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The income tax department provisionally attached properties estimated to be worth over Rs 1,000 crore allegedly belonging to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar (in pic) and his close relatives under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act.

• The propertiesinclude an office at Mumbai’s Nariman Point, a flat in Delhi, a resort in Goa and 27 land parcels in different parts of Maharashtra.
• The I-T department had recently conducted searches at these properties. The department had said then it discovered unaccounted income worth Rs 183 crore.

The enforcement directorate will have custody of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh till November 6.

• Deshmukh was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act late Monday.
• The agency told the special holiday court that remanded Deshmukh that he was the “prime beneficiary of the proceeds of crime” in a Rs 100 crore money laundering case, and the agency needed to investigate a “foreign angle”.

Maharashtra is governed by an alliance of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. Pawar and Deshmukh are senior NCP politicians.

• NCP spokesperson and skill development minister Nawab Malik said Deshmukh was "being framed". NCP chief Sharad Pawar had earlier slammed the union government for using central agencies to intimidate the alliance and "break our will".
• Several other key leaders of the alliance are being probed by ED and income-tax authorities, including public works minister Ashok Chavan, transport minister Anil Parab, Sena leaders Pratap Sarnaik, Anandrao Adsul and Bhavan Gawali and NCP leader Eknath Khadse.
• Also: Shiv Sena accused the union government of helping absconding IPS officer Param Bir Singh escape the country after he made “false accusations” against Deshmukh. "He has not absconded, but made to move out of the country,” said Sena MP Sanjay Raut.

Haryana's city of Gurugram Tuesday withdrew the permission to hold namaz — the Islamic prayer — at eight public sites, amidst weeks-long efforts by right-wing demonstrators to disrupt the Friday prayers.

• The eight sites were among the 37 designated places to hold the Islamic Friday prayers in the city. Demonstrators had disrupted Friday prayers in at least two of these sites in the previous weeks. The district administration said that the decision was taken after “objection from local residents and resident welfare associations”.
• A committee, comprising a sub-divisional magistrate, an assistant commissioner level police officer, and members of Hindu and Muslim communities, will also be formed to determine a list of designated sites where Friday namaz prayers would be offered in the city.
• “While taking a decision, it will be ensured that the residents of the area do not have any opposition to the offering of namaz at a particular location. Namaz can be offered at any mosque, Idgah or a private place.” a statement by the city administration read. Haryana has a BJP government.

Context:

• For the past several weeks, certain right-wing outfits have tried to disrupt Friday prayers held at designated public spots.
• Last Friday, the Haryana Police detained around 25 people after they tried to disrupt prayers at two sites. They were booked under sections 107 (security for keeping the peace) and 151 (arrest to prevent the commission of cognizable offence) of the criminal code, and later released on bail.
• One of the two groups was led by a former BJP district president, advocate Kulbhushan Bharadwaj. Another outfit that has been organising such demonstrations is Bharat Mata Vahini, headed by a certain Dinesh Bharati (here and here).

The Kerala High Court (HC) granted bail to Swapna Suresh and seven other people in the gold smuggling case registered against them by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The case

• Last year, customs authorities intercepted a shipment of 30 kilogrammes of gold being smuggled via diplomatic parcels at Thiruvananthapuram airport, which was scheduled to be delivered to the UAE Consulate-General in the state capital. A multi-agency investigation revealed Suresh as the lynchpin of the smuggling operation.

Snowball effect

• Suresh is a former executive secretary at the UAE Consulate and was accused of forging documents from the consulate and smuggle gold under the guise of diplomatic immunity. Suresh’s arrest also brought into focus her association with former principal secretary to the Kerala CM and IT secretary M Sivasankar, as she had worked as a contract staff with the state government’s flagship Space Park project.

Why bail now

• Suresh had contended that an offence of gold smuggling can not attract charges under UAPA. This was upheld by a division bench of the HC in February earlier this year, which said that the mere act of gold smuggling, which was covered under the Customs Act, can not be considered a “terrorist act” under UAPA unless the smuggling was carried out with the ‘intention to threaten the economic security of the nation.’
• The division bench judgement, which led to bail being granted to 12 accused in the gold smuggling case, was upheld by the Supreme Court as well which denied an appeal by the NIA seeking cancellation of the bail after the Rajasthan HC, in a similar case, denied bail to a person accused of gold smuggling and charged under UAPA.

Elon Musk. The world's richest person-owned SpaceX has incorporated its wholly-owned subsidiary in India to start local broadband operations, a top official of the company said. SpaceX's satellite broadband arm Starlink aims to start broadband services in India from December 2022, with 200,000 active terminals subject to permission from the government.