THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL Vol. 67 No. 247 | WEDNESDAY | JULY 17, 2024 | 26 Pages | `5 & for Pune `6 only www.freepressjournal.in EDITIONS: MUMBAI INDORE PUNE Reg.No MCS/048/2021-23; RNI No. 1541/1957 M.p.c.s office Mumbai. PIN 400001 BHOPAL NASHIK KONKAN E-paper GAMES NATION It is the demand of every patriotic Indian that the govt should take full responsibility Member: Audit Bureau of Circulation (Jan to Dec 2023) Cinema SRK-Abhishek collab in the works Lakshya Sen set for Olympic debut at the Paris Games Edit Is Lady Luck favouring Trump? Happy Ashadi Ekadashi MARTYRS | Yet another terror attack in Doda carried out by Jaish outfit ‘Kashmir Tigers’ 4 MORE BRAVEHEARTS GONE FPJ News Service DODA Four army personnel, including a captain, died after being injured in a gunfight with heavily armed terrorists in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir. Those killed in the encounter have been identified as Captain Brijesh Thapa, Naik D Rajesh, Sepoy Bijendra and Sepoy Ajay. This was the third major encounter between security 4Contd on | nation 3 die in bus-tractor collision on e-way Bus carrying Dombivli & Dahisar residents was going to Pandharpur Raina Assainar NAVI MUMBAI A private bus carrying pilgrims from Dombivli who were travelling to Pandharpur for Ashadi Ekadashi, met with an accident in the wee hours of Tuesday after colliding with a tractor. The accident occurred just after midnight on Monday, even as the pilgrims were engrossed in singing bhajans. According to complainant Abhimanyu Mahadev Joshi, 67, he just heard the sound of a collision and next, he saw people falling over each other and realised the bus had hurtled into a gorge. Seven of the passengers were seriously injured and are undergoing treatment at MGM Hospital while three were declared dead on arrival. According to police, the driver of the tractor and another person also on the tractor were declared dead. The deceased have been identified as Gurunath Bapu Patil, 70, from Narivaligaon, Ramdas Narayan Mukadam, 70, from Nevaligaon and Hausabai Hari Patil, 65, from Niljepada in Dombivli. 4Contd on | nation Vishalgad stir may have ripple effect Congress protests, and now MIM announces a morcha on July 19 Kalpesh Mhamunkar MUMBAI The issue of removing encroachments from the Vishalgad fort may not remain confined to  Kolhapur or the neighbouring districts of south Maharashtra. Instead, its repercussions have started echoing through the state. After the Congress objected to the handling of the situation by the police, the AIMIM led by Asaduddin Owaisi has also jumped on the bandwagon and announced a morcha on July 19. The state unit of the Congress took an aggressive stand when its local MP Shahu Maharaj visited the fort to assess the damage. WILL SALUTE HIM: FATHER forces and terrorists in the forests of Doda in the past three weeks. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by 'Kashmir Tigers', a shadow group of Pakistan-backed terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad. This is the same group which had earlier claimed responsibility for the attack on an Army convoy in Kathua on July 9, which had resulted in the loss of five soldiers. Along with MLC Satej alias Bunty Patil, party leaders from Mumbai -- former minister Naseem Khan, MLA Aslam Shaikh and Ameen Patel -- met state police chief Rashmi Shukla and submitted a memorandum. They also demanded a thorough inquiry into the removal of encroachments. 4Contd on | city ather of martyred Army captain Brijesh Thapa on Tuesday said he was proud of his son who was killed in action and that he would salute his coffin like a soldier when it arrives in their hometown Darjeeling. “He used to roam around as a child in my army uniform. He had done his engineering but still wanted to join the Army. F 4Contd on | nation Captain Brijesh Thapa Puja sent back to school Training put on hold; must return to IAS academy in Mussoorie Late-night parleys heighten UP buzz Biswajeet Banerjee Puja points finger at Pune DC Kalpesh Mhamunkar MUMBAI   In the latest development in the ongoing saga of trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar, her district training has been put on hold by the state government and she has been  directed to return to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie before July 23. The academy is a training institution for civil servants. The 34-year-old 2023 batch officer is under the scanner over allegations of lying about visual and mental disabilities in order to clear the civil services entrance examination (there are reports that she allegedly made 11 attempts, exceeding the maximum of nine tries a candidate with disabilities is allowed), and then abused her position as assistant collector in Pune, to avail of perks not available to junior officers. Her OBC certificate too is in the media glare and her alleged attempts to misrepresent her age. It is understood that Khedkar had submitted multiple medical FPJ News Service PUNE certificates to the Union Public Service Commission. It has also emerged that at the time of clearing joining formalities for the civil services, Khedkar had skipped multiple calls for a medical test to confirm her infirmities. Trainee IAS officers undergo one year of district training in their allotted state cadre.  On Tuesday afternoon, Puja was recalled from her post in Washim, where she had been transferred after the controversy erupted. With the recall, she has been also relieved from duty.  Last week, the government had set up a one-member panel to investigate her controversial claims.  Additionally, the offices of the Maharashtra chief secretary and the director of The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration have launched inquiries into the allegations of forgery against Khedkar. 