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‘Very Confident Of Victory In 2024 Assembly Elections,’ PM Modi During Interview; Ducks Question On Muslim Minority

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Those who doubt his government “will also be proven wrong” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told in an interview.

“In 1947, when India was independent, the British who left made a lot of very dire predictions about India’s future. But we have seen that those predictions and preconceptions have all been proven false,” he said. He was responding to queries put, both face to face, and through written responses, in an interview done shortly after the results of the assembly elections came in, as the BJP was celebrating.

PM “very confident of victory” in 2024 elections

The did not make clear which portions were written responses and which were directly put to the PM. The Prime Minister insisted that he was “very confident of victory” in the general elections as well. “Today the people of India have very different aspirations from the ones they had 10 years back”, he pointed out.

“They realise that our nation is on the cusp of a take-off. They want this flight to be expedited, and they know that the best party to expedite this is the one which brought them this far”.

PM ducks question on Muslim Minority

Significantly, Prime Minister Modi ducked a question on Muslim Minority. When asked about what future the Muslim minority has in India, Modi points instead to the economic success of the Indian Parsees, who he describes as a “religious micro-minority residing in India.”

“Despite facing persecution elsewhere in the world, they have found a safe haven in India, living happily and prospering”, Modi says in a response that makes no direct reference to the country’s roughly 200 million Muslims.” That shows that the Indian society itself has no feeling of discrimination towards any religious minority.”

PM laughs away question on crackdown of critics

The Prime Minister laughed away one of the questions. A question about the Modi government’s alleged crackdown on his critics elicited a long and hearty laugh.

“There is whole ecosystem that is using the freedom available in our country to hurl these allegations at us every day, through editorials, TV channels, social media, videos, tweets, etc” Modi says. They have the right to do so. But the others have an equal right to respond with facts.”

Elsewhere during the interview, Prime Minister Modi said, “Our critics are entitled to their opinions and the freedom to express them. However, there is a fundamental issue with such allegations, which often appear as criticisms,” he said about concerns over the health of Indian democracy. “These claims not only insult the intelligence of the Indian people but also underestimate their deep commitment to values like diversity and democracy.”

PM’s reply on corruption, administrative hurdles, and skills gap

Asked about corruption, administrative hurdles, and skills gap among youth being obstacles to replicating the China’s economic take-off, Modi responded saying, “It is important to recognise that India wouldn’t have achieved the status of the world’s fastest growing economy if the issues you’ve highlighted were as pervasive as suggested. Often these concerns stem from perceptions and altering peceptions sometimes takes time.”

When his attention is directed to India’s data on unemployment being inadequate and that as reported by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the rate was running at 9 per cent, Modi “instead cites unemployment data gathered by the Periodic Labour Force Survey, which Modi says, “points to a consistent decline in unemployment rates.”

“When evaluating different performance parameters like productivity and infrastructure expansion, it becomes evident that employment generation in India, a vast and youthful nation, has indeed accelerated,”.

Crime

Blaze kills woman in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala; 10-day infant among 6 injured

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Mumbai, April 26: A woman was killed and six people, including a 10-day-old infant, were injured in a fire in an high-rise building in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala in Andheri (West), early on Saturday, said the Mumbai Fire Brigade.

Abhina Kartik Sanjanvalia, 34, died on the way to Cooper Hospital. Her family member Kartik Sanjanvalia, 40, is undergoing treatment for smoke inhalation, said an official.

Five fire tenders fought the blaze, which started at around 2.40 am in Broke Land Building near Ashok Academy Lane, and restricted it to room number 104 on the first floor before extinguishing it at 5.30 a.m, said an official.

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) Mumbai Fire Brigade suspect that the fire in the eight floor building was sparked by an electric short circuit. However, the exact cause of the blaze is yet to be confirmed.

The blaze burnt down furniture, mattresses, clothes, split and window air-conditioners and electrical installations in the flat on the first floor, said an official.

The other injured residents taken to Kokilaben Hospital were identified as 10-day-old baby boy Pradumna Gupta, Rihan, 3, Daya Gupta, 21, Aparna Gupta, 41 and Polam Gupta, 40.

The incident revived painful memories of another fire incident in a 15-storey building in Lokhandwala last October which claimed the lives of three people, including a visually impaired citizen.

