SRINAGAR: A conductor died and a driver was injured when two vehicles crashed into each other on Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Udhampur district last night, officials said.
Quoting officials, KNO reported that a dumper crashed into a truck inside Chanani-Nashri tunnel in Udhampur last night.
He said in the incident conductor of the dumper died on spot while its driver was injured.
The deceased was identified as Balbir Chand of Samba.
Meanwhile, police have taken cognizance of the accident.
Thiruvananthapuram: Three people were killed and three others injured critically in an accident at Kerala’s Wayanad on Sunday after their car fell into a gorge, police said.
The accident occurred at Poozhimada in Kappetta town of Wayanad after the car overturned after hitting an electric post, police said.
The deceased are from Kerala’s Kannur and Kasargod districts. Further details are awaited.
Sambhal: Samajwadi Party MP Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq on Sunday hit back at Uttar Pradesh minister Dharampal Singh over his remarks that the opposition got Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf killed, saying the murder did not happen “without the government’s intention”.
Speaking to reporters here, the Sambhal MP said, “The entire country knows how the murder took place and who got it done. They (Atiq and Ashraf) were in police custody. It was their (government’s) responsibility, and it did not happen without their (government’s) intention. They are trying to hide it, and on the contrary putting the blame on the opposition.”
Barq, 92, said that the court could have given Atiq Ahmad the capital punishment or any other punishment. “We would not have any objections. But, this time, the duo (Atiq and Ashraf) have not been killed without their (government’s) signal.”
UP minister Singh on Saturday alleged that the opposition parties got gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf killed, fearing that the duo would reveal their secrets.
Gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad (60) and Ashraf were shot dead at point-blank range by three men posing as journalists on the night of April 15 while police personnel were escorting them to a medical college in Prayagraj for a check-up.
They were brought to Prayagraj from Gujarat and Bareilly prisons for interrogation in connection with the killing of Umesh Pal and his two police security guards earlier this year.
“The truth is that the opposition is involved in getting Atiq killed. Some serious secrets were about to be revealed, that’s why the opposition got him murdered,” Singh, the state animal husbandry and dairy development minister, had said.
The three assailants of Ahmad were arrested by the police after the murder. The UP government has constituted a three-member judicial commission to probe the matter.
Sambhal district will go to polls in the first phase of the urban local body elections, where voting will be held on May 4.
Prayagraj: Ramakant Dubey, an official of the Prayagraj-based Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), has not slept peacefully since April 15, the day gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf were shot dead.
Dubey has sought security cover for himself and his family since he and his family apprehend retaliation from the henchmen of slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad.
It was Dubey who had lodged an FIR against Atiq in February 2017 that had led to the arrest of the latter.
After this, the gangster-turned-politician never walked free — right till his death on April 15 night.
On December 14, 2016, Atiq Ahmed, along with a dozen henchmen, had created ruckus at SHUATS in support of a youngster (a student at the deemed university) who also used to give tuition to Ahmed’s two youngest sons.
After being rusticated by SHUATS officials on charges of cheating during examinations, the youth had sought Atiq’s support to force officials to revoke the rustication order.
Atiq asked SHUATS officials to withdraw the rustication order, but when they refused citing rules, the gangster and his henchmen barged on to the campus in Naini and allegedly beat up whoever they found there.
He even went to the Vice-Chancellor’s office.
Unable to find him there, he allegedly assaulted SHUATS PRO Ramakant Dubey after locking the room. If the FIR in this regard is to be believed, he even threatened to kill him.
Guddu Muslim and Sabir (now accused in lawyer Umesh Pal murder) were also present along with Atiq, police officials confirmed.
“I got the FIR lodged on the day of the incident at Naini police station and he was arrested in February 2017 after the Allahabad high court questioned the police over delay in action against him and sent him to jail,” recalled Ramakant Dubey.
The arrest led to many more cases being registered against Atiq and he never could secure bail despite several efforts in lower courts and the Allahabad High Court.
He said that Atiq and his supporters held him responsible for the troubles he faced after his arrest in the SHUATS case.
After he was killed along with his brother Khalid Azeem while on police remand in Prayagraj on April 15, Dubey said: “I fear that his henchmen, who are on the run, could target me in retaliation. I had approached local officials for my security, but in vain.
“Therefore, on April 18, I wrote to the chief minister, UP DGP, principal secretary (home), ADG (Prayagraj zone), district magistrate-Prayagraj and Prayagraj police Commissioner seeking security.”
Dubey claimed that he had received threats from Atiq while he was in state jails and even when the gangster was in Sabarmati jail of Gujarat.
He said officials were informed about these threat calls from time to time but no action was taken.
Pune: Four people were killed and 18 others injured after a truck rammed into a bus in Maharashtra’s Pune district on Sunday, police said.
The accident took place at around 2 am near a temple off the Mumbai-Bengaluru national highway, they said.
As the private passenger bus heading from Satara to Dombivli in Thane reached near the Swaminarayan temple, a truck coming from behind rammed into it, a police official said.
