New Delhi (IANS) A 39-year-old Muslim cleric has been arrested for carrying a bullet while attending Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Janta Darbar, police said on Tuesday.

“The accused, Imran, along with 12 other Imam and Maulavi on Monday had visited the Delhi Chief Minister’s Janta Darbar seeking an increase the salary of the Delhi Waqf Board staff,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Nupur Prasad said.

“During frisking a security officer found a bullet in Imran’s wallet. He was handed over to the police,” Prasad said.

At his interrogation, Imran revealed that he lives in Seelampur and worked as a caretaker in the Bawli Wali mosque in Karol Bagh.

He told the police he had found the bullet in a donation box three months ago and kept it in his wallet. He intended to throw it away in the Yamuna waters but later forgot.

He has been booked under the Arms Act, the officer said.

New Delhi It was a misty morning here on Tuesday with the air quality dipping to very poor levels with haze, as the Met recorded the minimum temperature at 10.7 degree Celsius, a notch above average.

“The sky will remain partly cloudy, but there is no chance of any rainfall,” an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said adding that there was shallow fog at day break.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi continued to breathe ‘very poor’ air with the AQI (Air Quality Index) being at 358. The major air pollutants were PM 2.5 and PM 10.

The maximum temperature was likely to hover around 28 degrees Celsius and the humidity at 8.30 a.m. was 93 per cent.

Monday’s maximum temperature settled at 26.8 degrees, a notch above season’s average, while the minimum temperature was recorded at 10.5 degree Celsius, a notch below the season’s average.

[IANS]

Mumbai President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress on Monday paid tributes to the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai terror carnage on its 10th anniversary.

In a message, President Kovind said his “thoughts are with the families and individuals who suffered”.

“We salute those from the police and security forces who made the supreme sacrifice that day. India remains honour bound to securing justice and defeating terrorism.”

He said that the day also marks the 70th anniversary of the adoption of Indian Constitution.

“Let us make the coming year worth this anniversary by giving the Constitutional ethic a greater salience in all our thinking, all our action,” the President urged.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to those who lost their lives in the gruesome terror attack.

“Our solidarity with the bereaved families. A grateful nation bows to our brave police and security forces who valiantly fought the terrorists during the Mumbai attacks,” Modi said.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a message: “Solemnly remembering the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. My heartfelt gratitude and salutations to the security personnel, bravehearts, NSG commandos, police, firefighters and above all the citizens of Mumbai. Lest We Forget.”

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis saluted the brave security forces and martyrs who gave a fitting reply to the perpetrators.

“After the attacks, Mumbai’s security has been accorded top priority. The city is now under strict CCTV monitoring and we are committed to intensify our war against terror,” Fadnavis added, referring to the enhanced efforts to secure the country’s commercial capital.

State Congress President Ashok Chavan and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan paid tributes and said “the nation and its people would never forget the extreme sacrifices of their heroes in defending the nation”.

State President of Nationalist Congress Party Jayant Patil, Leader of Opposition in Council Dhananjay Munde and other senior leaders like Ajit Pawar visited the 26/11 martyrs memorial at Chowpatty.

Several functions are being held in the city and other parts of the state on Monday to remember the 26/11 carnage and pray for the 166 victims who perished in the 60-hour long attacks carried out by 10 Pakistani terrorists at multiple locations in south Mumbai, shocking the global community.

(IANS)

New Delhi Delhi Chief Minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Monday thanked party workers on the sixth year of its founding and said the “political revolution” was moving forward to rid the nation of corruption, communalism, and casteism.

“Aam Aadmi Party’s journey began six years ago on this very day. This political revolution is moving forward to rid the nation of corruption, communalism, and casteism, with the support of lakhs of workers and well-wishers who have worked selflessly,” he said in a tweet.

The party also thanked all its supporters for being with it throughout the “ups and downs in the six years”.

AAP was formally launched on this day in 2012. It made its electoral debut in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly polls.

(IANS)

New York Timed for the tenth anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai attack on Monday, the US government has announced a $5 million-bounty covering all the terrorists connected with it.

The reward offered under the State Department’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) Programme is for “any individual who committed, conspired to commit, or aided or abetted in the execution” of the attack that killed 166 people, a Department media note said on Sunday.

This is the third RFJ bounty from the State Department on terrorists involved in the Mumbai attack carried out by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as it casts a wider net beyond its leaders.

In 2012, the Department put a bounty of $10 million on LeT founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and $2 million on his deputy, Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki.

The rewards have not worked so far and Saeed operates openly in Pakistan, leaving the effectiveness of the latest steps open to question.

Under international pressure, the Pakistani Punjab government put him under house arrest in January in 2017 but a review board headed by a Lahore High Court judge ordered his release in November that year.

Saeed has also been declared an international terrorist by the UN Security Council.

Before the Mumbai attack, the US had designated the LeT as a terrorist organisation in 2001 and imposed sanctions on it and the UN Security Council followed suit in 2005.

The RFJ website, which said the “reward offer extends to any individual who bears responsibility for this act of terror”, mentioned four persons, who, it said, have been indicted by a US federal court.

