DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA Covid-19: PM to meet CMs Thursday ON SUNDAY, Maharashtra imposed full lockdown on weekendsandfreshrestrictionstolast through April, but just two days before, it kept silent about any such plans during the high-level review meeting chaired by the Cabinet Secretary on Friday. Senior government officials told The Indian Express that the silence was probably explained by the fact that unlike in the initial phase, the Centre had made it clear to Maharashtra almost two weeks back that weekend lockdowns have limited impact on containing and suppressing the chain of transmission. MAHARASHTRA POLICE MESS Deshmukh quits after HC directs CBI probe, says no fair investigation with him in Home Ministry ` 154 per kilo ` 192 per kilo ` 56 per Dozen Walse-Patil a trusted Pawar aide, trouble shooter Faithinpoliceatstakegivennatureof allegations,courtcan’t bemerespectator:HC;DilipWalse-PatilnewHomeMinister INSIDE EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE MUMBAI, APRIL 5 AMID CURBS, SOME UNCERTAINTY PAGE 5 “The Chief Secretary, Maharashtra, received the largest chunkof timeduringtheCabinet Secretary meeting. However, no one discussed any imposition of a weekend lockdown,” a top CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CAPPING DAYS of political tension within the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition following allegations of corruption against him by former Police Commissioner of Mumbai Parambir Singh, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh Monday tendered his resignation to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray Monday. This came hours after the Bombay High Court directed the Anil Deshmukh Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to carry out a “preliminary enquiry” into the allegations againsthim.Callingthecase“unprecedented,” the court asked the CBI to complete the probe “preferably within 15 days”, after which it said the CBI director was at liberty to take “further course of action.' The HC order comes after Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar held two press conferences last month defending Deshmukh, a member of his party. Deshmukh is the second ministerintheMVAgovernment to resign under a cloud — Shiv Sena’sSanjayRathodresignedas Forest Minister on February 28 after he was linked to the death of a22-year-old womaninPune. State Minister of Labour and Excise Dilip Walse-Patil, a close confidant of Pawar who has CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS INVESTIGATION - PART ONE ` 126 per kilo `5.00, WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 Weekend lockdowns don’t work, Centre told Maharashtra NEW DELHI, APRIL 5 REG.NO. MCS/067/2018 - 20 RNI REGN. NO. 1543/57 JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 2021, MUMBAI, LATE CITY, 14 PAGES KAUNAIN SHERIFF M ● 94 out of 120 orders quashed: Allahabad High Court calls out abuse of NSA in Uttar Pradesh COWSLAUGHTER COMMUNALINCIDENTS POLITICALCASES NSA DETENTIONS NSA DETENTIONS THE SHIV Sena and Congress were eager to see Deshmukh go. But the NCP dug its heels in, opting for a probe by a retired judge. The HC’s order clearing a CBI probe forced the NCP’s hand. It also gave the party the justification to get Deshmukh out — and avoid further embarrassment. DASSAULT AVIATION, the manufacturer of French combat jet Rafale, paid at least Euros 508,925 against an invoice for Euro 1 million raised by an Indian firm controlled by a middleman — Sushen Gupta — already under investigation in the AgustaWestland case, French online investigative journal Mediapart reported Monday. This alleged payment came to light during a scheduled audit of Dassault’s 2017 accounts by French anti-corruption agency AFA.WhileDassaultclaimedthe money was used to pay Defsys Solutions for manufacturing 50 largereplicamodelsof Rafalejets soon after the signing of the Indo-Frenchcontractin2016,according to Mediapart, the company could not furnish any proof to AFA that these models were indeed made. “Yetagainstallapparentlogic, the AFA decided not to refer the mattertoprosecutors,”Mediapart said.Inthefirstofitsthree-partseries called “Rafale Papers,” Mediapart said “Dassault group was unable to provide the AFA with a single document showing that these models existed and were delivered, and not even a photograph” and the “inspectors thussuspectedthatthiswasabogus purchase designed to hide hidden financial transactions”. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 NEW DELHI, APRIL 5 POLICEFIRsthatcutandpastekey detailsacrossdifferentlocations; detention orders signed by District Magistrates that show “non-applicationofmind”;denial of dueprocesstotheaccused;repeateduseofthelawtoblockbail —incaseaftercase,theAllahabad High Court has red-flagged the waytheUPgovernmenthasused the draconian National Security Act (NSA) which gives the state powers to arrest without formal charge or trial. AninvestigationbyTheIndian Express of police and court records reveals a telling pattern. Between January 2018 and December 2020, the Allahabad High Court ruled in 120 habeas corpuspetitionschallengingpreventivedetentionundertheNSA. In 94 detentions, it quashed ordersof DMsinasmanyas32districts and ordered the release of the detainees. Cow slaughter, records show, is Category Number One when it comes to invoking NSA: it accounts for 41 cases, more than a thirdof thetotalthatreachedthe High Court. All the accused are from the minority community andweredetainedbytheDistrict MagistratebasedonFIRsalleging cow slaughter. In 30 of these cases — more than 70% — the High Court came down heavily on the UP administration: it quashed the NSA or- KAUNAIN SHERIFF M NEW DELHI, APRIL 5 Detention orders issued in a ‘mechanical’ manner: Allahabad High Court. Ritesh Shukla NATIONALINSECURITYACT COW SLAUGHTER der and called for the release of the petitioner. Even in the remaining 11 