Stampede at Mumbai rlY station, 10 HURT Humongous rush at the Bandra railway station in Mumbai on Sunday. At least 10 people were injured, including one critically, in a stampede when hundreds of people attempted to board a Gorakhpur-bound train to head to their native places for the upcoming Diwali and Chhath festival | PTI SAMBALPUR l monday l October 28, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l CITY EDITION 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 Jaishankar hard talk on no 26/11 govt retaliation Says things have changed and India is now a global leader in fighting incidents of terror M AYA N K SI N G H @ New Delhi External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday did some hard talk on India’s reaction to the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attack, saying “there was no response”, but that would not be the case if it happens now. The strong language came just over three weeks before Maharashtra goes to polls on November 20. Speaking on India’s response to terrorism and what changed after 2014, Jaishankar said Mumbai is a symbol of counterterrorism for India and the world. “We should not have a repeat of what happened in Mumbai. That there was a terror attack and there was no response.” He said things have changed now and India is now a leader in fighting terror. Jaishankar fielded questions on issues ranging from terrorism to the India-China standoff and from investment to politics at a press conference in Mumbai. Reiterating the Modi government’s policy that talks and terror cannot go together, he said, “when we talk of zero tolerance against terror, it is clear that when somebody does something, there will be a response. “We also have to expose. It is not acceptable that you are doing business during daytime and indulging in terror during the night and I have to pretend that everything is okay .” When India was a member of the UN Security Council and chairing the counter-terrorism committee, the counter-terrorism panel’s meeting was held in the same hotel that was hit by the 26/11 ter ror attack, the minister said. Without naming China, he said the disengagement of troops at Depsang and Demchok in Ladakh is the first step, adding it is expected that India will return to the pre-2020 patrolling status. He, however, stressed that the next step of de-escalation won’t be taken until India is assured of reciprocity from the other side. Speaking on Manipur, Jaishankar said there are complex reasons behind what is happening, noting that some factors are historical and the rest concern the border situation. 36L people affected by Dana, says CM after conducting aerial survey E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar A total of 35.95 lakh people in 14 districts of the state have been affected by Cyclone Dana which hit the Odisha coast in the early hours of October 25. About 8,317 villages in 107 blocks and 426 wards of 31 urban local bodies have been impacted by the cyclonic storm with Kendrapara, Balasore and Bhadrak being the worst hit districts, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said on Sunday . Majhi made an aerial survey of Paradip, Mahakalpada, Rajnagar, Rajkanika and Chandbali areas during the day along with Revenue and Disaster Management minister Suresh Pujari and chief secretary Manoj Ahuja. After the survey, the chief minister asked different departments and district collectors to submit damage assessment reports by November 2 so that the CM conducts aerial survey | Express affected people can be given assistance at the earliest. The chief minister reviewed the post-cyclone restoration measures and said that power supply to about 98 per cent households have been restored. Out of the 22.84 lakh households who suffered power disconnection, supply has been restored to around 2.30 lakh households. The rest 50,000 houses will be completed by Monday . According to preliminary estimates, the chief minister said, crops were damaged in 2,71,800 acres land in 4,100 villages of 12 blocks in five districts of Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Balasore, Jajpur and Mayurbhanj. Physical verification of crop loss will be made after water recedes from the areas and farmers will be provided compensation basing on the damage reports, he said. Stating that over 8.1 lakh people were evacuated to 6,210 cyclone relief shelters, the chief minister said a majority of people have left for their homes. He, however, said 470 cyclone shelters were still operational and about 30,000 people were being provided cooked food and other facilities in these centres. Majhi thanked PM Narendra Modi and Home minister Amit Shah for the support of the Centre due to which the cyclone was tackled successfully. He said that the Centre had sent NDRF teams who played a key role in saving lives during the Continued on P5 cyclone.  50 flights, temple in Tirupati, many hotels get bomb threats U J W A L J A L A L I & N am i ta B aj pa i @ New Delhi/Lucknow/Tirupati The hoax bomb threat menace continued for the aviation industry on Sunday as more than 50 flights received calls, keeping security agencies on their toes. The Sri Varadaraja Swamy temple in Tirupati and a couple of hotels there, as also over a dozen prominent hotels in Lucknow received similar threats. Flights which received hoax bomb threats included 18 of IndiGo airlines, 17 of Vistara and 15 of Akasa. Most of the threats were issued through social media posts. While this is the first time a bomb threat was sent to a temple in Tirupati, at least half a dozen hotels in the temple city received hoax bomb threats over the past three days. The Alipiri police received a mail regarding the bomb threat at the TTD-run temple. Bomb disposal teams and sniffer dogs were deployed at Hotel Renest and Pai Viceroy, situated near the Kapila Teertham circle, as well as the Sri Varadaraja Swamy temple. The e-mail threats again mentioned the alleged drug kingpin Jaffer Sadiq and the ISI. In Vijayawada, Hotel Taj Vivanta received a bomb threat. Inspector S S S V Nagaraju said extensive searches at the hotel revealed it was a hoax threat. Panic gripped Lucknow after nine prominent hotels received bomb threats demanding a ransom of `50 lakh on Sunday The . email, sent around 8.03 am, claimed that explosive devices had been planted in black bags across all the hotel premises. The sender warned that any attempt to defuse them would lead to mass casualties, prompting an emergency response. The Lucknow police roped in the Cyber Cell to trace the origin of the email, while bomb disposal and dog squads were deployed to begin large-scale evacuations. Hurriyat Conference eyeing a comeback in new Kashmir F AYA Z W A N I @ Srinagar AFTER remaining dormant for five years, Kashmir’s separatist outfit Hurriyat Conference seems to have got a lease of life with the victory of National Conference early this month in the first Assembly polls since Article 370 was read down. Since his release in September 2023 from five years of house arrest, Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s activities have been confined to addressing weekly Friday sermons at the historic Jamia Masjid in Srinagar. But now he appears to have become very active, responding to the killing of migrant labourers by terrorists in Kashmir, commenting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s talks at the BRICS meet in Russia, and trying to revive the Hurriyat by meeting other leaders of the group. Mirwaiz broke the pattern in the run-up to the Assembly polls, making his first political speech from the pulpit of Jamia Masjid, saying elections are for sadak, bijli and paani (road, electricity, and water) and can’t resolve the Kashmir issue. On October 23, he met other Hurriyat leaders— his first meeting with them since August 5, 2019 when the Centre scrapped J&K’s special status and bifurcated the erstwhile state into two UTs. In a notable gesture, Mirwaiz condemned the killing of migrant workers at an under-construction site last week. On October 25, Mirwaiz said he was ready to hold talks with the Centre. He tried to conflate Modi’s message at the BRICS summit that dialogue and diplomacy are the means to settle conflicts and not war, with the Kashmir problem. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq Mirwaiz’s return to active politics suggests a strategic repositioning. The move appears aimed at reviving Hurriyat’s relevance in J&K’s fast-changing political environment. The developments also imply a more inclusive approach by the gover nment. “Allowing meeting of Mirwaiz and his colleagues is an indication of a shift in the political environment in J&K,” said J&K Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari.