SRINAGAR, Oct 14: The officers of the Indian Army paid tribute to Zoom, the assault dog who died after sustaining injuries in an anti-terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag. A wreath laying ceremony was held on Friday.
Lieutenant General Amardeep Singh Aulja, General Officer Commanding-in Chief of the Chinar Corps laid floral wreaths on his mortal remains.
Zoom succumbed to his injuries on Thursday while receiving treatment at theAdvanced Field Veterinary Hospital in Srinagar.
He was wounded during an anti-terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag.He had helped the forces eliminate two terrorists after an encounter broke out in Tangpawa village. (Agencies)
Indian Army officers pay tribute to assault dog Zoom who died in anti-terror op
J&K | Man detained as NIA carries out raid in Mandi Poonch
POONCH, Oct 14: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday detained a person for questioning during a raid in the border district Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.
As per a police officer, the raid was conducted in Sujian Danna border area today morning during which a resident was detained for questioning. More details are awaited…
Five killed, including police officer, in North Carolina shooting; suspect ‘contained’
RALEIGH, N.C., OCTOBER 14: A North Carolina mayor announced that five people, including a police officer, were killed in a shooting in a residential area.
Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin told reporters that multiple people were shot on the Neuse River Greenway around 5 p.m., and that the police department told her around 8 p.m. that the suspect had been “contained” at a residence in the area.
Numerous police vehicles and multiple ambulances had swarmed the Hedingham neighborhood starting in the late afternoon, and officers remained in place for hours during an apparent manhunt. Details of what happened remained scant by early evening.
“State and local officers are on the ground and working to stop the shooter and keep people safe,” Gov. Roy Cooper had tweeted shortly before 7 p.m.
Earlier, WakeMed Hospital spokesperson Deb Laughery said said at least four people connected to the shooting were being treated at the hospital, but no other information was immediately available.
Police closed off several streets in the area, and numerous law enforcement vehicles could be seen parked both in the street and in the driveways of two-story homes. The neighborhood borders the Neuse River Greenway Trail, and is about 9 miles (14 kilometers) from Raleigh’s downtown.
The Raleigh Police Department said it was “on the scene of an active shooting” in a statement via Twitter, and advised residents in multiple neighborhoods to stay indoors.
Brooke Medina was driving home at around 5.15 p.m. when she saw about two dozen police cars, both marked and unmarked, race toward her neighborhood as she got off the highway. She then saw ambulances speeding the other direction, toward the closest hospital.
She and her husband, who was working from home with their four children, started reaching out to neighbors and realized there was a shelter-in-place order.
The family closed all of their window blinds, locked the doors and congregated in an upstairs hallway together, said Medina, who works as a communications vice president at a think tank. Her family listened to the police scanner and watched local news before going back downstairs once the danger seemed to have moved further away from their home.
“We’re just going to hunker down for the rest of the night and be very vigilant. Keep all of our lights on, doors locked,” she said.
She described Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined neighborhood that’s full of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes that are more moderately priced compared to other parts of the Raleigh area.
Medina said she often takes her kids on bike rides along the greenway during the day, but typically brings pepper spray along just in case.
“There’s a lot of places one could disappear,” she said. (Agencies)
Mainly dry weather likely in J&K during next 24 hours: MeT
JAMMU, Oct 14: Weather is likely to remain dry in Jammu and Kashmir for the next 24 hours, said the Meteorological (MeT) department here on Friday.
“Weather is likely to remain dry in J&K during the next 24 hours,” an official of the department said.
Jammu had 17.6, Katra 15.2, Batote 9.7, Banihal 8.6 and Bhaderwah 6.8 as the minimum temperature.
Srinagar had 6.4 and both Pahalgam and Gulmarg had 2 degrees Celsius as the minimum temperature.
Drass town in Ladakh region had minus 1.6, Kargil 4 and Leh minus 0.8 as the minimum temperature. (AGENCIES)
BSF shoots down Pakistani drone along International Border in Punjab
Gurdaspur (Punjab), Oct 14: Border Security Force (BSF) troops shot down a drone that entered India in Punjab’s Gurdaspur sector from the Pakistan side on the International Border in the early hours of Friday.
