hyderabad l sunday l october 04, 2026 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l late city EDITION Neighbours’ 5th gen stealth jets a cause for concern: iaf chief IAF chief Air Chief Marshal A P Singh called the arrival of fifth-generation fighters in India’s neighbourhood a ‘cause for worry’ iaf may have to look at other options Singh’s concern comes amid a backdrop of China already flying J-20 and J-35 stealth fighters and Pakistani pilots reportedly training in China ahead of its air force inducting Chinese fifth-generation jets. Singh said the Air Force may have to look at “other fighter platforms” if the indigenous AMCA (advanced medium combat aircraft) project slips ■ 29 no decision yet on importing stealth jets ■ The twin-engine AMCA, designed by DRDO’s Aeronautical Development Agency, is India’s only home-grown stealth fighter The IAF chief, however, made it clear that no decision had yet been taken on importing a stealth fighter as a stop-gap. “Russia has offered the Su-57, but no decision has been taken yet,” he said | P7 fighter squadrons in iaf against a sanctioned strength of 42.5 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 UAE: Crash axe use for Flydubai terror When Oman barred him from flying E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi The co-pilot of Flydubai flight FZ1073 attempted to carry out a “terrorist attack” with a crash axe while the aircraft was flying from Dubai to Israel, the United Arab Emirates prosecutor general said on Saturday according to , the state news agency WAM. UAE Prosecutor General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said an investigation had found that the co-pilot “had attempted to carry out a terrorist attack”. He said the copilot attacked the pilot inside the cockpit with a crash axe in a bid to take control of the aircraft. The co-pilot was identified as Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national. However, Emirati authorities and Flydubai have not publicly named him. Israeli officials had said the co-pilot was an Omani national, while Oman has Al-Hammami was previously barred from flying in Oman over concerns about his radical ideological views, the Wall Street Journal reported Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with Captain Smit Machchhar at a UAE hospital | PTI not commented about it yet. A crash axe is normally kept in an aircraft cockpit for emergency purposes, including situations involving a crash or forced landing of the aircraft. The UAE prosecutor general said the probe into the suspect’s motives remained ongo- 59.3 lakh TG electors cleared for final rolls Shah defers TG visit, KLIS the reason? Hyderabad: The visit of Amit Shah to Telangana, scheduled for Saturday, was postponed at the last minute, with MoS (Home) Bandi Sanjay and BJP spokesperson NV Subhash attributing this to “unavoidable reasons”. The sudden change in schedule, however, has set off speculation in political circles in Telangana | P4 WITH THIS ISSUE The Great Everest Invasion PLUS 12 P AGES E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e Malkajgiri Police Commissioner B Sumathi gives details of the arrest in the Bollarum arms theft case to the reporters on Saturday 3 more Army personnel among seven held in Bollarum arms theft case C h i t h a l u r i Re v a nt h @ Hyderabad Bollarum police of the Malkajgiri commissionerate have arrested seven more persons, including three serving Army personnel, in connection with the theft of firearms and ammunition from the 20 Battalion, Madras Regiment, taking the total number of arrests in the case to eight. The three serving personnel were identified as Konduri Sheshulu, a sepoy; Vinod Kumar, a naik; and Kucharakanti Praveen, a havildar. The other accused are Avi Dey alias Obi and Birbal Shaw, both from West Bengal, and Upputholla Mallikarjun and Chemmakar Niranjan, friends of prime accused Upputholla Mallesh alias Raju. Mallesh, 37, a former havildar of the 20 Battalion, was ar- rested on September 11. Police said he stole four AK-203 rifles, an INSAS rifle, seven pistols, three binoculars and 1,912 rounds of ammunition from the Kote and Magazine rooms on the intervening night of August 30 and 31. The weapons and ammunition were later recovered from his father’s house in Achampet. Malkajgiri Commissioner of Police B Sumathi said Mallesh initially planned to use the weapons for robberies targeting banks, jewellery shops and wealthy persons. He allegedly discussed the plan with his cousin Mallikarjun and friend Niranjan, who were facing financial problems. The police commissioner said Mallesh had also contacted Dey and Shaw, whom he knew from his posting in Barrackpore, West Bengal.  