapi compound.

Among other claims, the Hindu side has said that Hindu prayers were earlier offered by the family of one Somnath Vyas in the mosque's cellar until 1993, when the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government allegedly stopped it.

The Muslim side has opposed this claim and maintained that Muslims have always had possession over the mosque's building.

The main dispute over the Gyanvapi compound involves a claim by the Hindu side that a section of an ancient temple on the said land was destroyed during the rule of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century.

The Muslim side has maintained that the mosque predated Aurangzeb's reign and that it had endured various alterations over time.

Following the Varanasi district court's order on January 31 which allowed priests to perform prayers before the idols in the southern cellar of Gyanvapi, religious ceremonies were performed on the mosque's premises at midnight on February 1.

Later, the southern cellar was opened to devotees.

On February 13, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also visited the Gyanvapi premises and worshipped at the 'Vyas Ka Tekhana'.

--IANS

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Mumbai, Feb 26 (IANS) Dharmendra may be counted among the 'veteran' Hindi cinema stars, but he has just shown that he's very much 'with-it'.

In a recent Instagram post, Dharmendra gave an AI spin to an image he shared with his fans and followers.

In the image, a younger version of Bollywood’s 'He-Man', reminiscent of the days when he was famous for his macho good looks, can be seen lounging in a convertible car dressed in denim pants and jacket paired with a crisp white shirt. He did not share any caption for the picture.

Dharmendra, who was most recently seen in Karan Johar's 'Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani', also shared a picture of his grandson Karan Deol, where he is smiling ear-to ear.

The 88-year-old star captioned it: "Love you Rock, for your new charisma looks. Jeete raho."

Karan is the elder son of actor Sunny Deol and his wife Pooja. He made his acting debut in 2019 with 'Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas'. Last year in June, Karan got married to his longtime lady love (and filmmaking legend Bimal Roy's granddaughter) Drisha Acharya.

The reception was attended by the who's who of Bollywood such as Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh, among many others.

--IANS

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Chennai, Feb 26 (IANS) The DMK, which aims at a clean sweep in the upcoming general elections, will conduct seat sharing talks with its alliance partners on Monday.

The Dalit political party, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), the left parties, CPI and CPI-M and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leaders will hold talks with the DMK leadership led by former Union Minister T.R. Baalu at the DMK headquarters in Chennai.

The DMK leadership will also hold a similar meeting with the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) leadership on Tuesday.

The DMK is adamant on not allocating the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat to the CPI-M for the upcoming general elections.

Sources said that the DMK has told CPI-M leaders that they can contest from Madurai and another seat but not from Coimbatore. The CPI-M State Secretary K. Balakrishnan has however said that the party is keen to contest from Coimbatore.

The CPI is likely to get the Nagpattinam and Tiruppur, the two seats it is representing since 2019.

The DMK has also been holding discussions with Tamil super star and President of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan. The DMK leadership is keen that Kamal Haasan should contest the elections along with its alliance from either Coimbatore or from one of three seats in Chennai.

Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) will be contesting on two seats. Party founder Thol Thirumavalan and General Secretary C. Ravikumar -- sitting MPs are likely to be fielded again from these seats.

In the 2019 general elections, DMK led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) won 38 of the 39 seats from Tamil Nadu. The party is expecting a clean sweep in the upcoming election by winning all the 39. The party leadership is conducting several layers of screening before finalising on the seat distribution among allies.

--IANS

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Bengaluru, Feb 26 (IANS) Three persons died and six people were injured after the tempo they were travelling in overturned when one of the tyres burst on the national highway in the outskirts of Davanagere city in Karnataka on Monday

The injured persons were being treated at the KIMS Hospital in Hubballi city.

According to police, the condition of one of the injured persons was critical. Police said the injured hailed from Singarajanahalli in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district.

The incident took place on the Bengaluru-Pune National Highway 48 near Punjabi Dhaba in the outskirts of Davanagere.

The victims were transporting Byadagi chillies from Karnataka's Haveri district. The identity of the deceased and injured persons are yet to be ascertained.

The police have taken up further investigation.

More details are yet to emerge regarding the incident.

--IANS

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Panaji, Feb 26 (IANS) Goa's Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phal Dessai said on Sunday that performance and intelligence are not linked to any specific language.

Minister Phal Dessai was speaking during an educational programme in South Goa's Ponda.

"We send our children to 'big schools' only because they teach them to speak good English; we have a misunderstanding that mere speaking good English makes students expert. If they speak good English, it doesn’t mean that they may be good in performance and intelligence. So don't link intelligence with language," he said.

He said that "our intelligence is not related to any specific language and hence parents need to imbibe 'Sanskars' in them".

