AHMEDABAD: Pakistani fishing boat with six crew members and carrying 77 kg of heroin worth around Rs 400 crore was apprehended in the Indian waters off the Gujarat coast, officials said on Monday.

The drug seizure was made on Sunday night in a joint operation by the Indian Coast Guard and the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), they said.

Gujarat’s defence PRO in a tweet said the Coast Guard in a joint operation with the state ATS apprehended the Pakistani fishing boat ‘Al Huseini’ with six crew members on board in the Indian waters.

They seized “77 kg of heroin worth approximately Rs 400 crore,” the tweet said.

The boat was brought to the Jakhau coast in Kutch district of Gujarat for further investigation, it stated.

In April this year, the Coast Guard and the ATS had carried out a similar operation and apprehended a boat with eight Pakistani nationals and carrying 30 kg of heroin worth about Rs 150 crore, from the Indian waters near the Jakhau coast in Kutch.

Last month, the ATS had seized a heroin drug consignment worth about Rs 600 crore from an under-construction house in Gujarat’s Morbi district.

The ATS had said the consignment was sent by Pakistani drug dealers to their Indian counterparts via the Arabian Sea.

In September this year, in the single largest heroin haul in India, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had seized around 3,000 kg of the drug, believed to be from Afghanistan and likely worth Rs 21,000 crore in the global market, from two containers at the Mundra port in Kutch, officials earlier said.

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said those who have belief in Hindutva feel all Indians have the same DNA but those who are Hindus believe every persons has a unique DNA.

The Congress leader’s remark has come after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said the DNA of all Indians is the same for 40,000 years.

“Hindus believe that every person’s DNA is different and unique. Those who have belief in Hindutva believe that all Indians have the same DNA,” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

Mumbai: Indrani Mukerjea, arrested for allegedly murdering her daughter Sheena Bora, has claimed that she was alive, her lawyer said on Thursday.

In a letter to the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last month, she also asked the agency to look for Sheena in Kashmir. A woman government official told her that she had seen Sheena Bora while on vacation in Srinagar, Indrani, lodged in Byculla Women’s Prison here since 2015, claimed in the letter.

When contacted, a CBI official refused to comment.

Indrani would be moving an application in this regard before the special CBI court here on December 28, the next date of hearing in her case, the lawyer said.

The special court is conducting trial of the high-profile murder case. Sheena Bora (24) was allegedly strangled in a car by Indrani Mukerjea, her then driver Shyamvar Rai and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna in April 2012.

As per the CBI, Indrani disapproved of Sheena’s relationship with Rahul Mukerjea, son of former media baron and her then husband Peter Mukerjea from an earlier marriage. She and Sheena also had financial dispute, the agency said.

Sheena’s body was allegedly burnt in a forest in neighbouring Raigad district. The murder came to light in 2015 when Shyamvar Rai spilled the beans when questioned by police in another case.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the resumption of bullock cart race in Maharashtra, which has been prohibited in the state since 2017.

The apex court observed that validity of the amended provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the rules framed by Maharashtra, which provided for bullock cart race in the state, would operate during the pendency of the petitions as the entire matter has been referred to a constitution bench.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar noted that no interim relief was granted earlier by the top court on the petitions challenging the validity of similar state amendment of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka where such races are going on.

Same dispensation must apply to the amended provisions as applicable to the state of Maharashtra, which are similar to the amendment carried out in the other two states, said the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar.

The apex court was hearing an application filed by the Maharashtra government which had sought that ban on bullock cart race in the state should be lifted as the same is going on in states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The Maharashtra government had said that there is a prohibition on bullock cart race in the state as the Bombay High Court, in its interim order, had refused to lift the ban in 2017, while there is no stay on the Acts concerned of the other two states.

In its order, the bench observed that the pleas challenging the validity of the state amendment of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in this regard were fully heard by the apex court earlier and the issue was later referred to a constitution bench, but no interim relief was granted by the court.

The validity of the amended provision of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the rules framed thereunder by the state of Maharashtra would operate during the pendency of the writ petition, as the entire matter has been referred to the constitution bench, including to consider the question as to whether the similar amended Act of the state of Tamil Nadu overcomes the defects pointed out in the two judgements of this court, the bench said.

The top court said that this matter be heard along with the petitions pertaining to the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

It said that prayer for interim reliefs in the petition stand answered and need not be renewed before the top court unless there is change in circumstance.

It will be open to the parties to request the Chief Justice for listing of the main matters referred to the constitution bench, it said.

During the hearing, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Maharashtra, told the bench that in 2017 Maharashtra had come with amendments to permit bullock cart race.

He said the rules were challenged in the high court which had stayed the operation of the rules by which the state wanted to hold bullock cart race under strict regulations.

Rohatgi said similar amendments were done in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and when the matter came to the apex court, no bar was put on such race in those two states.

He said Maharashtra should be allowed to conduct bullock cart races in accordance with the 2017 rules.

