Chhattisgarh: Paramilitary jawan shoots self dead during security duty at coal mine
Korba (PTI): A jawan of the Tripura State Rifles (TSR) allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service weapon while he was posted on security duty at a coal mine in Chhattisgarh's Korba district, police said on Saturday.
The incident took place on Friday night at Kusmunda open cast coal mine of South Eastern Coalfield Limited (SECL- a subsidiary of Coal India), Korba Additional Superintendent of Police Neha Verma said.
Azad Singh, belonging to the 1st battalion of TSR (a paramilitary force), who was on security duty at coal stock no. 29, shot himself with his service rifle AK-47, in which he died on the spot, she said.
After being alerted about it, a police team reached the spot and sent the body for post-mortem, she said.
Singh hailed from Rajasthan and his family members have been informed, she said.
Public Relations Officer of SECL Sanish Chandra said that according to Singh's colleague, he was under stress since the last few days due to some family dispute.
However, no suicide note was found and the exact reason that prompted him to take the extreme step is yet to be ascertained, he added.
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Supreme Court rejects plea for reverting to ballots in elections
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking to revert to ballot paper voting in elections in the country.
"What happens is, when you win the election, EVMs (electronic voting machine) are not tampered. When you lose the election, EVMs are tampered (with)," remarked a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P B Varale.
Apart from ballot paper voting, the plea sought several directions including a directive to the Election Commission to disqualify candidates for a minimum of five years if found guilty of distributing money, liquor or other material inducement to the voters during polls.
When petitioner-in-person K A Paul said he filed the PIL, the bench said, "You have interesting PILs. How do you get these brilliant ideas?".
The petitioner said he is the president of an organisation which has rescued over three lakh orphans and 40 lakh widows.
"Why are you getting into this political arena? Your area of work is very different," the bench retorted.
After Paul revealed he had been to over 150 countries, the bench asked him whether each of the nations had ballot paper voting or used electronic voting.
The petitioner said foreign countries had adopted ballot paper voting and India should follow suit.
"Why you don't want to be different from the rest of the world?" asked the bench.
There was corruption and this year (2024) in June, the Election Commission announced they had seized Rs 9,000 crore, Paul responded.
"But how does that make your relief which you are claiming here relevant?" asked the bench, adding "if you shift back to physical ballot, will there be no corruption?".
Paul claimed CEO and co-founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, stated that EVMs could be tampered with and added TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, the current chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, and former state chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had claimed EVMs could be tampered with.
"When Chandrababu Naidu lost, he said EVMs can be tampered with. Now this time, Jagan Mohan Reddy lost, he said EVMs can be tampered with," noted the bench.
When the petitioner said everybody knew money was distributed in elections, the bench remarked, "We never received any money for any elections."
The petitioner said another prayer in his plea was the formulation of a comprehensive framework to regulate the use of money and liquor during election campaigns and ensuring such practices were prohibited and punishable under the law.
The plea further sought a direction to mandate an extensive voter education campaign to raise awareness and importance of informed decision making.
"Today, 32 per cent educated people are not casting their votes. What a tragedy. If democracy will be dying like this and we will not be able to do anything then what will happen in the years to come in future," the petitioner said.
