The Editorial Page: America is walking away from the system it created 12 SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2026 JOuRNALISM ofCOuRAGE KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES ₹6.00 (₹12 in North East states, ₹20 in Andaman) l www.indianexpress.com DA I LY F R O M : A H M E DA B A D , C H A N D I GA R H , D E L H I , J A I P U R , KO L K ATA , L U C K N O W , M U M B A I , N AG P U R , PAT N A , P U N E , VA D O DA R A Happening today DEAL ALIVE: OffIcIALS; U.S. ENVOY GOR ARRIVES IN INDIA Deal stalled as Modi didn’t call: Lutnick; Govt says inaccurate lPRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi will participate in Omkar Mantra chanting at Somnath temple in Gujarat as part of the Somnath Swabhiman Parv, which marks 1,000 years since Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasion of the temple. lBJP'S NEwLY-APPOINTED national working president Nitin Nabin will begin a two-day visit to poll-bound Tamil Nadu, where he is scheduled to attend four events including an organisational meeting. US Commerce Secy claims deal was done; MEA says PM, Trump had 8 calls last yr lTHE SEcOND EDITION Of Women's Hockey India League concludes in Ranchi with the final between SG Pipers and Bengal Tigers. Interestingly, the two teams competing for the title had finished outside the Top 2 last year. Match starts at 7.30 pm IST. TRACK THESE AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPrEss.cOm New Delhi, January 9 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leads a protest march against the Enforcement Directorate raid on the I-PAC office, in Kolkata on Friday. PARTHA PAUL MORE REPORTS, P 3 TMC goes to court seeking data return, FIR lodged against ED ED searches raise ‘serious concerns’, set ‘unsettling precedent’, says I-PAC ThE BIG PICTURE Atri Mitra & Tanusree Bose Kolkata, January 9 How the Piprahwa gems came home P10 NATION Shubhajit Roy PAGE 8 UTTARAkHANd CM RECOMMENdS CbI PRObE IN 2022 ANkITA MURdER A DAY after the Enforcement Directorate’s(ED)raidsonpolitical consultancy firm I-PAC sparkedapoliticalstorminWest Bengal, the stand-off deepened onFridayastheTrinamoolCongress (TMC) urged the Calcutta High Court to direct the agency toreturn“confidentialandsensitive data” and documents it had seized. In a statement, IPAC said the ED searches had raised “serious concerns” and set an “unsettling precedent”, EcONOmY LAND-fOR-JOBS cASE ‘Criminal enterprise, used Rlys as fiefdom’: Court frames charges against Lalu & family Nirbhay Thakur New Delhi, January 9 A DELHI court Friday framed charges against RJD chief and former Railways Minister Lalu Prasad, his wife and former BiharChiefMinisterRabriDevi, and children Tejashwi Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav and Misa Bharti,andothersinthealleged land-for-jobs corruption case being investigated by the CBI. Special Judge Vishal Gogne of Rouse Avenue Court, who passed a 346-page order on the framing of charges, said, “The plea of Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family members to be discharged from the present proceedings is completely un- but added it would continue to cooperate with the probe. These developments came on a day West Bengal CM and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee stepped up her attacks on the BJP, accusing senior partyleadersofbenefitingfrom proceeds of the coal scam the ED is probing, while the police filedtwoFIRsagainsttheinvestigationagencyandtheCentral Armed Police Forces (CAPF), based on the CM’s complaints, in connection with the events the day before. In its High Court plea, the warrantedwhentheMinistryof Railways and the lands of his constituents were apparently being lorded over by him as a personal fiefdom.” “There are strong indicationsfromthechargesheetsthat Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav and the accused members of his family wereoperatingasacriminalenterprise designed to usurp private lands by bartering away government posts,” he said. TheCBI’scasepertainstothe allegedtransferoflandatcheap rates to Lalu Prasad and his familyinexchangeforGroup-D jobs in the Railways between 2004and2009whenhewasthe Minister for Railways. PAGE 15 EDITOrIAl PAGE IT SHOULd NOT bE YOUR AGENCY vS MY POLICE P12 TMC urged it to direct “the respondents to return of all articles including but not limited to the private, confidential and sensitive data, information, documents illegally seized in physical as well as electronic form belonging to the petitioner and or in relation to the operation/affairs/business of the petitioner illegally seized during the alleged search operation”. Chaos in the High Court saw the hearing into the peti- tions of the ED and the TMC