COIMBATORE l thursday l february 08, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l LATE city EDITION Twin Blasts rock Pak ahead of its general elections today A day before Pakistan’s general elections, twin blasts shook up Balochistan on Wednesday leaving 30 people dead and 40 others injured Candidates are the targets for the blast No change in election schedule: Minister The first blast happened outside the office of an independent candidate in Pishin district. Police say this blast was detonated remotely after a bag of explosives was left outside the office of the candidate. The second blast an hour later was also outside another candidate’s election office. Police say candidates are the targets, even their homes were attacked ■ ■ Pakistan’s Election Commission said security has been increased in Balochistan for Thursday’s election. Balochistan’s home minister Jan Achakzai said elections would be held as per schedule So far no one has claimed responsibility. Separatist groups operating in Balochistan are the prime suspects for the blasts | P11 50 election-related attacks occurred since sunday in Balochistan CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Local Delhi court concurs with ED, summons Kejri 33x5 RA J ESH KU M AR T HAKUR @ New Delhi Finds prima facie offence of intentionally disobeying the probe agency’s summons J AISON WILSON @ New Delhi Arvind Kejriwal Jal Board scam The ED said incriminating documents, valuables of `1.97 crore and foreign currency worth `4 lakh were seized during raids on Delhi CM’s personal assistant Bibhav Kumar and others in the Jal Board scam | P10 No bail to Sanjay The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused bail to arrested AAP leader Sanjay Singh in the Delhi excise policy scam. “No ground for grant of bail to the accused at this stage is made out,” the judge said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday appeared to lose some wriggle room as a local court summoned him to appear before it on February 17 in the excise policy scam case. It issued the order after taking cognisance of a plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) complaining that Kejriwal had failed to comply with its summons in the case for the fifth consecutive time. “Prima facie offence under Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is made out and there are sufficient grounds for proceeding under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against accused Mr. Arvind Kejriwal,” Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Divya Malhotra said in her order. As per Section 174, a person who intentionally disobeys the directions issued by the probe agency shall be prosecuted and punished with imprisonment extending up to one month or with a fine or both. The ED had issued summons to Kejriwal on October 30, November 2, December 18, December 22 and January 3 demanding his attendance “to give evidence in connection with the investigation or proceedings under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)” on the alleged excise policy scam. Objecting to the summons as “unsustainable in law”, Kejriwal had argued that the ED had failed to disclose the capacity in which he was being called — as a witness or a suspect. But under PMLA, the investigating officer is not required to disclose the capacity under which a person is summoned at the stage of probe, the agency said in its plea. It would be premature to label the summoned person either as a witness or an accused, it added. The agency told the court that the investigation carried out so far had revealed that the 2021-22 excise policy was formulated “as a part of a criminal conspiracy by the leaders of Aam Aadmi Party with deliberate loopholes to generate and channelize illegal funds” for themselves as well as the party . Congress outdated party with divisive narratives, says Modi Fund right Congress leaders from Karnataka led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah staging a protest against the Centre in Delhi on Wednesday over the alleged injustice to the state in the devolution of taxes | Parveen Negi point counterpoint Cong alleged that injustice has been meted out to Karnataka in tax devolution and grants-in-aid Nirmala Sitharaman accuses K’taka of having separatist mindset and spreading false narrative It demanded that the Centre undo the losses amounting to `1.87 lakh crore allegedly incurred by the state under the 15th Finance Commission “I want to assure the House (LS) that whatever has been recommended by the Finance Commission, I followed to the last word,” she said yogi pitch On shrines in Mathura, Varanasi Referring to Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, “We asked only for three places, there was no issue over the others.” | P10 PICKING up from where he left off in his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in Lok Sabha on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday trained his guns on the Congress again, accusing it of working against the interests of the marginalised sections of society and trying to create a wedge between north and south India. Replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks in the Rajya Sabha, Modi said the Congress had an ‘anti-reservation’ policy during Jawaharlal Nehru’s time to shut out people from the SC, ST and OBC sections. Modi claimed Nehru was against the idea of reservation and had it not been for Babasaheb Ambedkar, the underprivileged sections would not have had any quota. Nehru, Modi said, was of the opinion that the affirmative action to uplift the marginalised communities in the country would end up promoting nonmeritorious people and bring inefficiency into the system. “Of late, I remember Nehru ji more often than not. He once Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday | pti The Congress’s thought process has become outdated and it is now outsourcing all its work. We are not happy to see such levels of decline and depletion of a party that ruled India for centuries. You have our full sympathies — Narendra Modi, Prime Minister wrote a letter to the chief ministers in which he had stated that he was against reservation. He had reasoned it would promote inefficiency amongst the people of eligible sections,” Modi said. In an apparent reference to Karnataka deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar’s brother and Congress MP D K Suresh’s recent comment that South India should become a separate country, Modi said the grand old party was trying to divide the country for political gains. Modi said the Congress has become such an ‘outdated’ party that it can only think in 6 women killed as building on cliff collapses on them in Ooty 1 The Uttarakhand Assembly on Wednesday passed the Unifor m Civil Code bill through a voice vote after two days of deliberations. The bill now awaits President Droupadi Murmu’s assent for its enactment. The bill is expected to be the template for adoption by other BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and Assam. The assembly rejected the opposition’s demand to send the bill to a select committee of the House for vetting. In his reply to the debate, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the