31032024-TT-01.qxd 3/30/2024 11:38 PM Page 1 123 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 144 NO. 89 | 20 PAGES | ~7.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2024-2026 ESTABLISHED IN 1881  HIMACHAL PRADESH WORLD LEADERS TOLD ME NOT TO LET TRUMP WIN PREZ POLL: BIDEN WORLD /thetribunechd BJP GOVT RESTORED TRICOLOUR’S HONOUR IN VALLEY: THAKUR J&K REMEMBERING THE CHINA MARKS TIBET LEGACY OF KUMAR TAKEOVER WITH EVENTS GANDHARVA SPECTRUM ALONG LAC NATION sunday | 31 march 2024 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com IN BRIEF Arunachal polls: 10 of BJP elected unopposed NEW DELHI: The BJP got a big booster in Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday with the election authorities declaring 10 party candidates elected unopposed to the state Assembly. INSIDE Man held for call to blow up Mumbai rly stations PALGHAR: A 35-year-old man was held for calling up police control room saying bombs had been planted at Dadar and Kalyan railway stations, which turned out to be a hoax. PTI 2020 riots: Former AAP councillor denied bail NED DELHI: A court here rejected regular bail plea of ex-AAP councillor Tahir Hussain in the 2020 northeast Delhi riots case, saying the allegations against him were ‘prima facie true’. TNS ED QUESTIONS AAP’S GAHLOT IN EXCISE CASE The ED questioned Delhi minister Kailash Gahlot for five hours on Saturday and recorded his statement in connection with the excise policy case. The Najafgarh MLA is the minister for transport, home and law in the Delhi Government. Sources said he was questioned with regard to the formulation of the excise policy for 2021-22 as he was part of the GoM, along with Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain. TNS Mission 370: PM kicks off UP Navy frees Iranian vessel with campaign from Meerut today 23 all-Pak crew in Arabian Sea In 2019 LS elections, party had won 62 of 80 seats in state, in 2014, 71 Aditi Tandon TOP LEADERS TO ATTEND INDIA BLOC RALLY TODAY Tribune News Service New Delhi, March 30 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Sunday kickstart the ruling BJP’s Lok Sabha election campaign in the bellwether state of Uttar Pradesh with a rally in Meerut, where the party has fielded actor Arun Govil, famous for playing Lord Rama in Ramanand Sagar’s “Ramayan”, telecast on Doordarshan in the late 1980s. The PM’s choice of western Uttar Pradesh to launch the canvassing in the state is significant as the BJP’s 2019 Lok Sabha performance in this key belt was not as per the party’s expectations. While saffron forces had swept all of nearly 16 Lok Sabha seats in western UP in 2014, in 2019, this tally dropped to nine with the BSP and the SP making inroads and a formidable BSP-SPRLD combine denting the BJP here by slicing away Muslim votes and part of the SC, Jat and OBC votes. In the 2019 LS poll, the BJP had won 62 of UP’s 80 seats, the BSP 10 and the SP five. In 2014, the BJP had won 71 seats in UP . continued on page 6 Top INDIA bloc leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Bhagwant Mann, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav, will participate in a rally at the Ramlila Ground in New Delhi on Sunday. The rally is seen as a show of Opposition unity in the backdrop of Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest. Former Lok Sabha Speaker and veteran Congress leader Shivraj Patil’s daughter-in-law Archana Patil joins the BJP in Mumbai on Saturday. INSIDE Rajnath to head BJP’s 27-member poll manifesto panel, Nirmala convener Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, March 30 Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the sitting MP from Lucknow, will head a 27-member Lok Sabha manifesto committee of the ruling BJP . The panel, unveiled on Saturday, has the maximum representation from the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest number of parliamentary seats in India and holds the key to the BJP’s 370 plus MAX REPRESENTATION FROM UP State Number of members Uttar Pradesh: 5 Rajasthan, Odisha: 3 each MP/Bihar/Maharashtra: 2 each RAJNATH SINGH Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Assam, Arunachal, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Delhi, Haryana, Kerala: 1 each goal in a House of 543. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who hails from Tamil Nadu, has been appointed convener of the panel and Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal from Maharashtra co-convener. UP (80), Tamil Nadu (39) and Maharashtra (48), whose leaders will steer the BJP’s continued on page 6 New Delhi, March 30 The BJP on Saturday declared the eighth list of 11 Lok Sabha candidates, naming six out of 13 candidates in Punjab. The party has fielded sitting MPs Preneet Kaur from Patiala, Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana and Sushil Kumar Rinku from Jalandhar (reserved) seat. All three joined the party in the recent days. While Preneet, a four-term MP and Bit, tu, a three-term MP defected , from the Congress, Rinku switched over from AAP . Former Indian ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu Nine