continued on P5 Just months after the release of the film he directed at the age of 94, veteran filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao passed away at a private hospital in Chennai on Saturday night. Singeetham had directed 61 films across several languages in a career spanning more than five decades, remaining committed to experimentation until the end. Sing Geetham, released on June 12, was based on an idea he had nurtured for nearly four decades and was completed in 77 shooting days. He attended the film’s pre-release event in Chennai, where actor Kamal Haasan was the chief guest. The appearance brought together two collabora- Rath, stayed away after he learnt about the development. The episode, described by sources as a loss of face for the organisers due to mismanagement, went viral on social media. Sports minister Indranil Khan and AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey did not respond to queries from this paper. Meanwhile, security was ramped up for the high-profile fixture on Saturday, billed as one of the city’s biggest in recent years. More than 300 CCTV cameras monitored the area. Spectators were not allowed to carry outside food or water bottles inside. The heightened focus on access control came against the backdrop of the chaos that unfolded during Argentine star Lionel Messi’s visit to the city in December. This time, offi- Year 1973 1988 Singeetham srinivasa rao 21 septEMBER 1931 l 03 october 2026 tors whose association produced some of the most distinctive films of their careers. Their association began with the Telugu film Sommokadidhi Sokokadidhi (1979), starring Kamal Haasan in a dual role. They went on to make Pushpa- S i d d h a r d h a G att i m i @ Hyderabad A photograph shared by Dhruva Space of LEAP-2 hosted-payload platform being deployed from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 early on October 2 Hyderabad-based space companies Dhruva Space and TakeMe2Space put their spacecraft into orbit aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 early on October 2, as part of the Transporter-18 rideshare mission. The mission also carried technologies developed by Ahmedabad-based SatLeo Labs and Hyderabadbased EON Space Labs. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California shortly after midnight IST with 130 payloads. Dhruva Space’s LEAP-2 hostedpayload platform was deployed ka Vimana (1987), a dialoguefree black comedy that relied on visual storytelling and physical comedy. The film won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment as a Kannada entry . The partnership continued with Apoorva Sagodharargal (1989), released in Telugu as Vichitra Sodarulu, in which Kamal Haasan played three roles, including Appu, a character with dwarfism. It was followed by Michael Madana Kama Rajan (1990), in which he Film Dikkatra Parvathi Pushpaka Vimana (Kannada entry) played four characters. The two later worked together on Magalir Mattum (1994), Kaathala Kaathala (1998) and Mumbai Xpress (2005). The latter was made simultaneously in Tamil and Hindi. Singeetham’s work in Telugu cinema was equally varied. Mayuri (1985), based on the life of dancer Sudha Chandran, became one of his notable films. Chandran played a version of herself, and the film won him the Nandi Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay Writer.  continued on p5 Vinicius Junior during the friendly with India in Kolkata on Saturday | PTI Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior led the visitors as the marquee name on the pitch. around 1 am IST, followed by Ta ke M e 2 S p a c e ’s M O I - 1 A spacecraft. For Dhruva Space, LEAP-2 is the second commercial mission under its Launching Expeditions for Aspiring Payloads (LEAP) programme, using its P-30 satellite platform. It carries a star tracker developed by France-based Sodern, an ArianeGroup company, and TAPAS-1, a thermal infrared Earth-observation sensor developed by SatLeo Labs. The mission marks Dhruva Space’s move beyond satellite manufacturing into end-to-end mission delivery The company . handled the integration of LEAP-2 with the Falcon 9, building on LEAP-1, through which it became the first private Indian company to undertake in-house launch-vehicle integration of its satellite. “LEAP-2 has demonstrated Dhruva Space’s ability to manage all mission segments endto-end, from satellite and payload integration, deployer assembly and launchvehicle integration to successful deployment in orbit,” CEO and co-founder Sanjay Nekkanti told TNIE.  