kalaburagi l tuesday l july 08, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Tahawwur Rana was in Mumbai to oversee 26/11 carnage Tahawwur Rana, the 26/11 mastermind, has admitted he was present in Mumbai during the 2008 attacks as a trusted agent of Pakistan ‘conducted many surveillance missions’ Even as Rana remains under NIA custody in Tihar Jail, his statement was recorded by Mumbai Police Crime Branch. Rana told interrogators that he had conducted many reconnaissance missions of several areas in Mumbai ahead of the 2008 attacks and was present in the area when Lashkar-eTaiba-linked terrorists attacked the Taj Hotel and went on a rampage ■ 166 rana was involved in aiding the attack ■ The NIA has charged Rana for hatching a conspiracy to carry out the attacks along with friend David Headley, who is a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative and another key conspirator in the gruesome 26/11 attacks Rana was involved in planning the attacks and helped Headley in getting a visa by creating a false identity to help him travel to India | P7 people were killed in the 26/11 attacks in mumbai 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 SC to hear pleas against Bihar EC fiat on Thursday Bench says timeline has no sanctity as polls for the state assembly are yet to be notified S U CHITRA K A LYA N M O HA N T Y @ New Delhi Why fresh exercise? “Bihar’s voter list was finalised in January 2025. The ECI itself acknowledged this. Revisions were made until June. Then, suddenly, it was discarded… Without any proof, without discrepancies, 70 million voters now have to prove citizenship again,” Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said This is mass scale rigging and mischief being carried out by the ECI, under instructions from the ruling regime... It has wreaked havoc across the villages and towns of Bihar K C Venugopal, Cong The Supreme Court on Monday decided to hear on July 10, Thursday a batch of pleas chal, lenging an order of the Election Commission of India (ECI) for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar. The batch of petitions included a joint Opposition plea filed on Monday Its signatories . are K C Venugopal of the Congress, Supriya Sule of NCP (Sharad Pawar), Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena (UBT), Harinder Malik of Samajwadi Party Sarfraz Ahmed of JMM, D Raja of , CPI and Dipankar Bhattacharya of CPI (ML). Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the pleas filed before a two-judge bench comprising justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi. “We will have it on Thursday,” the bench said. Sibal urged the court to issue a notice to the ECI, adding it will be impossible for the people to meet the tight timeline for enumeration. Other lawyers who made their submissions were Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Shadan Farasat and Gopal Shankarnarayanan. They argued that voters who fail to submit their forms with the specified documents will face the harsh consequence of being deleted from the electoral roll, even if they have voted in elections for the last 20 years. Singhvi said while the size of the electorate is 8 crore, as many as 4 crore will have to do the enumeration. “The timeline is so strict — by July 25 if you don’t give, you will be out,” Singhvi pointed out. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for another petitioner, said the poll panel was not accepting Aadhaar cards and voter ID cards as proof for the enumeration. The bench, however, contended that the timeline “doesn’t have sanctity as elections have not been notified as yet”. It asked the petitioners to give advance notice to the counsel for the ECI. Apart from the joint petition by Opposition leaders, at least five other pleas have been filed, including those by the Association For Democratic Reforms, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra, Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha and activist Yogendra Yadav. Countries aligning with BRICS policies will be charged an additional 10% tariff Will redefine BRICS in new form: Modi Under its presidency next year, India will work to define BRICS in a new form—Build Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability—Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday | P7 US announces 25% tariff on Japan, Korea The US will impose 25% blanket tariffs on imports from Japan and South Korea starting Aug 1, President Donald Trump revealed through a series of social media posts on Monday | P10 Trump threatens extra 10% tariff on BRICS allies JAYA N TH JAC O B @ New Delhi HOURS after the BRICS leaders criticised the unilateral trade actions and Israel’s military strikes in Iran, US President Donald Trump late on Sunday night threatened to slap an extra 10% tariff on countries that support the bloc. “Any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. He did not specify which policies were “anti-American” or which countries would be targeted. Trump’s threat followed BRICS joint declaration at the summit in Brazil, where member states including India, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa, and