Soon after the fire in Riya Palace building, a 37-year-old building at Cross Road Number 4 of Lokhandwala Complex in Andheri, there were demands for opening a fire station on a plot allotted for the purpose in the area three decades ago.

The October 2024 blaze that broke out on the 10th floor of the building started around 8 am and was doused around 9 p.m. The victims were identified as Kanta Soni, 74, Chandraprakash Soni, 74, and Pelubeta, 42.

In another fire incident on Saturday in Maharashtra, a plywood godown was gutted in Thane district. The fire started around 3.30 a.m, in a three-storey building in Rahnal village in Bhiwandi and four fire tenders continued to battle the flames for hours.

A firefighter of the Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation (BNMC) got a fracture in his leg during the operation to douse the blaze.

An official said due to a huge pile of plywood the blaze had posed a challenge to fire-fighters.

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Crime

Tahawwur Rana denies role in Mumbai terror attack during interrogation (Ld)

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Mumbai, April 26: Tahawwur Rana, the Pakistani-Canadian national accused of involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, has denied any role in the conspiracy during his interrogation by the Mumbai Crime Branch.

According to senior officials, Rana, who is currently in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Delhi, was questioned for over eight hours by a team of Mumbai Police officers.

During the interrogation, Rana distanced himself from the attacks that claimed over 166 lives and injured hundreds on November 26, 2008.

Rana reportedly told investigators that he had “no connection whatsoever” with the planning or execution of the attack.

He also claimed that his childhood friend and co-accused, David Coleman Headley, was solely responsible for the reconnaissance and planning aspects.

Headley, who turned approver in the case, had earlier admitted to conducting recce missions across India, including in Mumbai, on behalf of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

During questioning, Rana said that apart from Mumbai and Delhi, he had also travelled to Kerala.

When asked about the purpose of his visit to Kerala, he claimed he had gone there to meet a known acquaintance and had provided the individual’s name and address to the agency.

Following this, sources said a team from the Mumbai Crime Branch may soon travel to Kerala to verify his claims and question the said person.

Officials revealed that Rana was largely uncooperative during the interrogation and frequently gave evasive answers.

He also cited memory lapses, stating that he was unable to recall specific details related to the attack that occurred over 17 years ago.

The interrogation is part of an ongoing probe by the NIA into the extensive three-year groundwork carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) prior to the Mumbai terror attacks.

Rana is also being questioned about his alleged links to several individuals whose names surfaced in intercepted communications, including Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, Sajid Majid, Ilyas Kashmiri, and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi — all of whom are believed to have played crucial roles in the 26/11 conspiracy.

Rana, a former officer of the Pakistan Army’s Medical Corps, was extradited to India from the United States recently to face justice in the Mumbai attack case.

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Houses of three LeT terrorists demolished in J&K (Lead)

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Srinagar, April 26: Houses of three active terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit were demolished in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama districts, officials said on Saturday.

Officials said that the house of the terrorist, Ehsan-ul-Haq Sheikh, was destroyed in Muran village of the Pulwama district late Friday evening.

In Kulgam district, in a similar action, the house of terrorist Zakir Ahmad Ganie was demolished in Matalhama village. He has been an active terrorist since 2003.

In the Shopian district, the house of terrorist Shahid Ahmad Kutay was also demolished in Chotipora village. He has been an active terrorist since 2002.

On Friday, the houses of two terrorists, Asif Ahmad Sheikh Tral and Adil Thoker Bijbhera, were demolished after their involvement in the Pahalgam attack surfaced.

In his first reaction to the Pahalgam terror attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the terrorists, their handlers and backers would be given such punishment which they could not even have imagined.

PM Modi said that India will hunt down terrorists responsible for the Pahalgam attack to the ends of the earth.

J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, while reviewing security with Army Chief Upendra Dwivedi, asked the security forces to use whatever force is required to hunt down the killers of innocent civilians in Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam on April 22.

A massive search operation assisted with technology using drones, helicopters, etc has been going on for the last six days to trace and hunt down the terrorists responsible for the killings of innocent civilians.

As the country prepares to take required kinetic and diplomatic steps to ensure that attacks like this do not get repeated, security across Jammu and Kashmir has been tightened following intelligence reports that terrorists could target soft targets like minority Kashmiri Pandits and non-locals working in the Valley, the officials said.

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