After media reports claimed that Singh was awarded a police medal on Independence Day last year. 

SRI NAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Tuesday said reports claiming that suspended officer Davinder Singh, who was arrested along with two Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, was awarded a gallantry medal by the Union Home Ministry are not true even as the intelligence agencies continued to grill him to know if he was planning to ensure Hizbul deputy chief Naveed Babu’s escape to Pakistan. 

“During the investigation, it has been found that Singh was to take Naveed Babu and another militant to Chandigarh,” sources said. The interrogators are trying to ascertain if Singh intended to ensure the militants’ escape to Pakistan or “he was to drop them at someplace for carrying out an attack”. Sources said the officials were analysing the former DSP’s bank accounts and ascertaining his assets.

After media reports claimed that Singh was awarded a police medal on Independence Day last year. 
The J&K Police said, “It is to clarify that Dysp Davinder Singh is not awarded any Gallantry or Meritorious Medal by MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) as has been reported by some media outlets/persons. Only gallantry medal awarded to him during his service is by the erstwhile J&K State on Independence Day 2018.”

Tagging Singh as a “black sheep”, J&K LG G C Murmu’s Advisor Farooq Khan said the credit for identifying and nabbing him goes to the police. “In any organisation, there is a black sheep and he was the one in the police,” Khan said. Responding to a question about the impact of Singh’s arrest on the image of the police force, Khan pointed out that even the people who nabbed the DySP were policemen.

Police seized 3-4 envelopes from the MP’s residence and some of these contained letters in the Urdu language.

BHOPAL: Controversial BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur on Monday night lodged a complaint with police, alleging that she received envelopes by post which had poisonous chemicals on them.

Police seized 3-4 envelopes from the MP’s residence and some of these contained letters in the Urdu language, they said.

“We got a complaint from the MP that she had received envelopes allegedly having some harmful chemicals in them and we are filing an FIR in the matter,” Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Bhopal Irshad Wali told PTI.

When asked about the presence of chemicals in the envelope, the DIG said that it will be clear only after the forensic team examines it.

Efforts to contact the BJP MP from Bhopal or her aides were not successful.

Meanwhile, a picture of a brown envelope, purportedly with Thakur’s address on it, was being circulated on social media with a message that it contained some poisonous chemical which was life-threatening.

City Superintendent of Police (CSP) Umesh Tiwari said a case has been registered against an unidentified person on charges of criminal intimidation and voluntarily causing grievous hurt at Kamla Nagar police station and added that the matter is under investigation.

Moving forward on holding elections for the post of BJP chief, the party has asked the eligible delegates to reach the national capital. 

NEW DELHI: Moving forward on holding elections for the post of BJP chief, the party has asked the eligible delegates to reach the national capital. 

Party leaders stated that working president J P Nadda would most likely be elected as the chief of the outfit unopposed. “The norms for filing of the nomination are such that there is hardly any possibility of any other candidate putting up a contest,” said a BJP functionary.

The party is aiming to meet the criteria of holding organisational elections in 50 per cent of the states by January 17.

“The party has, as of now, planned to hold the election meetings on January 19-20, with the first day for filing of the nomination papers. The party is aiming to elect its new president on January 20,” said a senior BJP functionary.

Union territories are counted as state units in the BJP, with the party aiming to speed up organisational elections. “The national council meeting of the BJP is likely to be held in February in which the elected president of the party will be endorsed by larger representatives of the outfit,” added the BJP functionary.
With the BJP being in the midst of contesting a tough electoral battle in Delhi, the election process of the party chief is likely to be a low-key affair.

The central election committee of the BJP is likely to meet on January 16 to finalise the candidates for the Delhi Assembly elections. Party chief Amit Shah continues to hold marathon meetings on shortlist candidates for the polls, with the thrust on putting up new faces who have been working on the ground for long.

“The CEC will meet on January 16, and the party will begin releasing names soon after to allow them enough time to file nomination papers. The party may hold back names for a few Assembly constituencies for last minute changes by taking into account candidates of the rival outfits,” said a senior BJP functionary.

The core group of BJP held a marathon meeting on Sunday night at Shah’s residence, which was further extended at the residence of party’s Delhi in-charge Prakash Javadekar. The meeting contiued at Shah’s  residence on Monday. 

“Before the CEC meets on Thursday, the core group will finetune the list of candidates…The party brass has also has gathered ground inputs on the winnability of the candidates,” said the BJP leader.

The sliding economy is an even greater threat to the country, the former finance minister said in a series of tweets.

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Tuesday attacked the Modi government over the state of the economy, saying if unemployment rises and incomes decline, there is a danger of youth and students “exploding in anger”.

“The nation is engrossed with the anti-CAA, anti-NPR protests. Both present a clear and present danger,” Chidambaram said.

The sliding economy is an even greater threat to the country, the former finance minister said in a series of tweets.

“If unemployment rises and incomes decline, there is the danger of youth and students exploding in anger,” he said.

