dharmapuri l sunday l march 24, 2024 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l city EDITION cbi raids multiple premises of Moitra in cash-for-query scam The CBI conducted searches at various premises linked to Mahua Moitra, including her parents’ home in Kolkata, in the cash-for-query case trinamool calls the raid vendetta politics CBI TO FILE REPORT WITHIN SIX MONTHS The CBI sleuths reached the Trinamool Congress leader’s home in Kolkata and other cities early in the morning and went to her party office in Krishnanagar in the evening. The TMC repeated her for the Lok Sabha poll from Krishnanagar. The party dubbed the raids as vendetta politics and a desperate attempt by the BJP to misuse central agencies ahead of the polls ■ ■ A FIR was filed this week against Moitra on the directions of Lokpal, which has asked the CBI to file its report within six months Moitra has challenged her expulsion from Lok Sabha in the SC. She was expelled in December 2023 following the recommendation of Ethics Committee for sharing her login, password of NIC portal 1st TIME MAHUA MOITRA BECAME A LOK sABHA mp IN 2019 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 143 killed and counting in Moscow terror attack by IS group’s Afghanistan branch Y e s h i s e l i @ New Delhi Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwat Maan at an AAP protest condemning the arrest of his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi on Saturday | PTI HC rejects urgent hearing. Holi-day for Kejri with ED Comment by German foreign office on full legal access to the Delhi CM angers MEA the liquor policy scam. Of the proceed of crimes, `45 crore was used in the Goa polls. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind In a related development, the Kejriwal on Saturday suffered Ministry of External Affairs a fresh setback after the Delhi (MEA) bristled at a comment High Court rejected his appeal on Kejriwal by a spokesperson for urgent listing and hearing of Germany’s foreign office. against his remand in the liq“Kejriwal is entitled to fair uor scam case. He was and impartial trial. remanded in the EnThis includes that he forcement Directomakes use of all availrate’s custody till able legal avenues Thursday by a local without restriction. court on Friday . The presumption of The legal team of innocence is a central Aam Aadmi Party element of the rule of ‘Will come (AAP) national conlaw and must apply to out soon’ venor Kejriwal menhim,” the spokespertioned the matter be- “I will soon come son said. fore J u s t i c e out... Whether The MEA reacted Manmohan, Acting inside or outside, rather shar ply by Chief Justice. The every moment of summoning German judge heard it though my life is envoy Georg Enzweilit was the court’s off dedicated to er and voicing its disday but refused to list serving the , approval. “The Gerit for urgent hearing. country,” Kejriwal man Deputy Chief of Since the Delhi High was quoted as Mission in New Delhi Court will be closed saying by his wife was summoned and for two days on Mon- Sunita in a video we conveyed India’s day and Tuesday due strong protest on their to the Holi festival, the earliest foreign office spokesperson’s Kejriwal’s plea can be listing comments on our internal affor hearing is Wednesday . fairs. We see it as undermining The ED had alleged on Fri- the independence of our judiciday that Kejriwal generated ary,’’ said MEA spokesperson over `100 crore in kickbacks in Randhir Jaiswal. S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y a n d Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi Chennai link to data analysis in IPL games S wa r o o p S wa m i n at h a n @ Chennai WHEN Gujarat Titans won the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the first time of asking in 2022, one person came in for special praise. Sandeep Raju, somebody who had played zero games for the franchise. But the role he played helped Hardik Pandya & Co. win the league. “I basically help the team with with performance analytics,” he had said in an inhouse video the franchise uploaded. “I help them look at data and come up with performance and strategies and I also help with recruiting talent.” Of course, none of this is new. All sports teams — franchise, clubs, countries across a wide variety of sport — employ data analysts to give them that extra one per cent. What, though, links Raju with most of the other analysts currently employed by various IPL teams is the city they call home? Chennai (or a place in Tamil Nadu). Mumbai Indians have in their ranks Varun Narasimhan. Rajasthan Royals have Krishnan Seshadrinathan. At least 143 people were killed in a terrorist attack on a packed concert hall in western Moscow, Russian authorities said on Saturday. The Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch later claimed responsibility for the attack. Gunmen burst into Crocus City Hall in Moscow’s suburb of Krasnogorsk on Friday and randomly opened fire on people who had arrived to watch a concert by Russian band Picnic that was about to start. The attackers also set off a blaze that took firefighters hours to bring under control. Authorities said the toll could rise as investigators were combing through the charred wreck- Putin rejected warnings about attack, says US Rescuers clear charred wreckage inside Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on Saturday | AP The US Embassy in Moscow said it had warned Russia on March 7 that extremists were planning to target large gatherings in the city. But Russian President Vladimir Putin had called it a “provocative” statement and “outright blackmail... to intimidate and destabilise our society by scaring Russian citizens” age of the hall for more victims. Over 100 people have been injured and the condition of 44 of them is said to be serious. The Russian interior ministry said all four suspected gunmen were foreign nationals. Sources with links to the security services said they were from Tajikistan. One of the detained suspects reportedly told Russian investi- s u r p a s s e s r ec o r d At 19,409 MW, TN’s power demand at all-time high S G URU V ANMI K ANATHAN @ Chennai Tamil Nadu’s electricity demand touched a record high of 19,409 MW at 11am on Friday (March 22) and the total power consumption for the day stood at 421.504 million units (MU). The state has registered this new record a month earlier than last year when power consumption reached 19,387 MW for the first time on April 20, 2023. While the state’s power demand has touched a new high every year, this is the first time in the last seven years that the previous year’s record has been surpassed in the shortest time. A senior official said the Southern Region Power Committee (SRPC) had foreseen an early surge in power demand compared to the previous year. But he said the surpassing of previous year’s high had happened a few weeks earlier than expected. “As the temperature continues to rise, the power demand is expected to rise over the next few days. Power from private sources, the state power utility, Tangedco etc is used,” the official said. p5 WITH THIS ISSUE Packing a Punch PLUS 12 PAGES gators he was recruited through Telegram and offered 5,00,000 rubles (`4.5 lakh) for his role. In his statement on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said 11 people have been detained. He also sought to link the attack to Ukraine, saying they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a ‘window’ prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border. But Ukraine denied any role in the carnage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined others in condemning the attack. “We strongly condemned the heinous terrorist attack.... India stands in solidarity with the government and the people of the Russian Federation in this hour of grief,” he posted on X. P9 TN cop held in Bangladesh for illegal entry E X PRESS NEWS SER V ICE @ Chennai John Selvaraj ’s picture shared by Bangladesh A special sub-inspector (SSI) attached to the Selaiyur police station in Chennai has been detained by the Bangladesh army on the charge of trying to enter the country by illegally crossing the border. According to police sources, the SSI has been identified as 47-year- old John Selvaraj who was on medical leave at the time of his detention. Police sources said they were probing Selvaraj’s possible links to cross-country gold and drug smugglers that may have led to the alleged misadventure. Police also said the SSI has been regularly taking leaves and had been suspended in the past for unauthorised absence. A native of Tiruchy, Selvaraj had worked as a driver with the Tiruchy police and then with the Chennai city police before he was transferred to Selaiyur. “He was frequently absent. Other than that there wasn’t anything particularly out of place about him,” a police officer said. P5
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