THIRUVANANTHAPURAM l monday l January 20, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l LATE city EDITION AXELSEN, aN SE-yOUNG CRUISE TO EASY TITLE WINS AT iNDIA oPEN Double Olympic gold medallist Viktor Axelsen secures third India Open title as Olympic & world champion An dominated right from word go Viktor Axelsen An Se-Young great dane erases malaysia heartbreak doubles delight for japanese, chinese pairs Viktor Axelsen erased the disappointment of falling in the opening round of the Malaysia Open last week to the same opponent. For An, it was an effortless 21-12 21-9 win over P Chochuwong. Malaysian duo of Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin, who ended India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy & Chirag Shetty’s run in semis, pocketed the doubles title ■ ■ In the women’s doubles final, Japan’s Arisa Igarashi and Ayako Sakuramoto beat Kim Hye Jeong and Kong Hee-Yong of South Korea 21-15, 21-13 In mixed doubles, China’s Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin prevailed 21-18 21-17 over Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue | P11 3rd Axelsen wins India open for record third time 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 Peace dawns on Gaza after 15 months of war Hamas releases three hostages; hardliner quits Netanyahu govt A G E NCI E S MAJOR FIRE AT KUMBH MELA trump swearing-in today Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration, scores of protesters took to streets in Washington to rally against his policies | P9 NO CASUALTIES REPORTED  A major fire broke out at the Kumbh Mela site in  Prayagraj on Sunday after a suspected leak from an LPG cylinder caused an explosion  The fire is believed to have started at Geeta press  tent in Sector 19 around 4 pm  The blaze quickly spread and engulfed around 40 tents   15 fire tenders were pressed into action and the  blaze was brought under control within an hour | p8 Suspected Bangladeshi nat’l held in Saif attack case S U D H IR S U R YA W A NS H I @ Mumbai MUMBAI police on Sunday arrested Shariful Islam Shehzad, a suspected Bangladeshi national, in connection with the attack on actor Saif Ali Khan. He was produced before a local court, which remanded him in five days in police custody . Shehzad, 30, was arrested from Thane’s Labour Camp area, where he used to work as Bengaluru techie gets free phone, loses `2.8 cr Express news service @ B’luru After the ‘dubious parcel at Customs’ scam and ‘digital arrest’ scare, cyber fraudsters have come up with a new trick to gobble up your money: offer a free mobile phone, and use it to siphon off money from your bank account. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Whitefield) Shivakumar Gunare said this new type of crime was reported in Bengaluru where a techie lost `2.8 crore. Shivakumar said a fraudster posing as a private bank representative sent a m o b i l e phone as a gift to the software engineer. The fraudster claimed that the bank had approved a credit card for the victim, and due to his good credit score, he was eligible to receive a free mobile phone. The fraudster had earlier contacted the victim with a credit card offer, and convinced him to take the card, he said. Following this, a new mobile phone was sent to the techie’s address. The victim inserted a SIM card into the phone, which had pre-installed cloning software. This software was configured in such a way that no messages or emails from the bank would be received on his device. A week later, the techie noticed that funds had been debited from his fixed deposit account. Since the phone was cloned, the OTPs sent by the bank were redirected to the fraudster’s account. Upon enquiring with the bank, the victim learnt that the money had been siphoned off by fraudsters. a housekeeper in a bar. While seeking 14 days police “Prima facie, the accused is custody in court, the prosecua Bangladeshi and he changed tion said the police was lookhis name to Vijay Das ing to probe if there after entering India ilwas an “international legally. He came to conspiracy” behind Mumbai some 5-6 the attack. months ago. The acHowever, defence cused used to work for l aw ye r S a n d e e p a housekeeping agenSherkhane said the cy said Dixit Gedam, ,” police made the arrest deputy commissioner without proper probe Shariful Islam Shehzad and that his client of police, Zone 9. was residing in India for several years with family. “First of all, Saif Ali Khan has never made any statement or does not have any grievance with anyone that would create a threat for him from Bangladesh or any other country He . does not have any international cases. They (police) changed the angle of the case just because the accused is Bangladeshi,” he said. EXPRESS READ Killed mother as punishment for giving birth, says youth Kozhikode: Shocking details have come to light in the probe into the incident in which a youth hacked his mother to death in Thamarassery on Saturday. The accused, Ashiq, had stated that he killed his mother as “punishment for giving birth”. Police said they will check whether he was under the influence of drugs at the time of murder. P4 Mysterious illness toll rises to 17 in J&K’s Rajouri district Srinagar: A high-level inter-ministerial team formed by Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday visited J&K’s Rajouri district where a mysterious illness is wreaking havoc, killing another person in Budhal village and taking the death toll to 17. With health experts clueless, the government has ordered a police probe into the deaths. P8 THE much-awaited ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took effect on Sunday following an almost three-hour delay after Hamas was late to name the three hostages it plans to release first. The truce, which started at 11.15 am local time (2.15pm IST), is the first step toward ending the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and returning the hostages abducted in Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack. An Israeli official confirmed that Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were released by Hamas in the evening. Gonen was abducted from the Nova music festival, while the other two were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Damari is an Israeli-British dual citizen. Hamas was supposed to provide the three names before the start of the ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the militants had not lived up to their commitment. Hamas blamed the delay in handing over the names on “technical field reasons,” and said it is committed Displaced Palestinians walk through the destruction caused by Israeli offensive in Rafah, as a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect Sunday | AfP to the ceasefire agreement announced last week. In the interim between 8.30 am and when the ceasefire took hold on Sunday, Israeli fire killed at least 26 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry . Israel’s hardline national security minister Itamar BenGvir, meanwhile, said his Otzma Yehudit party was quitting the government in protest over the ceasefire agreement. BenGvir’s departure weakens Netanyahu’s coalition but will not affect the truce. The ceasefire deal was announced last week after a year of intensive mediation by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt. The 42-day first phase of the ceasefire should see a total of 33 hostages return from Gaza and the remaining Palestinian prisoners and detainees released. Negotiations on the far more difficult second phase of this ceasefire should begin in just P9 over two weeks.