DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 2021, NEW DELHI, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY `6.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, `12 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 SIGNAL TO CHINA, VISIT FOLLOWS QUAD SUMMIT PM, US Defence Secy stress strategic partnership and Indo-Pacific stability Austin to meet Rajnath today; ties rooted in democracy, pluralism: PM A question of lawyer: court says no to Waze, NIA pleas SADAF MODAK MUMBAI, MARCH 19 A SPECIAL court on Friday rejectedanapplicationfiledonbehalf of suspended Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Waze, who is in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the Antilia bomb scare case, seeking to meet and consult his lawyer in private during non-interrogation hours. The court also rejected the NIA’s plea seeking directions for Waze’slawyertoremainpresent attheagency’sofficethroughout the interrogation. While the agency opposed Waze’s plea to meet his lawyer in private, Special Public Prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves told the court that the investigation was held up after the police officer insisted on his lawyer’s presence during interrogation. The chief investigating officer is finding it “difficult” to interrogate Waze and had been waiting sinceFridaymorning for his lawyer to appear so that the interrogation can continue, Gonsalves said. The special court had earlier this week allowed Waze’s lawyer to remain present in the NIA office during interrogation. He was, however, not allowed to meet him in private. The lawyer was directed to remain present, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SHUBHAJIT ROY & KRISHN KAUSHIK NEW DELHI, MARCH 19 US SECRETARY of Defence Lloyd J Austin, who arrived in New Delhi on Friday, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and conveyed Washington’s “strong desire” to further enhance the strategic partnership for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. He also conveyed the Biden administration’s “commitment towardsstrengtheningthebilateral defence relations between the two countries”. According to a statement fromthePrime Minister’sOffice, Modi “outlined his vision for the strategic partnership between the two countries and emphasized the important role of bilateral defence cooperation in India-US ties”. The Prime Minister also “welcomed the warm and close relationship between the two countries, which is rooted in sharedvaluesof democracy,pluralism and commitment to a rules-based order”. The US embassy, in a statement, said Austin’s first-day meetings were with the Prime Minister and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. “Secretary Austin commended India’s leadership role in the Indo-Pacific and growing engagement with like-minded partners across the region to promote shared goals. The two sides reaffirmed their commitmenttopromoteafreeandopen regional order. Both sides exchanged perspectives on shared challenges confronting the region and committed to further strengthen their broad ranging and robust defence cooperation,” it said. Soon after he reached New Delhi, Austin, in a Twitter post, said:“ThrilledtobehereinIndia. The breadth of cooperation between our two nations reflects the significance of our major defense partnership, as we work together to address the most pressing challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region.” The reference to “the most pressingchallenges”intheIndoPacific region is aimed at China’s belligerence in the Indo-Pacific regionandbeyond.Modi’sreferencetodemocracy,andcommitment to a rules-based order is also a veiled reference to Beijing. The conversation took place CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SOFI AHSAN NEW DELHI, MARCH 19 United States Secretary of Defence Lloyd James Austin III called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday. Austin arrived in the country on a three-day visit on Friday. ANI Jaishankar, Qureshi may meet on Afghan talks sidelines this month SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, MARCH 19 A DAY after Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa signalled a potentially radical shift by asking New Delhi to just create a “conducive environment” inKashmirfortheresumptionof a dialogue towards peace be- Cutting across party lines, House panel tells govt to give effect to 1 of 3 farm laws HARIKISHAN SHARMA NEW DELHI, MARCH 19 THE STANDING Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, which has members from 13 parties including BJP, Congress, TMC, AAP, NCPandShivSena,hasaskedthe government to implement the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 in “let- ter and spirit.” TheActisoneofthethreecontentiousfarmlawsagainstwhich farmersareprotesting.Thestated position of most of these parties is against all three laws; the Congress wants them repealed. In its report tabled in Lok Sabha on Friday, the