Give martyr status to Pahalgam terror attack victims: Rahul Gandhi to PM Modi
New Delhi, May 1 (PTI): Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to accord the status of a martyr to those killed in the Pahalgam terror attack.
In a post on X, the Congress leader said he stands with the families of those killed in the Pahalgam attack and backs their demand that the victims be given the status of a martyr.
"I stand with the families of those killed in the Pahalgam attack in their grief and in their demand for martyr status to them.
"The prime minister is requested to respect the sentiments of the families of those who lost their lives in this tragedy by giving this honour to them," Gandhi said in his post on the microblogging platform in Hindi.
The Congress MP from Rae Bareli met the family members of a Pahalgam attack victim in Kanpur on Wednesday and said they want martyr status for the deceased.
"I met a victim's family in Kanpur. They asked me to send a message to Narendra Modi. On behalf of all those families, I want to tell the prime minister -- 'prime minister, they have said that our children have been martyred. We want you to give them the status of a martyr and give them respect'," the Congress leader told reporters on Wednesday.
Gandhi visited the family members of Shubham Dwivedi in Kanpur and said the opposition is demanding a special session of Parliament to ensure that the Pahalgam attack victims get justice.
Twenty-six people, mostly tourists, were killed and several injured when terrorists opened fire at a meadow near the popular tourist town of Pahalgam in south Kashmir's Anantnag district on April 22.
पहलगाम हमले में मारे गए लोगों के परिवारों के दुख में, शहीद के दर्जे की उनकी मांग में, मैं साथ खड़ा हूं।
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 1, 2025
प्रधानमंत्री से आग्रह है कि वो इस त्रासदी में जान गंवाने वालों को यह सम्मान देकर उनके परिवारों की भावना का आदर करें। pic.twitter.com/auMEehEnOO
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
