The editorial Page: it’s time to resume the india-China strategic economic dialogue 10 MONdAY, JUNE 29, 2026 Journalism of CouraGe AhMEdABAd, lATE CITy, 20 PAGES ₹5.00 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 lAll Sikh MlAs and cabinet ministers of Punjab are set to appear before the Akal Takht, which has summoned them regarding the anti-sacrilege law. irAn TArGeTS u.S. MiliTAry SiTeS in kuWAiT, BAhrAin Ceasefire falters as Iran and US exchange fresh strikes, threats lThe SupreMe CourT is set to hear a petition seeking a CBIled SIT probe into the alleged embezzlement of donations at the Ram temple in Ayodhya. lheAlTh MiniSTer J P Nadda will release the Anaemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan Operational Guidelines, marking a significant milestone in India's fight against anaemia. Track These and more on www.indianexpress.com nation page 6 tet paper leak: probe widens to delhi, bihar, up, haryana US may militarily complete the job, if that happens, Iran will no longer exist: Trump Tala ramadan, eman Abouhassira & phil Stewart Dubai, Washington, June 28 IRAN lAUNChed missiles and drones at US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain early on Sunday, shortly after President donald Trump threatened to wipeouttheIranianleadership if they did not stick to the interim agreement to end their war. Israel said on Sunday it had struckIran-backedarmedhezbollah militants in lebanon on Saturday, just a day after it agreed to the latest ceasefire deal with lebanon to calm tHe world page 17 trump presses syria to take on hezbollah; israel alarmed fightingthatIransaysmustend if the wider agreement is to stick. The US military said earlier it had struck Iran again, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Tehran has sirens sounded in kuwait city early sunday after kuwait said iran had fired drones and missiles. AP largely closed for most of the conflict. “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will beforcedtomilitarilycomplete the job that we very success- fully started,” Trump said on social media. “If that happens, theIslamicRepublicofIranwill no longer exist!” he added. The 14-point interim peace accord was meant to halt the fighting, which the US and IsraelstartedonFebruary28,and reopen the strait while talks proceeded on issues such as Iran's nuclear programme. one round of mediated talks, led by US vice President JdvanceandIran’sParliamentary Speaker Mohammad BaqerQalibaf,washeldinSwitzerland a week ago and Washington waived sanctions on Tehran, but fighting has since resumed and intensified. About an hour after Trump’s post, Kuwait’s army said its air defences were responding to missile and drone attacks, while Bahrain said sirenshadsoundedthere.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement its Navy and Air Force had »ConTinueD on pAGe 2 express special luCknoW To GorAkhpur: A TAle of fiVe CiTieS, The yeAr Before pollS echoes from up in wake of test, retest, protest: Hum kattar Bhajpai hain par… MoDi AWArDeD ‘GuArDiAn of The Blue horizon’ TiTle By SeyChelleS pm narendra modi with speaker azarel ernesta at the national assembly of seychelles in victoria, sunday. ANI Indian Ocean links India, Seychelles... want to make it ocean of opportunity: PM In address to National Assembly, Modi calls for ‘climate justice’ for Global South business as usual By EP UNNY Divya A New Delhi, June 28 police personnel conduct a search operation at the residence of one of the arrested accused in ayodhya, Uttar pradesh, sunday. PTI Ram temple donation ‘theft’: Police search houses of 8 arrested men in Ayodhya Manish Sahu politics Lucknow, June 28 TWodAYSafterarrestingeight people on allegations of theft and embezzlement of funds and valuables donated to the RamtempleinAyodhya,police on Sunday carried out searches at the residences of all eight accused, who are currently in judicial custody. “The searches were carried out as part of the investigation to gather evidence,” a senior police officer said. This came a day before the accused, identified as Avinash Shukla, lavkush Mishra, Anukalp Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, RamashankarMishra,RamShankar Yadav alias Tinnu Yadav, and Subhash Srivastav, were due to be produced before the page 6 time to talk about mathura, says yogi amid akhilesh bid to corner bJp court after their three-day judicial custody. Police said they had previously recovered Rs 79.8 lakh from seven of the eight arrested men during the course of the investigation. on Sunday, eight police teams searched the premises where the accused had been livinginAyodhya.Policeteams verified their addresses before carrying out the searches. They first reached the residence of the main accused, »ConTinueD on pAGe 2 Support for Yogi’s ‘tight prashasan’ even as murmurs among party faithful on prices, jobs, ‘mahaul’ of fear; but Opposition yet to find resonance Vandita Mishra Lucknow, Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, June 28 TRAvellING ACRoSS Uttar Pradesh earlier this month, from lucknow to Gorakhpur through five cities, is to bump up repeatedly against people’s discontents. Monthsaheadoftheassembly election, notwithstanding the downsizing of the BJP tally in the 2024 lok Sabha elections,UPremainsastateforthe three-term-Modi-two-termYogi BJP to lose, more than for the SP-led opposition to win. But listen carefully, and there are newly audible murmurs on the ground of BJP vs BJP. Anxietiestouchedoffbythe NeeT cancellation-retest among students, their families and a penumbra of empathetic others, have joined with longplaying insecurities due to the recurringirregularity-leak-cancellation-delay syndrome in state-held exams in UP. Spiralling prices exacer- a protest against neeT-UG leak in Lucknow on June 12. vIShAl SRIvASTAv batedbyadistantwararepressing down more heavily upon household budgets, forcing large numbers at lower ends of the caste and class echelons to