chennai l saturday l may 11, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION Delhi court to frame charges against Brij Bhushan Singh The BJP MP and former chief of the Wrestling Federation of India is an accused in a sexual harassment case filed by female wrestlers ‘Sufficient evidence against accused’ Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Priyanka Rajpoot ordered framing of charges against Singh under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC. “There is sufficient evidence to frame charges against the accused,” the judge said in her order on Friday May 21 Co-accused Tomar also to be charged ■ Six wrestlers had filed complaint against Singh and the Delhi Police filed the chargesheet on June 15. The court, however, discharged Singh in a complaint filed by the sixth victim, citing lack of evidence to support the charges ■ The court also ordered framing of charges against co-accused and ex-WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar for the offence of criminal intimidation | P11 When the court will officially frame charges against Brij Bhushan Singh 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 Justice at last as two sentenced to life for Dabholkar’s murder S u d h ir S u r yawans h i @ Mumbai Close to 11 years after rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune, a special session court on Friday sentenced two of the accused to life imprisonment while acquitting three others, including alleged key conspirator Dr Virendrasinh Tawde. All five accused were linked to the Sanatan Sanstha. Apart from Dr Tawde, an ENT surgeon, Mumbai-based lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar and his aide Vikram Bhave were acquitted for lack of evidence. Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar, who allegedly shot dead Dabholkar, were convicted. Rationalist, anti-superstition activist and founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, Dr Dabholkar was 67 when he was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants on the VR Shinde bridge in Pune on August 20, 2013. The shocking murder was initially probed by the Pune City Police and was handed over the CBI in 2014. W h i l e D r Taw a d e w a s chargesheeted in September 2016, Andure and Kalaskar were chargesheeted in February 2019. The chargesheeting of Punalekar and Bhave happened in November 2019. The accused were booked under Indian Penal Code sec- Dr Narendra Dabholkar Questions about plot, mastermind unanswered Dabholkar’s son Dr Hamid said, “At one level, we are satisfied that the two assailants have been sentenced to life. But questions about the mastermind and overarching conspiracy behind the murder remain unanswered.” tions 34 (common intention), 120 B (conspiracy), 302 (murder), relevant sections of the Arms Act, and Section 16 (terrorism) of the UAPA. The court blamed the competent officer’s negligence for the failure to prove the charges under UAPA. As for Dr Tawde, the judge said there was ample scope for doubt, the prosecution had failed to convert the suspicion into evidence. “In the case of Bhave and Punalekar, even if there is scope for suspicion, there is no evidence,” the judge said. The charges against Andure and Kalaskar were proved beyond doubt, he added. Kejri gets 21 days to hit campaign trail SC grants him interim bail till June 1; says it took a holistic and libertarian position in view of the general elections S u c h itra K a lyan M o h ant y @ New Delhi In a major relief to jailed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Supreme Court on Friday granted him interim bail till June 1 to participate in the general election campaigns, while imposing certain conditions on him. He was in Tihar jail since March 21 for alleged money laundering tied to the Delhi excise policy scam. In its eight-page order, a two-judge bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna directed Kejriwal to surrender on June 2. Hours later, Kejriwal stepped out of Tihar and thanked the judges for their liberal order. “We have to save the country from dictatorship, I will fight Four commandments 1 Kejriwal can’t visit the office of the Chief Minister and the Delhi Secretariat Arvind Kejriwal addresses supporters after coming out of Tihar Jail | Express take into consideration the peculiarities associated with the person in question and the sur- 2 Shall not sign official files unless it is required and necessary for obtaining clearance/ approval of L-G rounding circumstances. In fact, to ignore the same would be iniquitous and wrong.” The bench noted that the legality and validity of the arrest itself is under challenge before them and that they are yet to take the call. “The situation cannot be compared with harvesting of crops or plea to look after business affairs. In this background, once the matter is sub judice and the questions relating to legality of arrest are under consideration, a more ho- ngt says 91.55% clear Class 10 exam Fishers’ housing must be part of coastal plan National Green Tribunal has asked State Coastal Zone Management Authority to correct draft Coastal Zone Management Plan by incorporating long-term housing plans for coastal communities as per CRZ notification of 2019 | P2 12 Maoists killed in Chhattisgarh encounter, 2024 toll reaches 103 E X P R E SS N E WS S E R V I C E @ Raipur flying arrow Only two centimetres separated the top two throwers in the Doha Diamond League on Friday. Czech Jakub Vadlejch (inset) topped the charts with 88.38m. Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra managed 88.36m in his last throw | AP in TN, girls outsmart boys S u bas h ini V ijayak u mar @ Chennai Tamil Nadu state board students have registered a pass percentage of 91.55 in Class 10 exam results declared by the directorate of government examinations on Friday. While the pass percentage was 91.39 in 2023 and 90.07 in 2022, the highest pass percentage recorded in recent years was in 2019 when 95.17% students had cleared the exam. As usual, the pass percentage of girls (94.53) was 5.95 percentage points more than that of boys (88.58). Boys, however, are closing the gap as their performance has improved from last year’s difference of 6.5 percentage points and 8.55 percentage points in 2022. This year, 8,94,264 students — 4,47,061 girls and 4,47,203 boys— from 12,625 schools wrote the exam, and 8,18,743 (4,22,591 girls and 3,96,152 boys) students have cleared it. While 9,10,024 students had registered for the exam, 15,760 students were absent and 75,521 failed. About 4,105 schools, including 1,364 government schools, had recorded 100% pass. The pass percentage of government schools is 87.90%, government-aided schools 91.77%, and private schools is 97.43%. In language papers, the number of students who had passed English (99.15%) was more than Tamil (96.85%). p7 More reports on P2, P3 97.3% 4,105 Ariyalur dist stands first Schools record full 100% pass Class 10 students celebrating their success in Madurai on Friday | K K Sundar corpn girls’ success tale of grit, resolve N I R U PA M A V I S W A N AT H A N @ Chennai G Shanthoshini with father T Ganesan | P Jawahar I see how my daughter studies and also takes care of things at home. Under better circumstances, she would have scored more marks Ganesan, Shanthoshini’s father For the girls of Chennai corporation schools who had triumphed in Class 10 public exam, education is not just an isolated struggle with letters and numbers. It is among the numerous battles they fight every day for a life of basic needs that many would take for granted. For instance, G Shanthoshini of corporation girls higher secondary school on Buddha Street, who stood first in her school and third among all corporation school students with a score of 488, managed the feat while taking care of a polio-affected father and a mom with mental illness. Shanthoshini and her elder sister ran the house, took care of their parents, and also managed to excel in studies. “By my own assessment, I must have got 492 marks,” Shanthoshini said on Friday beaming with pride. While she is still figuring out how she lost four marks, her father T Ganesan says he is as proud as a father can be on his daughter’s achievement. P7 3 Kejriwal must not make any comment on his role in the present case 4 CM must not interact with any witness and/or have access to any official files connected with the case listic and libertarian view is justified, in the background that the 18th Lok Sabha General Elections are being held,” the order said. Retired SC judge Madan B Lokur described it as a “good order that can have a large significance at the Centre and Delhi”. Another retired judge P K S Baghel termed the order as good for a healthy democracy adding it would definitely , give a good boost to the AAP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on May 25 in Delhi. EC raps Kharge letter on voter turnout data M U K E S H R A N J A N @ New Delhi Taking strong exception to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge writing to leaders of the INDIA bloc over the voter turnout data, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday accused him of obstructing the Lok Sabha elections and trying to push ‘a biased narrative’ under the guise of seeking clarifications. The ECI, in a five-page letter along with annexures, dismissed the charges of mismanagement and delay in the release of the voter turnout data. It also termed the allegations unwarranted and “reflective of a biased and deliberate attempt to spread confusion”. The poll panel said Kharge’s letter came to its notice as it was placed in the public domain in the middle of the electoral process. It found the missive “highly undesirable” and designed to create “confusion, misdirection and impediment to the conduct of smooth, free and fair elections”. “Through innuendos and insinuations, the contents of the post tend to create disharmony in respect of the delicate space of election management, can plant doubts in the minds of voters and political parties, and potentially create an anarchic situation, when you said ‘could this be an attempt to doctor the final results?’ which this Commission hopes you do not have any intention of.” Battle lines drawn in Kannauj as Akhilesh strives to reclaim MSY’s legacy N A M I TA B A J PA I @ Lucknow Akhilesh chose to be a candidate from Kannauj after much flip-flop. According to sources, he finally decided to take the From left, Subrat Pathak and Akhilesh Yadav plunge to avenge the humiliating defeat of his wife in 2019 and reclaim the political legacy of his father late Mulayam strati o n: M andar P ardikar THE battle for Kannauj, a former Samajwadi Party bastion, suddenly turned fiercer after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav entered the contest at the last moment, replacing his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav as the SP candidate. When the SP had initially announced Tej Pratap Yadav as the candidate for Kannauj, the BJP immediately pounced on the regional party for promoting dynastic politics. But now with Akhilesh in the fray, the optics has changed making the contest no longer a cake walk for the sitting BJP MP Subrat Pathak, who had emerged a giant killer in 2019 by defeating Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav. Subrat himself admitted as much, saying he had thought it would be like an India-Nepal match when Tej Pratap was the opponent; but with Akhilesh’s entry, it has turned to an IndiaPak match, which can go either way . Kannauj is known as the ‘perfume capital of India’ and Subrat belongs to one of the oldest perfume business families. The constituency goes to polls in the fourth phase on May 13 in what promises to be a very closely fought contest. Illu Security forces on Friday gunned down 12 Maoists during an encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, taking the number of Left-wing extremists eliminated so far this year in the state to 103. Two security personnel were also injured in an Improvised Explos ive D ev i c e ( I E D ) b l a s t triggered by the Naxalites during the operation, police officials said. This was the third major strike on Naxalites by security forces in the past month. On April 16, the forces had killed 29 extremists in an encounter in Kanker district. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai congratulated security forces and senior officials for the successful operation. “Since we came to power, we have strongly fought against Naxalism. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah want Naxalism to end soon, and we are getting the benefit of double engine sarkar,” he said. The latest offensive took place in a forest near Pidia village under Gangaloor police station limits when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxal operation. Personnel belonging to the District Reserve Guard from Bijapur, Dantewada and Sukma districts, Bastar Fighters, Special Task Force, Central Reserve Police Force and its elite unit CoBRA were involved in the operation, officials said. The operation was launched based on inputs about presence of commander of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army company No. 2 of Maoists Vella, and Gagaloor area committee secretary Dinesh Modiyam along with 100 to 150 cadres in the forest, official added. with all my might but need the support of 140 crore people,” he told the media. While rejecting the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) stiff opposition to the bail, the court said, “Arvind Kejriwal is the Chief Minister of Delhi and a leader of one of the national parties. No doubt, serious accusations have been made, but he has not been convicted. He does not have any criminal antecedents. He is not a threat to the society. The investigation in the present case has remained pending since August 2022.” While the ED argued that the grant of interim bail would amount to placing politicians in a beneficial position compared to ordinary citizens, the bench said, “courts always Singh Yadav. His entry was dramatic, on the eve of the deadline for nomination, claiming ‘pressure from partymen’. Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency was formed in 1967 and Ram Manohar Lohia was the first MP from the seat. In due course, Mulayam, who used to call himself a disciple of Lohia, established his party in this Muslim-Yadav dominated seat and gradually consolidated it into an SP bastion. Of the 16 elections since 1967, the SP has won seven times, and the Congress and BJP twice each. Mulayam contested from Kannauj in 1999 and then left the seat to launch his son Akhilesh, who took the plunge in 2000 Kannauj by-poll. However, the winning streak of SP’s first family was broken in 2019 when Subrat, a Brahmin, trounced Dimple by 12,000 votes. In the previous election in 2014, Dimple had won by a margin of 19,000 votes. Before his 2019 win, Subrat had fought and lost two Lok Sabha polls from Kannauj. This time, he has a formidable opponent in Akhilesh. His supporters, however, claim the YogiModi factor will help him. On the other hand, things don’t look bright for Akhilesh either. In the absence of his father, the young SP leader has to work twice as much hard to gain voter trust.
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