Out on parole, Amritpal Singh, Engineer Rashid take oath as LS members
New Delhi, Jul 5: Jailed radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh and Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, who were granted parole to take oath as members of the Lok Sabha, were sworn in as MPs on Friday, amid heavy deployment of security personnel in and around the Parliament complex.
While Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid, is in Delhi's Tihar jail in a terror funding case registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Singh is lodged in a prison in Assam's Dibrugarh district for offences under the National Security Act.
They were brought to the Parliament complex by security personnel this morning.
Rashid took oath in Kashmiri and Singh in Punjabi at the Speaker's conference room in the Parliament House, a Lok Sabha bulletin said.
Singh, 31, and Rashid, 56, won the recent Lok Sabha elections from Khadoor Sahib in Punjab and Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir, respectively, as Independents while being incarcerated.
They could not take oath as members of the 18th Lok Sabha on June 24 and 25 along with the other winning candidates.
For taking oath, Rashid was granted a two-hour custody parole, excluding the travel time from Tihar to Parliament, and Singh a four-day custody parole, beginning July 5, in view of the travel from Assam to Delhi and back.
Singh's lawyer Rajdev Singh Khalsa had said he would be taken to Delhi aboard a "military aircraft".
Their parole orders stated that during their period of temporary release, they can neither speak to or address the media on any issue or make any statements. Their family members also cannot make a statement in any form of media.
While Singh, a Khalistani sympathiser who heads the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit, has been allowed to meet his family in Delhi, Rashid's family had permission only to attend his oath taking.
The parole for Rashid, who has been in jail since 2019 after his arrest in 2017, was granted by a court in Delhi and that of Singh by the district magistrate of Amritsar from where he was arrested in April 2023 for barging into a police station in February and clashing with police personnel in a bid to free one of his aides from custody.
Both Singh and Rashid are to be accompanied by security personnel at all times during their parole periods, the orders stated.
The Delhi Police and Punjab Police were directed to coordinate with the secretary general of the Lok Sabha for procedures inside the Parliament complex.
The name of Rashid, a former MLA, cropped up during the investigation of Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who the NIA had arrested for allegedly funding terrorist groups and separatists in the Kashmir valley.
The NIA had filed a charge sheet against several individuals, including Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in the case. Malik was awarded life imprisonment by a trial court in 2022 after he pleaded guilty to the charges.
Singh styled himself after slain Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and is in jail along with nine of his associates under the National Security Act.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll rises to 10 with recovery of one more body; 3 tourists still missing
Jabalpur (PTI): The body of a child was retrieved on Saturday evening from Bargi Dam in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy that took place two days ago to ten, while search continued for three missing tourists.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening with some of the survivors alleging negligence and safety lapses such as life jackets not being distributed in time.
The body recovered on Saturday evening was possibly that of six-year-old Viraj Soni, said Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra.
"The identity will be confirmed after family members identify the body," he told PTI.
Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory at Khamaria, his five-year-old son Tamil, and another child Mayuram (5) who had come from southern India were still missing.
Authorities have arranged equipment to search deep waters of the dam and are getting a generator to facilitate diving operations, Mishra added.
Divers and disaster response teams have expanded the search radius to five km, he said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the ill-fated vessel, 28 were rescued, police said.
More than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, joined the search operation that resumed at 5 on Saturday morning. The operation, involving the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, was briefly affected at around 9 am due to strong winds, officials said.
Post-mortem examinations of nine deceased persons have been completed, Mishra said.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will also register a First Information Report in the case soon," he said.
Police said CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat while the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the tragedy and dismissed three crew members. It also banned operation of similar vessels in the state.