"We need to identify the talent they possess and encourage them in that field," the minister added.

"People of my age will admit that we did our primary education in Government Primary school in Marathi language and then in fifth standard, we started learning the basics of English. To learn this we spent around six months of our academic year. We struggled to learn English. But today we can communicate in English," he said.

Minister Phal Dessai urged parents to not take the stress of getting their children admitted to big schools just to make them speak good English.

He said that along with academics other things should also be taught to the students.

--IANS

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Srinagar, Feb 9 (IANS) In a proverbial cheat vs. cheat style, two groups of cheats trying to dupe each other were arrested by police in J&K’s Ganderbal district on Friday.

Twelve people of two groups of thugs planning to dupe each other were arrested on the spot by police in Ganderbal district when one group was selling a fake ‘magical stone’ claimed to bring fortune and the other group was buying it with fake currency notes.

Sandeep Gupta, SSP (Ganderbal) said that at least 12 persons were arrested in the Kangan area of Ganderbal district while selling a fake ‘magical stone’ and others buying it with fake currency notes.

“An information was received by Police Station Kangan through reliable sources that some persons are moving in a suspicious manner at Kijpara, behind Dumping Park.

“Acting swiftly, a special Police team was constituted under the supervision of SDPO Kangan, Muzaffar Jan led by station house officer Kangan, Turk Zahoor that raided the spot and apprehended 12 persons who were roaming in suspicious conditions. Among the arrested persons is one policeman identified as Riyaz Ahmad Mir.

“During the search of apprehended persons, 30 bundles of Rs 50,000 each, which constitutes a total Rs 15,00,000 fake currency notes of Children Bank & total cash of Rs 56,600 (Indian currency) were recovered from their possession,

“Further, five vehicles used by the accused in the commission of crime have also been seized on the spot.

“A case under FIR number 08/2024 under relevant sections of law has been registered in Kangan police station”.

--IANS

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Kolkata, Feb 9 (IANS) Border Security Force on Friday said that they have seized smuggled snake venom worth Rs 12 crore from an Indo- Bangladesh bordering pocket at Hili in South Dinajpur district in the northern sector of West Bengal.

BSF said that one accused was arrested from whom the crystal jar containing the snake venom was seized. He has been handed over to the state forest department officials.

The arrested person has been identified as Tapan Adhikari (51).

It is learnt that the special crystal jar containing the snake venom consignment was made in France. State Forest Department sleuths suspect that in all probability the consignment was brought there to be smuggled to China via Nepal.

The Ranger of Balurghat forest division Sukanta Ojha said that the person was arrested with the snake venom consignment by 61 Battalion BSF.

“He is a resident of Trimohini which falls under Hili Police Station. He will be presented to a lower district court on Friday only. The seized consignment is being sent to Mumbai for examination purposes,” he said.

Sources said that this is the third incident of seizure of smuggled snake venom consignment in the last 14 months.

In September 2022, the officials at the forest sector in Jalpaiguri district seized snake venom worth Rs 13 crore.

In October 2022, the officials had seized smuggled snake venom of estimated market value of around Rs 30 crore from Ghoshpukur forest range area at Phansidewa community development block in the plains of Darjeeling district.

--IANS

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Hyderabad, Feb 9 (IANS) Legislators of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) arrived in autorickshaws to attend the Budget session of the state legislature on Friday.

Members of the Assembly and Council belonging to the main opposition party travelled in three-wheelers to reach the Assembly building to draw the government's attention to problems faced by autorickshaw drivers due to implementation of Mahalakshmi scheme under which women are allowed to travel free in TSRTC buses.

The MLAs and MLCs were carrying placards demanding the government to come to the rescue of autorickshaw drivers.

After reaching the Assembly in a three-wheeler from MLA Quarters, former minister and Siddipet MLA T. Harish Rao told media persons that 6.5 lakh autorickshaw drivers were literally on roads due to the Congress government’s scheme.

He demanded that the government provide monthly financial assistance of Rs 10,000 each to autorickshaw drivers.

The BRS legislators also demanded Rs.15 lakh ex-gratia each to the families of autorickshaw drivers who committed suicide after implementation of the scheme.

There was tension at the Assembly gate as BRS legislators were prevented by security personnel from entering the Assembly building with placards. This led to an argument between both sides.

The MLAs and MLCs attended the session wearing black scarves to show solidarity with autorickshaw drivers.

Earlier, the BRS MLAs staged a protest at MLA Quarters Hyderguda. They raised slogans, demanding the government to allocate funds in the State Budget for autorickshaw drivers.

--IANS

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