Three bus passengers and the truck driver were killed, while 18 passengers received injuries, he said.
Prima facie, the truck driver lost control over the vehicle and as a result it hit the bus, the official said.
After being alerted, a medical emergency services team reached the spot and provided assistance to the victims.
Thirteen injured passengers were rushed to various hospitals in Pune, including the Navale Hospital, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital and Sassoon Hospital. The other injured passengers were admitted to nearby hospitals, officials said.
Pune Zilla Parishad Chief Executive Officer Ayush Prasad said driver fatigue was a significant issue which needed to be addressed to prevent such accidents.
“It is essential that all citizens take necessary precautions when driving during night hours. Get adequate rest before your journey, take regular breaks and be mindful of other drivers on the road,” he said.
Prasad also stressed on the importance of reporting about rash and negligent driving to police.
“If you notice someone driving in a rash manner, maintain a safe distance and call the police to report it,” he added.
Bhubaneswar: The mortal remains of Indian Army jawan Debashish Biswal, who was among the five soldiers killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch, were consigned to flames with full military honours at his native village in Odisha’s Puri district on Saturday.
Thousands of people gathered at the crematorium in Khandayat Sahi in Sakhigopal area as Biswal’s elder brother lit the pyre.
His body reached the Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar on a special Indian Air Force plane. The body was then taken to Puri in an Army convoy.
Governor Ganeshi Lal and other dignitaries paid their tributes to Biswal at the airport.
‘Debashish Amar Rahe’ slogans rented the air as the convoy with Biswal’s body travelled from Bhubaneswar to Puri.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced an ex-gratia of Rs 25 lakh for Biswal’s family. He is survived by his wife Sushree Sangeeta and seven-month-old daughter.
Five Army personnel were killed and another was seriously injured on Thursday after their vehicle caught fire following the attack in the dense forest area of Bata Doriya in Poonch. The soldiers were from a Rashtriya Rifles unit deployed for counter-terror operations.
Unlike in Republican presidential primaries past, just two candidates — Pence, the former Catholic turned evangelical, and Scott, who speaks of finding a “God Solution” to the country’s racial divide — stand alone in making explicit appeals to Evangelical voters. Trump and DeSantis, meanwhile, are relying solely on their reputations as brute-force brawlers in the culture wars.
Their success — and the difficulties Pence and Scott are having courting voters, according to recent polls — reflects a major change in the evangelical bloc of the GOP electorate in the Trump era. When five GOP presidential candidates take the stage at Iowa’s Faith & Freedom Coalition in Clive on Saturday, vowing to take on the woke left will likely mean more than reciting the Apostles’ Creed.
“Evangelicals have changed and have become more populist and more renegade and wanting to fight more and engage in Christian culture,” said David Brody, the chief political analyst for Christian Broadcasting Network, who wrote the “The Faith of Donald J. Trump.” “Trump has a following who wants to fight because they see culture going to hell in a handbasket, and that’s what’s winning the day in politics. And that’s why he is winning with them.”
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a historian at evangelical Calvin University in Michigan and the author of “Jesus and John Wayne,” referenced DeSantis’ “God Made a Fighter” ad as an example of the shifting evangelical soil.
“That’s what evangelicals are looking for now — any personal testimony is kind of a bonus, but not necessary,” Du Mez said. “What matters to evangelicals is they are looking for the best candidate to further their agenda.”
In previous presidential campaigns, GOP candidates like George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson made explicit appeals to values voters. They regaled them with their personal testimonies and, in the case of Cruz, worked stages in the style of a megachurch pastor.
Though evangelicals were initially skeptical of Trump, he slowly gained their trust. His running mate in 2016, Pence, gave them permission to look past his crude remarks and reputation for philandering, among other concerns, and embrace Trump as an unlikely but effective champion of their top moral causes.
With Trump’s election as someone only glancingly familiar with the faith, evangelicals no longer rely on kicking a candidate’s theological tires.
“Evangelicals support Trump because of his policies. He doesn’t pretend to be pious, which is refreshing. He doesn’t pretend to be something he is not, but he has been the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-Israel president in history,” said Robert Jeffress, pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas and an evangelical ally of Trump who is in regular contact with the ex-president.
Trump has the critical Republican voting bloc of white evangelical Christians — about 14 percent of the voting population — to thank for propelling him to the White House in 2016. In 2020, eight of 10 evangelical voters cast a ballot for Trump.
And the church-going crowd is largely still standing with him, polling shows. A Monmouth University survey last month — in a four-way matchup between Trump, DeSantis, Pence and former U.N. Ambassador NikkiHaley — found Trump with 47 percent support among self-described evangelicals, compared to DeSantis with 35 percent. Pence and Haley registered in the single digits.
But Trump’s relationship with evangelical voters has largely been transactional. He promised to stack the Supreme Court with conservative judges who would topple Roe v. Wade and protect religious liberties — and it happened. After the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights, Trump lashed out at Christian leaders who weren’t automatically lining up for him in 2024.
