20072024-TTB-03.qxd 7/19/2024 11:51 PM Page 1 13 CHANDIGARH | GURUGRAM | JALANDHAR | BATHINDA | VOL. 144 NO. 200 | 30 PAGES | ~7.00 | REGD. NO. CHD/0006/2024-2026 ESTABLISHED IN 1881 DELHI ‘GOD ON MY SIDE’: TRUMP RECOUNTS NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE WORLD /thetribunechd GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWZ ISN’T THAT BAD REVIEW NO PLAN TO ALLOW BIZ HOUSES TO PROMOTE BANKS: RBI BUSINESS THREE KILLED AS BANGLADESH PROTESTS WIDEN BACK PAGE saturday | 20 july 2024 /thetribunechd www.tribuneindia.com Accused under UAPA can be granted bail if trial moves at snail’s pace: SC Army rushes in more troops to J&K as search for ultras widens Says continued imprisonment can’t be justified; orders release of accused held 9 yrs ago New Delhi, July 19 The Army is bolstering its troop strength in the Jammu Division to tackle the threat of terrorists active in the area. As an immediate response to the recent terror attacks, some elements of the 26 Infantry Division have been moved to the Doda area where a search operation is underway in Desa forest, sources say. The Western Command, headquartered at Chandimandir, has its 26 Infantry Division deployed in the area between Kathua and the south bank of the Chenab, a stretch of some 130 km that is riverine and mountainous. The elements of the 26 Infantry Division that have Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 19 A terror accused facing trial under the stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967, can be released on bail if the trial moves at a snail’s pace, the Supreme Court has ruled. In April 2019, the top court had set aside the bail granted to Kashmiri Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali by the Delhi High Court in a terror funding case filed against him by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). In Watali’s case, it had held that bail in UAPA cases couldn’t be granted if there was a CAN’T GO AGAINST PRINCIPLES OF LAW constitutional court ❝ Abail…. But it would bemay decline to grant wrong to say that under a particular statute, bail cannot be granted. It would run counter to the very grain of our constitutional jurisprudence. SC prima facie satisfaction of the court that the material on record proved the allegations and that it was not permissible ACTIVISTS AMONG THOSE BOOKED Activists Gautam Navlakha and former JNU students Umar Khalid & Sharjeel Imam; NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha; former Delhi University Prof GN Saibaba are among those facing charges under the UAPA CASES REGISTERED 5,023 CASES lodged under UAPA during 2018-22 8,947 were arrested 6,503 named in chargesheets 550 accused acquitted for courts to engage in a detailed analysis of prosecution case and to weigh the material before it while consid- 23% RISE in cases from 2021 (814 cases) to 2022 (1,005 cases) ering the bail. However, a Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan on Thursday said, “This decision i.e. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali has to be read and understood in the context in which it was rendered and not as a precedent to deny bail to an accused undertrial suffering long incarceration with no end in sight of the criminal trial.” The Bench ordered the release of accused Sheikh Javed Iqbal, alias Ashfaq Ansari, alias Javed Ansari, who was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police on February 23, 2015, for allegedly engaging in the illegal trade of supplying counterfeit Indian currency notes in Nepal. “We are of the considered view that continued on page 8 Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service The parents of Capt Brijesh Thapa, who was killed in an encounter with terrorists in Doda, during their son’s funeral in Darjeeling. PTI been moved to Doda will be replaced by Western Command units from elsewhere. The command has three corps — 2 Strike Corps Ambala, 11 Corps Jalandhar and 9 Corps Yol, near Palampur. The 26 Infantry Division, under the 9 Corps, is tasked with protecting the National Highway. The 198 km of International Border J&K shares with Pakistan, lies in continued on page 8 Now, eatery order across entire UP; in Uttarakhand too At least 8 Pak-trained terrorists in Doda: Intel Jammu, July 19 With terror incidents in Doda district rising, intelligence agencies have received inputs that at least eight Pakistantrained terrorists may be present in Doda, Jammu division. Doda has witnessed a spike in terror incidents with the killing of four soldiers on this, hundreds of flights were delayed by a considerable time across airlines’ networks due to the outage, which reportedly started from 10.40 am. continued on page 8 New Delhi, July 19 Despite a blowback from allies LJP RLD and JD(U), the BJP, ruled Uttar Pradesh on Friday extended the controversial rule asking eatery owners along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their credentials, with Uttarakhand saying the rule is already in place there. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami asked why anyone should have a problem in introducing themselves. “This decision regarding asking shops across Kanwar route was taken at a Kanwar Yatra review meeting on July 12,” Dhami said. A UP government spokesperson said the rule (which created a row following the implementation by Muzaffarnagar administration) was being extended across the state. continued on page 8 edit: Kanwar Yatra row IAS probationer Khedkar booked on forgery charge BJP mulls key role for Kiran, wants her to woo farmers ED attaches realty group M3M’s land worth ~300 crore NEW DELHI: In the first crackdown on fraud in the civil services examination process, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Friday initiated criminal proceedings against controversial IAS probationer Puja Khedkar whom the Delhi Police then booked for forgery. The UPSC, in a statement, flagged a litany of fakery at the hands of Khedkar, who was being investigated for forging non-creamy OBC layer and disability certificates to seek entry into the civil services. BACK PAGE Sumedha Sharma GURUGRAM: The ED on Friday said it had attached land in Gurugram, worth over Rs 300 crore, of real estate group M3M as part of a money laundering probe linked to an alleged land fraud case that also involves Congress leader and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. To attach the land, a provisional order was issued by the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The 88.29 acres of land is located in Basharia village of Harsaru tehsil in Haryana's Gurugram district. INSIDE Chaos at airports as Microsoft outage grounds over 280 flights Glitch impacts airlines, banks, hospitals globally Shubhadeep Choudhury Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 19 A Microsoft outage on Friday grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media houses off air globally in a massive disruption that highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack. It said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows. In India, airport and airline operations were crippled across all states, leading to widespread cancellation of flights. IndiGo, which has the Stranded passengers at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru amid the Microsoft outage on Friday. PTI largest share of domestic passenger traffic, alone cancelled 287 flights. The carrier said its flights were experiencing delays and cancellations due to the global outage. In addition to Tribune News Service Gurugram, July 19 The BJP is likely to give former Congress leader Kiran Choudhry, who recently joined the saffron party, a major role ahead of the Haryana Assembly elections. Senior BJP leaders in Delhi say the party is planning to use her experience to improve its equation with Haryana farmers. Choudhry is likely to be given the responsibility of reaching out to the farmers to negate the anti-BJP sentiment in the region. Rubbishing talk about the WILL DELIVER The BJP has recognised my worth and work, which will be put to best use. Kiran Choudhry ❝ saffron party neglecting the former Congress leader, a senior BJP leader said: “The Congress is creating a narrative that the BJP is not treating continued on page 8 Arjun Sharma 20 kg lighter, mum Deepika’s baby steps to Paris Vinayak Padmadeo Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 19 Deepika Kumari knows she must keep calm. In precision sports such as archery, the sudden throb of the heart can make you miss the target. Deepika must stay calm, as her husband and coach, archer Atanu Das, reiterates. “All she has to do now is to keep her calm. She knows what it takes, so it is a matter of keeping out all distractions, concentrating on one arrow at a time,” Atanu says. For a top athlete, distractions are impossible to avoid — injury, form and pressure can break career. As if that’s not Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das welcomed their daughter Vedika in 2022. enough, Deepika put on the mantle of motherhood, too, giving birth to a girl in November 2022. This added yet another layer of challenge in her quest to win an Olympics medal. Deepika has been around forever, and she’s already a veteran of three Olympic Games, but she’s only 30 — Paris is possibly her final chance to win an Olympics medal, the hopes of which she raised by becoming a junior world champion in 2009. Paris seemed a far dream when Deepika was pregnant. Pregnancy and childbirth, the physical and psychological changes they induced, challenged Deepika to such an extent that she decided to quit the sport. She teetered on the brink before the love of the sport brought her back to the field. “And so, she was soon itching to get back and start shooting arrows,” says Atanu, who had a difficult time holding Deepika back from the practice arena, until she regained continued on page 8 Today’s issue is of 30 pages, including four-page Delhi Tribune. c m y b PAK-BASED HANDLER’S MESSAGE INTERCEPTED ■ It is learnt the Army intelli- gence intercepted a message of a Pakistan-based handler, who was talking to a terrorist present in the Doda region Monday. The Kashmir Tigers, a front group of the Jaish-eMohammad, has taken responsibility for the attack in on a communication device. timing of the intercept has not been divulged and the agency believes the handler is an ISI official. ■ The the Desa forest area. Multiple gunfights and sightings have also taken place in the area during recent times. It has been reliably learnt that the Army intelligence intercepted a message by a Pakistan-based handler, who was talking to a terrorist present in the region on a communication device. The timing of the intercept has not been divulged. The agency believes that the Pakistan-based handler is an ISI official. continued on page 8
The Tribune, now published from Chandigarh, started publication on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan). It was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist, and is run by a trust comprising four eminent persons as trustees.
The Tribune, the largest selling daily in North India, publishes news and views without any bias or prejudice of any kind. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language and partisanship, are the hallmarks of the paper. It is an independent newspaper in the real sense of the term.
The English edition apart, the 133-year-old Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).