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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Mumbai local train murder stuns commuters

Mumbai: A routine commute to home on a dark rain-soaked night in a Mumbai local turned into a nightmare when a 22-year-old commuter was allegedly stabbed to death inside a first-class compartment following a heated argument over shutting the train door, late on Tuesday. The victim, identified as Mayank Lohar, 22, worked as a salesman with a private company in Andheri and lived in Virar, nearly 60 km from Churchgate. According to Western Railway (WR) and Government Railway Police (GRP)...

Mumbai local train murder stuns commuters

Mumbai: A routine commute to home on a dark rain-soaked night in a Mumbai local turned into a nightmare when a 22-year-old commuter was allegedly stabbed to death inside a first-class compartment following a heated argument over shutting the train door, late on Tuesday. The victim, identified as Mayank Lohar, 22, worked as a salesman with a private company in Andheri and lived in Virar, nearly 60 km from Churchgate. According to Western Railway (WR) and Government Railway Police (GRP) officials, the shocking incident took place aboard the Churchgate-Nalasopara Fast Local (Train No. 90663), which left Churchgate at 10.05 pm and reached Andheri at 10.42 pm. As the train pulled out of Andheri, heavy rains started lashing the city. Lohar reportedly requested a fellow commuter standing near the doorway to shut the door, as rainwater was blowing into the compartment and inconveniencing those seated inside. The other commuter, wearing a dark shirt and trousers, allegedly refused and it started a heated verbal exchange which quickly escalated into a raging argument as the train raced through Goregaon and Malad. Then, in a horrifying burst of violence, the suspect allegedly pulled out a knife and repeatedly stabbed Lohar in the abdomen and chest as the train zoomed past Kandivali. Stunned Silence The other terrified commuters watched in stunned silence as the attack unfolded and ended within a matter of minutes claiming the young boy. Writhing in pain and bleeding profusely, Lohar collapsed onto the compartment floor as panic gripped the passengers and they scrambled away from the attacker, who reportedly continued to pace about menacingly. Eyewitnesses later said that as the train slowed while entering Borivali station’s Platform No. 6, the suspect calmly jumped off, ran up the staircase and vanished into the wet darkness. When the train halted at Borivali at 11.04 pm, the other commuters immediately alerted railway authorities. WR, GRP and medical personnel rushed to the platform within minutes with emergency equipment, medicos, porters and a stretcher. Lohar was first rushed to the station’s Emergency Medical Room, where a doctor examined him and declared him dead. His body was later shifted to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali for post-mortem and other legal formalities. Special Teams The brutal killing sent shockwaves across Mumbai’s suburban rail network. In the morning, Borivali GRP Senior Police Inspector Datta Khuperkar said seven special teams were formed and nearly 400 CCTV camera feeds were scrutinised to trace the suspect. The attacker was captured on multiple surveillance cameras, cool and casual, without a hint of remorse, walking out of Borivali station after the attack. Following an intensive 14-hour manhunt, he was tracked down and arrested at Panvel in Raigad. The Borivali GRP has registered a murder case and launched a detailed investigation. As news of the shocking crime spread amid Wednesday’s torrential rains, commuters expressed outrage and disbelief that a trivial dispute over closing a train door could culminate in such a savage killing. Pall of gloom in Virar Early Wednesday morning, the Lohar family of Virar was devastated on learning about the horrifying killing of their favourite child, Mayank in a train altercation. His parents, three brothers and a sister could barely speak, with his wailing mother demanding “he must be hanged”. Consoling each other, one sister lamented how he was a quiet boy, rarely stepped out of the house without any reason and had his entire life before him that was snuffed out. Venting their ire, they asked “where was the police, why the other commuters didn’t help him” and warned that today it was their son, “next it can be anybody’s son”. The massive dragnet Barely hours after the brutal killing of Mayank Lohar, the Borivali GRP launched one of the biggest manhunts to track and apprehend the suspected killer from Panvel in Raigad district. He was later identified as one Roshan Suvarna, 30, of Mira Road, running a barcode business, informed Borivali GRP Senior Police Inspector Datta Khuperkar. “We formed seven teams with around 10 police personnel supervised by 15 officers. They scanned footage from over 400 CCTVs to trace the regular movements of the accused. The GRP stations of Borivali, Andheri, Mira Road and Nalasopara were involved in the search. We deployed tech-intel to scour his mobile and with help of our network of informers, finally caught him in Panvel,” a weary but victorious Khuperkar told ‘The Perfect Voice’. He added that after completing the legal and medical formalities, he will be produced before a Borivali Court for remand.