CONTINUED ON P5 Golden finish: India end on high Bright future What is heartening is that almost all the medallists from India are young while some of them made their debut. A healthy sign with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics just two years away Indraneel Das I cials took particular care to ensure the prescribed entry procedures were followed strictly . Category Best Feature Film in Tamil Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment Hyd space firms now in orbit Before Samba, Brazil team skips CM’s dinner THE much-awaited Brazil-India friendly at Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday evening was overshadowed by a last-minute snub on Friday night. The Brazilian side boycotted a dinner hosted at JW Marriott by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari after being made to wait for 10 minutes during a photo session. Senior leaders, ministers, bureaucrats and others jostled for selfies with the Samba stars, delaying the event. The visitors, clearly miffed, skipped both the dinner and the accompanying musical performance by a noted percussionist, sources present at the venue said. The CM, who was to attend after campaigning in Nandigram for the BJP’s Hasirani & SMOKE AT ARAMCO facility Houthi group is suspected to have targeted the facility belonging to the oil giant | P9 National Film Awards @ Hyderabad friendly tie s u b h en d u m a i t i @ Kolkata Fire Master storyteller Singeetham dead e x p r e s s r ea d Hyderabad: A total of 59.35 lakh electors have been cleared for inclusion in final electoral rolls in Telangana following the disposal of notices issued over logical discrepancies and non-mapping during the Special Intensive Revision. The Chief Electoral Officer said that as many as 2,61,191 notices remain pending delivery. ing and that the findings would be released after the completion of the “necessary procedures”. The incident took place last Wednesday aboard the Dubai-Tel Aviv flight. Most of the passengers were Israeli nationals. A reserve Flydubai pilot who was travelling as a passenger took control of the aircraft after the cockpit terror attack and landed safely at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia. The injured pilot, an Indian national, Captain Smit Machchhar, is recovering well and remained under medical care, the Indian Embassy said. Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum praised Machchhar after visiting him in hospital. He said the pilot had “embodied the highest degrees of courage, responsibility and care , for human life”. “From us, and from the leadership of the nation, he has our full appreciation and praise,” Hamdan said. “We are proud that he is part of our team, and part of what the UAE stands for a nation of compassion, of peace and a nation of life,” he said. Express @ asian games Nagoya T was like the last day of a wedding. Barring an equestrian event on Sunday morning, the festivities are over; done and dusted for the next four years. The overlays are being peeled one after the other. The temporary structures are getting dismantled and weary volunteers are slowly leaving their stations. Only the Closing Ceremony remains. After a slightly iffy start, the sun has been shining from an Indian perspective. India won as many as five gold medals on Saturday. It began with women’s archery and golf in the morning. The men’s cricket team kept their date with destiny before the men’s hockey team booked their LA28 spot. The highlight, though, arrived in the form of an incomparable run to gold in the women’s indi- India players celebrate after beating Malaysia in the men’s hockey final to win the gold medal on Saturday | PTI vidual recurve archery . It was enough to propel India to fourth place in the medals tally with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze. However, it has to be noted that Uzbekistan could take the fourth spot if they win gold in the equestrian event on Sunday. Even if Saturday saw two of India’s beloved sides winning gold, the day belonged to Kumkum Mohod, the 17-yearold archer whose unerring accuracy with a bow and arrow dethroned the might of the South Koreans. If she was raging in faraway Okazaki sports park, wrestlers — Aman Sehrawat was the standout — scorched the mat. On top of that, there was a welcome gold in golf — Pranavi Urs became the first Indian woman to bag gold. India cricket team’s win over Pakistan was the icing on the cake. Though there were no handshakes, they had the gold medal dangling around their necks at least — unlike in the Asia Cup which is still lying in the Asian Cricket Council headquarters. India’s overall medals tally (85) and gold (21) was well below the high of Hangzhou (107 & 28). But, after a head-scratching first week, this was a fine comeback. Over to Doha.  P11