postponed to January 14. Earlier in the afternoon, Banerjee, who joined a 10-km TMC protest march in Kolkata, warnedtheBJPshecouldmake public the evidence about its “involvement” in the coal scam, if needed. “They (ED) are talking about coal scam money. Who takes it? Amit Shah, Union Home Minister, how does he take it? One ‘gaddar (traitor)’ sends him money. The money goes to him through BJP Bengal leaders,” Banerjee said after the march. “You people (BJP) are lucky that I am in power and have yet toexposeyouinpublicthrough »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INFRESHclaimsamidtheprotracted negotiations over the India-US trade deal, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said that Prime MinisterNarendraModididnotcall US President Donald Trump afterthedealwassetupinMayJuly last summer, suggesting this as one reason why the agreement stalled. According to Lutnick, Indian negotiators subsequently returned toseek closure, butby then Washington wanted different terms and conditions. The remarks came hours before US Ambassador-designateSergioGorarrivedinIndia Friday night. “Great to be back in India! Incredible opportunities ahead for our two nations,” Gor posted on X. He is expected to take charge of the US Embassy Monday. India faces the highest US tariffs—up to 50 per cent—despite being engaged in negotiations with Washington since February last year. Despite Lutnick’s claims, officials in Delhi maintained that the trade deal is “very much alive.” Withinhoursoftheremarks circulatingonsocialmedia,the GovernmentrejectedLutnick’s »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 US President Donald Trump with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Senator Lindsey Graham last week. NYT FILE Lutnick’s deal timeline collides with Op Sindoor, Trump’s ‘ceasefire’ claim Ravi Dutta Mishra & Sukalp Sharma New Delhi, January 9 THE TIME window indicated byUSCommerceSecretaryHoward Lutnick when an IndiaUS trade agreement could have been inked coincided with Operation Sindoor and its fraught aftermath: how US President Donald Trump sought credit for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, a claim that, along with an IslamabadWashington warmth, cast a shadow on the bilateral relationship. LutnickindicatedtheIndiaUSagreementwasreadysome- E. business as Usual By EP UNNY Thiruvanananthapuram, January 9 On INDIA and MVA, says ‘there is confusion, I don’t deny… hope things work out’ Vallabh Ozarkar & Sandeep Singh Mumbai, January 9 AS QUESTIONS swirl around thelackofcohesionamongOpposition alliance constituents at the national and state levels, formerMaharashtraChiefMinister and Shiv Sena UBT presidentUddhavThackerayFriday acknowledged that there is “confusion” within the INDIA bloc and the state Maha Vikas »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 When BJP does something, it’s Sabarimala’s most Amar Prem, when we do it, it’s senior priest held in Love Jihad: Uddhav on alliances ‘gold theft’ scandal Shaju Philip INdIAfORGING STRATEGIESTO SECURENATIONAL INTEREST:dAS time between the announcement of the US deals with the UK (May 8) and Vietnam (July 2),butcouldn’tgothroughashe wanted Prime Minister NarendraModitocallUSPresident Donald Trump to close the deal, something he claimed India was “uncomfortable” with. There was reason to. India had launched Operation Sindoor to hit terrorist assets in Pakistan on May 7 as a response to the killings in Pahalgam, which led to intensefightingbetweenthetwo countries for four days. On May 10, shortly before the ceasefire announcement by India and Pakistan, Trump took to social ExPrEss interview SANKHADEEP BANERJEE UDDHAV THAcKERAY SHIV SENA UBT PRESIDENT Aghadi and said “I hope things work out”. In an interview with The Indian Express as Maharashtra braces for civic body elections on January 15, Thackeray, responding to a question on the futureoftheINDIAblocandthe MVA, said, “There is surely a PAGE 7 stateofconfusion.Itisthere.But slowly, this confusion will go away. Time needs to be given to it.Nothinghappensovernight.” “Yes, there is confusion. Why should I deny? But I hope things work out. Experience is the greatest teacher. But the »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE SPECIAL investigation team probing the alleged theft of gold from the Sabarimala temple in Kerala arrested the temple’s most senior Tantri (priest), Kandararu Rajeevaru, on Friday. The SIT, which has registered two cases in connection withthematter,hadarrested10 persons — all of them senior employees of the Travancore Devaswom Board, the government-run body that manages the temple, or CPI(M) leaders who headed the board. Rajeevaru’s is the 11th arrest inthecaseandthefirstfromthe