DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2024, KOLKATA, LATE CITY, 16 PAGES `6.00 (`12 IN NORTH EAST STATES & ANDAMAN) WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 VINESH PHOGAT DISQUALIFIED OVER WEIGHT HOURS BEFORE HISTORIC FINAL A HUNDRED GRAMS, A BILLION HEARTS India appeals to CAS, seeks silver medal for Vinesh after PM tells IOA chief P T Usha to take ‘appropriate action’ An Olympic medal her dream, no one can stop her: Brother Blood, sweat and tears: How night was long & desperate HARVINDER PHOGAT WE HAVE to stand up again. Till today, Vinesh, and all us, have fought against every situation, andwillcontinuetodoso.That’s what I told Vinesh on the phone today after she failed the weighin. She is not someone who will dwell over the missed Olympic medal. She will be thinking what'snextforhernow,andhow many more trials God will put her through for her to rise again. For the Phogat family, includingmymotherPremlata,thisday islikethedeathofadream.Butfor Vinesh,it’salsoliketheproverbial phoenix rising from the ashes. Since the day we lost our father, we have been fighting to survive. It’s like God has written “sangharsh karna hi hai (have to struggle)” on our foreheads, and that’s what Vinesh has been doing all her life. That was her motto when she first stepped into the akhada, and when she set foot on the wrestling mat at EXPRESSAT OLYMPICS MIHIR VASAVDA PARIS, AUGUST 7 IN A heartbreaking twist of fate, wrestler Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from the 50-kg gold medalboutattheParisOlympics afterfailingtheweigh-inbecause she was 100 grams overweight. The Indian contingent later filed an appeal against her disqualification in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with the demandthatPhogatbeawarded the silver medal. Phogat was to face USA’s Sarah Hilderbrandt in the final on Wednesday, but will now return empty-handed despite becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to have reached an Olympic final on Tuesday night. Thiswasn’thowhermorning was supposed to pan out. WhenshelefttheChamp-deMars Arena after winning her semifinal on Tuesday night, sourcessaidPhogatweighed52.7 kg.Buttherewasnopanicatfirst, as there had been instances earlier when she had found herself in a similar situation. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE EDITORIAL PAGE BRIGHTER THAN GOLD Vinesh Phogat has lost out on the medal. But she remains an inspiration, by not settling for less, getting up after every fall PAGE 10 Vinesh Phogat during her cool-down exercises after the 50-kg category wrestling semifinal in Paris on Tuesday. (Photo: IANS) ANTIM FACES DEPORTATION OVER BID TO PAGE 14 ‘SMUGGLE’ SISTER INTO VILLAGE FULL COVERAGE PAGES 7, 9 & 14 Sacking staff, denying police approval part ‘If keeping a tiny number of clampdown; L-G says based on evidence out can keep population BASHAARAT MASOOD & DEEPTIMAN TIWARY SRINAGAR, NEW DELHI, AUG 7 FROM A school teacher in south Kashmir’s Kulgam who earned accolades from the J&K Lieutenant Governor and was terminatedfromemployment,a Ph.D in international relations whose passport was revoked just when he was to take up an academicjobinaforeignuniversity,toascholarwhowasoffered the position of an Assistant TOMORROW Economy, investment: Work in progress Professorbutdeniedserviceverification by police — these constitute an aspect of the Union Territory administration’s security clampdown that has left many families in the lurch. Ineachof thesecases,officers in the J&K Police and the administrationsaythereareeitherFIRs, or“evidence”thattheperson“indulged” in protests or stone pelting in the distant past, or just because a relative was a militant decadesago.Infact,officialorders have been issued banning even the criticism of the government and its policies or schemes by government employees and “their family members”. These hard actions, with a punitive aspect,arealso,asNCVicePresident OmarAbdullahsays,areasonbehind the “silence” in the Valley. Over the last three years, the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 safe, it’s our obligation’ DEEPTIMAN TIWARY NEW DELHI, AUGUST 7 5 YEARS SINCE AUG 5 AN EXPRESS SERIES PART-4 LAW & ORDER JAMMU and Kashmir Director General of Police Rashmi Ranjan Swain,whowasofficiallynamed as the DGP, J&K, Wednesday, has been at the forefront of firefighting in the erstwhile state since 2020 as its intelligence chief. He has been credited with formulatingmanysecurityapproaches CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE EXPRESS INTERVIEW RASHMI RANJAN SWAIN DIRECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE, J&K Bangladesh in turmoil, India flies home its non-essential mission staff, their families Passengers of an Air India flight from Dhaka that landed at Delhi airport early Wednesday. PTI FULLCOVERAGEONP5 SHUBHAJIT ROY NEW DELHI, AUGUST 7 WITH THE security situation in Bangladesh deteriorating following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, India is scaling back