several new entrants criticised protectionist trade practices and foreign military interventions. Without naming the US, the statement voiced “serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures which distort trade and are inconsistent with WTO rules.” The bloc reaffirmed its support for an inclusive trading system and rejected ‘punitive and discriminatory protec- tionist measures’. The declaration said the proliferation of trade-restrictive actions “threatens to further reduce global trade, disrupt global supply chains, and introduce uncertainty into international economic and trade activities”. This is not the first time Trump has targeted BRICS. In June, he threatened to slap 100% tariffs on countries that move to replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency . BRICS, originally formed to amplify the voice of major emerging economies, has since expanded beyond its core members to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. no game of chance State aims to ban online betting; Bill in next session E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @Bengaluru The Karnataka government has proposed to amend the Karnataka Police Act, 1963 in the forthcoming legislature session to ban online betting and gambling. If the Bill becomes an Act, it will curb the “Game of Chance” -- any game, contest or activity where the outcome is predominantly determined by luck, randomness or uncertainty and includes online gambling, betting and wagering activities. It will also curb online betting in any form of wagering or staking of money, tokens, virtual currency or electronic funds on the outcome of a game, event or activity, conducted through the internet, mobile applications, or other digital platforms, where the outcome is predominantly determined by chance, as per the draft Bill. But it exempts the ‘Game of Skill’ -- any game, contest or activity where the outcome is determined by the skill, knowledge, training or expertise of the participant, as recognised by judicial precedents. “The Games of skill, as determined by the State Government or a designated authority, shall be exempt from the prohibition, subject to regulation and licensing,” it clarified.  P4 probe ORDERED AGAINST SENA MINISTER Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis has ordered an inquiry against Shiv Sena minister Sanjay Shirsat and his son for buying a luxury hotel worth `110 crore much below its value for `67 crore in Sambhaji Nagar by rigging the entire tender process | P8 Damaged buildings in a residential area after heavy rainfall in Mandi district; (left) Relief material being sent by a helicopter to flood-ravaged residents on Monday | PTI Video grabs of the youth assaulting and stripping Kushal in Aluru near Bengaluru In Renukaswamy-like case, gang abducts, strips youth E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @Bengaluru The Soladevanahalli police arrested nine people, including a 17-year-old girl, for allegedly kidnapping a youth, stripping him naked and torturing him by assaulting him with sticks. The accused recorded a video of the assault and referred to the Renukaswamy murder case, in which actor Darshan had been arrested. The person recording the video, zooming in on two of his associates, can be heard, though jokingly say, ing they are A1 (accused no 1) and A2 in the “Renukaswamylike case” . The gang assaulted the victim after he sent an obscene message to his former girlfriend, who recently broke up with him. The incident occurred at an isolated place in Aluru, on the outskirts of Bengaluru on June 30. The accused have been identified as Shivashankar A, Yeshwanth Patel M, Hemanth, Sal- man Khan S, Rahul M, Tejas S, Rakesh R, and N Shashank Gowda. All are aged between 18 and 23. Except for Khan, who works as a lab technician, all are students. The police said the victim, Kushal (18), who has completed his PU exam, was in a relationship with a minor girl, his classmate. She recently broke up with him and is in a relationship with another boy Enraged with . this, Kushal allegedly started harassing her by sending lewd messages. The girl informed her friend, who called Kushal and asked him to sort out the issue by talking. When Kushal turned up, the group of eight youth allegedly abducted him in a car and took him to an isolated place near Aluru in the Madanayakanahalli police limits, where they allegedly beat him with their hands and sticks and later stripped him naked. One of them recorded the assault on a mobile phone. P5 rising cases Autopsies mandatory in sudden deaths among young E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @Bengaluru To address growing public concern over sudden deaths among young people, the state government has made postmortems mandatory in all cases of sudden, unexplained deaths occurring outside hospitals among individuals below the age of 45. These deaths, Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said, will now be treated as “notifiable events” and must be officially recorded and medically examined to rule out unknown causes. A government order will soon be issued, he told TNIE. The decision follows the findings of a government-commissioned pilot study that investigated the rise in cardiac deaths among younger adults post-Covid. The study, led by Dr KS Ravindranath, Director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, concluded that while there has been a 4–5% increase in heart attack cases among those under 45, the causes are linked to excessive steroids, lifestyle factors — including obesity, smoking, consumption of tobacco, diabetes and sedentary habits — and not due to Covid vaccines or the infection itself. The expert committee was constituted in February following public anxiety and speculation over rising cases of sudden cardiac deaths among healthy young individuals, especially post-Covid. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had ordered the study seeking clarity on wheth, er vaccines or long Covid effects were contributing factors. P5 express read Municipal staffers to go on mass leave today Bengaluru: Officials and other staff of various municipal corporations in the state, including Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), will go on mass leave on Tuesday in support of their demands. 3 die in Yadgir; no water contamination: Officials Yadgir: Three persons died due to alleged consumption of contaminated water at Tippanatagi in Shorapur taluk in two days. The health department got water samples which confirmed that it was potable. daily soap Rescue ops on to trace 30 missing Kyunki neta again abhineta, Smriti back as Tulsi people after cloudbursts in Himachal K a r t i k B h a r a d w a j @ Mumbai h a r p r ee t b a j w a @ Chandigarh SEARCH and rescue operations in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh were intensified on Monday with the use of drones and sniffer dogs to trace 30 people who went missing after cloudbursts, flash floods and landslides wreaked havoc in the Thunag, Gohar, and Karsog subdivisions last week. A team of 250 personnel from the National and State Disaster Response Forces, Army, IndoTibetan Border Police, and Home Guards, along with the administration and locals, are part of the rescue work. ‘Issue regular updates’ CM Sukhu has directed officials to issue regular weather updates and to counter misinformation circulating on social media The disaster resulted in the deaths of 52 people, with 78 reported deaths since the onset of the monsoon on June 20. Meanwhile, a 10-month-old infant, Nitika, was rescued from the debris of her home in Talwara village. Her father, Ramesh Kumar, was found dead, while her mother and grandmother are still untraced. The infant is currently being taken care of by her aunt. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu expressed concern over the rising incidents of cloudbursts across the state. The local weather office issued a yellow warning for heavy rain at isolated places in four districts of Una, Hamirpur, Solan and Sirmaur districts till Wednesday . As many as 235 roads are closed in the state, of which 176 were in Mandi district alone. Besides, 163 transformers were affected in the state. Actor-politician Smriti Irani will be returning to play the role of Tulsi Virani in the reboot of Ektaa Kapoor’s 2000s iconic daily soap, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. “Some journeys come full circle, not for nostalgia, but for purpose. Returning to Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is not just a step back into a role, but a return to a story that redefined Indian television and reshaped my own life,” Smriti said in a statement. “Today, I stand at a crossroads where experience meets emotion, and creativity meets conviction. I return not just as an actor, but as someone who Straddled two powerful platforms in 25 years Smriti said she straddled two powerful platforms — media and public policy — in the last 25 years, adding both have their own impact with “each demanding a different kind of commitment” believes in the power of storytelling to spark change, preserve culture, and build empathy she added. ,” The show will to return to its original platform, Star Plus, on July 28. Other than Smriti, the serial will also star Amar Upadhyay, who will return in the role of Mihir. Hiten Tejwani, and Gauri Pradhan will also be seen reprising their roles from Smriti’s first look as Tulsi in Kyunki... the show’s original version. In a recent media interaction, Smriti revealed that there were talks about a reboot to the series in 2014, but she had to reject the offer because of her sojourn into politics. However, Ektaa took to social media to claim that such an idea wasn’t in the works at all. She later deleted the post. Smriti, who served as Union minister across multiple portfolios from 2014 to 2024, lost the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Amethi to Sonia Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma by over 1.5 lakh votes, a constituency she had wrested from Rahul Gandhi in 2019. With her return to acting, does this mean a sabbatical from politics, or is it just a calm before the 2029 storm, Kyunki Actor Bhi Kabhi Politician Thi? ‘Kyunki’ aired from 2000 to 2008 and was the most successful serial of its time, with TRPs in double digits for many years.