Tantri clan at the temple. He was produced before the VigilancecourtinKollam,whichremandedhimtojudicialcustody. His arrest comes at the peak of the annual festival at the Sabarimala temple. However, rituals will not be affected as another member of his family, Mahesh Mohanaru, had taken on the duties of chief priest for a yearfromAugust2025duetothe rotational system in which differentmembersofthefamilyassume the role. Ofthetwocasesregisteredin connectionwiththematter,police sources said Rajeevaru (66) wasarrestedinthecasepertaining to the removal of the goldplated side frames of the doors and connected plates of the Sreekovil(sanctumsanctorum). Hehasbeenlistedasthe13thaccusedinthecase.Theothercase pertains to the removal of goldcoveredplatesfromthetemple’s Dwarapalaka idols. In the remand report »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2 l PROBE FOCUS ON HOW ‘WOMAN WITH vERSATILE TALENT WENT INTO SUCH DEPRESSION THAT SHE DIED WITHIN FOUR MONTHS’ The death of a 19-year-old: Himachal family, college grapple with answers Saurabh Parashar A member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) said the case, which has made national HER PAINTINGS, study notes, headlines, drawing action by praise for doctors and nurses the University Grants Comwho treated her in various hos- mission (UGC) and National pitals in the months leading up Commission for SC/STs, is to her death, and her digital uniquely complicated. “Statefootprints—theHimachalPra- ments of everyone involved, desh Police is sifting through including the kin of the victim, theseforcluesintothedeathon are changing from one day to another, giving the December 26 of a 19PAGE 1 case a new twist.” year-old,whowasalThe member legedly traumatised points to a video over sexual assault and ragging at her Dharam- postedonsocialmediarecently byoneofthefourcollegemates shala college. Since the body was cre- accused of ragging her, in mated before police started its whichshesaysthatthe19-yearprobe, there are few physical oldhadbeenactuallyraggedby a final-year student, back in clues to go on. Dharamshala, January 9 anchor 2024, and not in September 2025 as claimed by the teenager’s parents. Asked how she came to know about this, the college student in the video says the 19-year-old told her so. The SIT member says that, atthesametime,itisdifficultto doubt the videos left behind by theteenagerspeakingabouther harassmentbycollegematesin September — recorded by her relatives while she was in hospital.Andsothelatestclaimhas left them in a bind. Following a complaint by her father on December 30 on the Himachal Chief Minister’s Helpline, police are probing five people against whom an FIR has been lodged, including Paintings by the student, who died on December 26 her four college mates and an assistant professor, who is being investigated for sexual assault charges. While the 19-year-old who died was a Dalit, three of the other accused are SC/STs. The assistant professor, who was suspended on January 4, belongs to an OBC group. The SIT officer says: “At this stage, we can't deny the 19year-old’s allegations, but also the fact that the victim was struggling against severe depression and mental issues.” Kangra Superintendent of PoliceAshokRatantoldTheIndian Express that their focus wastodetermine“howayoung woman with versatile talent, who was into painting, went into such severe depression that she died within four months…asthefamilyclaims”. From September when the alleged “harassment” took place till her death, the 19-yearoldwastreatedinatleastsixdif- Kolkata ferent hospitals. “We have collectedhermedicalhistoryfrom the hospitals, and it is being examined by a special panel of doctors,” Ratan says. The 19-year-old The teenager grew up in a small hamlet located near the newly opened Himachal Vidhan Sabha building, not far from the college where she was enrolled in, at Dharamshala. The family is a large one, with her uncle’s house and theirs locatedinacommoncompound. Her father is a property dealer who once gave martial arts training to local youths. Speaking to The Indian Express, the 49-year-old says: “Whatever police wanted, we have handed over, including my daughter's paintings devotedtoLordKrishna.Theonly thing I have not shared is a pair of jeans and a sweater which I bought for her when she was in hospital in Ludhiana for a month in November. A doctor had advised us to keep her in a good mood, so I got the new clothes. She seemed almost fine, so happy about the clothes. She insisted she would wear them then and there.” Hermother,44andahomemaker,whostrugglestocontrol her emotions, adds: “Wherever we took her for treatment, the doctors and nurses were »cONTINUED ON PAGE 2