KOZHIKODE l wednesday l november 19, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Baba Siddique murder: Gangster Anmol Bishnoi being deported Gangster Anmol Bishnoi, a key accused in the gunning down of NCP leader Baba Siddique, is being deported to India from the US, police said baba siddique mutiple cases lodged across country Bishnoi, also a wanted accused in the case related to a firing on Bollywood star Salman Khan’s residence, is expected to land in Delhi on Wednesday. Mumbai Police had sent two requested for his extradition to the US. There are multiple cases registered against the gangster across the country. The Centre will decide which agency gets his custody first ■ 2024 U.S. tells baba’s son of anmol’s expulsion ■ NCP leader and Baba Siddique’s son Zeeshan Siddique told a news agency on Tuesday that he had received an email informing that Anmol Bishnoi had been “removed” from the United States Baba Siddique, a former Maharashtra minister, was shot dead on October 12, 2024, in front of his son Zeeshan’s office in Bandra in april last year, anmol’s gang fired on salman khan’s residence 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 Dreaded Maoist Hidma killed in encounter in AP E J A Z K A I S ER & D HARMEN D RA RE G ANA @ Raipur / Visakhapatnam The overcrowded Lower Thirumuttam at the Sabarimala temple on Tuesday, the second day of the annual pilgrimage season | Shaji Vettipuram Chaos in Sabarimala; pilgrims surge, system breaks down Devotees stranded in serpentine queues for over 10 hours without food or water Measures planned An unprecedented surge of devotees in the opening days of the Sabarimala season caught the authorities unawares, throwing crowd management arrangements haywire and leaving pilgrims stranded in queues for over 10 hours without food or water on Tuesday. Many of them collapsed from exhaustion. More than two lakh pilgrims reached Sannidhanam in the first 48 hours of the season, far exceeding the daily quota of 90,000 (including 70,000 virtual queue bookings). Till noon on Tuesday alone, 44,401 pilgrims completed darshan. Darshan hours were extended till 2 pm, and barricades near the 18 holy steps were breached leading to a chaotic situation. In previous years, only 40,000 to 50,000 pilgrims visited the hill shrine per day in the initial days of the sea- What led to crisis J A I S O N W I L S O N @ Pathamthitta  Spot bookings exceeded prescribed daily cap of 20,000 Many who had bookings for future dates reached Sannidhanam early Surge in devotees entering via Erumeli and unauthorised forest paths  Absence of central forces Spot bookings capped at 20,000 a day. Those arriving after the limit will have to wait until the next day Pilgrim flow to be regulated at Pampa itself; devotees urged to avoid unauthorised forest paths  Unused queue complexes to be fully utilised to ease rush son, authorities said. The serpentine queues moved at a snail’s pace with devotees taking six to seven hours to reach the nadap- panthal from Pampa. Once the nadappanthal became choked, those who had completed darshan struggled to exit. Many pilgrims bypassed barricades and entered from multiple directions on way to Sannidhanam. The diversion of pilgrims arriving via Erumeli through the staff gate eased congestion but prevented many from accessing the 18 holy steps, an essential ritual. Meanwhile, a pilgrim identified as K Sathi, 59, from Koyilandy in Kozhikode, died of a heart attack on the trekking path at Appachimedu near Pampa while she was on her way to the hill shrine. Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president K Jayakumar told reporters that her body would be transported back to her native place in an ambulance. Jayakumar said the surge of devotees witnessed as soon as the season began was “unexpected, and sur● More on P5 passed all estimates”. umar Video glorifying suicide attack unearthed car blast: ed arrests al falah chairman recovered a mobile phone of the Red Fort suicide bomber, Dr Umar-unTHE Enforcement Directorate (ED) Nabi, and the extracted data has proon Tuesday arrested Jawad Ahmed vided chilling evidence to show that Siddiqui, chairman and founder of he had prepared a video justifying the Al Falah group, as part of an on- the suicide attack as a ‘martyrdom going money laundering probe operation’. The video’s authenticity linked to the car blast near Delhi’s could not be independently veriRed Fort. fied by this paper. The critical Siddiqui’s arrest follows ED evidence was unearthed after raids conducted at over 25 lothe detention and subsequent Red cations associated with the interrogation of Zahoor Ilfort Al Falah group and its lahi, brother of Umar. attack Faridabad-based Al Falah Illahi cracked under susUniversity, which is at the tained questioning and told centre of the probe into a suspected his interrogators that Umar, “white-collar” terror module impli- who was in the Kashmir Valley becated in the November 10 Delhi blast tween October 26-29, had handed him that killed 13 people. the phone with explicit instructions The agency also seized `48 lakh in to “dump it in water” if any news cash during the searches that began about him surfaced, officials said. around 5.15 am, according to sourc- The phone was handed over to Naes. Jammu and Kashmir Police have tional Investigation Agency . Dreaded Maoist commander Madvi Hidma, the mastermind behind some of the deadliest Naxal attacks including the 2010 Tadmetla attack, which killed 76 security personnel, was killed in an encounter near the Chhattisgarh-Andhra Pradesh border on Tuesday . Security forces gunned down Hidma (51), his wife Madkam Raje, and four other Naxalites in Maredumilli forest in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju (ASR) district. The other slain Maoists were identified as Deve, Lakmal alias Chaitu, Malla alias Mallalu, and Kamlu alias Kamlesh, officials said. Speaking to media persons, Andhra Pradesh Intelligence Chief Mahesh Chandra Laddha said ASR Madvi Hidma district police launched a combing operation at Papikonda National Park at 6.30 am on Tuesday, which led to the encounter. A