committee, which is headed by the TMC’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay, said it “hope[s]andexpect[s]thattherecently enacted ‘The Essential Commodities(Amendment)Act, 2020’ which was aimed at addressing the issue will become a catalyst for unlocking vast untapped resources in the agriculturesectorbycreatinganenvironmentforenhancedinvestments..., fair and productive competition in agricultural marketing and increase farmers’ income”. The committee, therefore, recommended to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 tween the two countries, it is learnt that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be heading to Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe towards the end of the month where, at a meeting onAfghanistan,heisexpectedto come face-to-face with Pakistan’sForeignMinisterShah Mahmood Qureshi. The two ministers will be WORLD NEARLY A DOZEN COUNTRIES RESUME ASTRAZENECA JABS US, CHINA SPAR IN 1ST FACE-TO-FACE MEET UNDER BIDEN PAGE 13 Disagreement over coup refugees from Myanmar: Mizoram wants to help but Centre says stop, deport KRISHN KAUSHIK AIZAWL, MARCH 19 THE COUP in Myanmar has led to an unusual schism across the border in Mizoram. The state government of Mizo National Front, which has extendedissue-basedsupportto the NDA, is in favour of allowing refugees from the neighbouring country,evenlayingdownapolicy to assist them. But the Centre PAGE 1 ANCHOR Police officers who fled Myanmar following the coup rest at an undisclosed location in Mizoram on Thursday. AP WhatsApp privacy policy violates IT Rules, restrain its implementation, Centre tells HC has asked all bordering states and the force guarding the border to prevent the influx and deport those who have come in since the coup, mainly police personnel. Top sources told The Indian Express that Assam Rifles, which guards the 510-km IndiaMyanmar Border (IMB) in Mizoram, informed the Centre in early March that the state is “supporting the movement” of refugees and has “promulgated an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to manage” them. The SOP has since been withdrawn. Assam Rifles also told the Centre that it is not “in sync” with the state government on the issue and that their “rather contradictory”positions“canresult in deterioration” of their “working relation”. The force warned that because of the coup, “the situation CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 participating at the Heart of Asia conference in Dushanbe on March 30, sources said. While they will be there at the conference to discuss the future of Afghanistan, they could meet on the sidelines. The Indian Express has learnt that diplomatic moves have already begun for a possible CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE CENTRE on Friday told Delhi High Court that the new privacy policy announced by WhatsApp in January violates the 2011 IT Rules on five counts, and urged it to restrain the messaging app from implementing it pending adjudication of the case by the court. WhatsApp put the policy on hold after widespread criticism, but plans to implement it from May. Initswrittenresponsetoapetitionchallengingtheprivacypolicy, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology told the courtthatthepolicyfailstospecify which types of sensitive personal data was being collected, notify the details of personal information collected to the user, provide an option to review or amend information and withdrawconsentretrospectively,and guaranteefurthernon-disclosure by third parties including other Facebook companies. WhatsApp has used “extremely general terms” to list the kinds of data collected, with no distinctionbetweenpersonaldata or sensitive personal data being collected, the government said. 25 ARRESTED SO FAR 3 months of MP ‘love jihad’ law: 21 cases, couple knew each other in over half IRAM SIDDIQUE BHOPAL, MARCH 19 WITHIN JUST three months of BJP-ruledMadhyaPradeshclearing an anti-conversion ordinance modelled on a legislation in Uttar Pradesh to check what it calls “love jihad”, the state police have registered 21 cases against 47 people with 25 arrests recorded so far. Police records investigated by The Indian Express show that in at least 11 of the 21 cases, the women who registered complaints under the Freedom to Religion Act 2021 knew the accused — they were friends, in a relationship, and in one case, married for over five years. Records show that in at least fourcases,thecouplehadeloped and returned before the women involved approached the police. Three other cases were lodged after the intervention of Hindutvagroups.Theremaining six cases were recorded against those alleged to be Christian missionaries “trying to lure villagers” to convert. Of the 21 cases, four have been registered in Indore, three in Seoni, two in Bhopal, and one each in Barwani, Khargone, Rewa, Harda, Chhatarpur, Balaghat, Alirajpur, Mandsaur, Dindori, Khandwa, Sehore, and Dhar. Speaking to reporters after the law was passed in the State Assembly, Home Minister Narottam Mishra had said: “Any lovethatheadstowardsjihad,we will oppose it. Any love that offends our sentiments, we will oppose it. Any love that will make our daughters and sisters suffer, will be opposed by us.