DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2025, NEW DELHI, LATE CITY , 18 PAGES `7.00 (`8 BIHAR & RAIPUR, `15 SRINAGAR) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 WANTED IN `13,000-CR PNB LOAN FRAUD CASE BelgiumconfirmsMehul Choksi’sarrest,request forextraditionbyIndia BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY Senior officials set to go to Belgium; lawyer says will file appeal SHUBHAJIT ROY, MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL & SADAF MODAK THE WORLD NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, APRIL 14 TELANGANA Jail for default on welfare measures in draft Bill for gig workers Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy NIKHILA HENRY HYDERABAD, APRIL 14 SOCIAL SECURITY for gig workers, rules that govern termination, and provisions to punish aggregators that don’t comply — a Bill expected to be brought in bytheTelanganagovernmenton May 1 envisions several guardrails for the welfare of the roughly 4 lakh gig and platform workers in the state. The draft Bill states that if an aggregator fails to pay the welfarefundtoaboardforgigworkers’ welfare, it can be punished “with imprisonment for a term whichmayextendtooneyearor with fine of Rs 2 lakh or with both”. The offences under the Act will be triable by a court “which is not inferior than a Judicial Magistrate of the First Class”, it states. The Bill mandates that the state government establish the Gig and Platform Workers’ Welfare Board in Hyderabad to “exercise the powers conferred on, and perform the duties and CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Around 400 people, including children, have taken refuge at Parlalpur High School in Malda district of West Bengal. Partha Paul ‘We have become refugees in our own land... We may never return’ InBengaldistricthitbyviolence overWaqf law,villagersseekshelteracrossriver RAVIK BHATTACHARYA PARLALPUR (MALDA), APRIL 14 HEREIGHT-DAY-OLDbabyinher lap, Saptami Mondol (24) sat on a tarpaulin sheet inside a classroomofahighschoolinParlalpur, which has been converted into a shelter after communal violence broke out in West Bengal’s Murshidabad last week. Saptami, who is among the 400 men, women and children taking refuge at the school after fleeing their homes, is unsure if shewilleverreturntohervillage PAGE 7 EXPLAINED POLICY WHAT KARNATAKA CASTE SURVEY SAYS, ITSIMPACT PAGE 14 PAGE 1 ANCHOR THE EDITORIAL PAGE LAW ANDDISORDER That opposition to Waqf Act has sparked violence is disturbing. For West Bengal government, peace, not politics, must be priority PAGE10 VIOLENCE SPREADS TO SOUTH 24 PARGANAS DISTRICT PAGE 8 hid inside and left in the evening whenthemobwasgone.BSFhad started patrolling by then. We onlyhavetheclotheswe’rewearing.Wemadeourwaytotheghat (makeshiftjetty)withthehelpof theBSF,”saidSaptami,whostays in Dhulian and whose husband works in Kolkata as a mason. “Itwasdark;we gotonaboat and crossed the river. On the othersidewasthisvillage where a family sheltered us for the night and gave us clothes. The next day, we came to this school,” said Maheshwari CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 GOVT & POLITICS SENIOR BJDMLA WARNS NAVEEN AGAINST PARTY BEING ‘HIJACKED’ PAGE 6 ‘They spread vote Panel gives nod to shift cheetahs bank ka virus’: PM from Kuno park to Gandhi Sagar targets Cong for opposing Waqf law NIKHIL GHANEKAR NEW DELHI, APRIL 14 EVEN AS the Centre is in talks with Kenya, South Africa and Botswanatotranslocatethenext batch of cheetahs to Madhya Pradesh, the Cheetah Project Steering Committee is learnt to have cleared the relocation of some of the cheetahs from Kuno National Park to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary. The steering committee, however, advised that the relocation of the cheetahs to Gandhi Sagar,althoughinthesamestate, should be carried out with care, President Droupadi Murmu with V-P Jagdeep Dhankhar, PM Narendra Modi, BJP’s J P Nadda, Congress’s Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi at a function to pay tribute to B R Ambedkar, in Parliament on Monday. Anil Sharma EXPRESS NETWORK TELANGANA FIRST STATE TO NOTIFY SC SUB-CATEGORIES —located acrosstheGanga or60 kilometres by road. The violence over the new Waqf law has already claimed three lives, including father and son Hargobindo