Perth, 1985. India were trailing West Germany 1-5 at hockey's Champions Trophy with about eight minutes left when a 20-year-old fullback picked up the ball near the halfway line, ran at the defence, skipped past four defenders, and lifted it over the goalkeeper. It sparked a comeback still counted among Indian hockey's greatest. India scored four times in that spell to draw 5-5. Forty-one years later, the Congress has handed him the ball in Punjab with lots to defend against, and everything to play for. "It all happened so fast. Maybe the Germans did not expect it from me," Pargat Singh recalled about that match in Australia in a 1991 interview. On Friday, the party named the former Olympic captain its state unit chief, two days after Amarinder Singh Raja Warring resigned and months before the 2027 Assembly elections. Picking Pargat was a fallback, though not purely defensive. Former minister Vijay Inder Singla, a Hindu from the Bania (trader) community who he...
When a four-year-old boy went missing from Rajasthan's Dausa district in 2020, his family held onto the hope that they would find him one day. Six years later, that hope has turned into a nightmare: the child was allegedly murdered by his own uncle and aunt and buried beside the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway.
On August 16, 2020, Prince, also known as Tillu, disappeared while playing in his courtyard. Despite an exhaustive search by his family, no clues were found. In 2021, the family filed a habeas corpus petition in the High Court, which prompted a more intense investigation.
The case proved difficult -- seven different investigation officers were replaced over the years. Eventually, the court directed the administration to recover the child at all costs. Nearly five years after the disappearance, the Rajasthan Police finally cracked the case.
Police are currently digging near the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway to recover the child's body. To assist in the operation, a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) machine was brought in from Delhi.
The machine detected signals approximately 9 meters (30 feet) underground. Based on these leads, two JCB machines have been digging for three days, operating for a total of 24 hours. However, despite digging 15 feet down so far, the police have yet to recover the body.
The investigation revealed that Prince's own uncle and aunt, Anil and Krishna, allegedly murdered him and buried him near the highway over a grudge. Both have been arrested and reportedly confessed to the crime during interrogation. They have been remanded in police custody until March 1.
Prince's siblings recalled that after he went missing, Anil and Krishna even joined the search to deflect suspicion. Tillu's eldest sister, Archana, is devastated. She remembered how Anil used to take her brother on motorcycle rides, saying she never imagined he could be capable of such an act.
His brother, Samar, described Prince as a "naughty" child who often brought him broken toys to fix. "Anil went searching with me, too," he added, struggling to process the betrayal.
Prince's father, Jagmohan Bairwa, returned to India from Dubai on February 21 after receiving news of the search. In an interview with NDTV Rajasthan, "I'll be happy if my son is found, in whatever condition. I have full faith in the police and judiciary that I will finally get justice."
The family's courtyard lies empty, with dejected children sitting around and a neem tree whose age matches exactly what Prince, alias Tillu, would have been today if he were still with his family.
(With inputs from Devendra Singh Naruka)
from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/ZA0gy4u
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