INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Rockets fired at Kabul airport hit residential neighbourhood
Rocket fire apparently targeting Kabul’s international airport struck a nearby neighborhood on Monday, the eve of the deadline for American troops to withdraw from the country’s longest war after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was hurt. The rockets did not halt the steady stream of U.S. military C-17 cargo jets taking off and landing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Last week, the Islamic State group launched a devastating suicide bombing at one of the airport gates that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. The airport has been a scene of chaos in the two weeks since the Taliban blitz across Afghanistan took control of the country, nearly 20 years after the initial U.S. invasion that followed the September 11 terrorist attacks. But since the suicide bombing, the Taliban have tightened their security cordon around the airfield, with their fighters seen just up to the last fencing separating them from the runway. In the capital’s Chahr-e-Shaheed neighborhood, a crowd quickly gathered around the remains of a four-door sedan used by the attackers. The car had what appeared to be six homemade rocket tubes mounted in place of backseats. The Islamic State group and other militants routinely mount such tubes into vehicles and quietly transport them undetected close to a target. Some of the rockets landed across town in Kabul’s Salim Karwan neighborhood, striking residential apartment blocks, witnesses said. That neighbourhood is some 3 km from the airport. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Five rockets targeted the airport, said U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the American military’s Central Command. A defensive weapon known by the acronym C-RAM — a Counter- Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System — targeted the rockets in a whirling hail of ammunition, Urban said.
Taliban didn’t take away passports: Afghan visa agency
A week after the Government of India cancelled all existing visas for Afghan nationals wanting to travel to India, and instituted the e-visa only system after reports that Taliban gunmen had stolen many passports, the sole Indian visa agency has denied any passports have been lost or misplaced. In a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), a copy of which The Hindu has seen, owners of Shahir Travel Agency, which has handled Indian visas since 2009, have asked the government to revoke the order dated August 25, and also to expedite the e-visa system to enable genuine cases of students, businesspersons, and others associated with India in the past who could need to leave Afghanistan urgently. We have written to the Government of India with our very legitimate concerns. The problem this fake news has created is that the current personnel in power [Taliban] have been accused of something they did not do and that puts all our Kabul staff in danger. Therefore, we have to publicly and vociferously refute all the fake news in the Indian media, Muhammad Karim, CEO of Shahir Travel Agency (STA), the sole Indian Visa Application Centre (IVAC) in Kabul, told The Hindu. According to Karim, Taliban representatives now in charge of Kabul had visited their offices, along with other offices and businesses in the city, but at no point were passports containing Indian visas taken by them or misplaced. All the visas that were issued by the Embassy were done so after complete security check in Kabul. NIC (National Informatics Centre of India) maintains details of all visa stickers issued and biometrics captured, the agency’s letter said, adding that the government could match the passport holders at any time required. MEA officials declined to comment on the letter sent by STA. They said it was unlikely that the government would revoke its decision, given uncertainty over the security situation in Afghanistan, and particularly after the deadline for all foreign troops to leave the country expires on Tuesday. As The Hindu has reported earlier, the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) has delayed issuing any e-visas, as it is difficult to conduct security checks on applicants without local inputs as the Indian Embassy in Kabul is shut down. On August 27, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the decision to cancel thousands of visas previously issued to Afghan nationals had been made following reports of people raiding one of our outsourcing agencies, where Afghan passports with Indian visas were there, but did not mention who was responsible for the reports. Several media agencies had suggested that the worry was that a Pakistan-backed group or intelligence agencies may have taken the passports in order to use them for terror attacks in India.
