WARANGAL  THURSDAY  OCTOBER 29, 2020  `7.00  PAGES 14  CITY EDITION NIA SEARCHES NGOs IN SRINAGAR, B’LURU IN TERROR FUNDING CASE Ten locations in the Valley and one in Bengaluru were raided in connection with a case related to NGOs diverting funds MANY TRUSTS IN J&K UNDER NIA LENS MONEY DIVERTED TO FUND TERROR? Those whose premises were searched include Khurram Parvez (coordinator of the J&K Coalition of Civil Society), his associates Parvez Ahmad Bukhari, Parvez Ahmad Matta and Bengaluru-based associate Swati Sheshadri as well as Parveena Ahanger, chairperson, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. The offices of the NGO Athrout and GK Trust were also searched ■ The National Investigation Agency is probing if these NGOs diverted funds meant for charitable activities to ‘secessionist and separatist activities’ in Jammu and Kashmir ■ Several incriminating documents and electronic devices were seized in the raids, the NIA said in a statement on Wednesday P10 Newspaper THE OFFICE OF A TRUST OWNED BY GREATER KASHMIR WAS ALSO RAIDED CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Rajinikanth to call it quits even before taking the political plunge? S K U M A R E S A N @ Chennai AFTER at least two decades of speculation and anticipation over actor Rajinikanth’s political debut, it now appears the superstar might call it quits without even taking the plunge. A note, purportedly authored by the actor, has been making the rounds in the State’s political space, in which, he has allegedly cited the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, his age, health condition, and uncertainty over availability of a vaccine as some of the reasons for his decision not to take part in active politics in the State. Neither Rajini nor those CU R R E N T R E TAIL PRI CE PE R KG J&K H 70-80 Uttarakhand H 65-70 Punjab H 70-80 Uttar Pradesh H 70-80 Bihar H 90-110 Rajasthan H 60-80 Madhya Pradesh H 70-80 Bengaluru H 114 Kerala H 50-80 Assam H 70-80 West Bengal H 100 Odisha H 80 Chhattisgarh H 60 Vijayawada H 80-90 Hyderabad H 130-150 Tamil Nadu H 80-100 ONION PRICES TO STAY NORTH S U D H I R S U R YA W A N S H I @ Mumbai THERE is little buzz in Nashik’s Lasalgaon, though it is Asia’s largest onion market. For, the mandi is shut as traders are protesting against Income Tax raids on 14 of them as also the ‘mindless’ stock limit imposed by the Central government. Activity at Lasalgaon matters as a whopping 35% of India’s onion supply chain is sourced from that mandi. Sulking traders are adding to the stress the kitchen staple is already facing because of heavy rains damaging the standing crop, pushing the average retail price across the country to around `90 per kg (see box). Retail prices in Telangana are particularly swollen (Hyderabad `130-150; Warangal `100-120; Karimnagar `100) as supplies from Maharashtra are just a trickle. Caught between the government and the trading community is the aam aadmi, who is being forced to reduce his onion intake. “Many people have stopped buying the king of the kitchen for now,” revealed vegetable trader Pritam Das in Jaipur. Till about a few days ago when Lasalgaon was a beehive of activity onion arrivals were , in the range of 70,000 to 75,000 tonnes per day as against the normal of 1.25 lakh to 1.50 lakh tonnes. In other words, a drop of 40-50%, informed Nanasaheb Patil, an onion growing farmer leader in Nasik. “Lasalgaon gets ample supplies in August from states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana after harvest. But this year, the standing crop in all the three states was damaged by the rains. In the first week of October, onions normally start arriving into the mandi from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. But floods in parts of Maharashtra damaged both the old stock and fresh crops. As a result, new arrivals have been delayed by 40-60 days,” Patil shared. In Karnataka, extended monsoon in Chitradurga, Ballari, Gadag, Dharwad, Haveri and Chikkamagaluru districts contributed to the super spike in prices. “Although normally there is spike in onion prices in NovemberDecember because the March stocks tend to get exhausted and the October harvest cannot be dried and stored for long, this year’s rise is because around 70,000 hectares in Karnataka got affected by the monsoon,” said B N Prasad, managing director of Horticultural Producers’ Cooperative Marketing and CONTINUED ON P9 Processing Society). Fans losing hope? Rajini had claimed, his focus was on the upcoming Assembly polls. However, with the polls just around the corner, the actor’s followers had been losing hope of his grand entry close to him have confirmed the authenticity of the note. “No official statement has been issued by him,” said Riaz K Ahmed, Rajini’s public relations officer. Nonetheless, fans and members of the Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM) have begun to make peace with such a possibility RMM functionar. ies have told TNIE that they had been reliably informed that an announcement to this effect