its diplomatic presence in the country. While the Indian High Commission in Dhaka remains functional, non-essential staff and families returned to India Wednesday, sources said. BesidestheHighCommission in Dhaka, India has Assistant HighCommissionsinChittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna and Sylhet. This is the first sign of concern in the Indian government over the poor security situation in Bangladesh. Law and order has been disrupted across the country and therehavebeenattacksonAwami League leaders, their homes, securitypersonnelandtheiroffices. Statues of Bangabandhu Sheikh MujiburRahmanhavebeenvandalised, and mobs have invaded the Prime Minister’s residence and parliament. Sourcessaidthereturnofnonessential staff and families from the Indian High Commission in Dhaka was facilitated on a CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 From non-Muslims on state boards to DC as arbiter: Sweeping changes in waqf Bill ASAD REHMAN & APURVA VISHWANATH NEW DELHI, AUGUST 7 FROM GIVING the government a big say in regulating waqf properties, redefining how a property is deemed to be in the possession of waqf to changing the composition of waqf boards instates,theCentreissettobring in key amendments to overhaul the regulatory framework of Muslimcharitableendowments. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which seeks to amend the Waqf Act, 1995, proposes to allow even a non-Muslim Chief ExecutiveOfficerandatleasttwo non-Muslim members to be ap- Why Govt gets a greater say EMPOWERING THE Collector as the arbiter, and not the waqf tribunal, gives the government a significant say in regulation of waqf properties — a key amendment to the earlier law. pointedbythestategovernment to the waqf boards at the state level. Among the key changes proposed is to bring the District Collector as the arbiter on CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Was poisoned twice by Navalny hit squad: Putin critic freed from Siberia SPECIAL TO THE EXPRESS AKANKSHA SAXENA BONN, AUGUST 7 RUSSIA DESERVES to be a “normal, modern” democracy instead of being run by a “corrupt” and “authoritarian KGB-led dictatorship”,accordingtoVladimir Kara-Murza, the prominent Kremlindissidentwhowasfreed from a jail in Siberia as part of his country’s historic prisoner swap with the USA last week. A Russian-British dual citizen, Kara-Murza said he had been held in a Russian prison for two years, much of it in solitary confinement,afterbeinghanded a 25-year jail sentence for treason. And despite the swap deal, he hopes to be back in his home countrysoonerthanmanythink. “Not only do I feel, not only do I believe,IknowthatIwillbeback in Russia,” he said during an exclusive interview in Bonn, Germany, where he was flown to after his release. Edited excerpts from the in- terview conducted on the evening of August 2, the day before he was scheduled to meet his wife and three children for the first time in two years — an occasion he described as “the only thing I can think about now” and his “only plan”. There were concerns about your health when you were in prison. How bad was it and how much longer could you have lasted? Everything is fine — as much as it can be... One of the prison doctors told me that I had about a year or a year-and-a-half, and Kremlin dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza was freed last week as part of Russia’s prisoner swap with the US. File he said this last year. So, I was actually sort of towards the end of that period. This state was becauseof thelastinghealtheffects from the two poisonings that were organised by the special FSB(Russianfederalsecurity)assassin squad. The same squad that poisoned Alexei Navalny (in the UK), the same squad that poisoned several other Russian opposition figures, poisoned me twice in 2015 and 2017. ...Membersof thesquadhave engaged in surveillance of Boris Nemtsov(another Russiandissident) before his assassination. They’ve engaged in the poison- ing of Alexei Navalny. They’ve engaged in the poisoning of Dmitry Bykov, a prominent literary critic in Russia, and so on and so forth. It’s important to remember that the regime of Vladimir Putin is not just an authoritarian regime, it is a regime of murderers. How do you really feel now that you know that you have been swapped with the likes of Vadim Krasikov, who is a FSB assassin. Do you have any reservations about the West engaging in Russian hostage diplomacy? I know there has been quite a lot of criticism here in Germany over this difficult decision by the (Olaf)Scholzgovernmenttoagree to this prisoner exchange because, of course, one of the people exchanged from the western side was Vadim Krasikov, although as we were told on the plane, that’s not his real name, who by some media accounts is Putin’spersonalassassinwhohas been sentenced to life in prison hereinGermanyforamurderon the streets of Berlin. But you know what, decisions in a democracy are very CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Kolkata