DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PATNA, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2025, LUCKNOW, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES PM invited to Gaza summit in Egypt today, India sends MoS as special envoy New Delhi’s decision follows summit invitation to Pakistan PM as well SHUBHAJIT ROY CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 PM Narendra Modi at a BJP Central Election Committee meeting for the Bihar polls in New Delhi on Sunday. Express SANTOSH SINGH & DEEPTIMAN TIWARY PATNA, NEW DELHI, OCT 12 PREPARATIONS ON FOR HOSTAGE SWAP PAGE 12 E EXPLAINED TAKING A series of measures ahead of the Valley winter, the firstaftertheApril22terrorattack inPahalgamthatledtoOperation Sindoor and hostilities with Pakistan, the Indian Army is strengthening the anti-infiltrationgrid,sealingandsecuringkey passes, enhancing the Line of Control(LoC)fenceandredeployingexistingtroopsinthearea,The Indian Express has learnt. Accordingtosecuritysources, thereisapossibilityofanincrease ininfiltrationattemptsbyterroristsfromacrosstheborderbefore the winter sets in. Terrorists are Embassy lets in women journalists after exclusion from earlier press conference NDA seals Bihar poll pact: BJP, JDU at 101 seats each, Chirag gets his way with 29 BY UNNY Sealing key passes to redeployment: Army gears for first Valley winter after Pahalgam NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 12 Other options if peace efforts don’t work: Muttaqi warns Pak BUSINESS AS USUAL SERIES OF STEPS BEING TAKEN AMRITA NAYAK DUTTA AFTER PAK SUMMONS AFGHAN ENVOY External Affairs MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 12 INDIA HAS sent Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, as the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the Gaza peace summit being held Monday at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. In a post on X Sunday night, Singhsaid,:“Arrivedinthehistoric cityofCairoasspecialrepresentative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the Gaza Peace Summit at Sharm el-Sheikh.” The decision to send Singh was taken after Modi received a last-minute invitation Saturday from US President Donald Trump and Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to attend the summit at Sharm el-Sheikh. Sources told The Indian ExpressthatthecalltosendSingh was taken in light of the `6.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 What winter ● brings WINTER IN the Valley comes with challenges. In the past, there have been spikes in infiltration bids before the snow cuts off the passes. The higher reaches too become inaccessible and terrorists use it to their advantage, taking refuge and striking when their handlers think fit. In view of these attempts, the Army is strengthening its grid and redeploying troops. Taliban-led Afganistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi at the Afghan Embassy on Sunday. Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis DIVYA A & SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 12 HOURS AFTER Taliban-led Afghan fighters clashed with Pakistanisecurityforcesandcaptured several border posts while killing 58 Pakistani soldiers, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister and Taliban leader Amir Khan MuttaqisaidSundaythatthesituation was now under control and “we want a peaceful resolution...butifthepeaceeffortsdon’t succeed,wehaveotheroptions”. Sending Pakistan a tough message from New Delhi where he is on a visit until October 16, Muttaqi said: “The policy of the IslamicEmirateof Afghanistanis to resolve all problems through discussion and understanding. We want to have zero tension and if they don’t want that, then Afghanistan has other means.” His remarks came a day after Pakistan summoned the Taliban ambassadortoconveyits“strong reservations” over the IndiaAfghanistan joint statement issuedinNewDelhiinwhichKabul He was killed like an animal: Father of 22-yr-old beaten to death by cops ANAND MOHAN J BHOPAL, OCTOBER 12 THELASTconversationbetween the father and son happened on Thursday evening. When father Rajkumar Gayake, a Bhopal-based engineer with Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board, asked Udit where he was headed, his son said he had some work in the city. “He kept saying it was collegework,”Rajkumarrecalled.“I Udit Gayake was a BTech student said okay, come soon.” He didn’t know that Udit had got a job offer from an IT firm in Bengaluru, and was meeting up with friends to celebrate. What Rajkumar also didn’t know was he would never hear his son’s voice again. Afewhourslater,aphonecall fromBengaluruledtoanxiety.“Go toAIIMS(Bhopal),uncle,”wasthe caller'splea.Thefamilydidnotget moreinformation.“Itwasaphone call from Udit’s friend in Bengaluru. I went to the hospital and saw my son’s body with injuriesonhishead,shoulder,back, groin and eye. He was killed like an animal,” Rajkumar said. Uditwas22whenhedied,allegedly following a beating by strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April. “Wehavegoodrelationswith the people of Pakistan and the government but some elements inthatcountryaretryingtocreate CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 RELATED REPORTS PAGES 8, 12 ‘I call a spade a spade... that’s why I was unfairly removed from my party’ K. KAVITHA FORMER BRS MP AND FOUNDER OF TELANGANA JAGRUTHI PAGE 14 THE NDA on Sunday agreed to a seat-sharing formula for next month’s Bihar Assembly elections,withtheBJPandtheJanata Dal (United) set to contest 101 each. The deal, confirmed by JD(U) national working president Sanjay Jha and BJP’s election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, gives the Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vikas) 29 seats, while the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) of Jitan Ram Manjhi and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) of Upendra Kushwaha will contest six seats each. This is the first time since they allied in 1996 that the BJP and the JD(U) will contest an equal number of seats in the Assembly polls. In 2020, the JD(U) contested 122 seats and the BJP 121, with the JD(U) giving the HAM(S) seven seats out of its share and the BJP allocating 11 seats to the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of Mukesh Sahani from its share. The accord ends weeks of DECISION 2025 BIHAR NDA seat-sharing BJP Total JDU 101 243 101 6 RLM FULL COVERAGE PAGE 7 intra-alliance negotiations, during which the LJP(RV) and the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INSIDE CANADA’S FOREIGN MINISTER ARRIVES IN DELHI FOR TALKS P 8 WHY WAS SHE OUT LATE: MAMATA ON STUDENT’S RAPE P 6 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Raj Thackeray, MNS hold key to Dalit teen visiting orchard Uddhav’s BMC poll arithmetic with friend ‘sexually THE MNS FACTOR VALLABH OZARKAR MUMBAI, OCTOBER 12 FORTHEsecondSundayinarow, Raj Thackeray, accompanied this timebyhismother,droveintohis cousinUddhavThackeray’shome, ‘Matoshree’, in Mumbai, bolstering speculation that the alliance betweentheirpartiesforthecivic pollscouldfinallybetakingshape. The visit comes at a time when the Shiv Sena (UBT), Uddhav’sparty,hasmadeaseries ofstatementsaboutanimminent deal with Raj’s Maharashtra NavnirmanSena(MNS).Adayafterthemeetingbetweenthetwo leaderslastweek,Sena(UBT)MP 25 Assembly seats in Mumbai contested by MNS in 2024 Uddhav and Raj Thackeray Sanjay Raut had told reporters that the nature of the meeting was “political” and that the two partieswereatanadvancedstage of discussions. For the Sena (UBT), having the MNS on board is crucial for the elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal 4% 227 Its vote share in Mumbai 67 Total wards in the city Wards where the party polled more than the winning margin Corporation (BMC), where the undivided Sena first came to CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 assaulted’ by 5 men, 2 held EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE LUCKNOW, OCTOBER 12 FIVE MEN allegedly sexually assaulted a Dalit teen girl in broad daylight while she was with her friend in an orchard on the outskirts of Lucknow on Saturday. Police have arrested two suspects, with one getting shot in the leg during an encounter. According to police, the teenage girl had gone to a market near her home on Saturday afternoon,whereshemetamale friend. They then went to a nearbyorchardandweretalking when the five men arrived at the spot. According to the complaint lodged by the girl’s family, the men began questioning the girl and her friend about why they were together in the orchard. “Within minutes, they allegedly started beating the girl’s friend and chased him away. After he fled, the five men dragged the girl to a secluded area and sexually assaulted her,” said a police officer. After returning home, the traumatised girl informed her sister about the assault, who CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Decks cleared for Maitri II, India set to chart new frontiers in Antarctica’s icy wilderness PAGE 1 ANCHOR ANJALI MARAR BENGALURU, OCTOBER 12 INDIA’S NEXT chapter in the world’ssouthernmostcontinent, Antarctica,isallsettounfold.The FinanceMinistryhasgrantedapproval for Maitri II — the country’s newest research station proposed to come up in eastern Antarctica. Once built and readied by January 2029, Maitri II will be- India’s Maitri I base, operational since 1989. NCPOR come India’s fourth research base on the frozen continent. Goa-based National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is the nodalagencyresponsibleforoperating and organising missions to Antarctica and the Arctic. 29 LJP HAM(S) (RV) 6 TheplanforMaitriIIwasfirst proposed in late 2023. The inprinciple approval was granted on October 4 this year. NCPOR director Thamban Meloth told The Indian Express: “Maitri II will be built in eastern Antarctica. It has a financial outlay of about `2,000 crore, for over seven years.” India’s first research base in Antarctica, Dakshin Gangotri, operated for a few years. Currently, Maitri, operational since 1989, and Bharati, operationalsince2012,supportIndia’s scientific community in CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Lucknow