DHARMAPURI l friday l september 19, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l city EDITION Visas of certain Indian business executives revoked: u.s. embassy The visas of a few Indian business executives were revoked for their alleged involvement in trafficking of fentanyl precursors, the US said decision to rein in trafficking of drugs The embassy’s decisions is in keeping with the Trump Administration’s efforts to keep Americans safe from dangerous synthetic narcotics. “Individuals and organizations involved in illegal production, trafficking of drugs to US, along with their families, will face consequences including being denied access to US,” affirmed Chargé d’affaires Jorgan Andrews ■ 70% fentanyl overdose deaths tipping point ■ The US embassy in Delhi said the Trump administration has already taken critical steps to confront this crisis through a series of executive orders that secure its borders and combat drug trafficking Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid and drug. There have been reports in US of drug overdose deaths from consumption of fentanyl of US’ 1,07,000 drug overdose deaths in 2024 were from fentanyl 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 Fresh Rahul-CEC sparring on ‘vote theft’ in Karnataka Six missing, 2 dead as rain batters U’khand n a r e n d r a s e t h i @ Dehradun TWO people were killed, five rescued alive while six people are missing as landslides and flooding triggered by heavy rain flattened more than 40 houses in four villages of Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Thursday . The deceased were identified as Narendra Singh (42) and Jagdamba Prasad (70). Of the six people still missing, four are from Kuntari Lagaphali and one each is from Kuntari Lagasarpani and Dhurma. All four affected villages — Kuntari Lagaphali, Kuntari Lagasarpani, Sera and Dhurma — come under the Nandanagar area, 260 km from Dehradun. Nandanagar is already reeling from land subsidence. Four people were rescued alive in Kuntari Lagaphali and one in Dhurma village, the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) in Dehradun said. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami directed officials to ensure adequate arrangements is made for shelter, food and water and other amenities for those affected. Those seriously injured, including a child, were airlifted to AIIMS in Rishikesh, Dhami told reporters in Gopeshwar after speaking to officials. P r e e t h a N a i r @ New Delhi SDRF personnel during a search operation in Nandanagar area of Chamoli district in Uttarakhand on Thursday. The four villages affected by the rain-related landslides and floods are located about 260 km from Dehradun. Six people — four from Kuntari Lagaphali and one each from Kuntari Lagasarpani and Dhurma — are still missing, SDRF officials said | pti Nato-style agreement to treat attack on one country as attack on both India weighs Pak-Saudi def pact J AYANTH J ACOB @ New Delhi Sebi clean chit to Adani on Hindenburg allegations BENN KOCHU V EEDAN @ Mumbai Markets watchdog Sebi on Thursday dismissed all charges levelled by the now-shuttered US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research against the Adani group, its founder Gautam Adani, his brother, and a few top executives including the group’s chief financial officer Jugeshinder Singh. The Hindenburg report had accused the group of share price rigging, insider trading, accounting fraud, and using offshore tax havens and shell firms to route funds. Sebi said its probe found no violation of regulations and that there were no related-party transactions. Accordingly, the watchdog decided to “dispose of the instant proceedings against noticees (Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, Adani Power, Adicorp Enterprises, Gautam Adani and his brother Rajesh Adani) without any direction”. The final orders issued by Sebi’s whole-time member Kamlesh Chandra Varshneya also exonerated group chairman Gautam Adani and his brother Rajesh. Reacting to the order, Gautam Adani said that it reaffirmed his and the group’s stand that Hindenburg’s claims were baseless, adding that “those spread false narratives owe an apology”. INDIA on Thursday said it would assess the security implications of the newly signed Strate gic Mutual Defence Agreement between nucleararmed Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, amid concerns over shifting power dynamics in the Middle East and South Asia. The pact, signed on Wednesday during Pak Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ’s official visit to Riyadh, marks a major upgradation of defence ties between the two countries. It includes a mutual defence clause that says “any aggression against either of the two countries shall be considered as an aggression against both”. The accord was signed in the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de-facto ruler, and Pakistan’s powerful army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, highlighting its strategic weight. The agreement, finalised days after Israeli airstrikes on Qatari soil targeting Hamas leaders, has the potential to reshape regional security alignments as many Gulf states are now questioning the long-term I m p l i c at i o n s f o r I n d i a India to assess the Pak-Saudi pact’s impact on national security and regional stability 1 Future military conflicts with Pak could technically evoke a response from Saudi Arabia 2 India worried about nuclear proliferation as Pak is expected to provide N-cover to the Saudis 3 Energy security, diaspora safety India is expected to weigh not just the military dimensions of the pact and also its broader strategic implications on energy security, diaspora safety, and the evolving balance of power in the Gulf. Over 8 million Indians live and work across the Gulf, with a substantial population in Saudi Arabia Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif (left) with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after signing a pact in Riyadh | AP reliability of the US as a security guarantor. It also comes months after the military conflict between India and Pakistan following Phagalgam attack. Reacting to the development, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) offered a measured response. “We have seen re- ports of the signing of a strategic mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. Pakistan’s decades-old alliance with Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, is deeprooted in shared faith, strategic interests, and deep econom- The Madras High Court has ordered the director general of health services (DGHS) attached to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to conduct mop-up counselling for NEETSuper Specialty 2024-25, so as to fill the vacant seats and enable booze inside Pulicat bird sanctuary A state-run Tasmac outlet has come up inside the Pulicat bird sanctuary, on an illegal construction in the middle of a flood channel and with an illegal road leading to it | P4 Cop drives on as 40-yr-old clings on to car, suspended Express News Service @ Tirunelveli under the weather A lone woman braving the heavy downpour that lashed parts of Chennai on Thursday evening | p ravikumar HC orders mop-up counselling for NEET-SS seats R SI V AKUMAR @ Chennai ic interdependence. It also includes a longstanding military partnership. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Pakistani troops are currently deployed in Saudi Arabia, providing operational, technical, and training support, including to the kingdom’s air and land forces. While defence cooperation between the two nations is not new, formalising it into a mutual defence pact to include the nuclear umbrella marks an escalation that is likely to trigger close scrutiny in New Delhi. A senior Saudi official, speaking to the international media, acknowledged the complexities involved regarding India — a key Saudi partner.“Our relationship with India is more robust than it has ever been. We will continue to grow this relationship and seek to contribute to regional peace whichever way we can,” the official was quoted as saying. When asked whether Pakistan would provide Saudi Arabia with a nuclear umbrella, the official said: “This is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means.” Such comments are likely to be watched closely in India. In yet another exposé on ‘vote theft’, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday claimed large-scale irregularities in Karnataka’s Aland constituency, accusing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of ‘protecting those murdering democracy’. Rahul charged that 6,018 voter names were deleted in Aland in a systematic manner using software, adding the CEC was complicit in the deletion as he refused to provide crucial data and take any action despite repeated requests from the Karnataka CID. However, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Karnataka claimed it had handed over all information required for the probe to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi district on Sept 6, 2023. In Delhi, the ECI said, “No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Gandhi.” The fraud was exposed by chance when a booth-level officer discovered that her uncle’s vote had been deleted after a neighbour applied for the deletion of his vote, said Rahul. “However, the neighbour denied it. Some other force hijacked the process,” he added. Although the Karnataka CID sent 18 letters to ECI in a span of 18 months seeking destination IPs, device ports and OTP trails of the fake Form 7 applications, the poll body has not successful candidates to get their preferred courses. The order was passed on Thursday by Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan on a petition filed by Dr Ajitha, Dr Preethi T R and Dr Navaneetham G praying for orders to conduct the mop-up counselling to fill all vacancies across several states. The judge directed the DGHS and MCC to conduct the counselling within four weeks. Senior counsel P H Arvindh Pandian, representing the petitioners, submitted that out of the 5,000 super specialty seats available in medical colleges across the country, as many as 600 are lying vacant after two rounds of counselling under NEET-SS and an additional round will benefit the candidates and also fill the seats. He told the court that denial of mop-up counselling will result in arbitrary and unjustified non-utilisation of valuable resources of public and private medical educational institutions, particularly in the high-demand, prestigious institutions.  P7 A special sub-inspector (SSI) attached to the Tirunelveli city police was suspended on Thursday after a video of him driving his car for a few hundred metres with a man clinging on to the bonnet went viral online. According to sources, SSI Gandhi Rajan (59) of the city traffic wing was returning home in his car after duty on Wednesday night. A 40-yearold man, identified as Ashok Kumar, a resident of Town Shenbagam Pillai Street, was riding a two-wheeler in front of Rajan’s car. Both of them were allegedly in an inebriated state. When they were crossing Kallanai Girls Government Higher Secondary School, Rajan’s vehicle allegedly hit Kumar’s two-wheeler. This led to a quarrel between the duo, sources said. As Kumar was seeking an explanation from him, the SSI attempted to leave the place. When Kumar blocked his car, Rajan, in a fit of rage, drove forward with Kumar on the bonnet for a few hundred metres while the latter screamed for A screengrab from the video showing Kumar clinging on to the car | Express help, sources added. Passersby recorded the ordeal on their mobile phones and shared the videos online. Based on the footage, City Police Commissioner Santosh Hadimani transferred Gandhi Rajan to the Armed Reserve in the morning. The commissioner later ordered his suspension. Deputy Commissioner of Police V Prassannakumar said that further action will be taken against the SSI after inquiry . “Gandhi Rajan is set to retire in a few months. Ashok Kumar did not turn up to file a complaint as he was drunk,” said a police official. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at a press conference in Delhi | Parveen Negi ECI must stop protecting vote thieves. They should release all evidence to the CID within a week Rahul Gandhi, Cong leader responded so far, he alleged. The deletions, he added, were at the top 10 booths where Congress holds strong influence and had won eight of them. Rahul said that an automated program chose the first name from each booth to delete votes, with mobile numbers from outside the state used to file fake applications. “Someone set up a centralised criminal operation to steal elections. In Aland, this operation filed 6,018 deleted applications by impersonating voters using automated filling of online EC forms,” he said. Suryakant, a Karnataka resident, said his identity was used to delete 12 voters in 14 minutes; however, he was unaware of the deletions. Four years after child’s suicide, uncle gets 35 yrs for raping her R a j a l a k s h m i S a m pat h @ Chennai The special court for the exclusive trial of Pocso cases in Tiruvallur district on Wednesday convicted a man and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for a total of 35 years for criminal intimidation and repeated rape of his 14-yearold niece by marriage. Although the child and her aunt (the convict’s wife) filed a complaint to the police in 2019, the uncle continued to threaten and intimidate them allegedly causing the child to end her life in 2021. Police said the trial in the case of the child’s death is still under way . The child had been living with her maternal aunt after her parents separated. The aunt married the convict, a native of Thanjavur district, who repeatedly raped the child and threatened her not to tell anyone. The violence came to light after the man left to Dubai for work. Based on the complaint filed by the girl’s aunt in October 2019, a case was registered for rape, criminal intimidation, and multiple offences under the Pocso Act at the Pattabiram All Women Police Station. The accused was arrested on his return from Dubai in 2021 but he came out on bail and allegedly continued to threaten his wife and the child. The child finally ended her life on August 25, 2021. A separate case was registered in connection to her death. C Umammaheshwari, the Sessions Judge of the Special Court, found the accused guilty of IPC and Pocso offences.  P7