“There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty because nobody … has ever done more for ‘right to life’ than Donald Trump,” he told the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Despite the occasional tensions between some evangelical leaders and Trump, Jeffress predicted that evangelical voters will coalesce around the former president again in 2024.
“I don’t see anyone who has announced so far who has a chance of capturing the vote of evangelicals other than Trump,” he said.
“No Republican can win the primary without self-identified evangelicals,” said Michael Wear, the former evangelical outreach adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and founder, CEO and president of the Center for Christianity & Public Life. “What Trump showed is that there are ways to get self-identified evangelicals that do not include directly Christian appeals, particularly the kind of the kind of extensive offering of one’s personal testimony that was so important to George W. Bush’s rise.”
Following Saturday’s forum, Pence will head south to Atlanta, where he’ll speak at The Church of The Apostles. He’s expected to release his second book later this year, which will center on his faith journey. For two decades as an elected official, he kept a copy of the Bible and Constitution on his desk and held prayer meetings while in the White House.
“Evangelical leaders appreciate him and his sincerity,” Du Mez said of Pence, “And at the same time, they would prefer him not to be in charge of the country.”
Scott regularly talks about his personal Bible studies — including in a video featured Wednesday on the Christian Broadcasting Network, a tribute to the late Rev. Charles Stanley, a giant of the Southern Baptist Convention. Scott advisers told POLITICO his strategy involves making a direct appeal to evangelical voters in Iowa.
Besides DeSantis, Haley is another notable name sitting out this weekend’s faith forum in Iowa. Rather than convening ministers and church groups, the former governor has instead organized meetings in Iowa with farmers and women’s groups, a sign that Haley is counting less on the evangelical vote.
Despite not making as overt an appeal to evangelicals, DeSantis and Haley are still being embraced by parts of the Christian right. Each has been tapped to give speeches at two of the country’s top evangelical colleges — DeSantis last week at a Liberty University convocation, and Haley early next month at Regent University’s convocation.
Bob Vander Plaats, Huckabee’s former 2008 campaign chair and president and CEO of The Family Leader, an influential conservative Christian organization in Iowa, said some of his constituents support DeSantis, who grew up in a Catholic family and writes in his memoir that it was “nonnegotiable that I would have my rear end in church every Sunday morning.”
“He’s very much your constitutional conservative who is a man of deep faith, but that’s not what he’s going to reference as he’s applying it to leadership,” Vander Plaats said. “He’s going to go back to basic conservative principles and constitutional foundations versus inserting a lot of Scripture.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Srinagar, April 20 (GNS): Five soldiers were killed and another injured in a militant attack in Poonch district, army said on Thursday.
“Today, at approximately 1500 hours, one Army vehicle, moving between Bhimber Gali and Poonch in the Rajauri sector was fired on by unidentified (militants), taking advantage of heavy rains and low visibility in the area. The vehicle caught fire, due to likely use of grenades by (militants),” army said in a statement.
“Five personnel of the Rashtriya Rifles Unit deployed for Counter Terrorist operations, in this area, have unfortunately lost their lives in the incident,” it said, adding, “Another seriously injured soldier was evacuated immediately to the Army Hospital at Rajouri and is under treatment.” Operations are in progress to locate the perpetrators, the army said.
Jammu: Five Army personnel were killed and another was seriously injured on Thursday after their vehicle caught fire following a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch, officials said.
The deceased Army soldiers were from a Rashtriya Rifles unit deployed for counterterror operations, the Army said in a statement.
Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande has briefed Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the incident.
The Army said the vehicle the soldiers were travelling in came under fire from unidentified terrorists and it caught fire because of likely use of grenades.
“Today, at approximately 1500 hours, one Army vehicle, moving between Bhimber Gali and Poonch in the Rajauri sector was fired on by unidentified terrorists, taking advantage of heavy rains and low visibility in the area,” the Army said.
“The vehicle caught fire, due to likely use of grenades by terrorists,” it said.
Five personnel of the Rashtriya Rifles Unit deployed for counterterrorist operations, in this area have unfortunately lost their lives in the incident, it said.
The Army said another soldier was seriously injured and he was evacuated immediately to the Army hospital at Rajauri.
The Army said operations are underway to catch the perpetrators.
In an initial statement, the Army said the five personnel were killed after their vehicle caught fire, adding further details are being ascertained.
SRINAGAR: Five soldiers were killed and another injured in a militant attack in Poonch district, army said on Thursday.
“Today, at approximately 3 pm , one Army vehicle, moving between Bhimber Gali and Poonch in the Rajauri sector was fired on by unidentified (militants), taking advantage of heavy rains and low visibility in the area. The vehicle caught fire, due to likely use of grenades by (militants),” army said in a statement.
“Five personnel of the Rashtriya Rifles Unit deployed for Counter Terrorist operations, in this area, have unfortunately lost their lives in the incident,” it said, adding, “Another seriously injured soldier was evacuated immediately to the Army Hospital at Rajouri and is under treatment.”
Operations are in progress to locate the perpetrators, the army said.