legislation comprises 392 sections, with major emphasis on suc- Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami before the special Assembly session on Wednesday | PTI cession rights. It establishes a uniform legal framework applicable to all citizens, encompassing crucial aspects such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, and even live-in relationships, irre- spective of religious affiliation, he added. The Congress chose not to protest in the House during Dhami’s speech. “The bill’s paramount goal is to protect women’s rights,” Dhami said. The law applies to the whole of Uttarakhand and to people from the state living outside. Apparently to bar the practice of halala, the bill specifies “the right to marry the divorced spouse without any condition, such as marrying a third person before such remarriage”. It gives both husband and wife have equal rights to seek divorce. The bill makes no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children in terms of property rights. Express News Service @ Coimbatore 2 1. The accident spot at Lovedale in Udhagamandalam; 2. Inconsolable family members of the deceased | Express Owner, 3 others held Following the tragedy, the property owner, contractor, and two construction supervisors were arrested. Udhagamandalam municipal commissioner said the owner had obtained permission for the construction of the building but not to build a retaining wall around it Six women engaged in the unauthorised construction of a retaining wall died as a portion of a nearby building collapsed on them at Gandhi Nagar near Lovedale in Udhagamandalam on Wednesday Six other work. ers were rescued with injuries and admitted at the government hospital in the hill town. Officials said the property owner had not obtained permission to build the wall and was arrested along with the contractor and two supervisors. The deceased were identified as S Radha (38), S Shakeela (30), B Bakiyalakshmi (40), S San- geetha (38), V Uma (35), and S Muthulakshmi (40) from Mel Gandhi Nagar and Mel Thalayattimund. According to police, 17 workers and an earthmover were at the site for the construction of a retaining wall for a bungalow belonging to one Jacob Brijo. According to sources, the workers were sitting and drinking tea at 11.30 am under a cliff when a portion of a public toilet on the cliff 20 feet above collapsed on them in a landslip. As many as 12 workers got trapped in the rubble. Upon alert, fire and rescue personnel and police rushed to the spot and started the rescue operation.  P7 16x25 living in fear Crumbling walls, seepage issue: KP Park tenements under scanner again M o h a n @ Chennai The corridors of the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB) tenements in KP Park at Pulianthope are pockmarked by cracks almost large enough to allow a passerby to peer through the eroding walls opened only five years ago. For the residents of G block, who moved here from slums near Island Grounds, the cracks grow deeper and longer every passing day and fear of the building collapsing is ever-constant, yet respite remains elusive. Residents of other blocks also face similar issues. Activists have been raising concerns about the construction quality of the 1,558 KP Park tenements that house 7,790 people for years now. In 2021, the poor building quality and allegations of corruption put the tenements under the scanner. The DMK government, which had just come to power, assigned IIT-Madras’ Centre for Urbanisation, Buildings and Environment (CUBE) with the task of assessing the buildings’ quality and filing a report. CUBE took taken samples from blocks A to D of the tenements for assessment and, in its re- former min too 12 ex-lawmakers from AIADMK and two from DMK join BJP T M u r u g a n a n d h a m @ Chennai UCC bill passed, awaits prez assent n a r e n d r a s e t h i @ Dehradun terms of how to generate new narratives to divide the country. He said there is no doubt the BJP-led alliance will get its third consecutive mandate. Modi said in stark difference to the Congress’ stand against the SC/STs, the BJP-led government has always accorded top priority to the welfare of marginalised communities. Meanwhile, the Budget session of Parliament has been extended by one day till February 10 amid reports that the government will table a white paper on economy The session, . which began on January 31, was to end on February 9. Holes large enough to gape through to the other side of the building are found in the TNUHDB tenements in K P Park of Pulianthope | Ashwin prasath port, concluded that 90% of the samples had failed to meet plastering specifications. Additionally, the report also raised issues of inadequate concrete strength, shortcomings in tiling works, and seepages and suggested a slew of repair and retrofitting measures. Since then, residents said minor repair works have been attended to but more serious issues such as of walls cracking and water seepage remain unaddressed even as these problems have emerged in G and other blocks. “This is a major safety concern and we live in fear of the collapse of the building. Leakages have also become common during rains,” Vimal, a resident, told TNIE. An assessment by the Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC) in Chennai at the tenements flagged several other safety issues, especially for women and children, that need immediate attention. As per the assessment report, the sink for washing vessels is provided in balconies which have no grills and have poor lighting, posing a risk to children and adults.  In a significant development, 12 former AIADMK MLAs, including former minister Gomathi Srinivasan, and four other former legislators joined the BJP in the presence of Union Ministers Rajeev Chandrasekar and L Murugan, and party state president K Annamalai in New Delhi on Wednesday This comes months . after the AIADMK broke its alliance with the national party . The 15 new entrants include former DMDK MLA K Thamizh Azhagan and former Congress MLA R Thangaraju. Ex-AIADMK MLAs SE Venkatachalam and Muthukrishnan, who recently joined the BJP during Annamalai’s En Mann En Makkal yatra, were also present on the occasion. Terming the development as a start, BJP state vice president KP Ramalingam, said, “Former MLAs have come to the fore now and the present MLAs will follow. After the 2024 polls, one-third of the present DMK MLAs and half of the AIADMK MLAs will join our party .” The leader said those who joined the BJP are from areas covered by Annamalai’s yatra. “There has been an overwhelming response to the yatra and people have taken nationalism and spiritualism as their principles,” he added. The new entrants are former AIADMK MLAs K Vadivel (Karur), Duraisamy alias Challenger Durai (Coimbatore), PS Kandasamy (Aravakurichi), MV Rathinam (Pollachi), R Chinnasamy (Singanallur), Gomathi Srinivasan (Valangaiman), VR Jayaraman (Theni), SM Vasan (Vedasanthur), PS Arul (Bhuvanagiri), R Rajendran (Kattumannarkoivil), Selvi Murugesan (Kangeyam), A Rohini (Kolathur), former DMK MLA S Gurunathan (Palayamkottai), former DMK MP V Kulandaivelu (Chidambaram), and former Congress MLA R Thangaraju (Andimadam).  P7