They are Sajid Mir, Major Iqbal, Abu Qahafa and Mazhar Iqbal (alias Abu al-Qama).

The RJF website said that Mir was the handler for Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, who was sent by the LeT on a spying mission to India to prepare for the attacks.

Ten heavily-armed terrorists, sneaked in through the Arabian Sea and attacked multiple locations within a small geographical area, killing 166 persons — including Indian security personnel and 26 foreign nationals — and left another 300 injured, besides inflicting huge damage to public and private properties.

Headley, whose original name was Daood Sayed Gilani, is serving a 35-year prison sentence in the US for his role in the Mumbai attack and in a terrorism conspiracy against a Danish newspaper.

(IANS)

Mumbai Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray accompanied by his wife Rashmi and son Aditya, embarked on a high-profile visit to Ayodhya on Saturday, aimed at grabbing centre-stage in the demand for constructing the Ram Temple as elections approach.

They took a flight to Faizabad from where they will drive down for an engagement at the Laxman Killa in Ayodhya, and later perform a ‘maha-aarti’ on the banks of Sarayu river on Saturday evening.

At the Laxman Killa, he will be felicitated by a large number of Hindu holy men, besides common people and perform a puja there.

On Sunday morning, Thackeray will go for a darshan of Ram Lalla accompanied by local party leaders, sants and sadhus, interact with the media and later with the public, though plans for a public rally were not finalised yet.

For the Ayodhya visit, Thackeray is carrying an urn containing the earth from the Shivneri Fort – the birthplace of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Pune district of Maharashtra.

Over 4,000 Shiv Sainiks from Maharashtra, besides more from other parts of the country have preceded him to Ayodhya since the past couple of days, a party spokesperson said.

Party leaders including Sanjay Raut, Ministers Eknath Shinde, Rajan Vichare, Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar and others have been camping in Ayodhya since the past few days to prepare for Thackeray’s visit.

This will be the Thackerays’ first-ever visit to the holy city, though in the past his father and founder of the Shiv Sena, the late Bal Thackeray had travelled to Uttar Pradesh on a couple of occasions.

The party’s prime demand is to expedite the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya by promulgating an Ordinance to the effect.

Upping the party stance on the issue, Thackeray had announced his plans to visit Ayodhya during his Dussehra rally here last month.

Coinciding with the visit, the Shiv Sena has organised prayer meetings and ‘maha-aartis’ all over Maharashtra with senior party leaders joining them. Representatives of the North Indian community here have also expressed support for the party.

(IANS)

There has been an element of unseemly haste and even recklessness in some of the recent acts of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Such hurried initiatives have been seen in its impetuous bid to start the construction of the Ram temple as soon as possible and now in the peremptory dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly.

What is more, the motives for these rash steps are so palpable that it does little credit to the party’s capacity for hiding its tracks.

In the case of the temple, for instance, it is obvious that the rush for starting work is related to the BJP’s and the Sangh parivar’s belief that the only way to bolster the party’s seemingly dwindling electoral fortunes is to lay the foundation stone for the temple.

In Kashmir, the swiftness of Governor Satyapal Malik’s step to dissolve the assembly can be easily ascribed to the possibility of the BJP’s opponents in the state being able to form a government by cobbling together a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance).

It appears that the BJP did not foresee the likelihood of the three constituents of the alliance — the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the National Conference (NC) and the Congress — coming together to form a government, presumably because the PDP and the NC are not the best of friends.

Since their combined strength of 55 members, comprising the PDP’s 28, the NC’s 15 and the Congress’s 12, gives them a comfortable majority in the 87-member legislature, dissolving the House was the only option left to the Governor and the BJP to stop them even if it does not meet a judicial challenge.

One of the explanations which Malik has given for his hasty act was to prevent “horse-trading”, an euphemism for the crossing over of the MLAs of one party to another.

But the three claimants to the seat of power had no need for horse-trading since the numbers were on their side. If any horse-trading was indeed taking place, it was probably at the BJP’s behest as it tried to wean away MLAs from its erstwhile ally, the PDP, and even the NC in order to form a government with the willing assistance of Sajjad Lone of the People’s Conference.

It is possible that the PDP and the NC decided to pre-empt the defections from their parties by coming together despite their long-standing mutual animosity. To strengthen their position, they also roped in the Congress even as the latter displayed its habitual caginess by saying that the unity move was only a proposal.

How upset the BJP was at the likelihood of Kashmir suddenly slipping out of its grasp was evident from the normally level-headed Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pointsman in the BJP, Ram Madhav, seeing Pakistan’s hand behind the gathbandhan.

Although he later backtracked on being challenged by the NC’s Omar Abdullah to prove his allegation, the insalubrious episode again showed how eager the saffronites are to brand their opponents as anti-nationals.

In Kashmir, the anger of the Hindutva brigade may have been all the greater because they were on the verge of being outmanoeuvred by the “anti-nationals”, thereby frustrating all of the BJP’s efforts to maintain its grip on the state which started with the appointment of Malik, a former member of the party, as the governor in place of the neutral bureaucrat, N.N. Vohra, who could not be expected to play a partisan game.

