Hyderabad, October 11
In a major relief to the Andhra Pradesh Police that has been drawing flak over the encounter killing of top Maoist leader Azad, the forensic experts have concluded that he was a shot from a long distance and not at point-blank range.

In their report, the experts from the AP Forensic Science Laboratory (APFSL) have said that the bullet wounds were caused due to firing from a “distant range”.

Azad, the CPI (Maoist) spokesman and central committee member, was killed, along with a Delhi-based journalist Hemchandra Pandey, in an alleged encounter with the police in the forest area of Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh on July 1.

As the killing dealt a severe blow to the Maoist movement, serious doubts were raised over the police version of the encounter. Several civil rights groups had demanded judicial inquiry into what they called a “fake encounter”.

“According to the report by ballistic experts, the bullet was fired from a long distance and not at point-blank,” APFSL Director ON Murthy said.

This was corroborated by another team of experts from forensic medicine department of state-owned Osmania Medical College. They submitted a similar report based on the examination done on the body of the slain Maoist leader.

“A bullet pierced through the upper left side of Azad’s chest making a 1cm oval-shaped hole and it exited from the left side of the back making a 3cm wound,” they said.

Both reports have proved that Azad was shot from distance and it was not a fake encounter as claimed by the Maoist outfit and some civil rights organisations, a police official said.

In fact, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and Swami Agnivesh, who offered to broker peace talks between the Maoists and the government, had demanded a thorough probe into the killing in view of doubts over the police version.

The Maoists had alleged that Azad and Pandey were picked up from Nagpur and later killed in cold blood.

Azad, a post-graduate engineer, was a close confidant of Maoist chief Muppala Laxman Rao, alias Ganapathi. He was made in charge of a guerrilla zone comprising Maoist stronghold areas in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Hailing from the prosperous coastal Andhra district of Krishna, Azad had been an active member of the ultra-left movement for three decades and carried a reward of Rs 12 lakh on his head.

Guwahati, October 11
Security forces operating against insurgents in Assam traced and arrested the kingpin of a major extortion racket of the anti-talks faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) in Bangalore in coordination with Karnataka police.

Sources said Dedung Daimary, alias Khangur, the nephew of NDFB chairman Ranjan Daimary, was extorting money from different persons in five north Assam districts of Sonitpur, Darrang, Udalguri, Lakhimpur and Dhemaji in the past several months. He intimidated the targets over telephone. The security forces located the militant leader by tracking the mobile phones used by him for demanding money in the name of the NDFB. The targets were asked to deposit money in specific bank accounts in Shillong (Meghalaya) and Udalguri (Assam) operated by the kingpin. Dedung Daimary, alias Khangur, was tracked to Bangalore after the 65 Field Regiment of the Army based at Mangaldoi in Darrang district rounded up several linkmen engaged by him. Those linkmen had been serving extortion notices and even summoning the victims of extortion to pay up.

Khangur was assisted by his wife Nisha Daimary and Johny Dung. Khangur and his wife have been staying in Bangalore since May and had already extorted several lakhs of rupees from a number of persons, including contractors, petty traders and government officials in the past few months.

Lucknow, October 11
Nineteen persons died on the spot and 12 were injured when a private bus carrying them to their native village to cast vote jumped the railing and fell into the Neem river while crossing the Choiya bridge under Dibai police station in Bulandshahr early this morning.

Among the dead are 10 children and four women. Of the 12 injured, two are said to be in a serious condition and have been referred to the Meerut Medical college hospital. The others have been admitted to the district hospital.

The bus no UP 14 P 5384 was carrying the prospective voters from Khoda village in Ghaziabad to village Ghosi under PS Jarif Nagar in district Badaun where they were to vote during the first phase of the panchayati polls today.

However, before they could reach their destination the bus fell into the river while allegedly overtaking a car over the narrow and dilapidated bridge.

New Delhi, October 11
An Indian journalist's documentary on Afghanistan today won the prestigious Emmy Award in the editing category.