Das (72) and Chandan Das (40), who were dragged out of their home by a mob and killed. While more than 200 arrests have been made and police claim the situation is normalising, those who fled the troubletorn areas are not so sure. “OnFriday,themobsetfireto ourneighbour’shouseandpelted stones at ours. My parents and I EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE CHANDIGARH, APRIL 14 PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi on Monday targeted the Congress for opposing the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, accusing it of spreading “vote bank ka virus”. He said if the Opposition party had any sympathy for Muslims, it should appoint a Muslim as its president and give 50% of its poll tickets to people from the minority community. “Babasaheb Ambedkar wantedtobringequality,but the Congress spread vote bank ka virus in the country. He wanted every poor person to live with dignity, with heads held high, to dream and fulfill them. But the Congress made the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other BackwardClassessecondclass citizens,” Modi said at a public meeting in Hisar, Haryana, after laying the foundation stone of a new terminal building at the Maharaja Agrasen Airport and flagging off CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NETWORK Initially, plan is to release 4 or 5 cheetahs into a fenced area takingintoaccountstressfactors liketheheatwhilemovingthem by road. Gandhi Sagar is about 300 kilometres from Kuno. The decision, taken at a meeting last week, comes even asconcernslingerover availabil- ity of adequate prey and the presence of leopards, the competing co-predators. “It was discussed and agreed that a few cheetahs could be moved to Gandhi Sagar soon,” said a source aware of the developments. Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary has been earmarked as an important link for longterm conservation of cheetahs, with the aim to establish a metapopulation of 60-70 cheetahs across the Kuno-Gandhi Sagar landscape, spread across Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. For over a year now, the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Mehul Choksi in Dominica on June 10, 2021. PTI file E EXPLAINED CHINA SUSPENDS CRITICAL EXPORTS AS TRADE WAR WITH TRUMP INTENSIFIES ROME TO HOST 2ND ROUND OF U.S.-IRAN N-TALKS PAGE 12 THE BELGIUM government on Monday confirmed that fugitive jeweller Mehul Choksi (65) has been arrested in Antwerp followingan extraditionrequestby Indian investigation agencies. Wanted for his alleged involvement in the Rs 13,000-crore PunjabNationalBank(PNB)loan fraud case, Choksi fled India in January 2018. “The Belgian Federal Public Service of Justice can confirm that Mr Mehul Choksi was arrested on Saturday, April 12, 2025.Heisbeingdetainedinanticipation of further judicial proceedings. Access to his legal counsel has been assured,” a spokesperson for the Belgian Ministryof JusticetoldTheIndian Express. “Finally, the Belgian Federal Public Service of Justice can confirm that the Indian authorities have introduced an extradition ● WHAT NEXT, WHAT ARE THE HURDLES? P 14 request for Mr Choksi,” the spokesperson said, adding that nofurtherdetailscanbereleased at this stage. When contacted, a spokesperson for the Antwerp police confirmed that they had suc- RITU SARIN NEW DELHI, APRIL 14 WHILE SIGNBOARDS of the EnforcementDirectorateremain on the stretch leading to the 2.5 acre farmhouse in South Delhi’s Rajokri, which served as the probe agency’s Gurugram zonal office for around three years, the property is now sealed. A handwritten notice pasted on a wall at the gate informs visitors that the office has shifted to an address near Sahara Mall on M G Road, Gurugram. Around two months ago, the agency packed up and moved out of the farmhouse, ending a peculiar legal situation — that of a prime property worth over Rs 100 crore being used as a zonal office and training centre by the agency investigating allegations of financial fraud by the company that owned it. The locked farmhouse now (top); from inside the property in South Delhi earlier (above). Ritu Sarin The Indian Express had reported on October 4, 2024 that even as the ED was occupying this “confiscated” property, its CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Indian-origin