armed pirates captured by the Indian Navy during a 12-hour operation off Socotra archipelago in Arabian Sea on Friday. ANI ‘INDIA ZINDABAD’ SLOGANS BY PAK NATIONALS ■ The 23 Pakistani nationals rescued by the Indian Navy from Somali pirates thanked India and raised slogans of ‘India Zindabad’. ■ The Pakistani crew were seen raising the slogans after being freed from the pirates. They were given a thorough medical checkup prior to clearing the boat to continue with its fishing activities. ■ INS Sumedha had intercepted fishing vessel ‘Al Kambar’ during early hours of Friday and was subsequently joined by guided missile frigate INS Trishul. thiness check of the fishing vessel in order to escort it to a safe area for resuming normal fishing activities, said a Navy spokesperson. Earlier on March 16, the Navy had freed 17 crew members of a hijacked mer- chant vessel and made 35 pirates surrender. The operation started when the hijacked merchant vessel that was being used by pirates as a base opened fire on an Indian Navy helicopter in the Arabian Sea. Saffron party out with eighth list of 11, six from frontier state Preneet Kaur Patiala Ravneet Singh Bittu Sushil Kumar Rinku Taranjit S Sandhu Hans Raj Hans Ludhiana Jalandhar (reserved) Amritsar Faridkot (reserved) has been named as the candidate from Amritsar, where the party has not won since 2014. From the Faridkot (reserved) segment, the BJP sprung a surprise by fielding Hans Raj Hans, North West Delhi MP in the outgoing 17th Lok Sabha. The Punjabi Former Punjab SP jailedin 32-yr-old abduction case Tribune News Service Mohali, March 30 A CBI court here has sentenced former Punjab Police SP Amarjit Singh to 10 years in prison and also slapped a penalty of Rs 1 lakh in a 32year-old case of abduction of a man from Jhabal in Tarn Taran, Balwinder Singh. Amarjit was then posted as the SHO at Jhabal police station. Another accused, Ashok Kumar, then posted as DSP , died during the trial and the proceedings against him were abated. The police filed a chargesheet against the two accused under Section 120B and 364 of the IPC on September 16, 1999, while the charges were framed in 2000. There was a stay on the trial from 2002 to 2022 in the wake of petitions filed by the accused in higher courts, which were subsequently dismissed. A resident of Moga, 60-year-old Amarjit retired recently as SP . The police suspected Balwinder to be an “acquain- New Delhi, March 30 The Indian Navy has freed an Iranian fishing vessel that was hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea and rescued its 23-member crew, all Pakistan nationals. Nine pirates who had hijacked the vessel, Al-Kambar, had been captured and were being brought to India to face legal action under the Maritime Anti-Piracy Act of 2022, the Indian Navy said. The Navy said its warship, INS Sumedha, intercepted Al-Kambar during the early hours of March 29, an operation joined in subsequently by INS Trishul. The Navy has deputed around 10 warships to check piracy. “In the operation lasting 12 hours of intense coercive measures, the pirates on board the hijacked vessel were forced to surrender. The Pakistani crew was safely rescued,” it said. The fishing vessel was approximately 90 nautical miles southwest of Socotra when the pirates reportedly boarded it. Following the operation, specialist teams from the Navy undertook a thorough sanitisation and seawor- Tarn Taran man had gone missing from custody tance of a militant hailing from his village”. According to the CBI, Balwinder, his wife Rajwant Kaur and mother Gurbachan Kaur were picked up by the police on October 4, 1992. The police team, led by the then DSP and the SHO, took the trio to the Jhabal police station for questioning. Gurbachan was released after four days and Rajwant eight days, the agency said. After a fortnight, Balwinder’s family was informed that he had been shifted to Ferozepur. His whereabouts have not been known ever since. In 1995, the Supreme Court had directed the Central probe agency to probe the incidents of alleged extrajudicial killings done by officials of the Punjab Police and disposal of bodies as “lawaris” (unidentified). Subsequently, the agency registered a preliminary inquiry. Dinesh Babbu Gurdaspur singer has been shifted from Delhi to Punjab. The BJP was struggling to find a candidate in Faridkot as is also the case with Khadoor Sahib and Fatehgarh Sahib. Former Sujanpur MLA Dinesh Babbu has been fielded from Gurdaspur, where the party has dropped sitting MP Sunny Deol, who was seen as distant and non-performing. Deol and Som Prakash (Hoshiarpur) are the only two sitting MPs from Punjab in the 17th Lok Sabha. Rinku had won the Jalandhar LS continued on page 6 PDS ‘scam’: ED arrests Shahjahan NewsClickfounder named accused in chargesheet Kolkata: The ED on Saturday took the custody of Sheikh Shahjahan, the suspended TMC leader accused of being mastermind behind the attack on ED and CAPF teams at Sandeshkhali on January 5. Earlier, an ED team interrogated Shahjahan at the Basirhat sub-jail in connection with multi-crore ration distribution case. PTI New Delhi, March 