MONDAY AT LEAST 137 ABDUCTED SCHOOL CHILDREN FREED IN NIGERIA 25 They were abducted over two weeks ago from their school in Nigeria’s northwestern state of Kaduna by a band of motorcycle-riding gunmen MARCH, 2024 epaper.morningstandard.in facebook.com/TheMorningStandard X.com/TheMornStandard 1,400 The Morning Standard wishes its readers a Happy Holi Our office will remain closed today and there will be no issue of the paper on Tuesday ABDUCTIONS PUT PRESSURE ON PRESIDENT A CAPITAL VIEW OF NEWS NEW DELHI INDIA bloc to hold mega rally over Kejriwal arrest Oppn parties’ joint protest on March 31 in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan P R E E T H A N A I R @ New Delhi of Conduct being in place. Now the Congress’s accounts have UPPING the ante against the been frozen, so they won’t be arrest of Delhi Chief Minister able to run a campaign for the Arvind Kejriwal, the Opposi- polls,” Rai added. tion INDIA bloc said on Sunday Hitting out at the BJP, Delhi that it will hold a mega rally at Congress leader Arvinder Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan on Singh Lovely exhorted the pubMarch 31 to protest against the lic to join the proposed rally . BJP government’s alleged tarThe Opposition leaders also geting of political rivals using alleged Kejriwal was arrested federal agencies. after the State Bank of India Announcing the decision at a was forced to reveal the donajoint press conference in Delhi, tions the BJP received through Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader electoral bonds. One of the apand Delhi minister provers in the Delhi Gopal Rai said all INliquor policy case got DIA-bloc parties will bail after sending monhold the rally to safeey to the BJP, they Democracy and guard the country’s inalleged. terests and democracy the country are in . “There’s no levelTop leaders of several danger. All INDIA playing field for the opbloc parties will opposition parties inposition parties anytake part in this cluding the Congress, m o re. O u r l e a d e r ‘maha rally’ to TMC, CPI(M), Shiv Rahul Gandhi has safeguard the Sena (UBT), and Sama- country’s interests been trying to save the jwadi Party are expectdemocracy and we will and democracy ed to attend the rally . stand by the AAP to “The Prime Minis- AAP leader Gopal Rai save the CM,” said ter has been acting like Lovely adding that a dictator and suppressing de- they are hopeful that the aumocracy to arrest Delhi CM thorities would allow them to Arvind Kejriwal. Whether it is hold the rally . Hemant Soren in Jharkhand or CPI(M) leader Rajiv Kunwar Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar or the said the fight is against the dicCM of West Bengal, all are be- tatorial rule of the Modi ing slapped with fraudulent government. cases to silence them ahead of Rallying behind Kejriwal, the Lok Sabha polls,” said Rai. several leaders including ConHe alleged AAP leaders are be- gress, TMC, and CPI(M) of the ing prevented from holding INDIA bloc had met the Elecprotests and Kejriwal’s family tion Commission on Friday and has been placed under house submitted a memorandum on arrest. “Our party office was the instances of central agensealed despite the Model Code cies targeting them. Kejriwal issues 1st order from custody: AAP A N U P V E R M A @ New Delhi THE Aam Admi Party (AAP) on Sunday said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal issued his first order from Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody, instructing Delhi water minister Atishi Marlena to solve water and sewer problems in some areas of Delhi. “I might be in jail, but people of Delhi shouldn’t be inconvenienced,” he wrote in the order as per Atishi. However, the issuing of the order has raised legal questions. The ED has taken cognisance of Atishi’s statement. The ED will probe if the directions were in line with the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court’s order issued to the ED. Another question raised by Kejriwal’s order is whether he can continue as CM now that he is in custody Former Addition. al Solicitor General K C Kaushik said there is no bar on him continuing as CM for now as he has not been convicted yet. 4-yr-old girl in Pandav Nagar raped, relatives damage vehicles J8.00 The Nigerian Army claimed the children were freed during a rescue operation on Saturday. President Bola Tinubu, under pressure to end abductions which has become common in the conflict-hit northern region of the country, had vowed to rescue them without paying ransom. Sources said the abductors were hiding in the region’s vast and ungoverned forests PAGES 12 Kangana Ranaut, Naveen Jindal in BJP’s 5th list RAJESH KUMAR THAKUR @ Ex-IAF chief joins BJP New Delhi AFTER a week-long discussion, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday evening released its fifth list of candidates for 111 Lok Sabha seats in 17 states including Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The BJP retained a majority of its sitting MPs but at the same time gave seats to newly inducted members for high-profile seats. Kerala BJP chief K Surendran will take on Congress sitting MP Rahul Gandhi and CPI’s Annie Raja in Wayanad. Sandeshkhali’s Rekha Patra, who raised voice against suspended Trinamool muscle man Sheikh Shahjahan, will contest from Basirhat in West Bengal. Kangana Ranaut will contest from the Mandi seat in Himachal Pradesh Former Calcutta HC judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who gave several strong verdicts against the TMC government, will contest from Bengal’s Tamluk constituency. He had joined the BJP recently after resigning as HC judge. Industrialist and former Congress MP Naveen Jindal on Sunday joined the BJP and was immediately named the party’s Former Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria joined the BJP on