Chidambaram also attacked the government over the rising consumer price index (CPI) inflation.

Retail inflation jumped sharply to 7.35 per cent in December 2019, surpassing the RBI’s comfort level, mainly due to high food prices, government data showed on Monday.

The retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 2.11 per cent in December 2018 and 5.54 per cent in November 2019.

“The circle of incompetent management is complete. Mr Narendra Modi’s government started in July 2014 with CPI inflation at 7.39 per cent. In December 2019, it was 7.35 per cent,” Chidambaram said.

“Food inflation stands at 14.12 per cent.Vegetable prices are up 60 per cent. Onion prices are over Rs 100 per kg. This is the ‘achhe din’ promised by the BJP,” he said.

Sarma, who is also the chief of NEDA, BJP’s version of the NDA in the northeast, said a Hindu ‘cannot be a Jinnah as he never attacks anyone’ and is secular.

GUWAHATI: Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said he will leave politics if a single person over five lakh is given citizenship in the state.

Referring to the “rising” Muslim population, he said, “Ajmal or his son or his grandson will be the Assam chief minister after 30 years and no one can stop it.”

Speaking in support of granting citizenship to Hindus, Sarma, who is also the chief of NEDA, BJP’s version of the NDA in the northeast, said a Hindu “cannot be a Jinnah as he never attacks anyone” and is secular.

The minister was speaking during the debate on the governor’s address in the one-day special session of Assam Assembly.

He said the amended citizenship law will not violate the Assam Accord.

“I’ll leave politics if one person more than five lakh is given citizenship. If a single person is added beyond five lakh, the Assam government will take responsibility,” the finance minister said.

He also supported granting of citizenship to Hindu Bengalis, which is being vehemently protested against by various outfits.

“A Hindu cannot be a Jinnah. Not a single Hindu king has destroyed a mosque or a temple. A Hindu is always secular and does not attack anyone,” Sarma said.

“In Assam Accord, many things were left unresolved. We haven’t violated the Assam Accord, but are addressing unresolved issues,” he added.

The historic Accord, which was signed after the six-year-long Assam Agitation, was a four-page document that did not include many things, Sarma claimed.

The minister advocated the formation of an assembly committee to study the Assam Accord in detail to find out its deficiencies and unresolved issues.

“Even the NRC was not part of the Assam Accord. It was evolved in a meeting between the AASU, Assam government and the Centre in 2005. The Assam Accord didn’t speak about children of those coming before 1971, so it’s inconclusive,” he added.

The Citizenship Act was amended in 1987, 1993 and 2003; and the spirit of the Accord was touched many times earlier than the CAA this time, the minister said.

“The Assam Accord is not that bad. If we had read it properly, 1966 would have been the cut off year and 1967 voter list would have been the NRC. I regret that,” he claimed, citing the Clause 5 of the pact.

He alleged that the ongoing agitation against the CAA is driven by misinformation that over one crore Hindu Bangladeshis will enter Assam.

“Who is this Pramanik in Bangladesh saying 2.5 crore people will come to Assam? Is there a conspiracy to destabilise Assam? There are many Islamic fundamentals working to destabilise Assam,” Sarma claimed.

He stressed that Hindu Bengalis will not affect the culture of Assam as there are many examples of Assamese marrying Bengalis.

“Assamese nationalism cannot be based on language. It’ll be on the love for the land. For example, we don’t speak Missing language but they are part of Assamese nationalism. The theory that Hindu Bengalis will destroy Assamese culture is wrong,” the minister added.

Yashwant Sinha questioned Modi for not inviting Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for a pre-budget meeting.

VADODARA: The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise are aimed at “dividing” the country on communal lines, former Union minister Yashwant Sinha said on Monday.

He claimed Mahatma Gandhi, if he were alive today, would have led an agitation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking “communal” decisions.

Sinha, who was in the city as part of his Gandhi Shanti Yatra, demanded scrapping of the CAA, which aims to give Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

“Several state governments want the CAA repealed and the NRC exercise dropped. The CAA should be repealed as it is aimed at dividing the country on communal lines. We do not want another division of the country,” he said.

“We remained silent despite the Modi government destroying the cabinet system, ordering demonetisation, introducing GST hurriedly.

“But after the CAA and NRC, there is need for the youth to raise their anger on issues that will weaken the country,” the former BJP leader claimed.

“If Mahatma Gandhi were alive today, he would have led an agitation against Modi because the government is taking decisions on communal lines,” he said.

“Members of the Muslim community are proud of holding the tricolour in their hands. And it was Babasaheb Ambedkar who drafted the Constitution and made India a secular country. We will not allow the hidden agenda of Modi behind the CAA and NRC to succeed,” the bureaucrat-turned-politician asserted.

Speaking on other issues, Sinha questioned Modi for not inviting Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for a pre-budget meeting.

Former Lok Sabha MP and Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha and ex-Gujarat chief minister Suresh Mehta were present on the occasion.

