Regional

Amaravati, Jan 14 (IANS) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his wife Y. S. Bharati Reddy celebrated Sankranti at the chief minister's official residence here on Saturday amidst rural ambience and festive spirit.

The Chief Minister extended Sankranti greetings to all Telugu people across the world and wished them well on the occasion.

Reflecting the Sankranti opulence, the chief minister's official residence was decked up with flowered arches and traditional Muggulu.

The CM and his wife initiated the festivities by breaking the customary coconut at Lord Ganesha temple. Vedic Pundits blessed them by reciting Vedic hymns and presenting them new clothes.

Attired in traditional attire, they walked through the premises greeting the guests individually and accepting their wishes in return. They lit the traditional bonfire.

YSRCP leaders, including Government Chief Whip Chevireddy Bhaskara Reddy, Deputy Chief Minister (Endowments) Kottu Satyanarayana, Housing Minister Jogi Ramesh, TTD Chairman Y.V. Subba Reddy, MP Nandigam Suresh and Government Whip Samineni Udayabhanu were among the participants.

Earlier, the Chief Minister and his wife performed Go-Puja (cow worship) at the Goshala by garlanding it. On the occasion, they offered Bhiksha to Hari dasu and the Sankranti Gangireddu.

They also inspected the replicas of Village Secretariat, Government School, Village Clinic and Rythu Bharosa Kendram specially erected on the premises.

They also witnessed the dance drama of Srinivasa Kalyanam and listened to the popular numbers Gobbi YelloaGobbi Yello rendered by folk singer Kanakavva and Komma Uyyala by RRR fame singers Prakruti Redy and Harinka Narayan.

--IANS
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Hyderabad, Jan 10 (IANS) The first public meeting of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) will be held in Khammam on January 18, where Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is likely to unveil the party's national agenda.

Telangana's ruling party has started making arrangements for massive mobilisation of people for the meeting, the first after Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) rechristened itself as BRS to foray into national politics.

BRS was formally launched last month by Chandrasekhar Rao with the slogan of 'ab ki baar kisan sarkar'. KCR, as Rao is popularly known, is likely to declare at the Khammam meeting what BRS plans to do for the development of agriculture and welfare of farmers.

KCR, who has already promised that if voted to power at the Centre BRS would supply free electricity to farmers across the country, is expected to promise more measures to woo the farming community.

The BRS chief has invited leaders of friendly parties for the public meeting. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwanth Singh Mann, Kerala Chief Minister Pinyari Vijayan are likely to address the rally.

Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhlesh Yadav and former Chief Minister of Karnataka, H.D. Kumaraswamy, who were present at the inauguration of BRS national office in Delhi on December 14, have also been invited to address the public meeting.

Political analysts say the choice of Khammam for the first public meeting of BRS assumes significance as despite winning two terms in power, BRS is considered weak in this region where a sizable population are either migrants from Andhra Pradesh or have strong bonds with the neighbouring states.

KCR may be looking at not only strengthening the party in Khammam district but may also use the platform to address people in Andhra Pradesh.

BRS announced its entry into Andhra Pradesh on January 2 with former minister Ravela Kishore Babu, former IAS officer Thota Chandrasekhar and former IRS officer Chintala Partha Sarathi joining the party. KCR appointed Chandrasekhar as the BRS state president for Andhra Pradesh.

BRS leaders in Khammam have started making arrangements for the success of the first public meeting of the party.

Khammam district minister P. Ajay Kumar, MPs, MLAs, MLCs and other key leaders met KCR and thanked him for deciding to hold the big public meeting in Khammam.

According to a statement from the chief minister's office late on Monday night, they discussed the arrangements to make the public meeting an unprecedented success. KCR made many suggestions to the Khammam leaders in this regard.

Ministers Puvvada Ajay Kumar, Harish Rao, Vemula Prashanth Reddy, MPs Nama Nageshwar, Bandi Partha Sarathi Reddy, Rao, Vaviraju Ravichandra and party legislators attended the meeting.

--IANS
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Kolkata, Jan 10 (IANS) Based on the inputs from Mohammad Saddam and Syed Ahmed, the two Islamic State (IS) linkmen arrested from West Bengal's Howrah district on January 7, the Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police arrested an important link of the terror module from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh.

The arrest was made on Monday night, and the person has been identified as Abdul Raqib Qureshi. The STF sleuths are bringing him to Kolkata on a transit remand on Tuesday only, city police source said.