Sunday just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He was with the IAF for 41 years. He called on president JP Nadda at his residence candidate for Kurukshetra seat in Haryana. He had represented the seat between 2004-14. As was reported first by this newspaper, Pilibhit sitting MP Varun Gandhi was dropped and Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada was fielded from the seat. Varun’s mother and Sultanpur sitting MP Maneka Gandhi will contest from the same seat again. United Left sweeps JNU students polls, Dhananjay elected president E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ New Delhi THE United Left panel made a clean sweep in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union election, defeating its nearest rival the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Sunday . The Left once again showed their dominance in the university after lagging behind ABVP in the early hours of counting of votes. In the polls that happened after a hiatus of four years due to the pandemic, Dhananjay from the All India Students Association (AISA) won the president post by securing 2,598 votes against ABVP’s Umesh C Ajmeera’s 1,676 votes. Avijit Ghosh from the Students Federation of India (SFI) trounced ABVP’s Deepika Sharma to win the vice-president post. Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association (BAPSA) candidate Priyanshi Arya, who was supported by the Left, won the general secretary post by defeating the ABVP’s Arjun Anand. The United Left extended its support to Arya after the election committee cancelled the nomination of its candidate Swati Singh when her candidacy was challenged by the ABVP . The Left’s Mohammad Sajid won the joint secretary post by defeating the ABVP’s Govind. The JNU polls, held on March 22, recorded a 73 per cent voter turnout, highest in 12 years. Over 5,600 students of 7,751 registered cast their votes. JNU students celebrate after the poll results were declared | EXPRESS THE WINNERS 1 President: Dhananjay from AISA 2 Vice-President: Avijit Ghosh from SFI 3 General Secretary: Priyanshi Arya from BAPSA 4 Joint Secretary: Md Sajid from Left Deadly methanol used in Punjab hooch tragedy was bought from Noida factory UJ WA L JA L A L I @ New Delhi A four-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her tuition teacher’s brother in east Delhi’s Pandav Nagar area. The accused was arrested. According to a senior Delhi Police official, an information regarding the rape of a girl child was received at Pandav Nagar police station on Saturday night, after which the police reached the spot and met the survivor and her family . Based on the child’s complaint, the police registered a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the POCSO Act and arrested the accused within a few hours. The condition of the girl is stated to be stable and she is currently undergoing treatment at the AIIMS hospital after being referred from Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital. M e a n w h i l e, t h e c r i m e sparked protests in the area with people demanding strict action against the accused. On Sunday a day after the in, cident, hundreds of people initially staged a protest outside the house of the accused. Later, an irate mob vandalised some vehicles in the area. A large number of police personnel have been deployed to maintain law and order in the area. Senior officers, including Jt CP SS Kalsi and DCP (east) Apoorva Gupta also visited the spot to assess the situation. He said the girl is being counselled. Reacting to the brutal incident, Delhi Minister Atishi wrote to L-G VK Saxena flagging the poor law and order situation and termed the crime a “blot” on the city . Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva also demanded punitive action against the accused. H A R P R E E T B A J W A @ Chandigarh HOLI COLOURS Women play with colours ahead of Holi in Nadia in West Bengal on Sunday | PTI ‘SHAHI’ is the liquor brand that the people in Sangrur, the hometown of Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, have come to dread. At least 20 people have died after consuming the methanol-laced liquor in the past few days. With Lok Sabha polls round the corner, the toll from the tragedy could also be political. As a blame game intensifies, a probe by the state’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) has led the investigators to Noida where the deadly methanol, an industrial ingredient, was bought from a factory. Two ‘masterminds’ are among 10 accused who have been arrested. CM Bhagwant Mann today visited the Gujran village and met the families of the victims. He said the police have registered a murder case. As per the excise department data, Punjab’s favourite drink continues to be countrymade liquor or Punjab Medium Liquor (PML) brands. In 2021-22 fiscal, Punjabis consumed 18 NEARLY 50 flyers headed to India during the Easter break in London via Turkey had a harrowing experience after their IndiGo flight to Mumbai got delayed by 15 hours on March 22. The initial six hours till 2.30 am at the Istanbul International Airport was a nightmare for them with many squatting on the floor for want of seats where they were asked to wait. They were not even given food or information on the flight departure. Their passports were taken away and returned after bitter arguments with airport officials. They reached their destinations in India from Mumbai on Saturday . While Turkish Airlines flew IndiGo responds “IndiGo flight 6E 0018 operating from Istanbul to Mumbai was delayed on March 21, 2024 due to a technical fault. The aircraft operated after necessary rectifications. The flight had to be rescheduled accordingly,” said an IndiGo spokesperson on Sunday. most of the flyers from London to Istanbul, IndiGo was to take them from there to