A senior BSF officer said that the drone was spotted at 4.35 am by BSF troops on patrolling duty. They immediately opened fire and it was shot down.
According to the BSF official, a massive search operation has been launched in the area to determine whether the drone has dropped any consignment in the area.
A search operation is underway under the supervision of BSF DIG. It is suspected that the drone was carrying a consignment from Pakistan.
“Brave jawans of BSF spotted a drone coming from Pakistan side. As soon as it entered India, jawans fired 17 rounds of bullets at it. One of the blades of the drone was damaged. The entire area is being searched. The drone will be analysed,” said BSF DIG, Gurdaspur, Prabhakar Joshi.
Pertinent to mention, in the past nine months, security forces have observed the illegal entry of 191 drones into Indian territory from neighbouring Pakistan, raising major concerns in terms of internal security in the country.
The central government recently shared the input from the security forces deployed at the India-Pakistan border to maintain such illegal attempts from the Pakistan side.
Of the 191 drones observed, 171 entered into Indian territory through the India-Pakistan border along the Punjab sector while 20 were seen in the Jammu sector.
As per the document, the “UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) observation in Indo-Pak border was seen in Punjab and Jammu frontier with effect from January 1, 2022, to September 30, 2022”.
The documents further reveal that most of these drones or UAVs managed to flee while a total of seven have been shot down by the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, who are deployed along the India-Pakistan border to keep a tab on such illegal activities being orchestrated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
Among seven drones shot down this year between January 1 to September 15 were observed in Punjab’s Amritsar, Ferozpur and Abohar regions.
Officials in the BSF said that drones are being used by Pakistan’s side to transport weapons, explosives and narcotics across the international border in Jammu and Punjab from Pakistan.
The increased drone activity across the border was brought to the notice of Home Minister Amit Shah in the security review meeting in Srinagar recently with top security and intelligence chiefs in attendance. While BSF, which mans the international border with Pakistan in the Jammu sector, believes that it has been able to repel drones carrying arms, ammunition and explosives from Pakistan, the state police and the intelligence agencies differ with this assessment.
The security forces have seized various AK series assault rifles, pistols, MP4 carbines, carbine magazines, high explosive grenades as well as narcotics which were transported into Indian territory from Pakistan from the drones shot down so far.
As per security agencies, BSF intelligence inputs and Jammu and Kashmir Police officials, the drones are also used to drop packets of Afghan heroin for financing terror operations in the Valley and Punjab.
It is learnt that the group behind the transportation of weapons, explosives and drugs is Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terror outfits which have camps across the International Boundary and are backed by ISI.
The Home Ministry is learnt to have directed the concerned agencies to find out a solution to stop drone activities and meanwhile security agencies and law enforcement forces are asked to keep a special watch on such movements. (Agencies)
India reports 2,678 new COVID-19 cases
New Delhi, Oct 14: India has recorded a single-day rise of 2,678 new COVID-19 cases, pushing its tally of the infections to 4,46,23,997, while the count of active cases has increased to 26,583, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.
The death toll due to the disease has gone up to 5,28,857 with 10 fatalities being recorded, including three reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The count of active cases now comprises 0.06 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 98.76 per cent, the health ministry said.
An increase of 74 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours, the data showed.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.13 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 1.07 per cent, according to the ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 4,40,68,557, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent, as per the data.
According to the ministry, 219.21 crore doses of vaccines have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive.
India’s COVID-19 infection tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5, 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and the one-crore mark on December 19.
The country crossed the grim milestones of two crore COVID-19 cases on May 4, three crore on June 23 last year and four crore on January 25 this year.
The seven new fatalities include three from Karnataka and one each from Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. (Agencies)
Previous Govts in India did not provide facilities available elsewhere even in 20th century: Modi
UNA (HP), Oct 13: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused previous Governments of not providing people with facilities that were available to people elsewhere in the world even in the 20th century and in Gujarat a few years back.
