TIRUCHY l sunday l february 15, 2026 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l LATE CITY EDITION Pannun murder plot: Nikhil Gupta to be sentenced on May 29 A US federal court will on May 29 sentence the Indian national accused of plotting to eliminate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York in 2023 faces up to 24 years in jail on three charges sought to hire hitman for $100K job Gupta, 54, pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire and two other charges in connection with his attempts to murder the Khalistani separatist Pannun. Following a plea bargain, he faces up to 24 years in jail. According to the US Department of Justice, Gupta was hired by Vikash Yadav, who worked for India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses the Research and Analysis Wing ■ ■ According to the indictment, at Yadav’s direction, Gupta sought to hire a hitman to murder Pannun. The Centre has dissociated itself from the plot against Pannun, dismissing it as a “rogue operation” The hitman hired by Gupta, was to be paid $1,00,000 to murder Pannun. But the killer-on-hire was an undercover officer | P8 Jun 30, 2023 when gupta was arrested in the Czech republic 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 Bangladesh she vote Nainar draws flak for sexist was Jamaat’s nemesis remarks on Vijay’s private life Voted across party lines to defeat its attempt to capture power BNP head Tarique Rahman greets supporters after his party won the parliamentary election, in Dhaka on Saturday | PTI W omen in Bangladesh follow a distinct colour code on national red-letter days. On Poila Baisakh, 15 April, the lal paar shada shari — white with a red border — is donned to usher in the Bengali New Year. On Bijoy Dibas, 16 December, marking the 1971 surrender of the Pakistan Army in Dhaka, the palette turns green. On 21 February, black is worn as homage to those killed in Dhaka in 1952 for seeking national language status for Bengali as well as Urdu. Today too, has its own special colour: bright , yellow in a range of hues. Across Bangladesh, women in sunshine sarees, flowers woven into their hair, are celebrating basanta utsav, the advent of spring. They are also celebrating the verdict in the just-concluded election. The fact that BNP has had a landslide with 212 seats and the Jamaat-e-Islami was held at 77 is, for many women, a big relief. “Though I am traditionMonideepa ally an Awami League voter, Banerjie I voted BNP this time,” said Veteran journalist a 42-year-old woman in Dhaka’s upmarket Banani who works in the social sector. “Anything to keep the Jamaat out. Because of them I had packed away my track suits and sleeveless blouses. Now I can use them again. This is not frivolous. The Jamaat had cast a long shadow on women.” Ordinary women who ventured out in trousers instead of traditional attire were heckled, even assaulted, for the way they dressed. Often, the hecklers were women supporters of Jamaat. Daily wage earners were equally alarmed when the Jamaat manifesto proposed women work five hours during maternity instead of eight. For women paid by the hour, fewer hours meant one thing: lower wages. In its manifesto, Jamaat promised to increase the representation of women in the cabinet if elected to power. But it did not field a single woman candidate, possibly the only party to do so.  Continued on: P9 WITH THIS ISSUE The Great Indian Art Mafia PLUS 12 P AGES BNP set to invite Modi for Tarique Rahman’s oath taking ceremony j aya n t h j a c o b @ New Delhi THE Bangladesh Nationalist Party is set to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the swearing-in ceremony of Tarique Rahman, signalling a possible push to normalise ties following a bruising period in Dhaka–New Delhi relationship. Rahman, Bangladesh’s prime minister-in-waiting, is expected to take office in the coming days after the BNP secured a landslide victory in the 13th national parliamentary elections, handing him a commanding mandate. Humayun Kabir, foreign policy adviser to Rahman said: “Region is important to us... There is a sense of priority in sending out invitations for the inauguration.” He framed the invitation to Modi as a goodwill gesture. Relations between Dhaka and New Delhi turned This victory frosty following the ouster belongs to of for mer PM Sheikh democracy.. to people who aspired Hasina, whose gover nment had maintained close to and have ties with India. Against sacrificed for democracy that backdrop, Modi’s swift outreach to Rahman after Tarique Rahman the election result was seen as a significant outreach. Modi was the first world leader to telephone Rahman following the BNP’s victory . Rahman said his government’s foreign policy will be anchored firmly in national interest. “We have cleared ourselves regarding the foreign policy, which is the interest of Bangladesh, and the interest of Bangladeshi people comes first,” Rahman said when asked about mending ties with India. The careful phrasing suggests a balancing act ahead. At a press conference a day after the BNP’s sweeping win, Rahman struck a tone of triumph tempered by caution. He dedicated the victory to citizens who “sacrificed for democracy.” “This victory belongs to Bangladesh, belongs to democracy, this victory belongs to people who aspired to and have sacrificed for democracy,” he said. E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Chennai While the deployment of misogynistic remarks as an attack on opponents is sadly far too common among Tamil Nadu politicians, BJP state president