Rohit Gandhi's 'The Afghan Warrior', an hour-long documentary made for National Geographic, won the award at a ceremony in New York, a press statement said here. The editing has been done by Jeremy Siefer.

The film travels and follows the life of anti-Taliban military commander Ahmad Shah Masood.

Gandhi is based in New Delhi and currently reports for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. — PTI

Chandigarh, October 11
The Supreme Court has held that when a specialist civilian hospital has certified an individual to be free from a medical disorder, the Air Force cannot stick to its finding that he is medically unfit and thereby deny him a job opportunity.

Upholding an earlier High Court order, a Division Bench of the apex court, comprising Justice JM Panchal and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra, has dismissed a special leave petition filed by the government against the High Court order.

Observing that the process of medical examination by the Air Force, in this case, was “a cause of serious concern”, the High Court ruled that the findings of the Air Force’s appeal medical board could not be sustained in view of the positive findings of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, especially when the institute had been informed that the petitioner had been rejected from the defence services.

The High Court directed that the Air Force would be obliged to take the petitioner into service and not disqualify him on medical grounds. The Air Force had rejected him for having heart murmur.

The Union of India had contended that the conditions of disease for civilian appointment were different from that of appointment in defence services. The High Court observed that no medical text or journal had been brought to its notice that said that a person might not have a disease if he was looking for a civilian appointment, but that would become a disease when it came to military employment.

“By no stretch of imagination can it be said that for a civilian appointment the heart condition vanishes or is differently defined for a military appointment,” the High Court ruled.

The court had also observed that within the Air Force medical board itself, different diseases and ailments in relation to the petitioner curiously kept coming in and going out. First, there was weight discrepancy and heart murmur. Then weight discrepancy vanished and hydrosil appeared along with murmur and lastly, hydrosil vanished within a day leaving behind systolic murmur.

Lucknow, October 11
One person was killed and over 20 were injured in incidents of violence across the state that marked the first phase of the four-phase panchayati raj elections today.

The total polling today was around 80 per cent. Due to long queues at polling stations, voting continued well after 5 pm, said State Election Commission spokesperson.

Most violent incidents were reported from the so-called potato belt of central Uttar Pradesh, considered a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party (SP). One person was shot dead around 200m away from the polling booth at Kannauj, ADG (Law and Order) Brijlal said.

Violence was reported from districts of Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Agra Lakhimpur Khiri, Gonda, Balrampur and Jaunpur.

Polling was deferred in Gonda after a candidate, Veerendra Shukla, died before the commencement of polling. He died of natural reasons, as he was not keeping well.

In Firozabad, five persons sustained injuries after supporters of a gram pradhan candidate opened fire in Jamganj. In Bharthana, Etawah, angry crowd beat up a policeman when he tore the voter list.

Five persons, including a constable, were wounded in a clash between two groups at the Nayapura polling centre in the Fatehabad area of Agra. Four persons have been arrested in that connection.

In Balrampur, six persons sustained injuries in a clash between supporters of two candidates in the Rudhauli area under the Rehra block.

In Jhansi, gram pradhan candidate Kalicharan was arrested along with his two supporters over looting of a ballot box in the Raksha area.

Mumbai, October 11
After chipping away with the Shiv Sena’s vote bank in bits and pieces over the past few years, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has finally decided to take his uncle’s party head on. The party has announced that it would field candidates for all 107 seats for the Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) that would go to the polls on October 31.

“Unlike in the past when we spread our resources across different parts of Maharashtra, we are concentrating on a single target this time,” Raj Thackeray told reporters over the weekend. So far, the MNS has selected candidates for 100 seats with the rest due to be finalised in the coming days. MNS activists are in an upbeat mood in the area since the party managed to bag two seats from Kalyan Dombivli in the last assembly elections.

Raj Thackeray, who is camping in the area to oversee the party’s electoral contest, has promised voters that the township would be turned into another Nashik. Kalyan-Dombivli on the outskirts of Mumbai is yet to see the development witnessed by areas like Thane and Mulund over the past several years.