It is learnt that Qureshi has been booked under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and Section 121 (waging or attempting to wage war or abetting waging of war against Indian government) of the Indian Penal Code.

"Before his active association with IS, Qureshi was a senior and active leader of the banned outfit, Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and he was the key person in inspiring Mohammad Saddam to join the IS. Later Saddam brainwashed and roped in Syed Ahmed to the terror module," the city police source said.

It is learnt that besides brainwashing local youths to join the IS, Qureshi was also responsible for procuring arms and distribution of the same to the new recruits.

Meanwhile, from the diary seized from the residence of Mohammad Saddam, the STF sleuths have tracked an oath statement of joining the IS, which was written in Arabic.

Mohammad Saddam and Syed Ahmed were arrested on Saturday afternoon by the STF sleuths while the two were on their way to attend a secret meeting at Khidirpur area in Kolkata.

Earlier, the STF sleuths recovered from their devices, crucial clues on how the two, especially Mohammad Saddam, used to contact his IS handlers in Syria and Saudi Arabia using the Telegram Web medium. The recovery of such crucial clues, especially the ones related to the videos and still photographs about the activities of the suicide squad modules of IS have kept the investigating sleuths worried.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) A Mumbai man was honey-trapped by a woman and forced to smuggle cocaine worth Rs 28.10 crore from Ethiopia into India.

This came to light when the man was held with 2.81 kg of cocaine by the Customs officials at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai after his arrival from Ethiopia.

A customs official on the condition of anonymity, told IANS that the 49-year-old man, a Mumbai resident, had met a woman on social media. Soon they became friends and the woman lured him to come to Ethiopia.

The man left his private job and went there to meet her. But, on reaching there, when he tried to contact the woman, she told him that she was in Mumbai only. Some men there forced him to carry the bag which had the cocaine in it. The man had no choice but to carry the bag, said a source.

"He was sent back to Mumbai with the cocaine consignment. The accused concealed cocaine in a duffle bag. It was intercepted by the customs officials on the basis of intelligence surveillance," said the official.

The official said that during the investigation he broke down and told the officials that a woman was forcing him to do all this. He said that he was being blackmailed.

"The man has violated provisions of section 8 of the NDPS Act, and has committed an offence punishable under Section 21, Section 23 and Section 29 of NDPS Act. Accordingly, he was placed under arrest. The said the drugs, which is cocaine, has been seized along with concealing material under section 43(a) of NDPS Act," said the official.

The official said that they have informed the local police about the honey-trap matter to investigate.

--IANS
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Kolkata, Jan 10 (IANS) Based on intelligence inputs, the cops of Golabari Police station in Kolkata, adjacent Howrah district, have arrested nine illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from near Howrah station late on Monday night. A local Indian agent was also arrested.

District police sources said that they received information that these nine illegal Bangladeshi immigrants arrived at Howrah with the intention of settling there. Accordingly, the cops of the Golabari Police station started keeping a watch in the areas adjacent to Howrah station.

During that screening process they noticed two cars. They stopped the cars and demanded identity proof from the commuters. After that, it was revealed that nine of the ten passengers were illegal Bangladeshi residents, of which six were men and three were women. They have been booked under various sections of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

District police source said that none of them had proper documents to come to India and the local agent arrested along with them helped in crossing the border illegally.

"Preliminary investigation has revealed that they were basically economic immigrants and the local agent arrested was supposed to take them to Bangalore for employment," a district police official said.

They are being interrogated now to ascertain how they illegally crossed the border, especially the area through which they infiltrated. They will be presented at a lower court in Howrah district on Tuesday. The police as per rules will be informing the matter to the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata.

--IANS
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Bengaluru, Jan 10 (IANS) Karnataka Police have booked an FIR and launched a hunt for a man who has been accused of deliberately running his car over a dog and killing it in Bengaluru, police said on Tuesday.

According to police, the incident took place on January 7 and came to light lately after the video of the gruesome incident went viral on social media.

The video shows the street dog sleeping in the middle of the road, trying to move away after knowing the car is coming towards it. The car driver, after observing the dog moving away, increases the speed and crushes it under wheels intentionally.

The dog under the wheel died on the spot. The efforts of locals to help the dog have gone in vain. The locals said that if the car driver would have given a horn, or slowed down a bit, the dog would have moved away.

The police have identified the car registration number (KA 05 MP 5836) and launched a hunt for the driver.