Nainar Nagenthran’s comments in which he brought up the name of a leading actress to criticise actor and TVK president Vijay snowballed into a controversy on Saturday , with his own party colleagues struggling to defend him. With Assembly elections around the corner, leaders from virtually every party criticised him or expressed disappointment over the remarks. Responding to a question on Vijay’s speech in Salem on Friday , Posing as a pregnant patient, a 38-year-old woman befriended a new mother and abducted her four-day-old baby boy from Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) in Tiruchy on Saturday . Within six hours of the incident, the suspect, S Meenatchi (38), was arrested from her native in Thammampatti in Sa- lem district around 1 pm, and the newborn rescued. Meenatchi allegedly resorted to the crime as she had falsely told her family that she was carrying. The hospital on Saturday ordered a departmental inquiry following the incident. Police said the baby was born to V Suganya (30) from Nayakkanpatti village in Thuraiyur taluk of Tiruchy on February 11, when she was admitted to the hospital.  P5 Express News Service @ New Delhi The Union Cabinet on Saturday approved the establishment of the Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 (Startup India FoF 2.0) with a total corpus of `10,000 crore. The Startup India FoF 2.0 builds on nearly a decade of press Intake Three railway projects worth `18.5K crore cleared | P7 Trade trade deal will destroy textile industry: Rahul | P7 PM’s historic landing at Assam highway airstrip | P8 Huge quantity of ganja seized by Gujarat Police | P8 ‘Insisted on helping’ When Suganya was about to take the baby for vaccination on Saturday, Meenatchi insisted on helping her, took the child and left the ward, police said India vs Pakistan Cricket talk after off-field powerplay Swa r o o p swa m i n at h a n @ Colombo WHEN Saturday dawned, a fair few couples headed to the picturesque Galle Face Beach in the heart of the city’s Central Business District to exchange their wedding vows. A few hours later, though, tension was rising inside the press conference room at the R Premadasa Stadium, six kms away from the beach. There were questions on politics, and diplomacy before some cricket finally broke through. It’s been that kind of a build-up to the India head coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Suryakumar Yadav (R) | PTI latest installment of India-Pakistan cricket match. But the general mood around both camps 24 hours out from the encounter was calm. Yadav, in his fourth match as captain in this fixture, was particularly chirpy . When told by a Pakistan journalist that Agha would prefer to play the strongest Indian XI with respect to Abhishek Sharma, Yadav said: “Okay, then we will play Abhishek (smiles).” When another scribe asked him about shaking hands at the toss, he quipped: “Eat well, sleep well, wait for 24 hours (to find out).” By 7 PM on Sunday tension will be back with over a billion people across borders will again turn to 22 people on a cricket field to bring them joy and light.  P11 Chennai: DMK stage speaker Shivaji Krishnamurthy (63) was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on Friday for making obscene, provocative remarks during a public meeting in June 2023 | P4 Nagenthran, in what he apparently thought as a remark made in jest, said Vijay lacked political experience and should first “come out of the actress’ house” and mend ties with his own family implying that Vijay was in a , relationship with the actress. He also claimed that TVK did not even have a single council- lor, countering the party’s claim that it enjoys the support of over 30% of voters. “He has to first be a (good) family man and then he can lead a party,” Nagenthran said. TVK joint general secretary Nirmal Kumar said it was unfortunate that a person holding a top post in a political party was making such uncivilised comments in public, and claimed that the BJP, which had polled fewer votes than NOTA in the past, would fare even worse in the upcoming elections. He further alleged that certain BJP leaders were acting as “stooges of the DMK” and targeting Vijay on a daily basis instead of questioning the ruling party . Govt approves `10K cr for Startup Fund of Funds 2.0 Woman abducts 4-day-old to keep up pregnancy lie at home, held in six hrs P T h i r u s e lv a m , P e a r s o n L e n e k a r S R @ Tiruchy DMK stage speaker gets jail for comments Today’s Matches 11am: Nepal vs West Indies (Mumbai) 3pm: USA vs Namibia (Chennai) 7pm: India vs Pakistan (Colombo) sustained efforts to make India one of the world’s leading startup nations. The scheme is designed to accelerate the next phase of India’s startup journey by mobilising long-ter m domestic capital, strengthening the venture capital ecosystem, and supporting innovation-led entrepreneurship across the country , the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in a statement. As per the government, since the launch of Startup India in 2016, India’s startup ecosystem has grown from fewer than 500 startups to over 2 lakh Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)-recognised startups today . While the first phase built the ecosystem, Startup India FoF 2.0 is designed to take Indian innovation to the next level, the government said. The fund will employ a targeted, segmented funding approach to support deep tech and tech-driven innovative manufacturing, empowering early-growth-stage founders and encouraging investment beyond major metros.