native of Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, Hidma was also known as Hidmanna, Hidmalu, and Deva. He joined the CPI (Maoist) in 1991 as a Bal Sangham member, and rose through the ranks to become commander of Peoples’ Liberation Guerrilla Army Battalion No 1, secretary of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, and Central Committee Member in 2023. Hidma, who had a cumulative bounty of over `1 crore across states, orchestrated numerous attacks in the past two decades. According to Chhattisgarh intelligence officials, every major Maoist attack in the state had his imprint. EXPRESS READ India-B’desh women’s series postponed Chennai: Amidst diplomatic strain between the two countries, the women’s cricket series between India and Bangladesh slated for December has been postponed. Interestingly, this comes a day after former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was handed a death sentence by a tribunal court in the country for alleged crimes against humanity. Earlier in August 2025, India had also postponed men’s bilateral series to September 2026. ed raids continue e x p r e ss n e ws s e r vi c e @ New Delhi Two-minute long video In the two minute long video shot in April, Umar says, “...Suicide bombing ...is a martyrdom operation. There are multiple arguments and contradictions that have been brought against it.” Terror suspect beaten up in Sabarmati jail D ili p S i n g h K s h at r i ya @ Ahmedabad Dr Ahmed Mohyuddin Saiyed, one of the three terror suspects recently arrested in an alleged ISIS plot, was on Tuesday assaulted in Sabarmati Central Jail during an early-morning brawl with three undertrial inmates. Dr Saiyed suffered severe eye and facial injuries. He filed an FIR, prompting a highlevel internal probe and fresh scrutiny over the security of high-risk prisoners. After a verbal spat around 7 am, the doctor was beaten to pulp until he collapsed with injuries to his eye, face and other body parts. Prison staff took him to the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital for treatment. The assailants were lodged in the same barrack. They used a kind of belt to beat up Dr Saiyed. Gaurav Agrawal, SP of Sabarmati Central Jail, said: “The reason for the attack is unclear.” With help desks, mosques lead way in filling SIR forms S h a n A S @ T’Puram Amid apprehensions over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and lingering doubts that exclusion from the final voters list could create grave trouble in future, several major mosques in the state have opened help desks to assist the public in completing the formalities. Thriuvananthapuram’s Vallakkadavu mosque — one of the biggest jamaaths in the state comprising about 25000 members — was the first to take the initiative. It set up a help desk in the first week of November, urging mahal members as well as the general public to seek its assistance in fill- ing the enumeration form. Soon, several other committees — notable among them being Balaramapuram town mosque, Chemboor mosque in Thiruvananthapuram, Panavally Thekkum Bhagam mosque in Alappuzha and Badriya Masjid in Chavakkad — followed suit and set up dedicated teams of volunteers to help the public complete the formality . Dr Anvar Nazar, secretary of Vallakkadavu mosque committee, said the initiative was getting a good response and hundreds of people had so far sought their service. He said the biggest hurdle for the people was to find their names in the 2002 voters list. “Most of them did not know which booth they had polled their votes during that time. There are 11 booths in the Vallakkadavu area, and without knowing the booth number, they find it tough to check whether their names were there in the 2002 voters list. Some also had confusion regarding furnishing of the form. We get calls from people cutting across religions, who are remotely located. They are a worried lot and call us for help. Local initiatives like ours should be replicated everywhere — Dr Anvar Nazar, Vallakkadavu mosque committee secretary For such people, we filled their forms after finding their names in the 2002 voters list,” he said. To reach out to its members who are s p re a d a c ro s s T h i r u va n a n thapuram city, the committee used their 10 existing WhatsApp groups. Anvar said people, generally, have a notion that the SIR is connected to the National Register of Citizens and exclusion from the final voters list could jeopardise their democratic rights. “Hence, people are edgy and eager to complete the SIR procedure at the earliest,” he said. However, the main hurdle the help desk is facing is that around 5,000 people have relocated and tracking all of them is a herculean ● More on P5 task.  BJP may retain Speaker post, JD(U) home dept RA J E S H K UMAR THA K UR a n d R a m a s h a n k a r @ New Delhi/Patna Amid hard bargaining among NDA allies over plum portfolios in the new Bihar ministry on Tuesday, the Speaker’s post is expected to stay with the BJP, while Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may retain Home despite the BJP pressing him to part with it. Sources said on the names of two prominent BJP leaders for the position of Speaker have already been considered, one of whom will be finalised at Wednesday’s BJP legislature party meeting in Patna. While earlier it was speculated that Chirag Paswan’s party might get a deputy CM’s post, it now appears that the BJP would pocket both deputy CM posts, with the party considering appointing new faces for that position. Initially the JD(U) wanted the Speaker’s post. It however, , yielded and then pitched for a deputy CM’s post. Prem Kumar, an eight-time BJP MLA from Gaya Town, is the frontrunner for the post of Speaker. Potential candidates for the deputy CM include Mangal Pandey who , has the backing of the RSS and served as health minister in the outgoing government, and Sanjiv Chaurasia or Vijay Kumar Sinha. Nitish to resign today Nitish will resign as head of the outgoing govt on Wednesday to start the formal process of forming a new government, which will take its oath of office the following day