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LIVE! Rafale documents not stolen, petitioners used photocopies: AG

08:15  Service rifle of policeman snatched at gunpoint in JK’s Kishtwar:  

Suspected terrorists on Friday snatched the service rifle of a policeman in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, officials said. 

  

The policeman is posted as a personnel security officer of district development commissioner, Kishtwar, Angrez Singh Rana. 

PSO Daleep Kumar claimed that some masked gunmen intruded into his residence at Shaheedi Mazar area of the town late night and decamped with his AK-47 rifle and mobile phone after threatening him and his family, the officials said. 

They said the area was immediately cordoned off and a massive hunt has been launched to nab the gunmen and recover the looted weapon. 

The PSO was being questioned, the officials said adding further details are awaited. 

Suspected terrorists killed a senior BJP leader and his brother in the town in November last year. The case was handed over to the National Investigation Agency but the culprits are still at large.

— PTI

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08:06  Rafale documents not stolen, petitioners used photocopies: AG:  

Attorney General K K Venugopal claimed the Rafale documents were not stolen from the defence ministry and that what he meant in his submission before the Supreme Court was that petitioners in the application used “photocopies of the original” papers, deemed secret by the government.

  

His comments in the apex court on Wednesday that Rafale fighter jet deal documents were stolen caused a political row, with Congress president Rahul Gandhi targeting the government over stealing of such sensitive papers and seeking a criminal investigation.

“I am told that the opposition has alleged what was argued (in SC) was that files had been stolen from the defence ministry. This is wholly incorrect. The statement that files have been stolen is wholly incorrect,” he said, in an apparent damage-control exercise.

Venugopal said the application filed by Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhushant, seeking from the court a review of its verdict dismissing pleas for a probe into against the Rafale deal, had annexed three documents which were photocopies of the original.

Official sources said the AG’s use of word stolen was probably “stronger” and could have been avoided.

The government had also warned The Hindu newspapers with a case under Official Secrets Act for publishing articles based on these documents. 

— PTI

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00:24  ‘Hadd Sarhad Ki’: IAF mocks Pakistan with a poem :  

Amid tensions between New Delhi and Pakistan after Indian fighter jets bombed a camp of terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad in that country, the IAF on Friday tweeted a poem whose lines can be construed as a jibe at 

Islamabad.

 

Through its twitter handle @IAF_MCC, the Indian Air Force tweeted the Hindi poem ‘Hadd Sarhad Ki’ penned by Bipin Allhabadi. 

The first two lines of the poem read, “Today, someone has crossed borders/Because someone has crossed all limits.”

The tweet also had a picture of a fighter jet in the background.

Tensions between India and Pakistan flared up after a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Kashmir’s Pulwama district 

on February 14.

India launched a counter-terror operation in Balakot on February 26. The next day, Pakistan Air Force retaliated and downed a MiG-21 and captured its pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, who was handed over to 

India on March 1. — PTI 

Source: Rediff