NATIONAL NEWS
Shooter Avani Lekhara and javelin thrower Sumit Antil clinch gold at Paralympics; discus thrower Vinod Kumar loses bronze
Shooter Avani Lekhara scripted history on August 30 as she became the first Indian woman to win a gold medal at the Paralympics, firing her way to the top of the podium in the R-2 women’s 10m Air Rifle Standing SH1 event in Tokyo. The 19-year-old finished with a world record equalling total of 249.6, which is also a new Paralympic record. She’s the fourth Indian athlete to win a Paralympics gold after swimmer Murlikant Petkar (1972), javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia (2004 and 2016) and high jumper Thangavelu Mariyappan (2016). Avani Lekhara became the first Indian woman to win a gold medal at the Paralympics, firing her way to the top of the podium in the R-2 women’s 10m Air Rifle Standing SH1 event. In the SH1 Rifle category, shooters are able to hold a gun with arms. The athletes have an impairment in their legs, for example amputations or paraplegia. Some athletes will compete in a seated position, while others will compete in a standing position. Javelin thrower Sumit Antil clinched India’s second gold, shattering the men’s F64 category world record multiple times in a stunning Games debut performance. The 23-year-old from Sonepat in Haryana, who lost his left leg below the knee after he was involved in a motorbike accident in 2015, sent the spear to 68.55m in his fifth attempt, which was the best of the day by quite a distance and a new world record. In fact, he bettered the previous world record of 62.88m, also set by him, five times on the day. Australian Michal Burian (66.29m) and Sri Lanka’s Dulan Kodithuwakku (65.61m) took the silver and bronze respectively. The F64 category is for athletes with a leg amputation, who compete with prosthetics in a standing position. A student of Delhi’s Ramjas College, Antil was an able-bodied wrestler before his accident, which led to the amputation of his leg below the knee. A para athlete in his village initiated him to the sport in 2018. Meanwhile, discus thrower Vinod Kumar on Monday lost his F52 category bronze medal after being found ineligible in disability classification assessment by the competition panel. The 41-year-old BSF man, whose Army man father was injured during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, produced a best throw of 19.91m to finish third behind Piotr Kosewicz (20.02m) of Poland and Velimir Sandor (19.98m) of Croatia on Sunday. However, the result was challenged by some competitors. The panel was unable to allocate the athlete Vinod Kumar from NPC India with a sport class and the athlete was designated as Classification not Completed (CNC), the organisers said in a statement. The athlete is therefore ineligible for the Men’s F52 Discus medal event and his results in that competition are void, it added. F52 is for athletes with impaired muscle power, restricted range of movement, limb deficiency or leg length difference, with athletes competing in seated position with cervical cord injury, spinal cord injury, amputation, and functional disorder. Para-athletes are classified depending on the type and extent of their disability. The classification system allows athletes to compete with those with a similar level of ability. Vinod’s classification was done on August 22.
ED records witness statement of Jacqueline Fernandez in Sukesh Chandrasekhar money-laundering case
The Enforcement Directorate on Monday recorded the witness statement of Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez in a money laundering case against ‘conman’ Sukesh Chandrasekhar. Earlier this month, the agency seized a sea-facing bungalow in Chennai and 16 luxury cars, besides two kg gold, during the searches in connection with a fresh case registered by the Delhi police accusing Sukesh of cheating and extortion. The premises of Sukesh’s wife Leena Maria Paul, a small-time actress in Malyalam films who has also done some roles in Hindi movies, were also searched. The police have alleged that Sukesh had been running the racket from inside Delhi’s Rohini jail where he was lodged. He and his associates allegedly extorted about ₹200 crore from various people. It is alleged that Sukesh arranged mobile phones inside the prison. He used a number-spoofing mobile App to contact his prospective victims, posing as a senior government functionary. The accused cheated many people on the pretext of getting their jobs done. In 2017, Sukesh was arrested by the Delhi police for allegedly taking money from then AIADMK (Amma) leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran on the promise of helping him get the two leaves symbol for his faction.
Maharashtra BJP launches protest demanding reopening of temples
Alleging that the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government gave more importance to liquor bars than temples, the opposition BJP in Maharashtra staged an aggressive protest demanding the re-opening of temples on Monday. Symbolically blowing conches in their shankhnaad agitation and defying Covid-19 regulations, hundreds of BJP activists and State leaders participated in protests in key temple areas of Pune, Mumbai, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Solapur districts flouting pandemic protocols. Alleging that the MVA government was deliberately hurting sentiments of the Hindu community, BJP MLA from Mumbai’s Ghatkopar, Ram Kadam also charged that the government apparently gave permission for other religions for their festivities but was refusing to open temples. Please bear in mind, we are not advocating crowding in front of temples. But the government can certainly devise a system based on the issuance of online passes for lakhs of devotees who have not been able to offer worship at the iconic temples in Pandharpur and Shirdi. When you can make rules for beer bars, then why does this government dither when it comes to re-opening temples, said Kadam. Earlier, a police shield had been stationed outside the famous Siddhi Vinayak Temple to prevent Kadam from holding a protest there. A partner in the coalition government, the Congress hit out at the contradictory stand taken by the BJP government at the Centre and the party’s Maharashtra unit over celebration of festivals and the re-opening of temples amid the looming threat of a third wave of infections. The Congress said that despite the Modi government’s directives on restrictions on festivities, why were Maharashtra BJP leaders pressurising the MVA government to permit festivities and allow temples to be reopened.