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ‘No change for personal chats’ WHATSAPP has said that the update to its privacy policy will change nothing for those messaging friends and family. Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can “see your private messages or hear your calls”; personal messages will continue to be end-to-end encrypted, it has said. However, in some conditions, business messages can be read by Facebook, and can be used for marketing purposes. The policy mentions the involvementof third-partyservice providers who may have access to the data, but does not provide thenamesandassociateddetails of thoseserviceproviders,itsaid. “Thisisalsothecaseforother Facebook companies, who are CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Police in Kerala file FIR against ED officers in gold case SHAJU PHILIP THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 19 THE KERALA POLICE have registered a case against officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a central government investigative agency, for allegedly forcing Swapna Suresh, a keyaccused in the gold smuggling case, to implicate Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In an audio clip that made it to the public domain last November, Swapna — who is in jail since July 2020 — was allegedly heard saying that officials were forcing her to confess shehadtravelledtotheUAEwith M Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, alsoanaccusedinthecase,forfinancial negotiations meant for the CM. Further, in the audio clip, she CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 How a farmer’s son in Gujarat became fugitive nabbed in London GOPAL KATESHIYA RAJKOT, MARCH 19 IN THE end, it was WhatsApp that got him. First, an FIR was lodged against him last October under Gujarat’s stringent anti-terror law that allows “interceptions and confessions before a police officer” to be accepted as evidenceinacourtof law.Then,data related to “IP addresses that he used to make the extortion calls from, via WhatsApp”, were obtainedwhiletrackingmoneybe- ing moved through illegal channels like the “hawala” network. Finally this week, Jamnagar police and central agencies were able to close in on Jayesh Ranpariya,theallegedgangster,part-time politician,landshark,extortionist and murder accused. They found the 41-year-old in Croydon in London where he is believed to have been hiding since 2018. Wanted for the murder of Kirit Joshi, a well-known criminal lawyer of Jamnagar, Ranpariya alias Jayesh Patel was detained by Interpol on Wednesday and produced be- fore the Westminster Magistrates’ Court where he refusedconsenttobeextraditedto India. He was then sent to Wandsworth prison, where diamantaire Nirav Modi is lodged, and is due to be produced in court again on March 24. The arrest marked the end of a long run on the wrong side of the law for the son of a farmer from Lonthiya village, 30 km from Jamnagar. Today, police officers told The Indian Express, Ranpariyafaces45cases,including those related to Joshi’s murder,andattemptstomurderProf Jayesh Ranpariya, alleged gangster and extortionist. Express Parsottam Rajani, a college lecturer and property dealer, and builders Girish Der and Hasu Pedhadiya — all in Jamnagar. He also faces cases of landgrabbing, money-laundering, cigarette-smuggling,forgeryand resisting custody in Jamnagar, Rajkot, Surat, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. DGP Ashish Bhatia told The Indian Express that police will soon prepare a proposal for Ranpariya’s extradition and is “hopeful”itwillbecleared“ashe had committed some of the crimes when he was based in London”. According to officers who have tracked Ranpariya, he stepped out of the fringes in the 1990s when he moved to Jamnagar town to work in a garment shop and later opened an STD booth. He then started a brass parts business but was booked for cheating in 1999 and vehicle theft in 2000. By2008,hehadstartedgrabbing land while dabbling in politics. So much so, that in the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation election of 2015, he fielded eight candidates under the ban- ner of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Party — two of them won. Ranpariya’s wife, meanwhile, started a midday newspaper in Gujarati,NawanagarTime,which was in print till recently. Over the last decade, officers said, Ranpariya rose to prominence by targetingprime landin upscale areas of Jamnagar. Describing the modus operandi, Jamnagar SP Deepan Bhadran said Ranpariya’s associates would organise “a disputed title forapieceof landbyforgingdocuments and claim ownership, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2