30 The Delhi Police on Saturday filed its first chargesheet, spread across 8,000 pages, in the UAPA case against NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha for allegedly running Chinese propaganda, naming him and the firm owning the portal as accused. The final report was filed A snow-covered road near the Atal Tunnel Rohtang South Portal in Manali on Saturday. PTI ■ The Manali-Leh highway was blocked between Manali and Keylong due to fresh snowfall near the Atal Tunnel in Lahaul and Spiti on Saturday ■ In Punjab’s Muktsar district, rain and hailstorm flattened wheat crop in many parts just two days before the start of wheat procurement Charged under UAPA forrunningChinesepropaganda by the Delhi Police Special Cell before Additional Sessions Judge Hardeep Kaur. According to special public prosecutors, Purkayastha and PPK NEWSCLICK Studio Private Limited had been named as accused. Court sources said the chargesheet contained over 8,000 pages, including annexures. The matter has been posted for further proceedings on April 16. The court granted extensions to the Delhi Police to file the chargesheet, first in December last year and then in February. Later, on March 20, it again extended the time required to file the final report by 10 days after noting submissions of the public prosecutors. Section 43 D of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) extends the time required to complete investigation from 90 days to up to 180 days. — PTI AIFF member arrested for hitting HP women players New Delhi, March 30 All India Football Federation (AIFF) executive committee member Deepak Sharma was arrested by the Goa police on Saturday for allegedly physi- Deepak Sharma cally assaulting two women players, an official said. Two footballers of Himachal Pradesh-based Khad FC, taking part in the Indian Women’s FEDERATION FORMS PROBE PANEL, SEEKS REPORT IN 7 DAYS Football (IWL) League second division here, had alleged Sharma, the owner of the club, had barged into their room and physically assaulted them on the night of March 28. “Sharma was called for questioning during the day after a formal complaint was received. He was arrested by the Mapusa police for causing hurt, using force against women and other charges,” DSP Sandesh Chodankar said. The AIFF meanwhile, , formed a probe panel to investigate the matter and asked it to submit the report within seven days. — PTI Examine rule exempting first two offences, NGT directs Haryana Govt Bhartesh Singh Thakur Tribune News Service Chandigarh, March 30 The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has found faults with Haryana’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the imposition and realisation of environmental damage compensation against units or persons involved in illegal mining. It has questioned Rule 104 of the Haryana Minor Mineral Concession, Stocking and Transportation of Minerals and Prevention of Illegal Mining Rules, which exempts registration of FIRs on the first and sec- ond offence. The Tribunal said, “In SOP , reference has been made to Rule 104 of the Haryana Minor Mineral Concession, Stocking and Transportation of Minerals and Prevention of Illegal Mining Rules, 2012, which exempts registration of FIRs on the first and second offence. The question of the same being ultra vires the constitution/the parent Act and violative of the directions issued by the Supreme Court and this Tribunal needs to be examined.” As per Rule 104, on the first offence of illegal min- Raps state for failing to impose fine for illegal mining FILE PHOTO Tribune News Service Tribune News Service Manali-Leh highway blocked Preneet, Taranjit, Bittu, Hans Raj BJP’s Punjab picks Aditi Tandon 9 pirates captured in 12-hour operation, being brought to India FLAW IN STATE’S SOP The NGT has found fault with the state’s SOP for imposition and realisation of environmental damage compensation ing, mineral along with tools, equipment and vehicle are seized and released Today’s issue is of 20 pages, including six-page Spectrum. upon realisation of payment of the mineral’s price and applicable royalty, in addi- tion to the fine, which shall not be less than Rs 10,000. But no FIR is registered. For the second offence, the mineral and equipment will be seized for a minimum of seven days and will be released on payment of the mineral’s cost, applicable royalty, and fine, which shall not be less than Rs 15,000. Here too, FIR is not registered. Only in the case of offence for the third time or more, FIR is registered and equipment is handed over to the police. “The SOP prepared is also materially deficient and needs review, particularly with respect to the aspect of realisation of environmental compensation as it inhibits the concerned Deputy Commissioner from recovering environmental compensation (EC) immediately on default and mandates him to take action in case of failure to deposit EC after six months,” said the Tribunal. On the action taken report submitted by the Secretary to the Haryana Government, Environment, Forest and Wildlife Department, on measures taken to stem illegal continued on page 6