doctor, neuroscientist husband, 2 children among 6 killed in NY plane crash NEW YORK, APRIL 14 PAGES 7, 9 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 ED office moves out of farmhouse, bank awaits court order JAKE OFFENHARTZ 311 KG OF METH DUMPED INTO SEA OFF GUJARAT COAST SEIZED SAINI PRAISE FOR BIHAR DEPUTY CM SPARKS ROW cessfully executed the arrest warrant.Theaction“concernsan arrest ordered by the international service, Antwerp Public Prosecutor’sOffice,followingthe service of an extradition procedure and the decision declaring aforeignarrestwarrantenforceable”, the spokesperson said. India and Belgium have a long-standingextraditiontreaty. AN INDIAN-ORIGIN doctor was among six members of a closeknitfamilyof physiciansanddistinguished student-athletes killed when a private plane crashed in upstate New York over the weekend. The twin-engine Mitsubishi MU-2B went down shortly after noon Saturday in a muddy field in Copake, New York, near the Massachusetts line, killing Dr Joy Saini (third from left) with husband Dr Michael Groff, daughter Karenna Groff and James Santoro. AP everyone on board, according to authorities and a family member. The family was on a trip to the Catskills for a birthday celebrationandthePassoverholiday. Among the victims were KarennaGroff,aformerMITsoccer player named the 2022 NCAAwomanof theyear;herfather,aneuroscientist,DrMichael Groff; her mother, Dr Joy Saini, a urogynecologist; her brother, Jared Groff, a 2022 graduate of Swarthmore College who worked as a paralegal; CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Eye on ‘oversized’ bats, IPL hands umpires a gauge to check during games DEVENDRA PANDEY & NIHAL KOSHIE MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, APRIL 14 AT THE start of this IPL season, South African fast bowler Kagiso Rabada echoed a key concern voiced bymanyabout thelackof balance between bat and ball in T20 cricket. With teams pushing to cross the 300-run mark, he said that if the trend continued, the game should be called “batting” not “cricket”. The BCCI is now moving to strike a balance. Going ahead, every IPL batsman will have to pass the bat through a gauge before taking guard. While the fourth umpire will check the bats of openers before they enter the field, every subsequent batsman will have to clear the “bat gauge” wielded by on-field umpires. The move comes after several cases of batsmen using “oversized” batscame to light. In the IPL, such batsmen have been let off with warnings but on the English county circuit, Nottinghamshire was docked points last year in one such case. Speaking to The Indian Express, IPL chairman Arun Dhumal said the decision was taken to ensure fairness on the field. “Nobody should feel that somebody’s got an undue advantage,” he said. “TheBCCIandIPLhavealways taken all initiatives in this direction so that fairness of the game is maintained. We have used technology to the maximum to make sure that all decisions can be reviewed so that the games don’t get unfairly affected. The ideabehindthisinitiativeistoensure that the spirit of the game is BAT SCANNER BAT GAUGE Totaldepth 2.68in/6.8cm Width 4.33in/11.0cm Edge 1.61in/4.1cm Curve 0.20in/0.5cm Umpire checking MI captain Hardik Pandya’s bat. Screengrab maintained,” Dhumal said. The triangle-shaped plastic gaugehasthedimensionsof alegal bat printed on it: depth 2.68 inches, width 4.33 inches, edges 1.61 inches. The curve, or the bulge of the bat, seen on the lowernon-hittingsideof thebat, needs to be within 0.20 inches. Before this season, bats were not tested on match days; officials would conduct tests on the eve of the game. But this system had an obvious loophole: some batsmen would turn up for the game with different bats. AccordingtoIPLinsiders,T20 batsmen who bend rules generallytweakthe“batbulge”totheir advantage,makingtheso-called “sweetspot”sweeterwithoutincreasing the legal weight. “They bulk up the lower part of the bat since that is the area of thebatwherethebatsmentryto makecontactwiththeball.More woodaroundthe‘sweetspot’and less wood close to the handle givesmorepowertostrokes,”said an international batsman who has played with oversized bats. The less-cautious batsmen, known for hitting sixes from the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2