cow-slaughtercaseswhereituphelddetention,exceptinone,the lower court and the High Court subsequently granted bail to the accusedmakingitclearthattheir judicial custody was not required. In each cow-slaughter case, KEY CASES, PAGE 7 TOMORROW: HOW NSA CAME INTO PLAY IN COMMUNAL TENSION records investigated by The IndianExpressshow,theDMsvirtually echo each other to state that the reason to invoke NSA wasthattheaccusedhadmoved forbailandtheirreleasewas“imminent.” And that if the accused was out of jail, he would “again” indulge in “activities prejudicial to public order”. The Indian Express investigationidentifiedkeyredflagsraised by the courts while setting aside theNSAordersoncow-slaughter detentions. For each, an illustrative case is listed (see page 7): ■Inasmanyas11detentions, the court cited “non-application of mind” by the DM while passing the order. ■ In 13 detentions, the court said the detained person was CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 A CLOSE scrutiny of the orders by District Magistrates invoking the National Security Act shows why the draconian law is so readilyinvoked.For,theNSAempowers the state to detain a person without a formal charge and without trial. Under the NSA, a person is taken into custody to pre● venthimorher from acting in anymannerprejudicialto“thesecurity of the state” or for “maintenance of the public order.” It is an administrative order passed either by the Divisional Commissioner or the District Magistrate — and not detention ordered by police based on specific allegations or for a specific violation of the law. Even if a person is in police custody, the DM can slap NSA against him. Or, if a person has CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E EXPLAINED NEW DELHI, APRIL 5 Hand pump buried in sand, temple without deity: Seven villages start vanishing from Odisha map PAGE 1 ANCHOR AISHWARYA MOHANTY SATABHAYA (KENDRAPARA), APRIL 5 THIS 17-KM stretch along the coastinOdisha'sKendraparadistrict, which was once home for nearly 700 families, now stands in solitude, a vast expanse covered in sand as far as the eye can see, peppered with palm trees and abandoned cattle. Close to the shore, there are some remnants of the past: a hand pump half-buriedinthesand,cattleleft unattended and an old temple without a deity. The temple was once a bustling weekend spot for many of those families. Today, it has only one regular visitor, Prafulla Lenka. This, in short, is the story of Satabhaya, a cluster of seven villages,whichhasalmostdisappeared from the map due to coastal erosion, taking with it a way of life and livelihood. The six-member family of Lenka was among the 571 that were rehabilitated by the district administration to a colony in Bagapatia, 12 km away, in 2018. Butthe40-year-oldstayedbackto lookafterhis20buffaloes,despite thelackofbasicfacilitieslikeelec- ODISHA Kendrapara Bhubaneswar Satabhaya The submerged hand pump, and the village temple in the background. Aishwarya Mohanty tricity and clean drinking water. Orders have now been issued to rehabilitate118ofthe148families left behind. Officials say the other 30stillhavepaperworktosortout. “A plot of land, a house definitely means something to us, wehavewaitedtoolong,butour livelihoods and our houses have been taken away by the sea. This is the fourth time we will be shifting houses in the last four years,” says Babu Mallick, one of the beneficiaries. “Theadministrationwillprovide 10 decimals of land and Rs 1.5 lakh each for construction of houses under Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana to each family,” says Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Basant Kumar Rout. After the first wave of rehabilitationin2018—16yearsafter the foundation stone for the Bagapatia colony was laid by Chief MinisterNaveenPatnaik— those left behind spread out in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 DILIP WALSE-Patil, who was named the new Home Minister of Maharashtra after the resignation of Anil Deshmukh, is one of NCP chief Sharad Pawar's most trusted lieutenants. The 64-year-old Walse-Patil, son of late Congress MLA DattatrayWalsePatil,choseanunconventional route to a political career. After completing his law studies with a postgraduate de- Dilip Walse Patil gree at Mumbai's Government LawCollege,Patilkeptawayfrom electoral politics and chose to work as Pawar's personal secretary,likelyontheadviceof hisfather. In this role, Walse Patil cultivatedabackroompersonawith CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Home Minister Amit Shah pays tribute to the security personnel who died, in Jagdalpur on Monday. PTI OTHERS Detention despite bail: Why District Magistrates love the NSA KAUNAIN SHERIFF M MUMBAI, APRIL 5 BY UNNY WORLD on cow slaughter, the crime for which this draconian law was most invoked JAY MAZOOMDAAR & KRISHN KAUSHIK SHUBHANGI KHAPRE BUSINESS AS USUAL NSA DETENTIONS Held in Agusta 41 20 DETENTIONS 34 25 NSA 120 case, middleman QUASHED 94 QUASHED 30 QUASHED 20 QUASHED 20 QUASHED 24 BY HC named in (Note: From Jan 2018 to Dec 2020) deal to make Copycat orders, no due process, reveal police & court records. The first of a series, Rafale models TOTAL NSA ORDERS NCP shy but HC forced its hand Maoists suspected to have abducted CRPF man missing after attack GARGI VERMA & DIPANKAR GHOSE BIJAPUR, KOLKATA, APRIL 5 CYCLONE KILLS AT LEAST 113 IN EAST TIMOR, INDONESIA U.S. SEEKS TO BUILD ON SECRET PARTS OF TALIBAN DEAL PAGE 10 THE COBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) jawan who is missing after the ambush on the Sukma-Bijapur border on Saturday is allegedly beingheldcaptivebytheMaoists. In the aftermath of the ambushinTeklagudamonSaturday, bodies of 22 security personnel had been recovered. In a state- Rakeshwar Singh Manhas mentonSunday,BastarInspector Generalof PolicePSundarrajhad said that one constable, RakeshwarSinghManhas,of the eliteCoBRAunitof theCRPF,was missing. Manhas is originally a CONTINUED ON PAGE 2