Persian Paradox

More sanctions, secret talks and a raging nuclear chess game only prove why diplomacy with Iran is harder than ever.

The United States is once again tightening the screws on Iran. On Tuesday, it sanctioned three Iranian nationals and a state-linked entity over their ties to Tehran’s shadowy Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), which Washington sees as the modern-day incarnation of the country’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons programme, the Amad Project. This move follows a fresh round of indirect nuclear negotiations in Oman and another cascade of economic measures aimed at strangling Iran’s oil-based revenue networks.


The timing of these sanctions is telling. The fourth round of nu but progress remains elusive. Iran’s nuclear programme continues to gallop ahead. According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Islamic Republic is the only non-nuclear weapons state enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity - a stone’s throw from weapons-grade levels. Dual-use research into delivery systems remains active and procurement networks abroad help mask illicit acquisitions. Washington’s message bluntly says that these latest actions are meant to delay and degrade SPND’s nuclear research.


But diplomacy still simmers beneath the surface. Tehran even floated a proposal for a joint nuclear enrichment venture involving regional Arab states and American investments, an idea both bold and baffling, considering it would require cooperation between arch-rivals like Iran and Saudi Arabia, not to mention trust from a U.S. administration that has spent months reimposing Donald Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy.


That plan, leaked to the Iranian press, has sparked a domestic uproar. Even Farhikhtegan, a newspaper close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), questioned whether the offer amounted to a service or treason. The idea of involving the United States in Iranian nuclear infrastructure is politically toxic in Tehran, where hardliners remain deeply suspicious of Western engagement after the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018.


That deal was Barack Obama’s diplomatic high-water mark: a multilateral pact that capped Iranian enrichment levels in exchange for sanctions relief. But when Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, Iran resumed enrichment, albeit gradually at first. Since then, its nuclear capabilities have steadily grown. The Biden administration’s early efforts to revive the JCPOA collapsed amid mutual distrust.


The latest round of sanctions points to another escalation, this time aimed not just at Iran, but at its trading partner: China. On the same day, the U.S. Treasury blacklisted more than 20 companies linked to a sprawling oil network used to funnel billions of dollars to China. These firms, ranging from Singaporean inspection companies to Chinese shipping agents, allegedly disguised Iranian oil shipments, helping Tehran’s armed forces bankroll their drone and ballistic missile programmes and fund proxies like the Houthis in Yemen.


Such backdoor exports remain a vital lifeline for Iran’s regime. Yet, despite the sanctions, they continue largely unabated. If Washington wants to truly squeeze Tehran’s finances, analysts argue it would need to sanction major Chinese banks - something successive administrations have balked at, fearing the geopolitical fallout. However, using counterterrorism authorities to issue these new sanctions may be a subtle step toward that goal. It signals not only America’s determination to block nuclear proliferation, but also a triangulation strategy: pressuring China to rein in Iran.


Yet sanctions alone won’t yield a breakthrough. Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has publicly rejected calls to dismantle his country’s nuclear infrastructure. The Islamic Republic’s negotiating posture is tougher; its nuclear capacity, greater and its domestic politics, more tightly gripped by security hardliners.


The real paradox is that while both Washington and Tehran speak of peace, their actions lean toward conflict. Sanctions proliferate, enrichment accelerates and the region’s fault lines deepen. If a new accord is to emerge from the ashes of the JCPOA, it will require more than backchannel talks in Muscat. It will need imagination, trust and the political will to step back from the brink. Neither side, for now, seems ready to do so.

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