would come soon. A district functionary of the RMM, who was also part of the actor’s fans’ association since 1978, said, Rajini’s health was their top priority. “All that we (fans) wish for, is his good health and not his political entry,” said the functionary, who is in the know of recent developments. “More than anything else, we want him to live a long life. We were doubtful as to whether the situation was conducive for our leader to engage in active politics ever since the pandemic crept up.” NO VACCINE SWING IN BIHAR? BJP’s promise to provide Covid shots for free doesn’t appear to cut ice with the voters “When the government could not make proper arrangements @ Patna/New Delhi/Muzaffarpur for Covid-19 patients, it is foolish to believe such false promWAITING to meet the doctor at ises,” said Saroj Kumar Thakur, a nursing home in Muzaffar- 35, who runs a salon in Patna. pur, Rupesh Kumar Sinha, 44, a Why the voters are not deepmedical representative with a ly impressed by the free vacpharmaceutical company, said cine promise lies perhaps in the Covid-19 pandemic and the the Covid numbers. Despite bethreat it poses was not even a ing the third-most populated talking point among the people, state with a creaking public leave alone an election issue. health infrastructure, Bihar “I am in the field of has done well on the virus health and I have seen pafront, making it a nonEAR tients suffering from issue and hardly a mass TO THE coronavirus. People are concern. GROUND a bit scared but not overWhile the national ly worried,” he said, discase fatality rate is 1.5%, missing the suggestion Bihar’s is a mere 0.499%, that the Bharatiya Janata Parone of the lowest in the county’s promise to provide the Cov- try The disease’s incidence per . id vaccine free to Bihar was a million in India is 5,790.1 but in game changer. Bihar it is 1,572.5, the lowest in From Muzaffarpur and Saran the country . to Samastipur and Patna, the On total deaths and active BJP’s populist promise grabbed cases also the state has not done media headlines and was a hot badly The highest death count . topic of debate in drawing is in Maharashtra at 38,717, folrooms last week, but for the vot- lowed by Andhra Pradesh, ers in the dust bowls of Bihar, 9,917, and Karnataka, 9,461. BiCovid and the vaccine are hard- har’s is only 925, one of the lowly issues to be animated about. est among the populous states. RAJESH KUMAR THAKUR, SANA SHAKIL & MUKESH RANJAN BIHAR 2020 VOTER TURNOUT 53.54% Women voters 50% 1% DROP In the 2015 Assembly elections, the voting percentage was 54.75% around one percentage point higher ATTRACTING INVESTORS JPC asks Twitter AFTER TWO PHARMA to apologise for FIRMS, HSIL TO PUMP Leh map goof-up IN `320 CRORE IN TS E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ Hyderabad THE HSIL Limited on Wednesday announced a total investment of `320 crore in Telangana. It would first invest `100 crore in their plastic pipes and fittings solution business to increase the production capacity of its Sangareddy plant, the company said. Despite the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in the demand for CPVC/UPVC pipes and fittings. The strategic investment would help the company cater to the requirements from the customer base, optimise the lead time and consistently meet future demands from various markets. “Since the inception of our company, we have done exceedingly well. In a short duration, we have emerged as one of the leading players in this segment. The increased production capacity will support the company’s aggressive expansion plans and address the growing production requirements. The investment of `100 crore is a strategic decision in order to make our production facility more robust and manage the demands in the new normal. The expansion is a testament to our commitment to the customers and our vision for the future,” Sandip Somany, vice chairman and managing director of HSIL Ltd, said. The firm is also investing `220 crore in AGI Glaspac for manufacturing ‘speciality glass’. CONTINUED ON P7 Dubbaka byelection: EC appoints police observer Hyderabad: Apparently acting on a complaint by the BJP that the police have been acting in a partisan manner in the run up to Dubbaka by-election, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has appointed Saroj Kumar Thakur, an IPS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, as the police observer for the poll. The EC said Thakur has been appointed in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 208 of the Representation of the People Act, 1961. CONTINUED ON P4 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi TWITTER’s geotagging feature displaying Jammu and Kashmir as part of China is a criminal offence and an act of treason, the joint parliamentary committee looking into the Data Protection Bill told representatives of the social media giant on Wednesday . The JPC, chaired by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi, asked the firm to get an explanation from its US-based parent in the form