While arguing the matter on Wednesday, Rohatgi had referred to an earlier order of the apex court, which had referred the pleas related to ‘Jallikattu’ to a five-judge constitution bench which would decide if the bull-taming sport fell under cultural rights or perpetuated cruelty to animals.

Jallikattu, also known as ‘eruthazhuvuthal’, is a bull-taming sport played in Tamil Nadu as part of the Pongal harvest festival.

One of the advocates appearing in the matter had earlier told the apex court that bullock cart race was banned in Maharashtra on the grounds of cruelty to the animal.

Dehradun: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched his party’s election campaign in Uttarakhand on an emotional note, saying like many families in the state, his family too made sacrifices for the country.

That is my relationship with the state, he said during a rally at Parade Ground here on the 50th anniversary of India’s victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War.

“The way thousands of families in Uttarakhand lose their kin battling for the country’s honour, My family too has made sacrifices. This is my relationship with Uttarakhand,” he said.

Referring to his grandmother and former PM Indira Gandhi, he said she took “32 bullets for country” but her name was not even mention at a government event on the 1971 War anniversary in New Delhi.

But families who made no sacrifice for the nation cannot feel this, he said.

The Congress leader added that India won the 1971 War because it was “united” then.

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday told the legislative council that no death due to lack of oxygen was reported in the state during the second wave of COVID-19, a claim rejected by the opposition.

The government said the death certificates made no mention of ‘death due to lack of oxygen’ in any of the 22,915 patients that died due to the pandemic.

Replying to Congress member Deepak Singh during the Question Hour, Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh said, “No death has been reported in the state due to lack of oxygen during the second wave.”

Raising a supplementary question, Deepak asked whether the government had details on similar cases that were flagged by its own ministers.

“Many ministers wrote letters saying deaths are taking place due to lack of oxygen in the state. Apart from this, many MPs had also made such complaints. Many incidents of deaths due to lack of oxygen had come to light. Is there any information with the government about these deaths in the entire state. Has the government not seen the dead bodies flowing in the Ganges and people suffering due to lack of oxygen?”

Giving clarification, Pratap said a doctor issues death certificate in case a hospitalised patient dies. He said there was no mention of ‘death due to lack of oxygen’ anywhere in the 22,915 death certificates that were issued by the doctors for COVID-19 victims in the state.

The minister said several deaths during the pandemic were due to various other diseases, including terminal ones, and that the government had arranged oxygen from other states when there was a shortage.

Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Udayveer Singh had earlier said, “The Uttar Pradesh government took action against Paras Hospital in Agra because the video of a doctor there had gone viral… half of the patients there were given oxygen and the other half died. Oxygen supply was stopped on the instructions of the district magistrate.”

He sought to know when the government itself has taken action in the case, how it could make a “false statement” in the House.

In response, the minister said the district magistrate and police commissioner’s investigation report mentioned about a ‘mock drill’ in the hospital and it was during this time that the oxygen supply had allegedly been stopped.

Udayveer objected to the minister’s reply saying the “truth will not change” if the government writes “extinct” instead of “death” in the certificate.

Deepak also argued whether the letters written by the ministers on lack of oxygen, too, were false.

Leader of the House Dinesh Sharma said the health minister had answered the questions asked.

He said the members of the opposition should acknowledge that major casualties were avoided due to the “promptness” of the Uttar Pradesh government in ensuring medicines and treatment.

Earlier, the House proceedings were adjourned for 15 minutes with the SP members raising the demand for dismissal of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence which had left eight people, including four farmers, dead in October.

SP’s Naresh Uttam asked why Mishra had not been dismissed. This was, however, disallowed by Chairman Manvendra Singh.

The SP members barged into the well of the House carrying placards leading to a brief adjournment.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury

New Delhi: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday urged President Ram Nath Kovind to remove Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh (J&K&L) High Court’s Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal for allegedly speaking “against the Indian Constitution”.

While addressing a programme organised by an organisation affiliated to the RSS on December 5 at Jammu, Mithal spoke “against the Constitution of India”, Yechury claimed in his letter to Kovind.

“It has been widely reported in the media that Mithal addressed a seminar organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad and said the following, ‘Inclusion of the terms secular and socialist in the Preamble of the Constitution had narrowed India’s spiritual image’,” Yechury said.

“Mithal is further reported to have said, ‘Sometimes, we bring amendments due to our adamancy’,” he noted.

Utterances against the country’s Constitution by a high court chief justice, that too from a platform which preaches a particular ideology, is an unpardonable offence which is in violation of the oath taken by him to carry out his constitutional functions, the CPI(M) leader asserted.

“Mithal’s conduct (is) unbecoming of the constitutional office of the chief justice that he is holding (and it) warrants his immediate removal from the said office,” he stated.

“As the custodian of the Constitution, as the head of the State and as the appointing authority of Mithal, I request your good self to immediately set in motion the process for his removal from office to uphold the sanctity of the Constitution and independence of judiciary,” Yechury said.