Excerpted from Sahara: The Untold Story by Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Rescue teams on Sunday recovered 13 more bodies, including the first ones to be pulled out from the sludge-choked Tapovan tunnel where a massive operation to reach about 30 people trapped inside began after a flash flood in Chamoli district a week ago.
Director General of Police O P Singh said that two people lost their lives in Bijnor and one each in Meerut, Sambhal and Firozabad. But officials reported a death in Kanpur as well.
'When in both post-mortems, doctors say that he was not shot, we had not option left but to cremated him'
"It has been agreed that only a symbolic procession will be taken out," he said adding the priests also realised that the situation was "not normal".
In Aligarh, District Magistrate Chandra Bhushan Singh told reporters that Kafeel Khan's speech at AMU was instrumental in triggering violent incidents at the university on December 13 and 15.
The nodal officer for EVMs in Varanasi, a returning officer (RO) in Sonbhadra district and an additional election officer in Bareilly district have been pulled out from election duties, a day ahead of the counting of votes in UP.
Crippled by poverty and the coronavirus lockdown, Sunil's family in Dumrikhurd village in Chauri Chaura police station area was forced to conduct a dummy funeral for him, setting an effigy on fire.
The six months include the three months already spent in detention. The NSA allows preventive detention for up to a year.
"Issue notice. Let a copy of the petition be served on the caveator. Counter affidavit be filed within four weeks hence. Rejoinder, if any, be filed within two weeks therefrom. List after six weeks," the bench said.
The officer said UP unit chief of Antarrashtriya Hindu Mahasabha, Ranjeet Bachchan, died on the spot after being hit by a bullet
While a few 'bahubalis' managed wins in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a majority of them were rejected by the voters. According to the results, many alleged dons-turned-politicians failed to make it to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
'Till the time we do not remove fear in the minds of Muslims of India, how will we achieve peace?' asks the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Gorakhpur, Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, who says he will resign as a member of the Uttar Pradesh assembly if any Indian Muslim of his constituency is evicted from the country during the Citizenship (Amendment) Act exercise.
The move prompted Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to take potshots as to whether Adityanath would himself sign the order withdrawing the case against himself.
Addressing party workers at the state headquarters after the poll results and trends showed a clear BJP majority, he said the 'misleading' campaign run by the Opposition over the past 2-3 days have been set aside by the people who reposed faith in the good governance of the BJP.
For the post of deputy chief minister, the names of Swatantra Dev Singh, Baby Rani Maurya, Brijesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya are in talks.
The Uttar Pradesh authorities on Tuesday agreed to the demand for a second post-mortem of a farmer killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident after his family refused to cremate him, while mortal remains of the three others were consigned to flames at their native places during the day.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ram Iqbal Singh on Thursday accused Union minister Ajay Mishra of being behind the Lakhimpur violence and sought his sacking from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Bijnor district where she met families of two persons killed in the violence. Internet services have been suspended in several areas till Monday, while prohibitory orders remained in force across the state.
"Those named in the FIR should go to jail. The government should take immediate action and the matter should be probed by a sitting judge of the high court. There are videos clips, statements of eyewitnesses, the statement (of minister) in which he is threatening. As he (accused Ashish Mishra) is the son of the MoS, action has note been taken yet," he said.
'The CM was in Gorakhpur when this attempt to murder took place on my brother.' 'I waited for two days to see what action the police takes, but after 48 hours, the police has not even questioned Paswan.'
In his affidavit, the chief secy also stated that the CB-CID, which has been investigating the case registered in connection with the riots, has proposed to submit its closure report.
The Uber cab driver, who had allegedly raped a 27-year-old woman in Delhi on Friday night in his taxi, was planning to flee to Nepal before the police arrested him in the nick of time from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.
Around 1.72 crore voters, including 94.60 lakh men and 77.84 lakh women, are eligible to cast their votes in this round to decide the fate of 635 candidates.
'Jack', 'John' and 'Alpha' were among the National Investigation Agency's protected witnesses who helped nail banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik.
The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, however, denied the charge, saying all necessary arrangements were made in view of the expected rush, while Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh blamed a minor altercation for the 'unfortunate' incident.
Girija Tripathi's licence for her NGO was suspended in 2017.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi has been sent as a special officer to oversee the counting process in Meerut and Bihar's CEO to Varanasi.
'Sarkar jo bhi gana gaye, is bar sarkar paltegi'
The Hindutva poster boy has lost his sheen following the BJP's poll reverses in Hindi heartland states and his style of governance, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
Later, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that the state will order a Central Bureau of Investigation probe.
The elections are being seen as a semi-final to the 2022 assembly election.
'It will be a grand alliance where they could get the Muslims, Dalits and Yadavs in one camp and pose a serious challenge to whatever the BJP might conjure up in the run-up to the 2019 election.'
Police appointed an inspector general to probe into an unverified letter that surfaced on social media, purportedly written weeks before his death by Deputy Superintendent of Police Devendra Mishra. It had alleged links between the Chaubeypur station officer and the gangster.
Elaborate security arrangements were also made at the temples in view of the rush of pilgrims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended his greetings to people on the beginning of Navratri and wished them happiness, peace and prosperity.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday discussed the controversial arrest of alleged militant Syed Liyaqat Shah with Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Liyaqat was arrested by the Delhi police while he was returning from Pakistan to surrender before the Jammu and Kashmir police under the rehabilitation policy of the state government for militants.
'An individual cannot fight the might of the State.'
Some eyewitnesses said the driver, who is among the injured, tried to speed across the level crossing even when onlookers tried to draw his attention to the approaching train.
After five weeks of lockdown, migrant workers' patience ran out and so did the money, which forced them to leave Mumbai on bicycles.
The photographs of the police officer, Pravin Singh, kneeling down at Adtiyanath's feet with folded hands, went viral on the social media, forcing him to clarify his stand.
