villupuram l wednesday l may 15, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Activist Gautam Navlakha gets bail in Elgar Parishad case The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted the stay on the bail granted by the Bombay High Court in December 2023, in view of the lengthy trial Four years on, charges yet to be framed In house arrest since November 2023 The HC had stayed the bail for three weeks to allow the NIA to appeal. The SC bench of justices M M Sundresh and S V N Bhatti refused to extend the stay. “The appellant has been in incarceration for more than four years and charges are yet to be framed. The trial would take years and years and years for completion. Thus, we are not inclined to extend the stay,” it said ■ Navlakha, who was arrested in August 2018, has been placed under house arrest since November 2023. He is currently residing in Navi Mumbai ■ The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which police claim triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial `20 lakh Amount to be paid by Navlakha towards security during his house arrest 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 Day after, AAP admits assault on Maliwal PM files papers amid A n u p V e r ma @ New Delhi A day after Aam Aadmi Party leader Swati Maliwal accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s private secretary Bibhav Kumar of misbehaving with her, the party sought to limit the damage by admitting the crime, adding stern action would be taken against the accused. Swati Maliwal is AAP’s Rajya Sabha member and former head of the Delhi Commission for Women. She was assaulted at the chief minister’s residence on Monday. Ex-Indian Army officer with UN killed in Gaza Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi Colonel Waibhav Anil Kale, a former Indian Army officer who had joined a UN agency in Gaza barely two months ago, was killed when the vehicle he was travelling in came under attack in wartorn Rafah in Gaza, becoming the first ‘international casualty’ for the world body since the IsraelHamas conflicted started. Kale, 46, is survived by his wife and two teenage children. After taking premature retirement from the Indian Army in 2022, he joined the UN as a security coordination officer in the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (DSS) recently. His family is settled in Pune. Kale was going to the European Hospital in Rafah along with another DSS staffer on Monday when their vehicle was struck, officials said. The other person was seriously injured in the attack. The UN has called for a full investigation, while Israel has ordered a separate probe into the attack. “The UN Secretary General is deeply saddened by the loss of Col Kale, working for the UN DSS in Gaza. Our deepest condolences are with the family during this difficult time. Another staff member was injured when their UN vehicle was struck,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s office said in a statement. In the Army, Kael had commanded the 11 Jammu & Kashmir Rifles and had been an instructor at the Infantry School in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh. He had also taken part in sector-level border talks with China and Pakistan. Maliwal alerted the police but did not file a formal complaint. The party took more than 30 hours to react to the controversy that came bang in the middle of the general elections. “Yesterday (Monday) morning, Maliwal went to Arvind Kejriwal’s residence to meet him. While she was waiting in the drawing room, Bibhav Kumar came there and misbehaved with Swati Maliwal. She had reported the incident to the police by calling on the number 112. We deeply condemn this incident. Kejriwal has taken cognisance of the incident and called for strict action,” said party leader party leader Sanjay Singh. Maliwal, he said, is one of the oldest and senior most AAP leaders. “We are all standing with her. The chief minister has taken this issue seriously and strict action Maliwal had gone to meet Kejriwal at his residence. While she was waiting to meet him in the drawing room, Bibhav Kumar misbehaved with her. This is highly condemnable — Sanjay Singh will follow. I want to make it clear that the AAP does not support such people,” Singh said. As per the police log, a PCR call from Maliwal came in at 9.34 am on Monday alleging she had been , assaulted by one of the chief minister’s staff. “As per information, the lady is saying that she is at the CM’s house and has been assaulted by CM’s PA Bibhav Kumar,” a note on the PCR call read. Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva lit into the AAP’s silence on the incident on Monday , saying it reflected the mentality of the party . Caste looms over temple in Ayodhya N A M I TA B A J PA I @ Lucknow 65,000 in 2019. This time, he is fighting anti-incumbency and a formidable SP candidate, who has the support of the Congress. The SP-Cong ress combine hopes their joint candidate can defeat the BJP this time. However, votes tell a different story In 2019, . the BJP had bagged 5,29,021 votes, while the SP got 4,63,544 and the Congress 53,386. This time, a third factor could influence poll calculations as the CPI has fielded former IPS officer Arvind Sen as its candidate. Sen is the son of vet- Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, comprising Ayodhya, could be easily mistaken for the nerve centre of temple politics but if past Lok Sabha elections are anything to go by the poll out, come in this temple town has mostly been tied to the caste factor. And the 2024 LS poll is no different. Sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh, also a five-time MLA from Ayodhya, is pitted against the Samajwadi Party’s Awadhesh Prasad, a ninetime MLA and a former minister in the Akhilesh cabinet. Lallu Singh, who is a contractor by profession, is seeking a third term riding on the back of the general goodwill for the BJP after the Ram temple construction in Ayodhya and the resultant development in the district. In 2014, he had polled an impressive winning margin of 2.8 lakh votes, which however came down drastically to just Illustration: Mandar Pardikar Awadhesh Prasad (left) and Lallu Singh eran politician late Mitrasen Yadav, who had represented the constituency thrice in Parliament. Sen is expected to poll a considerable number of votes from the same electorate pool that the SP hopes to tap into. All this boils down to the constituency’s caste dynamics, which can swing results. The BJP has retained Singh, a Thakur by caste, for the battle in the land of Lord Ram, who himself was a Rajput. The saffron party has the support of Thakurs and other upper castes as well as a section of non-Yadav OBCs. SP candidate Prasad comes from the Dalit Kori community and is trying to mobilise Dalits, who constitute a sizeable population of 5.5 lakh in the constituency He can also expect help . from the SP’s traditional Muslim-Yadav vote bank. Meanwhile, CPI’s Sen, an OBC, is getting traction among his caste group on the ground. The BSP has also fielded Sachidanand Pandey, a Brahmin, as its candidate for Faizabad but the community is not strong enough to create a ripple. express r e ad 3 boys drown in Karur farm well Karur: Three boys drowned while bathing in a farm well at Andankoil in Karur on Monday. The deceased, R Ashwin (12), S Vishnu (12), and I Marimuthu (11), were all natives of Andankoil. Ashwin and Marimuthu were government school students, while Vishnu studied at a private school | P2 Legal heir cert: HC wants penal action for false info Expressing concern over incidents of people furnishing false information to obtain legal heir certificate to inherit family properties, the Madras High Court has ordered the Tamil Nadu government to initiate criminal action against those indulging in such irregularities. Justice SM Subramaniam, in a recent order, also directed the Commissioner of Revenue Administration (CRA) to formulate procedures for issuance of legal heir certificates and ordered a circular to be issued within five weeks on modalities to prosecute offenders for submitting false information. “The revenue authorities shall prosecute the offenders by registering a complaint under Section 200 of the CrPC. It would be very difficult for the revenue authorities to control the menace of furnishing false information and suppression of facts for obtaining legal heirship certificate unless such penal actions are initiated,” the judge said. The court also pointed out that legal heir certificates involve civil consequences as the legal heirs are inheriting the property of deceased persons. “When the legal heir certificate involves civil consequences, the suppression of facts has to be viewed seriously since such suppressions infringe the rights of other legal heirs of the deceased person,” the judge ruled while dismissing a petition filed by M Marannan of Mettupalayam.  P5 Available on Scan the QR code for further details *Basis lab test in controlled environment on protein damaged hair after five washes E X P RESS N EWS SER V I CE @ Chennai show of NDA strength Modi waves after filing his papers for the LS elections in Varanasi on Tuesday | PTI Pep talk for cadre Modi concluded his two-day visit to Kashi by addressing a gathering of party workers and exuded confidence about the NDA victory in the polls. He urged party workers to maintain the momentum till the last phase of voting on June 1 N amita B ajpai @ Lucknow Seeking a third term as member of Parliament from Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday filed his nomination papers amid great fanfare and symbolism in the presence of a whole array of NDA allies, chief ministers and Union ministers. Before filing his papers during the auspicious Pushya Nakshatra on the day of Ganga Saptami (River Ganga is believed to have flown down to earth on this day), Modi offered prayers to the holy river at Dashashwamedh Ghat under the guidance of K Venkat Raman Ghanapathy, a member of Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust, along with three priests from Tamil Nadu and one each from Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. He paid obeisance at the Kashi Kotwal Kaal Bhairav temple before proceeding to the collectorate to file his papers amid chants of Har Har Mahadev. At the district magistrate’s office, four persons — Ganeshwar Shastri Dravid, Baijnath Patel, Lalchand Kushwaha and Sanjay Sonkar — representing different sections of the society, proposed Modi’s name for nomination from the constituency . Dravid is the high priest who had determined the auspicious time for the consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya and had supervised the rituals. Baijnath Patel is a party worker since the days of Jan Sangh. Lalchand Kushwaha represents the OBC community and Sanjay Sonkar is a Dalit. Prominent among the dignitaries present included BJP’s national president J P Nadda, ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, Ramdas Athawale, Chief ministers Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Conrad Sangma, former Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu and NCP leader Praful Patel.