eye THE SUNDAY EXPRESS MAGAZINE Here He Goes Again LUCKNOW,LATECITY MAY26,2024 A few months ago he was in hospital. Designer Rohit Bal is now back where he belongs FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT 14+4PAGES,`6.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA Ex-IAS officer’s SPECIAL PROBE TEAM SET UP, TOLD TO FILE PRELIMINARY REPORT IN 3 DAYS wife murdered at Lucknow residence: Police EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE LUCKNOW, MAY 25 THE BODY of a 71-year-old woman–wifeof aretired IASofficer–wasfoundwithstrangulation marks at her residence in Indira Nagar area of Lucknow on Saturday,policesaid.Policeidentified the victim as Lalit Mohini Dubey was alone in the house at the time. Police at the house in Indira Nagar, Lucknow, Saturday. Vishal Srivastav The incident unfolded when retiredIASofficerDevendraNath Dubey returned home after playing golf and noticed that household items were scattered and lockers had been broken into. After he found his wife lying on the floor, Dubey alerted the police, who reached the spot and sent the body for postmortem. The report is awaited, police said. The police are considering the possibility that someone known to the family may be CONTINUEDONPAGE2 INSIDE PORSCHE CRASH: GRANDFATHER OF BOY ARRESTED TELANGANA: OVER 2,000 REGISTERED DURING RECRUITMENT DRIVE FOR ISRAEL PAGES 9, 2 At least 27 killed in Rajkot amusement park fire, many children among dead Officials say gaming zone didn’t have NOC from fire dept; four detained GOPAL KATESHIYA RAJKOT, MAY 25 AT LEAST 27 people, including children,werekilledasamassive fire broke out at TRP, a private amusement park/ gaming zone, inGujarat'sRajkotonSaturdayafternoon.OfficialssaidTRPdidnot have a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department. In a statement, the state gov- ernmentsaid27bodieshadbeen brought for post-mortem at the Rajkot Civil Hospital. Most of the bodies were charred, making identificationdifficult.“TheirDNA samplesarebeingdrawnforidentification...Theprocessisonatthe RajkotCivilHospitalpolicepostto collect DNA samples of family members so that the DNA can be matched,” the statement said. Rajkot District Collector Prabhav Joshi said most of the Express The gaming zone in Rajkot that burned down on Sunday. Phase 6: Overall turnout dips to 61%, Anantnag-Rajouri touches 54% high 54.03% polling in UP; only 57 seats left to vote victims were children. Officials did not rule out the possibility of the toll rising. The government has set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT), led by Additional Director General of Police (CID-crime) Subhash Trivedi, to probe the incident. The SIT, which includes Banchhanidhi Pani, commissioner of technical education; H P Sanghvi, director of Forensic ScienceLaboratory,Gandhinagar; J N Khadiya, chief fire officer of Ahmedabad; and M B Desai, superintending engineer of road CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE WORLD ISRAEL CONTINUES RAFAH OFFENSIVE KHARKIV AREAS BACK IN UKRAINE CONTROL PAGE 10 REFERS TO LAND-FOR-JOBS CASE In Bihar, PM warns of Tejashwi arrest, says INDIA bloc can do mujra for vote bank Dareyoutotouchme,notafraid:Tejashwi SANTOSH SINGH PATNA, MAY 25 REITERATING HIS allegation that the INDIA bloc wants to carveoutaquota DECISION for minorities, 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the Opposition could perform “mujra” or do “slavery” for its “vote bank”, but he would thwart any attempt to diverttheSC,ST,OBCreservation. While he did not name RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Modi, who addressed a series of rallies in Bihar, also warned that the “countdown” for arrest had started for those behind the alleged land-for-jobs scam. Addressing a rally in Karakat, Modi said: “Main aaj Bihar ke logon ko ek aur guarantee de raha PTI PM Narendra Modi with LJP (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan in Patna on Saturday. hoon. Jinhone Bihar ke garibon ko lutkar naukri ke badle me zamin likhwayi hai, kaan kholkar sun lo, unka bhi jail jaane ka countdown shuru ho chuka hai. Yeh jaise hi helicopter me chakkar markar chakkar pura hoga, jail ka raasta tay ho jayega (Today, I am giving CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, MAY 25 THE TURNOUT in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in 58 constituencies across eight states and Union territories on Saturday was 61.01 per cent, according to the Election Commission (EC) data at 11.30 pm. The overall turnout in Delhi, where all the seven Lok Sabha constituencies voted in the sixth phase, was 58.70 per cent, down from 60.60 per cent in 2019. In2019,theseatswhichvoted on Saturday had recorded 64.73 percentpolling.Butthisdoesnot include the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, which was redrawn duringdelimitationin2022.The constituency saw 54.06 per cent polling on Saturday. The final turnout is likely to rise.Haryanasawthebiggestdip in polling — from 69.93 per cent CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 President Droupadi Murmu after voting at a ‘pink booth’, managed by women staff, in New Delhi on Saturday. Renuka Puri FULLCOVERAGE,PAGES 3,6,7,8 Under attack, poll panel releases number of votes cast in 5 phases EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, MAY 25 FACINGCRITICISM—andacasein theSupremeCourt—theElection Commission (EC) Saturday released the absolute number of electors who cast their votes in each constituency in the first five phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections,evenasitsaidtherewas “a pattern of false narratives and mischievousdesignstovitiatethe electoral process”. Unlike in 2019, when the EC released and later removed data on votes cast from its website due to alleged discrepancies between the provisional number of votes cast and those counted, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kapadia wins Cannes Grand Prix for debut film EXPRESSATCANNES SHUBHRA GUPTA CANNES, MAY 25 “THANKYOU verymuchCannes Film Festival for having our film here. Please don’t wait for an- The cast and the director at the Cannes closing ceremony. AP other 30 years to have another Indian film,” said Payal Kapadia as she picked up the prestigious Grand Prix for her debut feature, All We Imagine As Light, at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Kapadia had entered the muchfeted Competition Section thirty years after an Indian film made the cut — Shaji N Karun’s Swaham was in the Competition line-up in 1994. There has been a long droughtsince,andKapadia’sfilm has broken through, gloriously. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 From Iran to India: 6 men, a fishing boat and a daring getaway on the high seas PAGE 1 ANCHOR ARUN JANARDHANAN CHENNAI, MAY 25 NOTHING ABOUT the day seemed extraordinary. On the morning of April 22, the sea crashing into the predawn darkness of the shore, the six fishermen hauled their nets, hooks, baits and food supplies onto the The fishermen left Iran on April 22, reached India on May 6. deck of the boat, and set sail. Just as they did every day. Except, that day, the six men in the boat had a daring plan: to flee their employer in Bandar-e Chiruiyeh, a harbour in the Iranian province of Hormozgan, andsailallthewaybackhometo India, a distance of over 1,500 nautical miles, threading the geopolitically volatile Strait of Hormuz before entering the forbidding, blue expanse of the Arabian Sea. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Lucknow