He was addressing a public meeting at the Indira Gandhi stadium in poll-bound Himachal Pradesh’s Una district.
“We will provide you facilities of the 20th as well as the 21st centuries,” Modi added.
He said the people in Himachal Pradesh would now beak the trend of voting different parties to power in every elections.
“I am pleased to announce gifts worth several thousand crores for Himachal before Dhanteras and Diwali,” the Prime Minister said.
Earlier, the Prime Minister flagged off the inaugural run of the new Vande Bharat Express. It is the fourth Vande Bharat train introduced in the country and is an advanced version compared to the earlier ones, being much lighter and capable of reaching higher speed in shorter duration. It accelerates to 100 Km per hour in just 52 seconds.
Modi also laid the foundation stone of the Bulk Drug Park at Haroli which will be built at a cost of more than Rs 1,900 crore.
The park will help reduce dependence on API imports. It is expected to attract investments of around Rs 10,000 crores and provide employment to more than 20,000 people.
He dedicated to the nation the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Una, the foundation stone for which was laid by him in 2017.
The Prime Minister was accorded a warm welcome by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on his arrival at the Pekhubela helipad in Una.
He is later scheduled to address another public meeting at the Chogan maidan in Chamba district after inaugurating and laying foundation stones of various projects.
This is Prime Minister Modi’s ninth visit to Himachal Pradesh in the last five years. (Agencies)
Enforcement Directorate arrests IAS officer, two others in money-laundering case
Raipur, October 13: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested IAS officer Sameer Vishnoi and two others after it conducted raids in a money- laundering case in Chhattisgarh, officials said.
Businessman Sunil Agrawal of Indramani group and Laxmikant Tiwari, uncle of “absconding” businessman Suryakant Tiwari, have been taken into custody in the morning by the federal agency from state capital Raipur, they said.
The three people have been arrested under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and will be produced before a local court, where the ED will seek their further custody.
Vishnoi, CEO of the Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society, was questioned by the agency in Raipur on Wednesday.
The arrests came after the agency launched multiple raids in Chhattisgarh on October 11 in a money-laundering case linked to alleged illegal levy extorted from transporters in the state by a purported nexus of government officials, businessmen and private entities. (Agencies)
Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey takes oath as Chief Justice of J&K and Ladakh High Court
SRINAGAR, Oct 13: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Thursday administered the oath of office to Justice Ali Muhammad Magray as Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court at SKICC here.
Justice Ali Muhammad Magray was administered the oath of office by LG Manoj Sinha at 11:30 AM after registrar general of J&K High Court read out his warrant of appointment.
The oath ceremony was attended by senior politicians and top bureaucrats and police officers of J&K.
Those who were present included senior politician and chairman of Democratic Azad Party Ghulam Nabi Azad, NC MP justice (retd) Hasnain Masoodi, Rajya Sabha member Ghulam Ali Khatana,former Chief Justice of J&K High Court Gita Mittal, vice-chairperson Waqf Board Darakshan Andrabi and Srinagar Junaid Azim Mattu. (KNO)
SpiceJet plane lands safely at Hyderabad airport after smoke detected in cabin
NEW DELHI, Oct 13: A Hyderabad-bound SpiceJet flight landed safely at its destination airport after smoke was detected in the cabin during the descent. The SpiceJet Q400 aircraft that took off from Goa on Thursday morning landed in Hyderabad with fire trucks around. The aircraft was towed to the remote gate and the passengers were safely disembarked.
“SpiceJet Q400 aircraft operating from Goa to Hyderabad landed safely at its destination on October 12 after smoke was observed in the cabin during descent. Passengers were safely disembarked,” a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
SpiceJet is facing scrutiny over a string of safety incidents in recent months, which prompted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to impose a cap of 50% on the budget airlines flights’ summer schedule. The aviation regulator imposed the restriction on SpiceJet flights on July 27 for a period of eight weeks after the airline reported frequent air safety incidents. (Agenies)