chandigarh
Nephew Wants Terminal Named after Bhagat Singh
The nephew of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh on Monday urged the Centre to name the new civil terminal at the Chandigarh airport after the martyr without any delay.
On the freedom fighter’s 108th birth anniversary, 57-year-old Abhay Singh Sandhu, son of Bhagat Singh’s younger brother Kulbir Singh, demanded that the Centre should issue a notification in this regard at the earliest.
PM Narendra Modi on September 11 inaugurated the new terminal, which will handle both the domestic and international flights. “The proposal came from the Punjab government, not from our family. When the terminal was inaugurated, the Shaheed’s name was ignored. People now feel that it as an insult to the great martyr who made supreme sacrifice for the sake of his country,” he said. Sandhu also demanded that the files pertaining to Bhagat and Ajit Singh, another freedom fighter, be declassified. He claimed the martyr’s family had been kept under surveillance for several years. Different organisations are planning to hold a demonstration in Chandigarh on October 11 in this regard.
guwahati
20 Missing as Boat Capsizes in Assam
About 20 passengers went missing when an overcrowded motorboat overturned after hitting a wooden bridge in Assam on Monday. Official sources said the mishap occurred at Shambhupara in Kamrup (rural) district after the boat’s engine had failed. “There were around 150-200 people onboard the boat, which was sailing upstream to Gomi from Hatikhola on river Kalahi. Suddenly, the engine failed and the boat started drifting. Later, it hit a timber bridge and overturned,” Kamrup (rural) Deputy Commissioner Vinod Seshan told Express. It is learnt that the passengers were headed to Gomi to watch a boat race. “The locals told us that they had seen many people jumping off the boat and swimming to safety. Our suspicion is about 20 people, who the locals claimed, couldn’t jump and swim ashore,” Seshan said.
Woman Tonsured, Paraded in Public in Tripura Village
A Tripura woman was paraded, with her head half tonsured, by a group of women for allegedly being “characterless” at a village in Khowai district on Sunday. Khowai Deputy Commissioner N Darlong said, “I have heard about the incident but I don’t have the details”. The women alleged that Arjina Debbarma, a housewife, had extra-marital affairs with several men.
A complaint against her was made by her husband at a Kangaroo court, which decided to ‘punish’ her in public. She was then forced out of her house, humiliated and paraded.
New delhi
Coming, Stamp in Memory of Yogi Adityanath Father
After discontinuing with the Indra Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi stamps, the the Centre will this week release a postal stamp in memory of the late Mahant Avaidyanath, father of Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath, who had played a key role in the Ram temple movement. The stamp is being issued to mark the first death anniversary of the BJP leader who had represented Gorakhpur in the Lok Sabha for four times before he died at 95 in September 2014. He was also chief priest of the Gorakhnath Temple.
SC Rejects PIL against Parties’ Post-poll Pacts
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea opposing political parties forging post-poll alliances to gain power, saying that voters are not aware of such deals when they exercise their franchise. “The courts cannot go into it. We cannot entertain this,” a Bench said while dismissing an appeal filed against the Delhi High Court’s decision refusing to entertain a PIL petition on the issue. The petition said promises had to be kept as otherwise it would amount to breach of trust.
Kolkata
13 Dead, 50 Hospitalised in Bengal Hooch Tragedy
The death toll in the hooch tragedy in West Bengal has risen to 13. Twenty-eight people are undergoing treatment in various hospitals. Many people had consumed spurious liquor and pork on Saturday and on Sunday at Moyna village in East Medinipur district. After the tragedy unfolded, district police arrested 16 persons for allegedly selling spurious liquor and distributing it in other villages in the area. Police suspect that some harmful chemicals might have been mixed with liquor to increase its potency.
Bengal Speaker Expunges Deputy’s Statement
West Bengal Speaker Biman Banerjee on Monday expunged Deputy Speaker Sonali Guha’s comment that sending goons to poll-bound areas was a trick that TMC had learnt from the Left Front. On September 23, when CPM MLA Gouranga Chatterjee said the TMC was dispatching goons to Asansol from Bankura and Purulia to unleash violence before the October 3 polls there, Sonali, who was in the chair, said, “These tricks have been learnt from you people in three decades. History repeats itself.”
Three TMC Workers Shot Dead over Factional Feud
Three TMC men travelling with arms in an ambulance were on Monday shot dead by a bike-borne gang in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, allegedly as a result of a factional feud. TMC MLA Gadadhar Hazra said the victims were TMC workers, but according to the party’s district chief Anubrata Mondal, they were “anti-socials with no political identity”. However, the victims’ kin alleged that the killers belonged to a TMC faction led by Anubrata and that the deceased were from a faction led by TMC leader Kajal Sheikh.