Statescape — The angry young man’ of Malayalam films dead

SRINAGAR: Two National Conference (NC) ministers escaped an attempt on their lives when militants lobbed a grenade and followed it by firing at their motorcade at Zachaldara-Handwara, 100 kms from here, on Thursday. Reports reaching here on Friday from the frontier district of Kupwara said the security guards of the ministers — Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan (forests) and Abdul Ahad Vakil (revenue), retaliated but the militants managed to escape. Nobody was hurt in the exchange of fire, reports said.

TN for ban on fundamentalist bodies

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is considering a ban on all fundamentalist organisations for inciting communal violence in the state, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said here on Friday. “The government is considering a ban on all fundamentalist organisations for inciting communal violence in Tamil Nadu,” he told newsmen when asked whether the government would ban the Al-Umma for its alleged involvement in the recent clashes at Coimbatore. Karunanidhi denied the government had ordered release of Al-Umma volunteers from the Coimbatore central prison, and said they were TADA detainees released on court orders.

Sahib Singh’s nephew arrested

NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma’s nephew Neeraj, who had been absconding since the murder of a property dealer in west Delhi last month, has been arrested from Sonepat district in Haryana, police said. The Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (west), S K Gautam, told newsmen that Neeraj, who was staying at his uncle’s house at Gannaur, was arrested following a tip-off late last night by a Delhi police team. Neeraj was produced on Friday in the court of metropolitan magistrate Satinder Kumar, who remanded him to police custody till Saturday.

Amicus curiae for anti-Sikh riots case

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court irked by repeated adjournments sought in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in which former MP Sajjan Kumar is an accused, today appointed an amicus curiae to proceed with the hearings. Justice Jaspal Singh expressed displeasure over the way petitioner H Prasad had sought adjournments on the hearing time and again on one pretext or the other, and appointed Mukta Gupta as the amicus to assist the court in proceeding with the case. Prasad had appealed against the trial court order framing charges against him, Kumar and 10 others in a case relating to 1984 anti-Sikh riots which broke out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Cold wave intensifies in the North

NEW DELHI: Intensified cold wave claimed three lives and disrupted normal life in the northern region on Friday. Two women and an unidentified sadhu died due to intense cold conditions at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, official reports from Lucknow said. The national capital today experienced the coldest day of the season with the maximum temperature plummeting to 16.4 degree Celsius, eight degrees below normal. Thick fog engulfed the city in the morning reducing visibility to almost zero level disrupting flights at the airport as well as vehicular traffic. Dense fog engulfed most of the places in the northern region as icy winds swept Chandigarh, parts of Haryana, Punjab and the hills of Himachal Pradesh and J&K.

Rajdhani and August Kranti Express rescheduled

MUMBAI: The Mumbai-Rajdhani Express which was scheduled to leave at 4.55 pm, has been rescheduled to depart at 7.05 am on Saturday. Likewise, the August Kranti Express bound to Nizammudin, has been rescheduled and will leave from here at 9.45 am on Saturday.