make sapping either-or choices. Many speak of shrinkingopportunities,definedinan economy beset with uncertainties as jobs that are secure and “sarkari”. »ConTinueD on pAGe 13 BeAT uzBekiSTAn 3-1; quAlify for rounD of 32 for firST TiMe The night of No. 20: Wissa power propels Congo into knockouts page 4 a demolition and some unanswered questions viewed the full spectrum of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on regional and international issues of mutual interest, including challenges intheIndianoceanRegionlike illegal fishing, drug trafficking and piracy. »ConTinueD on pAGe 2 ‘ViolATion’ of reSiDenTiAl-uSe norMS 5 ‘illegal’ structures linked to senior officials near Statue of Unity razed Structures were built on subsidised plots allotted to them just 1 km from SoU Aditi raja Vadodara, June 28 express at World Cup Sandip G Boston, June 28 Hardlook INdIA eNvISIoNS an Indian oceanwheremaritimesecurity is ensured alongside economic prosperity and where partnership is not based on size, but on mutualrespectandtrust,Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a three-day visit to Seychelles, said on Sunday. “our vision is to make the Indian ocean an ocean of opportunity,”hesaid,afterdelegation-level talks with Seychelles President Patrick herminie, during which the two sides re- The CoNGo fans, attired in traditional kanzaku and leopard-printedhats,perhapsknew thatitwastheirnight.Theyhad stockedadequateNo.20jerseys too — for they knew that if it was to be their night, it also had Yoane Wissa scored twice against Uzbekistan, saturday. AP to be Yoane Wissa’s. It played out to the perfect script as Wissa pinched a brace ‘We do not want the anti-defection law to be misused by either side’ p p ChAuDhAry SENIOR AdvOCATE ANd BJP MP to complete a stirring comeback against Uzbekistan on page 15 »ConTinueD on pAGe 2 INANunprecedentedactionin Gujarat’sNarmadadistrict,five “illegal” structures allegedly built by senior government officials on subsidised plots allotted to them at Garudeshwar, just one kilometre from the Statue of Unity, were demolished on Sunday. According to officials, the five structures were allegedly built in violation of residentialuseconditions,afactthatcame tolightafterRTIqueriesfiledby another government official demolition underway at Garudeshwar on sunday. ExPRESS earlier this year. The demolition, carried out swiftly on a public holiday, targeted structures built on plots originally allotted in 2019 »ConTinueD on pAGe 3 l residenTs in chhaTTisGarh viLLaGe sTrUGGLed To expLain a sTrinG of sUdden deaThs before one sUrvivor TriGGered poLice probe They thought the Gods were angry; then a village joined dots between 8 murders Jayprakash S naidu people — has seen over the last four months. They all had one thing in common — they went IN FeBRUARY, 58-year-old drinking with Ramsahay JaisBadri Patel was found motion- wal, a local grocery shop owner less on a cot in his courtyard, whowasarrestedonJune22for dead before his family could the deaths of all eight people. take him to a hospital. In According to investigators, March, 59-year-old former sar- no postmortem were conpanch Chhaturam Sahu com- ducted because the deaths plained of queasiwere initially bepage 1 ness while lieved to be due to overseeing funerary natural causes. preparations and on June 22, pocollapsed.laterthatmonth,38- lice arrested 46-year-old Ramyear-oldvinodSahuwasfound sahay for the eight killings alslumped in his house. legedly committed between These were three of the FebruaryandMay.Policeallege eight deaths that Kharve in Ramsahay laced bottles of loChhattisgarh’s Baloda Bazar cally brewed alcohol with a podistrict — a village of 1,000 tent rat poison called Suhaga, massive shock. The killings have now settled in every corner of the village — it hangs about the peepal tree that is the village meeting point, slipping into everyday tasks, conversations and silences. “We felt the gods were angry with us,” says Bagram Sahu, son of Butlu Ram Sahu, one of the victims. Baloda Bazar, June 28 anchor (clockwise from left) accused ramsahay Jaiswal; the eight dead — badri patel, butlu ram sahu, chatturam sahu, budhram Jaiswal, vinod sahu, Gajanan manjhi, chaituram sahu and mahetru sahu killing unsuspecting victims within 15 minutes of consumption. Most victims were in their 50s and were allegedly regular drinking companions whom investigators say he targeted over accumulated slights — from trivial personal disputes to property troubles. For a village that sees few crimes — and fewer heinous ones — the murders came as a The deaths that shook the village Situated next to the river Mahanadi, Kharve is divided intooldandnewKharve,witha peepal tree forming the central part of the village. Surrounded by numerous multi-storeyed brick-and-mortar houses, the Ahmedabad circular concrete platform around it forms the village’s centre, where all village roads lead:it’swherefriendsmeet,exchange news and make promises. It is also here, right next to the tree, that Ramsahay ran his grocery shop. According to investigators, most deaths went undetected because they were put down to natural causes, sometimes by doctors. It began on February 7 with 58-year-oldPatel.Thatevening, Patel had gone drinking with Ramsahay — as he had done many times before — and returnedhomeat9pm.Whenhis daughter found him two hours later, he was lying motionless on his cot in the courtyard. doctors put it down to a heart attack. “My father and Ramsahay were childhood friends. My father used to keep moneywithRamsahayforsafekeeping and asked for it whenever he needed it. even now I don’t know why he did it,” his son vikram, a mason who works in Jammu, says. over the next few weeks, three others followed: 60-yearoldButluRamSahuonFebruary 20,59-year-oldChhaturamSahu on March 2, and 60-year-old Budhram Jaiswal on March 12. Former sarpanch Chhaturam, too, had drinks with Ramsahay.“hehadnotbeenstaying »ConTinueD on pAGe 2