--IANS
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Jamnagar, Jan 10 (IANS) After almost nine hours of detailed inspection, agencies on Tuesday confirmed that no suspicious object has been found in Goa-bound Russia's Azur Airlines flight and termed the bomb threat email a "hoax call".

The flight will soon be cleared for take-off.

Jamnagar District Collector Saurabh Pardhi said, "NSG and State Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) teams have thoroughly inspected the ZF2401 flight and found no suspicious substance. The flight will soon be given clearance and most probably by 10 to 10.30 a.m, it will be permitted to take off from Jamnagar airport for Goa."

On Monday night, Goa ATC had received an email intimating that there is a bomb on a Russian flight that took off from Moscow and is going to land at Goa. The flight was diverted to Jamnagar airport where it made an emergency at 10.50 p.m.

Jamnagar BDDS team and later NSG team carried out a detailed inspection that lasted till Tuesday morning.

---IANS
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Srinagar, Jan 10 (IANS) Heavy morning fog enveloped Jammu and Srinagar cities on Tuesday affecting normal life, including air, surface and even pedestrian movement in the twin cities.

Jammu and Kashmir is likely to receive rain and snow in the next 24 hours, the Meteorological (MeT) office said on Tuesday.

"Mainly cloudy sky with light rain/snow is likely during the next 24 hours," an official of the MeT department said.

Srinagar had 1.8, Pahalgam minus 3.2 and Gulmarg minus 4.4 degrees Celsius as the minimum temperature.

In Ladakh region, Kargil had minus 9.4 and Leh minus 7.6 as the minimum temperature.

Jammu had 6.6, Katra 7.6, Batote 4.2, Banihal 0.8 and Bhaderwah 3 as the minimum temperature.

--IANS
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Pilibhit (UP), Jan 10 (IANS) A 33-year-old man was killed and dragged away by an adult male tiger to a nearby sugarcane field in Tanda Bijesi village of the district.

The incident took place under Neuria police limits.

Local forest officials said that the missing man's body was recovered from the cane field, half eaten by the big cat.

The corpse of the victim, Gokul Malik, was later sent for autopsy.

According to his family, Malik had gone for work to neighbouring Bangawan village in Uttarakhand. When he did not return home on Sunday, his family started looking for him.

Divisional forest officer of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, Naveen Khandelwal, and wildlife division Sanjeev Kumar and police officers reached the spot to collect information.

A team of forest officials from Uttarakhand also visited the place.

Following the incident, forest officials have deployed three field teams to monitor the tiger's movement and the Wildlife Trust of India has installed four camera traps.

Officials said, "The tiger might have strayed from the Surai range and retreated to the forest. We are collecting more information about it. Pug marks were measured to be 13x13cm which indicates that it was an adult male tiger."

Chief conservator of forest (Bareilly zone), Lalit Verma, said, "The tiger might attack another villager again. We are trying to monitor the movement for the next 48 hours through camera traps, field units. If we find the big cat near some other village, we'll immediately seek permission from the chief wildlife warden to tranquilise and relocate it to another forest."

--IANS
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Maharajganj (Uttar Pradesh), Jan 10 (IANS) In a bizarre incident, a Class 8 student forced his way into the house of a Class 6 girl, and applied 'sindoor' (vermilion) on her forehead at knife point in Maharajganj district.

The 16-year-old boy has been detained by the police after the girl's father lodged a report.

Station house officer, Maharajganj, Ravi Kumar Rai, said the boy, along with a friend, reached the house of the 14-year-old girl.

"The girl was sweeping the floor when the boys scaled the boundary wall of her house. One of them put a knife on the girl's throat and applied vermilion on her forehead," Rai said.

The girl got terrified and raised an alarm but before anyone could reach there, the boys managed to escape.

When the girl's father, who is a driver, returned home after work, she narrated her ordeal to him," the SHO said.

The girl's father lodged an FIR on charges of outraging modesty, threatening, and voyeurism, and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.

Rai said that on the basis of CCTV footage, the motorcycle on which the boys had reached the girl's house was identified.

"A police team traced the boy and picked him up. His father owns a footwear shop," he added.

The boy was produced before a child welfare committee and has been kept in a juvenile home.

Rai said that the boy showed no remorse for the act and said that he loved the girl and wanted to marry her.

According to police, the boy had been constantly harassing the girl by stalking and proposing to her for the last three months.

When the girl's parents came to know about it, they admitted her to another school but did not lodge a police complaint.

--IANS
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