of an affidavit along with a written apology . The panel grilled Shagufta Kamran, senior manager, public policy, Twitter India; Ayushi Kapoor, legal counsel; Pallavi Walia, policy communications; and Manvinder Bali, corporate security, for about two hours. Sources said the Twitter executives apologised for the “technical issue” but the JPC members were not satisfied. The JPC also sought to know on what basis Twitter takes down content and blocks accounts. FACTFILE TOTAL CASES 1,90,740 11,420 ACTIVE CASES CASE FATALITY RATE 0.499% Cases per mn Voters patiently await their turn to cast votes for the first phase of Bihar Assembly elections at Bhabhua police station in Kaimur district on Wednesday | PTI As for active cases, the worst five states are Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra and Tamil Nadu. With 11,420 active cases, Bihar’s numbers are one of the lowest among heavily populated states. The state is at the 11th position in terms of total cases, sev- enteenth position in active cases and eleventh in recoveries. But perhaps more important than the Covid figures is the socio-economic profile of the people affected by the deadly disease, which has the potential to make the BJP’s promise CONTINUED ON P9 a dud. 1,572.5 CASE RECOVERY RATE 95.24% Seventeenth position in active cases Eleventh position in total cases Warangal court sends 24-year-old to gallows for killing 9 migrant workers U M A H E S H @ Warangal A Warangal court on Wednesday sentenced a 24-year-old man from Bihar to death by hanging for killing nine migrant workers, including a three-year-old boy, at Gorrekunta village in Geesugonda mandal of Warangal Rural district on May 21. The judgement was delivered by First Additional District Sessions Court judge K Jaya Kumar within 36 days of the court taking up the case hearing after remaining shut due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The seeds for committing the mass murders had been sown much earlier when convict Sanjay Kumar Yadav, a native of Daulatpur in Bihar, killed a woman, Rafika (37), in Andhra Pradesh, who was the niece of Maqsood Alam’s wife Nisha. Rafika was in a relationship with Yadav and want- BJP NETAS ARE STUDENTS OF WHATSAPP UNIVERSITY: KTR’S FRESH DIG Brutal mass murders The seeds for committing the mass murders had been sown much earlier when convict Sanjay Kumar Yadav, a native of Daulatpur in Bihar, killed a woman, Rafika. Police had filed a 485-page chargesheet on July 28 and the trial started on Sept 21 ed to marry him. But when he developed a relationship with her elder daughter, Rafika confronted Yadav and forced him to marry her (Rafika) immediately She had . even warned him of approaching the police if he refused. On March 11, Yadav took Rafika into a train on the pretext of going to West Bengal to discuss their wedding with her family But as the train neared . Nidadavolu, he strangulated and threw her out. When Nisha, suspecting foul play, began enquiring about Rafika, Yadav planned to eliminate the entire family On May . 21, he attended the birthday party of Maqsood’s three-yearold grandson at a gunny bags manufacturing unit. He had brought with him sleeping pills which he mixed in the food and gave it to Alam, his five family members and three migrant labourers from Bihar and Tripura. After they became unconscious, Yadav dropped them, one by one, in a nearby well that night. Police had filed a 485-page chargesheet on July 28, while the judicial officials started the trial on September 21. CONTINUED ON P4 In an informal chat with reporters, TRS working president says the saffron party leaders are more active on social media than in society P2 SC dismisses Revanth’s petition on Sectt demolition EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad T H E S u p re m e C o u r t o n Wednesday dismissed the special leave petition (SLP) filed by Congress MP A Revanth Reddy, which had challenged the Telangana High Court’s order on the demolition of the Secretariat. The High Court had dismissed a PIL filed against the Telangana government’s decision to demolish the old Secretariat buildings and construct a new Secretariat complex in its place at Saifabad adjacent to the Hussainsagar in Hyderabad. An Apex Court bench declined to entertain Revanth’s SLP as he is not a petitioner before the High Court on the said subject. But it has kept open questions of law raised in the case to facilitate the petitioner to raise them before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Chennai, where his case is pending. On July 17, the High Court had dismissed the PIL filed by Prof PL Vishweshwar Rao, vice-president of the Telangana Jana Samithi, and Cheruku Sudhakar of the Telangana Inti Party saying it did not find , any merit in it. It had taken into consideration the submission of Assistant Solicitor General N Rajeshwar Rao, appearing for the Centre, that the demolition activity does not require environmental clearance as per the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, 2006. CONTINUED ON P7