villupuram l sunday l march 24, 2024 l `12.00 l PAGES 24 l city EDITION cbi raids multiple premises of Moitra in cash-for-query scam The CBI conducted searches at various premises linked to Mahua Moitra, including her parents’ home in Kolkata, in the cash-for-query case trinamool calls the raid vendetta politics CBI TO FILE REPORT WITHIN SIX MONTHS The CBI sleuths reached the Trinamool Congress leader’s home in Kolkata and other cities early in the morning and went to her party office in Krishnanagar in the evening. The TMC repeated her for the Lok Sabha poll from Krishnanagar. The party dubbed the raids as vendetta politics and a desperate attempt by the BJP to misuse central agencies ahead of the polls ■ ■ A FIR was filed this week against Moitra on the directions of Lokpal, which has asked the CBI to file its report within six months Moitra has challenged her expulsion from Lok Sabha in the SC. She was expelled in December 2023 following the recommendation of Ethics Committee for sharing her login, password of NIC portal 1st TIME MAHUA MOITRA BECAME A LOK sABHA mp IN 2019 CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI 143 killed and counting in Moscow terror attack by IS group’s Afghanistan branch Y e s h i s e l i @ New Delhi Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwat Maan at an AAP protest condemning the arrest of his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi on Saturday | PTI HC rejects urgent hearing. Holi-day for Kejri with ED Comment by German foreign office on full legal access to the Delhi CM angers MEA the liquor policy scam. Of the proceed of crimes, `45 crore was used in the Goa polls. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind In a related development, the Kejriwal on Saturday suffered Ministry of External Affairs a fresh setback after the Delhi (MEA) bristled at a comment High Court rejected his appeal on Kejriwal by a spokesperson for urgent listing and hearing of Germany’s foreign office. against his remand in the liq“Kejriwal is entitled to fair uor scam case. He was and impartial trial. remanded in the EnThis includes that he forcement Directomakes use of all availrate’s custody till able legal avenues Thursday by a local without restriction. court on Friday . The presumption of The legal team of innocence is a central Aam Aadmi Party element of the rule of ‘Will come (AAP) national conlaw and must apply to out soon’ venor Kejriwal menhim,” the spokespertioned the matter be- “I will soon come son said. fore J u s t i c e out... Whether The MEA reacted Manmohan, Acting inside or outside, rather shar ply by Chief Justice. The every moment of summoning German judge heard it though my life is envoy Georg Enzweilit was the court’s off dedicated to er and voicing its disday but refused to list serving the , approval. “The Gerit for urgent hearing. country,” Kejriwal man Deputy Chief of Since the Delhi High was quoted as Mission in New Delhi Court will be closed saying by his wife was summoned and for two days on Mon- Sunita in a video we conveyed India’s day and Tuesday due strong protest on their to the Holi festival, the earliest foreign office spokesperson’s Kejriwal’s plea can be listing comments on our internal affor hearing is Wednesday . fairs. We see it as undermining The ED had alleged on Fri- the independence of our judiciday that Kejriwal generated ary,’’ said MEA spokesperson over `100 crore in kickbacks in Randhir Jaiswal. S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y a n d Y e s h i S e l i @ New Delhi express read CM: Krishna targeted for his progressive ideology ‘If BJP is back, federal system will collapse’ Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday backed Carnatic musician T M Krishna in the ‘Sangita Kalanidhi’ award row and said he is being targeted for his progressive ideology. Dragging Periyar into the controversy is not fair, the CM said | P4 Tiruvarur: “If BJP comes to power again, there will be no federal system, no parliamentary democracy, and there won’t be any state left in the country,” said CM M K Stalin during his address at an election meeting held in Tiruvarur on Saturday | P4 Putin rejected warnings about attack, says US At least 143 people were killed in a terrorist attack on a packed concert hall in western Moscow, Russian authorities said on Saturday. The Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch later claimed responsibility for the attack. Gunmen burst into Crocus City Hall in Moscow’s suburb of Krasnogorsk on Friday and randomly opened fire on people who had arrived to watch a concert by Russian band Picnic that was about to start. The attackers also set off a blaze that took firefighters hours to bring under control. Authorities said the toll could rise as investigators were combing through the charred wreck- Rescuers clear charred wreckage inside Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on Saturday | AP The US Embassy in Moscow said it had warned Russia on March 7 that extremists were planning to target large gatherings in the city. But Russian President Vladimir Putin had called it a “provocative” statement and “outright blackmail... to intimidate and destabilise our society by scaring Russian citizens” age of the hall for more victims. Over 100 people have been injured and the condition of 44 of them is said to be serious. The Russian interior ministry said all four suspected gunmen were foreign nationals. Sources with links to the security services said they were from Tajikistan. One of