Malik, on the other hand, was apparently posted in Srinagar to oversee a transition of power to a BJP-friendly government when the unthinkable happened with “enemies” becoming friends as Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah joined hands.

If the current understanding between these two former adversaries survives till the assembly polls and beyond, then the idea of a mahagathbandhan may strike roots in the state and even exert a favourable impact on similar endeavours elsewhere in the country.

Prima facie, a PDP-NC-Congress alliance should have little difficulty in winning in Kashmir, thereby beginning a new and unexpected chapter in the state’s politics which can go some distance in dealing with the threat of terrorism and lessening the alienation of large sections of the youth from the political system in the Valley.

The coalition will also have to bring the pro-BJP “Hindu” Jammu closer to the “Muslim” valley, a divide which has become wider ever since the BJP’s politically successful (though socially divisive) entry into the state.

For the present, all eyes will be on seeing whether the two young leaders, Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, are able to let bygones be bygones and chart a new path together for their parties and the state.

They cannot deny that the BJP’s presence and its use of the Governor’s office a-la the Congress of yore helped them to come together. There is nothing like a formidable and cynical adversary to concentrate the mind.

[IANS]

New Delhi The Indian government has revoked the passports of 25 men living abroad for abandoning their spouses in India, a Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) official said on Friday.

Of these, eight were recommended by the Ministry while the rest involved cases where the state police sought the action.

“We keep receiving such complaints where Non-Resident Indians have been held accountable for abandoning their wives. The action taken depends on priority,” the official said.

Apart from revoking of passport, in some cases the police also has the authority to issue Look-Out-Circulars (LoC).

In criminal matters involving NRIs, the LoC can be issued by the investigating agency in cognisable offences when the husband from overseas is deliberately evading arrest.

It could also be that he is not appearing in the trial court despite non-bailable warrants and other coercive measures or that there is likelihood that he will leave the country to evade trial or arrest.

An inter-ministerial body dealing with matrimonial disputes headed by WCD Secretary Rakesh Srivastava with members from Home Ministry and the External affairs takes the decision of issuing the LoC after the case is scrutinised by the National Commission for Women (NCW).

(IANS)

Lucknow A minor boy was shot dead in Etah district of Uttar Pradesh round midnight during a religious congregation, police said on Monday.

The 14-year-old was part of the crowd that had gathered to hear the ‘Bhagwad Katha’. He died on the spot after being hit by a bullet that was apparently shot to ‘kill’ Kans in the act being enacted on the stage.

Senior police officials rushed to the crime scene at the Bhaduiya Math village.

An official told IANS that it had been decided that the dummy of Kans hanging on a tree near the temple – venue of he congregation, would be shot and killed. The 14-year-old Pradeep who was watching the show was however shot in the chest in the firing that ensued.

He was rushed to a nearby medical facility where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Sanjay Kumar, additional superintendent of police (ASP) informed that a probe has been ordered and the body has been sent for post-mortem.

Many people die every year in Uttar Pradesh in celebratory firing during weddings and incidents like this. There is a ban on such firing but the law implementation is poor, an official averred.

(IANS)

Sabarimala Over 60 pilgrims have been arrested from Sabarimala after they failed to comply to prohibitory orders in place at the temple leading to protests here and across Kerala, police said on Monday.

While angry Hindu acitivists took to streets, raised slogans and held prayer sessions in front of police stations across the state, Union Minister K.J. Alphons criticised the state government for the action.

As news spread about the arrests, in Thiruvanathapuram protesters assembled near Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s residence and shouted slogans.

The situation started growing tense late on Sunday, when despite prohibitory orders in and around the temple town, over 200 pilgrims did not vacate the premise and started singing Lord Ayyappa hymns .

They continued with the chants even after being requested, forcing the police to take action and forcefully evict them. As many as 68 devotees were also arrested.

They were taken to the Maniar Police Camp in Pathanamthitta district and were to be produced before a court later Monday.

Superintendent of Police Prathish Kumar told the media the arrests were made as protesters even after being informed to disperse once the temple closed at 10 p.m, did not move out.

Forces of the sangh parivar has announced to hold protests on Monday across the state. Security has been heightened for Vijayan, who has official engagements in Kozhikode.

Speaking to the media at Nilackal, Alphons on Monday said: “I fail to understand why the Kerala Police has clamped prohibitory orders.

“This is not the way things should be handled. Sabarimala pilgrims are not extremists. You cannot use force in this place.”

He also said that he would inspect how the state has utilised the Rs 100 crore-relef fund from the Centre. “I will go around the temple town to make sure how the funds have been used.”

The Sabarimala temple opened its doors at 5 p.m. on November 17 for two months.

The temple town has witnessed protests by Hindu groups since the September 28 when the Supreme Court allowed women of all ages to enter the temple that hitherto banned girls and women aged between 10 and 50.

The apex court on November 13 refused to stay that verdict.

While the Kerala government is trying hard to see that the apex court verdict is implemented, the BJP/RSS, sangh parivar forces and the Congress-led UDF are up in arms against violation of the temple tradition.

(IANS)