Saturday, December 20, 2025 | Vol. 69 No. 65 | 38 Pages Reg.No MCS/048/2021-23; RNI No. 1541/1957 M.p.c.s office Mumbai. PIN 400001 THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL INDIA EDITION | www.freepressjournal.in ● Leader in E-paper circulation NATION ED moves Delhi HC after trial court relief for Sonia, Rahul Gandhi in National Herald case GAMES BCCI Selection Committee set to pick the 15-member squad for T20 World Cup today Cinema Check out our verdict on OTT and film releases Edit Despite energy job surge, AI anxiety on the rise in India UPHEAVAL | Dhaka and other cities gripped by violent protests after killing of Hadi, a July uprising leader, as attacks on media, minorities and diplomatic sites test the interim govt BANGLADESH ON THE BRINK FPJ News Service MUMBAI Bangladesh stood on a knifeedge on Friday as grief over the killing of a prominent youth leader spilled into nationwide unrest, exposing deep political fault lines, simmering antiIndia sentiment, anxieties over minority safety and growing fears for press freedom just weeks ahead of crucial national elections. The death of Sharif Osman Hadi, a 32-year-old spokesperson of the Inquilab Mancha and a leading face of last year’s July Uprising, has become the flashpoint for one of the most volatile moments since the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. Hadi succumbed to gunshot wounds in a Singapore hospital late Thursday, six days after masked assailants shot him in the head in Dhaka while he was launching his election campaign. By dawn on Friday, police and paramilitary forces were patrolling Dhaka and other major cities as the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, appealed for calm and urged citizens to resist what it described as mob violence driven by fringe Scan & Watch elements. TURMOIL ■ Mobs force top dailies to halt print ■ Residence of Mujib attacked, premises of cultural organisation Chhayanaut stormed ■ Indian mission in Chattogram targeted ■ Hindu man lynched, minority fears rise 4Contd on | nation LYNCHED BY A MOB: Compounding the sense of crisis was a separate and chilling incident in Mymensingh district, where a 25-year-old Hindu factory worker, Dipu Chandra Das, was lynched by a mob over alleged blasphemy on Friday. According to police, Das was beaten, hanged from a tree and his body later set on fire on a highway, triggering widespread outrage. Videos of the killing circulated online, heightening fears among minority communities already unsettled since Hasina’s fall. The interim government condemned the lynching in unequivocal terms, stating that there was no place for such violence in a “new Bangladesh” and vowing that those responsible would not be spared. Rights groups, however, warned that the incident reflected a broader erosion of law enforcement capacity amid rising street vigilantism. HC suspends Kokate’s sentence, grants bail Urvi Mahajani MUMBAI The Bombay High Court on Friday granted partial relief to former sports minister and NCP (Ajit Pawar) leader Manikrao Kokate by suspending his sentence and granting bail in a 1995 cheating and forgery case, but refused to stay his conviction. Justice RN Laddha noted that the former minister’s conviction cannot be stayed as there was prima facie evidence pointing to Kokate’s involvement in the case. “Hence, I am not inclined to allow the application seeking for the conviction to be stayed,” the judge said. As his conviction is not stayed, Kokate cannot continue on his cabinet post or MLA post. Allowing suspension of his sentence, the court observed that Kokate was sentenced to only two years’ in prison and has been out on bail throughout – during the trial before the magistrate’s court and appeal before the sessions court. “The application for suspension of sentence is allowed. The sentence is suspended. The applicant has to deposit a sum of Rs one lakh as Scan & Watch surety,” HC said. 4Contd on | nation 4See also | city Anand Jain ED attaches celebrity HC SETS ASIDE offices assets in 1xBet probe LOKPAL ORDER AGAINST MAHUA searched Ashish Singh MUMBAI Ashish Singh CASH-FOR-QUERY PTI NEW DELHI Leopard terror strikes Bhayandar Panic gripped the Talav Road area of Bhayandar East after a leopard entered a densely populated residential locality and injured seven people. The animal was confined inside Parijat Building and rescued later. PIC: VIJAY GOHIL SEE CITY US president pauses green card lottery PTI WASHINGTON The Delhi High Court on Friday set aside an order of the Lokpal granting sanction to the CBI to file a chargesheet against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra in the alleged cash-forquery scam. A bench of justices Anil Kshetarpal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, while pronouncing the order in Moitra’s plea, said “The order is set aside. We have requested the Lokpal to accord consideration for grant of Siddaramaiah asserts 5-year tenure as CM Vinay Madhava Gowda President Donald Trump who has long opposed the diversity visa lottery suspended the green card lottery programme on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the programme. “This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente. Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said. Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017. 