FRIDAY 01 AUGUST 2025 www.thestatesman.com Pages 16 |` 5.00 | LC X.com/thestatesmanltd. Fb/thestatesman1875 SINCE 1818 KOLKATA | NEW DELHI | SILIGURI | BHUBANESWAR FADNAVIS PRAISES ACQUITTAL OF MALEGAON BLAST ACCUSED ABANDONED BY BJP , SNUBBED BY AIADMK, OPS QUITS NDA P6 SENSEX 81,185.58 q296.28 TRADE SHOCK DEMANDS A RESOLUTE RESPONSE P5 NIFTY 24,768.35 q86.70 ` vs $ 87.60 ‘GAMBHIR UNDER PRESSURE’ P9 GOLD `1,01,320 P16 SILVER `1,15,000 BRENT CRUDE (IN $) 71.99 CM pledges `1.1 lakh each for Puja organisers STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE KOLKATA, 31 JULY C hief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Thursday that the state government will provide Rs 1.10 lakh in financial assistance to each club or puja committee for this year’s Durga Puja. Miss Banerjee met representatives of various Durga Puja committees on Thursday and assured that 80 per cent of their power bills will be waived. Additionally, the committees will not be required to pay for fire and other services. Swami Jnanalokanandaji, secretary of Swami Vivekananda’s ancestral house; Mural Bhai, secretary of Adyapith; and monks from various communities were among those who attended the meeting. Ministers Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Chandrima Bhattacharya, and Dr Shashi Panja were also present. Senior officials, including Director General of Police Rajeev Kumar and City Police Commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma, attended along with representatives from CESC, the Fire and Emergency Services, Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Public Works Department, and other agencies. The Chief Minister announced that the Puja Carnival on Red Road will be held on 5 October, with similar carnivals scheduled across the districts. Without naming the BJP, she said: “They claim I do not allow Durga Puja in Bengal. They are the biggest liars. There are 45,000 major Pujas across the state. They never verify facts before making statements. UNESCO has accorded Durga Puja the Intangible Cultural Heritage tag. People from around the world are coming to watch the carnival.” She added: “There are some who only spread negativity and go to court challenging the state government's decision to financially support the Puja committees.” She urged the public not to harass migrant workers from other states. “It’s true that Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been harassed and attacked in other states. But our people must show restraint and uphold our tradition of unity in diversity,” she said. SHASHIKANT SHARMA NEW DELHI, 31 JULY A National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Mumbai on Thursday acquitted all the seven accused, including former BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt. Colonel Prasad Purohit, in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case. The other accused who were acquitted by the NIA court are retired Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, and Sameer Kulkarni. They were acquitted of all charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the Arms Act, and other relevant laws. The judgment comes after a long trial in the case that spanned nearly 17 years. After examining 323 prosecution witnesses and eight defence witnesses, the court acquitted the accused of all charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Arms Act, and all other relevant laws. The court also ordered the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) ADG to initiate a probe into the matter of planting explosives in the house of the accused Sudhakar Chaturvedi. Delivering its verdict, the NIA court said that while the investigation proved that the blasts indeed occurred, the prosecution could not provide “cogent evidence” to prove the involvement of the accused. “Terrorism has no religion because no religion can advocate violence. The court cannot convict anyone merely on perception and moral evidence; there has to be cogent evidence,” the court said while delivering the judgment. The court observed in the verdict that the prosecution could not prove that explosives were stored and assembled at Colonel Purohit’s residence and placed in the motorcycle that allegedly belonged to Pragya Thakur. “Prosecution proved that a blast occurred in Malegaon but failed to prove that the bomb was placed in that motorcycle,” news agency ANI quoted Judge Abhay Lohati as saying while pronouncing the verdict. The court also questioned the flawed investigation and pointed out several discrepancies in the way evidence was collected at the blast site by the investigation officer. Consider whether Speakers should decide defection cases: SC asks Parliament PARMOD KUMAR NEW DELHI, 31 JULY With repeated delays by presiding officers across the country in acting on the petitions seeking disqualification on grounds of defection, the Supreme Court on Thursday called on Parliament to consider whether entrusting the task of adjudicating disqualification petitions to the Speaker or Chairman of legislatures under the Tenth Schedule has effectively served its purpose in combating political defections. Delivering judgment on a set of petitions involving ten MLAs of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) who crossed over to the Congress in MarchApril 2024, a bench of the Chief Justice of India, Justice B.R. Gavai, and Justice Augustine George Masih directed the Speaker of the Telangana Legislative Assembly to decide all disqualification petitions pending against the MLAs within three months from the date of the verdict. “If we do not issue any direction, it will amount to permitting the Speaker to repeat the widely criticised situation of ‘operation successful, patient died’,” Chief Justice Gavai remarked, authoring the Court’s judgment. The Court said that although it does not possess advisory jurisdiction, the continued delays in deciding disqualification petitions raise important questions for Parliament to consider. “It is for the Parliament to consider whether the mechanism of entrusting the Speaker/Chairman, the important task of deciding the issue of disqualification on the ground of defection, is serving the purpose of effectively combating political defections or not,” the Court observed. “If the very foundation of our democracy and the principles that sustain it are to be safeguarded, it will have to be examined whether the present mechanism is sufficient or not.” (Another report on Pg 6) CBC 46112/13/0001/2526 NIA court acquits all 7 accused in 2008 Malegaon blast case