DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PATNA, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES NO JOINT STATEMENT Pahalgam terror attack kept out, Rajnath doesn’t sign SCO draft `5.00 ● WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 AXIOM-4 CREW TO SPEND 14 DAYS IN INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION Targets Pak on cross-border terror, says no place for double standards Shubhanshu Shukla with other astronauts aboard the International Space Station. @SpaceX/ PTI Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Iran counterpart Aziz Nasirzadeh look on as Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif arrives, in Qingdao, China. AP NEW DELHI, JUNE 26 DEFENCE MINISTERS of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation,meetinginQingdao in China, failed to issue a joint statementThursdayafterDefence Minister Rajnath Singh declined tosignthedraftstatementwhich omittedareferencetotheApril22 Pahalgam terror attack in J&K. GovernmentsourcestoldThe IndianExpressthatthedocument, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E E X P L A I NE D AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA & SHUBHAJIT ROY Ahead of ● Summit THE MEETING of the SCO Defence Ministers took place weeks after Operation Sindoor which had India striking terror targets in Pakistan and PoK. The SCO leaders are scheduled to meet at the Summit in Tianjin in China this autumn. EXPLAINED,PAGE16 ‘Learning like a baby, new steps, how to eat’: Shukla, first Indian on board the ISS 7 experiments from India among 60 to be conducted on board for 31 countries ANONNA DUTT & AMITABH SINHA NEW DELHI, JUNE 26 WITH OPEN arms, a beaming Shubhanshu Shukla glided into the International Space Station Thursday evening India time, transferring himself from the Dragon spacecraft that brought him and three others from Earth after a 28-hour journey through space. GroupCaptainShukla,thepilot of the Dragon spacecraft, is the first Indian on board the ISS. He was the second to enter the station, after mission commander Peggy Whitson of the US, shortly after 5.45 pm. The Dragon had connected with the ISS, a permanent research laboratory in space, 105 minutes earlier in a smooth docking manoeuvre. At the time of docking, both the ISS and the spacecraft were travelling at speeds of nearly 26,500 km an hour. The incoming astronauts — Whitson, Shukla, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary — were welcomed with hugs by the astronauts already stationed BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY there. The ISS was already home to seven astronauts, members of the 73rd expedition to the station that began on April 19 and will continue until November. With the addition of four astronauts from the Axiom-4 mission, who will stay there for two weeks,ISSisnowhosting11people. Operational since 1998, the ISS is comparable to a six-bedroom US apartment in size and cancomfortablyaccommodatea dozenastronautssimultaneously. Shukla and the other incomingastronautswereofferedaliquid diet to refresh themselves as CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 AI 171 crash: Analysis of black box data underway at Delhi lab, says ministry SUKALP SHARMA NEW DELHI, JUNE 26 DATAFROMtheblackboxesofthe AirIndiaBoeing787-8aircraftthat crashedinAhmedabadonJune12 isbeingextractedandanalysedat theAircraftAccidentInvestigation Bureau’s(AAIB)newstate-of-theart laboratory in Delhi, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) said on Thursday. At least 260 people — 241 on board and another 19 on the ground — were killed when the London-bound flight (AI 171) crashed soon after takeoff in Ahmedabad. “On the evening of June 24, 2025, the team led by DG (director general) AAIB with technical members from AAIB and NTSB began the data extraction process. The Crash Protection Module (CPM) from the front black box was safely retrieved, and on June 25, 2025, the memory module was successfully CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD TRUMP ANNOUNCES TALKS NEXT WEEK, KHAMENEI WARNS AGAINST FUTURE ATTACKS PAGE 17 IN CONVERSATION WITH DELHI CM Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta with Vandita Mishra, National Opinion Editor, The Indian Express, at the Express Adda in New Delhi on Thursday. Renuka Puri AAP Botad MLA Makwana resigns from party posts, alleges caste bias EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE GANDHINAGAR, JUNE 26 THE AAM Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Saurashtra region’s Botad constituency, Umesh Makwana, Thursday resigned from all the party posts, while levelling allegations of castebaseddiscriminationagainstthe party. Later in the day, he was suspended from the party for five years for indulging in “antiparty” and “anti-Gujarat” activities. Makwana, who was the Umesh Makwana AAP’s Whip in the Gujarat Assemblyandnational jointsecretary, said he would consult the peopleof hisconstituencybefore deciding whether to resign as MLA. The development comes in the backdrop of AAP leader He alleged that whether it is the AAP,theBJPortheCongressthey are the same and when it comes to raise voice for the backward communities they forget it. “Whenelectionscome,backward or OBC communities are used only as vote banks. The leaders of Koli community are usedonlytilltheelectionsareon. BJP and Congress also use leaders of backward communities during elections. All of them are sent to the margins as soon as the elections are over,” Makwana alleged. “I have sent my resignation letterdirectlyto(party’snational CONTINUEDONPAGE2 GUJARAT STATE GEARS UP TO HOSTRATHYATRA TODAY PAGE 4 INSIDE AMARNATH YATRA REGISTRATIONS SEE DIP AFTERPAHALGAM ATTACK: J&K L-G P14 A father’s fight to ensure son’s death wasn’t lost in the darkness PAGE 1 ANCHOR The blank editorial in The Indian Express after the Proclamation THEEMERGENCY 50YEARSON Itsshadow—andlight AN EXPRESS SERIES SHAJU PHILIP THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JUNE 26 “LET AT least my invisible son know that his father never shut the door.” T V Eachara Warrier, who made that plaintive appeal, held true to his word — he never shut the door, and ensured his son Rajan, who died incognito, could not be rendered invisible. Rajan was a student of Regional Engineering College (now NIT), Calicut Warrier’ssearchforwhathappened to Rajan, followed by his fight for justice against those re- sponsibleforhisdeathincustody during the Emergency, led to the first habeas corpus in such cases after the provision was lifted, the ouster of a chief minister, an award-winning book, and a film that won national and international accolades. Rajan, a final-year student of Regional Engineering College (REC, now NIT), Calicut, is believed to have been picked up CONTINUEDONPAGE2 MORE REPORTS PAGE 15 Ahmedabad