nagapattinam l Monday l September 09, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION India reports 1st suspected case of deadlier mpox virus strain Suspected case of the new and deadlier strain of the virus in a man who arrived in India from a country experiencing mpox transmission Patient isolated, contact tracing on Samples have been collected and are being tested to confirm the presence of mpox, Union health ministry said. The patient has been isolated at a designated hospital and is currently stable. “The case is being managed in line with established protocols, and contact tracing is ongoing to identify potential sources and assess the impact within the country,” the health ministry said ■ 30 India well prepared, says health ministry ■ Urging the public not to panic, the government said the country is fully prepared to deal with such isolated travel-related cases of mpox The mpox virus is known to spread through skin-to-skin contact or sharing items like towels. As many as 15,600 cases and 537 deaths have been reported so far this year globally, according to the WHO | P7 cases of Mpox infections caused by older virus strain reported in India since 2022 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 TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Jawahar Sircar quits over RG Kar horror S u l a g n a S e n g u p ta @ Kolkata PUTTING pressure on the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress, the party’s Rajya Sabha member Jawhar Sircar said he was resigning from Parliament and quitting politics altogether, terming the steps taken by the state government in handling the rape and murder of the doctor at RG Kar hospital “too little and quite late”. In a letter addressed to West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Sircar said he was aghast at the state government’s apathy towards corruption and the “strong-arm tactics” of a section of party leaders. “Though I carried on my task in Parliament with fervour, I became increasingly disillusioned as the state government seemed quite unconcerned about corruption and the increasing strong-arm tactics of a section of leaders,” he said. Sircar said that in 2022, a year after he joined the TMC, he was shocked to see the ‘open corruption’ that former education minister Partha Chatterjee had indulged in. Terming the protests over the doctor’s death spontaneous, the former chief of Prasar Bharti said he had not seen “such angst and total no-confidence” against a government. He said the public outrage over the RG Kar incident reflected the public’s growing discontent with the TMC gov- on amedal haul high record Join us, Pak sees you as foreigners, Rajnath tells PoK Dialogue possible only if Pakistan stops terror, defence minister says during J&K election rally F aya z w a n i @ Srinagar People take part in a protest march over the rape-murder of a doctor at RG Kar hospital, in Kolkata on Sunday. (Inset) Jawahar Sircar | PTI ernment in West Bengal. “The primary purpose of joining as an MP, without any direct involvement in party politics, was that it offered an excellent forum to carry on the struggle against the autocratic and communal politics of the BJP and its Prime Minister. To that extent, I have some satisfaction and my several interventions in parliament...” he said in the letter. Sircar said he had “suffered patiently” for a month since the incident at RG Kar hospital, hoping for direct intervention with the agitating junior doctors, “in the old style of Mamata Banerjee”. Late on Sunday night, West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose asked Banerjee to hold an emergency Cabinet meeting and discuss the issue. He also reportedly suggested the Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal be removed. Global human chain against rape-murder People from all walks of life — from students to rikshaw pullers — hit the streets of Kolkata on Sunday in protest over the rape and murder of a medic in a state-run hospital a month ago. In south Kolkata, around 4,000 ex-students of over 40 schools, a large number of them women, walked 2 km demanding justice for the victim. Meanwhile, in solidarity with the protests in India, people in 130 cities across 30 countries including the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, and Japan formed a ‘global human chain’ against the rape-murder of the Kolkata doctor on Sunday evening DEFENCE Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday asked the residents of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to join India, saying “we consider you our own unlike Pakistan which treats you as foreigners”. He said after seeing the development in Jammu and Kashmir, PoK residents will themselves reject Pakistan and join India. “There will be so much development that the people in PoK would say that we do not want to live with Pakistan and instead will go to India,” the defence minister said while addressing an election rally in the Ramban assembly constituency in support of BJP candidate Rakesh Singh Thakur. The Union minister said there has been a sea change in the overall security situation in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. The Union minister said Pakistan’s top law officer recently filed an affidavit in court terming PoK a foreign land. “I want to tell PoK residents that people of India don’t treat you as foreign- ers... Come and join us,” he said. In June this year, Pakistan’s additional attorney general told the Islamabad High Court in a case related to illegal detention of PoK poet and journalist Ahmed Farhad that PoK is a foreign territory and “therefore not under the jurisdiction of the court”. Farhad was abducted by Pakistani intelligence