4Contd on | nation Trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar has accused Pune Collector Suhas Divase of harassment and for drawing the Maharashtra government’s attention to her alleged misuse of power which led to her transfer to Washim. The lid came off the alleged ‘overreach’ when the collector's office released a preliminary report that contained screenshots of WhatsApp chats between Khedkar and an unidentified individual in the Divase’s office. In her messages, Khedkar had demanded a designated cabin and a government car, neither of which is available to on-probation employees. The allegations of misuse of power led to taking the lid off her attempts in 2022 to obtain disability certificates for clearing civil services exam. Manish Godha From Ground Zero JAIPUR 4Contd on | nation In a late-night development, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and BJP state president Bhupendra Chaudhary held separate meetings with BJP national president JP Nadda in Delhi. These meetings have ignited speculation about potential political changes in Uttar Pradesh. Since the Lok Sabha election results, internal strife has erupted within the Uttar Pradesh BJP. There is significant tension between the state government and the party organization. Amidst this scenario, the party's state working committee met on Sunday, which was expected to convey a message of unity. However, the outcome was quite the opposite, leaving party workers more confused. It appears that the conflict between Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has resurfaced. Although this tension is not new, both leaders are now openly taking jabs at each other. How Muscat mosque shooting unfolded Beheading call: Ajmer Dargah cleric acquitted A court in Rajasthan on Tuesday acquitted Ajmer dargah cleric Syed Gohar Husain Chisti and five others accused of raising 'sar tan se juda' (beheading) slogans with reference to former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma in June 2022. Chisti and others allegedly raised the slogan, "gustakhi-enabi ki ek hi saza, sar tan se juda, sar tan se juda", (One punishment for insulting the prophet - beheading) at a public protest in Ajmer against Sharma's comments about Prophet Muhammad in May 2022. The police had registered a case against Chisti and others for inciting the crowd to violence at a religious place. LUCKNOW Mohammad Sadiq Suryakumar rises One Indian national lost his life and another was injured at a shootout at a mosque in Oman late on Monday, the Indian Embassy of Oman said in a post on X. Muscat Daily reports nine dead, including one officer. BBC reported five deaths. The Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif posted in X that four Pakistanis had died. As many as thirty Pakistanis were injured in the attack, the Pakistani embassy disclosed. That gives you a sense of the scale. I had just come home after work and was settling into my post-work routine when my sister texted me: “There has been a shooting at the Al-Wadi Al-Kabir mosque,” my sister said in a text message. 4Contd on | nation The BCCI is considering handing over the captaincy of the T20I team to Suryakumar Yadav instead of Hardik Pandya. Speaking to India Today on Tuesday, BCCI sources said that the decision is being mulled 'keeping the longer picture in mind'. They reasoned that the selection panel wants to appoint someone keeping the T20 WC in mind, a player who can be available for a longer period of time. Yadav has captained in 7 matches in T20Is. He has scored 300 runs in those matches and scored 2 fifties and a century. From “never a Trump guy” to his standard bearer Agencies Donald Trump's running mate for US vice president has declared that UK under Labour might be the first "truly Islamist" country with nuclear weapons, remarks that were brushed aside by the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who quipped, J D Vance had said “quite a lot of fruity things in the past." Sample these: I’m a ‘never Trump’ guy. I never liked him.” “My God! What an idiot.” “I find him reprehensible.” That was from JD Vance, first time senator from Ohio, in interviews and on Twitter in 2016, when his memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ shot him to fame. The BBC reports that he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook: "I go back Trumps picks as a running mate who, observers note, is both an agent of change and the subject of it and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole ... or that he's America's Hitler". Now, Vance is Trump's running mate, figure that out. During the working committee meeting, Maurya claimed the organisation was bigger than the govt, sparking the dispute. Possible Changes It is in this backdrop that both Maurya and Chaudhary met with Nadda. It is speculated that Maurya might be given a significant role within the organization, potentially as the state president of the UP BJP, a position he previously held in 2017. Dalit Voters Shift In the Lok Sabha election, a significant portion of the backward and Dalit voters shifted their allegiance from the BJP to the INDIA Alliance. 4Contd on | nation VBA reaches out to ‘dada’ Ajit Pawar Agencies CHHATRAPATI SAMBHAJINAGAR Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar should quit the Mahayuti government, and we will make him 'dada' of state politics, said Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) leader Prakash Ambedkar on Tuesday. His statement assumes significance in view of the political buzz about the need to revive a third front comprising Pawar-led NCP and VBA, along with some like-minded parties. Ambedkar made his stand clear in a press conference while announcing the Aarakshan Bachao Yatra from Kolhapur to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The former MP came down heavily on Manoj Jarange Patil and dubbed his agitation for Maratha reservation as misguided. 4Contd on | nation off-grid WASHINGTON Who is bigger A columnist in the Atlantic describes him thus: But what should we call J. D. Vance, the self-described hillbilly turned Marine turned Ivy League law-school graduate turned venture capitalist turned Senate candidate? Words fail. His perfidy to his own people in Ohio is too big to allow him to escape with the label of “opportunist,” 4Contd on | nation Tailpiece UK now an Islamist country, says Trump’s running mate D onald Trump’s vice presidential running mate J D Vance has set alarm bells ringing in all European NATO states by sensationally declaring that Britain had become the first nucleartouting 'Islamist state' under a Labour government. ‘‘What is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon? Maybe it's  Iran, maybe  Pakistan  already kind of counts... and then we finally decided maybe it's the UK since Labour just took over,’’ the 39-year-old Senator said, prompting chuckles from the crowd. The comments were tongue-in-cheek but the sentiment only adds to fears that the US relationship with 4Contd on | nation