the detained suspects reportedly told Russian investi- s u r p a s s e s r ec o r d At 19,409 MW, TN’s power demand at all-time high S GURU V ANMI K ANATHAN @ Chennai Tamil Nadu’s electricity demand touched a record high of 19,409 MW at 11am on Friday (March 22) and the total power consumption for the day stood at 421.504 million units (MU). The state has registered this new record a month earlier than last year when power consumption reached 19,387 MW for the first time on April 20, 2023. While the state’s power demand has touched a new high every year, this is the first time in the last seven years that the previous year’s record has been surpassed in the shortest time. A senior official said the Southern Region Power Committee (SRPC) had foreseen an early surge in power demand compared to the previous year. But he said the surpassing of previous year’s high had happened a few weeks earlier than expected. “As the temperature continues to rise, the power demand is expected to rise over the next few days. With the union government’s share of 5,000 MW and the stateowned thermal stations’ contribution of 3,700 MW, and power from private sources, the state power utility Tangedco, has been managing to , ensure uninterrupted power supply the offi,” cial said. Another official said, “The confluence of factors such as Lok Sabha election, IPL matches, board exams and soaring temperature is propelling the power demand across the state. To address this surge, the utility has collaborated with private players to secure an additional 4,500 MW of power round-the-clock until June.” WITH THIS ISSUE Continued on p5 Packing a Punch PLUS 12 PAGES n u m b e r c r u n chi n g Chennai link to data analysis in IPL S wa r o o p S wa m i n at h a n @ Chennai WHEN Gujarat Titans won the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the first time of asking in 2022, one person came in for special praise. Sandeep Raju, somebody who had played zero games for the franchise. Representational image But the role he played Sunday helped Hardik Pandya & Special Co. win the league. “I badata analysts to give sically help the team with them that extra one per with performance analytcent. What, though, links ics,” he had said in an in-house Raju with most of the other anvideo the franchise uploaded. alysts currently employed by “I help them look at data and various IPL teams is the city come up with performance and they call home? Chennai (or a strategies and I also help with place in Tamil Nadu). Mumbai recruiting talent.” Indians have in their ranks VarOf course, none of this is un Narasimhan. Rajasthan Roynew. All sports teams — fran- als have Krishnan Seshadrichise, clubs, countries across a nathan. Sunrisers Hyderabad wide variety of sport — employ have Gaurav Sundararaman. Lakshmi Narayanan has been associated with Chennai Super Kings. Shrinivas Chandrasekaran (Lucknow Super Giants) and Sankar Rajagopal (former Punjab Kings, now with Jio) are other names. Why is this the case? There are multiple reasons but the most common answer is that the ‘companies that provide data analysts are headquartered in Chennai’, both within a 10km radius (SportsMechanics and Kadamba). In a way, this is what’s happening to the IPL teams. Because some teams still do not have separate data wings, what they essentially do is hire employees of these two companies for a fixed period every season. This year alone, there are at least seven Tamilspeaking analysts in IPL. Big team players Even the Indian men’s cricket team have on their roster somebody who is associated with Chennaibased company Sports Mechanics (Hari Mohan, who hails from Coimbatore). Seshadrinathan was at StatDNA, Arsenal’s analytics company when Arsene Wenger was the manager. gators he was recruited through Telegram and offered 5,00,000 rubles (`4.5 lakh) for his role. In his statement on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said 11 people have been detained. He also sought to link the attack to Ukraine, saying they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a ‘window’ prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border. But Ukraine denied any role in the carnage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined others in condemning the attack. “We strongly condemned the heinous terrorist attack.... India stands in solidarity with the government and the people of the Russian Federation in this hour of grief,” he posted on X. P9 TN cop held in Bangladesh for illegal entry E X PRESS NEWS SER V ICE @ Chennai John Selvaraj ’s picture shared by Bangladesh A special sub-inspector (SSI) attached to the Selaiyur police station in Chennai has been detained by the Bangladesh army on the charge of trying to enter the country by illegally crossing the border. According to police sources, the SSI has been identified as 47-year- old John Selvaraj who was on medical leave at the time of his detention. Police sources said they were probing Selvaraj’s possible links to cross-country gold and drug smugglers that may have led to the alleged misadventure. Police also said the SSI has been regularly taking leaves and had been suspended in the past for unauthorised absence. A native of Tiruchy, Selvaraj had worked as a driver with the Tiruchy police and then with the Chennai city police before he was transferred to Selaiyur. “He was frequently absent. Other than that there wasn’t anything particularly out of place about him,” a police officer said. P5
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