agencies over some of his critical comments. He was produced in court after two weeks court and was released a few weeks later. On the campaign by Kashmir-based parties to restore Article 370, Rajnath said there has been a big change since the provision was scrapped. “After 2019, Modi gover nment spent `38,000 crore on J&K development. Earlier, pistols and revolvers used to be in hands of Kashmiri youth but now they are carrying laptops and computers,” he said. Rajnath added that talks with Pakistan will be possible only if Islamabad stops terrorism in J&K. “When Pakistan stops sponsoring terrorism in J&K, India will start dialogue with them,” he said. TN key transit point for int’l meth traffickers at paralympic games S i d d h a r t h P r a b h a k a r @ Chennai India’s para-athletes has had a memorable Paralympic Games in Paris where most of the established names lived up to expectations and many talented young athletes came up with scintillating performances to help India win record 29 medals | P11 Tamil Nadu has emerged as an important transit point for international drug syndicates trafficking the banned narcotic methamphetamine or its precursor pseudoephedrine to Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Australia, where there is high demand, according to probes by Indian investigators. Official data from the Narcot- Car rammed into stationary bus after driver mistakenly assumed the vehicle was in motion | express Five of family die in TN car crash, three survive E x p r e ss N e w s S e r v i c e @ Ramanathapuram Five of a family, including two children aged four and eight, died after the car they were travelling in rammed a stationary TNSTC bus near Pirapanvalasai in Ramanathapuram on Saturday night. Three others, including a newborn Five washed baby, escaped with injuries. away in river According to police, Rajesh Thanjavur: Five (33) of Kadaladi and his wife pilgrims from Pandiselvi (28) recently had their . Chennai who were third baby As the newborn boy visiting the Poondi had taken ill, the residents of Madha Basilica Thangachimadam in Rameswarwere washed away am, had travelled to Ramanathin the Kollidam apuram in a rented car for his river while taking treatment. They were accompabath on Sunday. nied by their older children Three bodies were Dharsini Rani (8) and Pranavika found. Search is on (4), and Pandiselvi’s parents, for other two | P4 Senthil Manoharan (70) and Angaleswari (58), sources said. The accident took place on their way back to Rameswaram. As they neared Pirapanvalasai along the Rameswaram national highway the rental car’s driv, er, Britto (35) of Pamban, spotted a TNSTC bus on the road but did not slow down as he assumed it was moving ahead, sources said.  P5 ics Control Bureau’s (NCB) Chen- crore in just four cases. In all four, nai zone shows the agency’s sei- the narcotic was sourced from zures of meth bound for Sri Myanmar and en route to Sri Lanka jumped from 12kg in 2021 Lanka. The latest seizure of 10kg to 66kg in 2022 and was made by the DRI 81kg in 2023, indicatlast week, leading to press ing a hike in tranthe arrest of six and clusive busting of an intersnational trade. In 2024 alone, the national syndicate. NCB’s and Directorate of ReveTrafficking of meth is a highly nue Intelligence’s (DRI) Chennai lucrative business, said officials. zones have seized 47kg of the It costs around `50,000-1,00,000 drug with a street value of `360 per kg in Manipur, around `7 lakh in Chennai and has a street price several times that in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. NCB pegs its value at `10 crore per kg, while DRI says it’s `5 crore. Investigations show that the drug is sourced from Myanmar — part of the notorious Golden Triangle along with Thailand and Laos — and smuggled across the border to Manipur and sent to Tamil Nadu through human carriers on trains.  P5 Manipur CM seeks more powers for state to tackle violence in meet with guv P r a s a n ta M a z u m d a r @ Guwahati Amid speculations that he may quit amid raging ethnic violence in the state, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Sunday met Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya for the second time in 24 hours and submitted a memorandum, demanding protection of the state’s territorial integrity and abrogation of the Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement. The SoO pact was signed by the Centre and the Manipur government with two umbrella organisations of Kuki insurgent groups in 2008. Since then, it has been extended periodically . The Raj Bhawan said the CM and his cabinet colleagues met the governor. But neither the Raj Bhawan nor the CM’s office shared content of the memorandum. According to sources, Singh has sought more powers to the state government to deal with insurgency. The memorandum sought handing over the Unified Command to the state and rejection of Kukis’ demand for a ‘separate administration’. Meanwhile, the Assam Rifles on Sunday deployed antidrone systems in the fringe areas to repel any rogue drones. “CRPF has also tested one anti-drone system and given it to the force deployed in the state. Some more anti-drone guns are being brought to the state by CRPF shortly,” the Manipur Police said, adding: “The state police have also started the process for procurement of anti-drone system to enhance its security measures and tackle threats from drones effectively.” After a hiatus of four months, fresh ethnic violence erupted in Manipur on September 1 with drones being used to mount attacks. No new incidents of violence have so far been reported on Sunday. SPs in coordination with security forces are continuously monitoring the situation — Official