The 3,000-km-long yatra, which started in Mumbai on January 9, will cover Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana before culminating at Raj Ghat in Delhi on January 30, coinciding with Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary.

The march has been organised to demand repeal of the CAA, a judicial inquiry into “state-sponsored violence” such as the January 5 attack on JNU students and assurance from the Centre in Parliament that there will be no nationwide NRC.

New Delhi: A dummy execution of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case was performed at the Tihar Jail here, prison officials have said.

A Delhi court had on January 7 issued death warrants against all the four convicts — Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) — and ordered they be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail, over seven years after the brutal crime sparked outrage and anger across the country.

A team of prison officials performed the dummy execution on Sunday. The officials recorded the weights of the convicts and the prepared the dummies accordingly with sacks filled with debris and stones, a senior jail official said.

The execution will take place on in Jail No 3, he said, adding that the UP Prison authority has confirmed that Pawan Jallad from Meerut will be sent to hang the four convicts.

The Tihar authorities had written to the Uttar Pradesh prison authorities, seeking the services of two hangmen from the state to the execution.

All the four convicts are likely to hanged simultaneously. The jail authorities were also holding conversations with them on a daily basis to ensure that they were in a good mental state, the official said.

The court order was pronounced on applications moved by Nirbhaya’s parents and the prosecution (Delhi government) seeking issuance of death warrants against the convicts.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya or fearless, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

Ram Singh, one of the six accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail. A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.

The only legal remedy now left with the four convicts is to approach the Supreme Court with curative petitions to seek relief from the capital punishment.

The convicts can also avail the constitutional remedy of filing mercy pleas with the President.

Advocates for the convicts have said they will soon approach the apex court with the curative petitions and will also seek a stay on the death warrants till the disposal of the curative plea.

A curative petition is the last legal recourse available to a person and it is generally considered in-chamber.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday sought response of the city police, Delhi government, WhatsApp Inc, Google Inc and Apple Inc on a plea of three JNU professors to preserve data, CCTV footage and other evidence relating to the January 5 violence on the varsity campus.

The Delhi Police informed the court that it has asked the JNU administration to preserve and hand over CCTV footage of the violence. Justice Brijesh Sethi listed the matter for further hearing on Tuesday.

The court was told by Delhi government Standing Counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra that the police has not yet received any response from the university administration.

The counsel said police has also written to WhatsApp to preserve data of two groups “Unity Against Left” and “Friends of RSS” including messages, pictures and videos and phone numbers of members, related to JNU violence incident.

The petition was filed by JNU professors Ameet Parameswaran, Atul Sood and Shukla Vinayak Sawant seeking necessary directions to the Delhi Police Commissioner and Delhi government.

The petition also sought direction to the Delhi Police to retrieve all CCTV footage of JNU campus.

Mumbai: Terming the book comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj as “insulting”, senior Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on Monday asked the warrior king’s descendants to clarify their stand over the issue.

Talking to reporters here, Raut said the BJP should declare that it has no link with the book comparing Modi with Chhatrapati Shivaji. The book, titled “Aaj ke Shivaji: Narendra Modi”, has been written by BJP leader Jay Bhagwan Goyal. The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, which are part of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government, have criticised the book.

“A BJP leader has written the book titled ‘Aaj Ke Shivaji: Narendra Modi’, which we find insulting. The party should clarify whether it considers Prime Minister Narendra Modi as great as Shivaji Maharaj,” Raut said.

Without taking any names, Raut targeted the warrior king’s descendants – BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Chhatrapati Sambhaji Raje and former Satara MP Udayanraje Bhosale, Bhosale, who recently joined the BJP after quitting the NCP.

“Chhatrapati Shivaji’s descendants should clarify if they like Modi being compared to him. They should quit the BJP over the book,” the Sena leader said.

Raut said the book’s author Jay Bhagwan Goyal was once with the Shiv Sena, but was removed from the party after he allegedly attacked the Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi.

“BJP leaders are quite active when it comes to some issues such as (pertaining to Hindutva ideologue) V D Savarkar. I hope they will demonstrate similar efficiency in this case also. The BJP should declare that it has no link with the book,” the Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha member said.

The descendants of Shivaji Maharaj from Satara and Kolhapur are affiliated with the BJP. They should speak out their views on the issue, he said. Sambhaji Raje on Sunday demanded that BJP chief Amit Shah immediately ban the book, which was published in the saffron party’s Delhi office.

Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe on Sunday lodged a complaint with Nagpur Police against Goyal for allegedly hurting the sentiments of people by comparing Modi with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in his book. In his complaint, the Congress leader sought action against Goyal, the publisher of the book and its distributor.

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is likely to skip the meeting of opposition parties called by the Congress to discuss the situation arising out of violence on various university campuses and protests over the amended Citizenship Act, sources said.

The AAP is not attending the meeting in view of the upcoming assembly polls in Delhi, they said. 

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has called the meeting on Monday to discuss a strategy on protests over the CAA and the NRC.