4Contd on | nation BENGALURU  Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday asserted on the floor of the Legislative Assembly that there had been no discussion within the party on power sharing and that he was elected by the Legislature Party to serve as Chief Minister for a full five-year term. Speaking during a discussion on North Karnataka in the winter session at Belagavi, Siddaramaiah said no one could give him directions on the issue. “I don’t believe in destiny and no one can give me directions. I was elected by the Party to be the Chief Minister for five years. There was no discussion of any sort over power sharing for two and a half years during that meet- ing. I will continue to be the chief minister as long as I am instructed by the party high command. As a matter of fact, the High Command is in my favour,” Siddaramaiah said. In an apparent dig at his deputy, D K Shivakumar, who is seeking his “rightful share” from the party high command, which had allegedly promised him a halfterm Chief Minister post, Siddaramaiah said he did not believe in destiny and had worked his way forward. 4Contd on | nation I don’t believe in destiny and no one can give me directions. I was elected by the party to be the Chief Minister for five years. There was no discussion of any sort over power sharing for two and a half years during that meeting. I will continue to be the CM as long as I’m instructed by the party high command. As a matter of fact, the high command is in my favour. Siddaramaiah Karnataka CM sanction under Section 20 of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act in accordance with the relevant provisions within one month.” The cash-for-query scam pertains to the allegation that Moitra had asked questions in the House in exchange for cash and gifts from a businessman. Moitra’s counsel had contended that there was clear infirmity in the procedure adopted by the Lokpal. He had referred to Section 20(7) of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act saying it demands that comments of public servants be obtained before granting sanction. 4Contd on | nation 97L in TN, 73L Gujarat voters out of draft SIR FPJ News Service MUMBAI Over 97 lakh voters have been deleted from Tamil Nadu’s electoral rolls following the release of the draft rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) on Friday, raising questions over the scale of deletions, particularly in Chennai. Meanwhile, Gujarat’s draft voter list, also released on Friday, showed 73.7 lakh deletions. Of these, 18.07 lakh voters were found to be deceased, 51.86 lakh were marked as shifted or absent, and 3.81 lakh were deleted due to duplicate enrolments. Official figures show that the Tamil Nadu electorate has shrunk by 15.2 per cent, from 6.41 crore voters to about 5.4 crore. 4Contd on | nation Trump signs bill that pushes Quad PTI NEW YORK/WASHINGTON US President Donald Trump has signed into law an annual defence policy bill that highlights broadening America's engagement with India, including through the Quad to advance the shared objective of a free and open Indo-Pacific region and address the challenge posed by China. The National Defence Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2026, signed into law Thursday, also states that the Secretary of State shall establish and main- tain within the US-India Strategic Security Dialogue a joint consultative mechanism with the Indian government in connection with the Nuclear Liability Rules. It authorises fiscal year appropriations for the Depart- ment of War (DoW), the Department of Energy national security programmes, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Intelligence Community, and other executive departments and agencies. “The Act will enable the DoW to carry out my Peace Through Strength agenda, protect the homeland from domestic and foreign threats, and strengthen the defence industrial base, while eliminating funding for wasteful and radical programmes that undermine the warfighting ethos of our Nation's men and women in uniform,” Trump said in a statement. The Act outlines 'sense of Congress on Defence Alliances and Partnerships in the IndoPacific region'. Under this, the Secretary of Defence should continue efforts that strengthen US defence alliances and partnerships in the IndoPacific region to "further the comparative advantage of the US in strategic competition with China". 4Contd on | nation MUMBAI The ED on Friday carried out searches at more than 25 locations across the country in connection with an alleged Rs 2,434-crore financial fraud linked to industrialist Anand Jaikumar Jain, a director of Jai Corporation Ltd, officials said. The probe covers alleged irregularities in a real estate investment fund, including diversion of bank loans to offshore entities in tax havens and fraudulent trading activities. Premises linked to Jain, Jai Corporation Ltd, its sister concerns and a business partner were searched. Those included over 23 Mumbai sites such as Jain’s Peddar Road home and Jai Corp’s offices. 4Contd on | nation Yuvraj Singh Robin Uthappa Sonu Sood Urvashi Rautela The ED on Friday said it has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 7.93 crore belonging to several well-known film stars and cricket personalities in connection with its investigation into the illegal online betting platform 1xBet under PMLA. Those whose assets have been attached include ex-cricketers Yuvraj Singh and Robin Uthappa, and actors Sonu Sood, Mimi Chakraborty, Ankush Hazra, Neha Sharma and Urvashi Rautela’s mother. The action follows an earlier attachment on October 6, when the ED froze assets worth Rs 11.19 crore belonging to cricketers Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina in the same case. As per officials, the assets include properties and bank balances worth Rs 2.5 crore linked to Singh, Rs 8.26 lakh belonging to Uthappa, Rs 2.02 crore linked to Rautela and registered in the name of her mother, Rs 1 crore belonging to Sood, Rs 59 lakh linked to Chakraborty, Rs 47.20 lakh belonging to Hazra, and Rs 1.26 crore linked to Sharma. 4Contd on | nation