Mumbai after a one-hour layover. However, the IndiGo flight (6E 0018), which was to take off at 8 pm on March 22, was rescheduled to 3.30 am the following day and then to 8 am. it finally took off at 11 am. “With the ticket fare for direct flight from the UK to Karnataka touching `1 lakh, I opt- ed to come via Turkey and Mumbai, which cost me only `44,000. But it was a nightmarish experience at the Istanbul airport. We were taken to the travel desk at one corner of the airport where there were only five chairs. When a request was made for more chairs, the response from airport staff was rude. There was no support or information from the airline. Only after new boarding passes were issued after taking our passports, we got to know that our flight would be at 8 am the next day,” said Rohit Sharma from Mangaluru, one of the flyers, told this paper. “I finally reached home at 12.05 am on March 23 instead of the same time a day earlier.” A few flyers shot videos of their situation and uploaded them online seeking help. crore bottles of (almost 66%) Punjab Medium Liquor. In the same period, 1.5 crore cases of PML were sold. Police said one of the arrested masterminds prepared spurious liquor at home and sold it in bottles with fake labels. All 17 boxes with spurious liquor have been accounted for. The AAP government in Punjab is under fire from the opposition over the tragedy. The Punjab BJP chief also visited the village and condemned the state government. Sita Soren, who joined recently from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, was named for Dumka LS seat. In Andhra Pradesh, state BJP chief D Purandareshwari was fielded from Rajamundry LS seat while Varaparasad Rao, who joined the party on Sunday was field, ed from Tirupati. Former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was fielded from Patna Sahib in Bihar, while Union minister R K Singh was repeated from Arrah. Actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Rama in Ramayana, will fight from UP’s Meerut. Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey, V K Singh, and ex-Union minister Anant Kumar Hegde have not been given tickets this time. EXPRESS READ BJP prods Raj to merge MNS with Shinde’s Sena Political circles in Maharashtra are agog over the growing speculation that top BJP leadership reportedly asked Raj Thackeray to merge his MNS with Shiv Sena and become its president as a “natural heir” of late Balasaheb Thackeray’s Hindutva legacy. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde is the leader of a faction of Shiv Sena, while Uddhav Thackeray was the president of the united Shiv Sena. Sources said Raj was reportedly called to Delhi for talks that could have a major impact on the state’s politics. P8 Cong replaces Jaipur candidate after backlash The Congress replaced its Jaipur candidate Sunil Sharma with former Rajasthan minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas on Sunday. The party backtracked on Sharma’s candidature a day after Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and several other leaders came down heavily on the candidate, who is allegedly linked with a Right-leaning digital platform the ‘Jaipur Dialogues’. Several social media users have flagged his association with Jaipur Dialogues, which is extremely critical of the Congress party. P7 Pak minister hints at reviving India trade ties Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar has spoken about examining the trade situation with India and hinted at a possible resumption of trade ties at the behest of the business community in their country. “India is our neighbour, what they did in August 2019 (revoking Article 370) is painful and that dispute continues. But our business community has been appealing that there should be resumption of trade with India. We will seriously examine this,” said Dar in London on Saturday. P7 IIT-Guwahati student aspiring to join Islamic State arrested 15-hr wait, no chairs to sit, 50 IndiGo flyers face a nightmare in Istanbul S L A L I T H A @ Bengaluru STUDENTS HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED FROM NIGERIAN SCHOOLS SINCE 2014 P R A S A N TA M A Z U M D A R @ Guwahati LIQUOR POLICY TWISTS AND TURNS The Centre has unleashed the CBI and ED on Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP over the now-scrapped excise policy. As the CM cools his heels in ED custody, the charge of ‘key conspirator’ is too serious to be ignored. P4 A student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and had gone missing, was detained by the police on Saturday as he was reportedly on his way to join the terrorist group. The fourth-year student, hailing from Okhla in Delhi, was nabbed by the Assam Police from Hajo, about 30 km from Guwahati. “Reference @IITGuwahati student pledging allegiance to ISIS— the said student has been detained while travelling and further lawful follow up would take place,” Director General of Police GP Singh wrote on X. Before disappearing from the IIT campus, the student had pledged allegiance to the Islam- ic State through his social media posts. In an email sent to the police, he said he has plans to join the terror group. “We immediately contacted the IIT-Guwahati authorities but they said the student was missing since noon. His mobile phone was also switched off,” additional superintendent of police Kalyan Kumar Pathak who is a part of Assam Police’s Special Task Force said. A black flag, resembling that of the Islamic State, was recovered from the student’s hostel room and sent for verification. Pathak said the police were trying to find the motive behind sending the email. The incident comes days after the STF nabbed ISIS India head Haris Farooqi and his associate. soon after the duo had crossed over into Assam.
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