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By:

Vinod Chavan

30 September 2025 at 3:04:23 pm

Birder Cop finds an Australian tagged bird

Latur: G. Thikanna, serving in the Andaman Police Department as an Assistant Sub-Inspector in Communications was posted on one of the most remote and lesser-inhabited islands in the world to complete a one-month tenure. This island lies about 140 nautical miles away from the capital city, far from his family and loved ones in Port Blair. Life there is challenging, with no mobile network and no regular power supply. The only source of electricity is a portable generator that runs for about...

Birder Cop finds an Australian tagged bird

Latur: G. Thikanna, serving in the Andaman Police Department as an Assistant Sub-Inspector in Communications was posted on one of the most remote and lesser-inhabited islands in the world to complete a one-month tenure. This island lies about 140 nautical miles away from the capital city, far from his family and loved ones in Port Blair. Life there is challenging, with no mobile network and no regular power supply. The only source of electricity is a portable generator that runs for about three hours a day just enough to charge communication devices and essential equipment. This was his second visit to the island in 2025. On the morning of June 16, 2025, during a routine inspection of the shoreline, he noticed a small bird moving along with the tidal waves. What caught his attention, however, was that the bird was having some colour tags on it legs. The photographs revealed that the bird had three tags: a red flag leg above the knee and a yellow tag under the knee on it right leg. The left leg had a metal ring. The red flag had a code which read DYM. In March 2026, Dr. Raju Kasambe, ornithologist and former Assistant Director at Bombay Natural History Society, and founder of Mumbai Bird Katta, visited South Andaman for a birding trip by his venture. Thikanna shared his observation and photographs with him. Dr. Kasambe took great interest and asked Thikanna to send the photographs. He identified the bird as Sanderling (Calidris alba), which breeds in the extreme northern parts of Asia, Europe and North America. After studying the shorebird Colour Marking Protocol for the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF) Dr. Kasambe realized that the bird was tagged in South Australia. He informed the EEAF team and Ms. Katherine Leung reverted with the information about the tagging of this tiny migratory wader, which weighs just 40-100gramms. The wader was tagged on 13 April 2025 by Ms. Maureen Christie at the Danger Pt, Brown Bay, near Port Macdonnell, in South Australia. That means the wader had reached Narcondam Island after two months and three days on its return journey back the its breeding grounds in extreme northern parts of Asia. The straight-line distance the bird had flown was an amazing 7472km and it hadn’t yet reached its final destination – the breeding grounds. This is first record of resighting of any tagged bird on the Narcondam Island, as the island remains mostly inaccessible to bird watchers. Interesting, the Island is home to the endemic Narcondam Hornbill, a species which is not found anywhere in the world. Mr. G. Thikanna is associated with the Andaman avians Club which conducted bird watching and towards creating awareness about birds in the Andaman Island. Other members of the club have congratulated him on the great find in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Top terrorists killed in operation

New Delhi: The Indian strikes on terror nerve centres of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir under Operation Sindoor on May 7 have neutralised five most wanted terrorists of these organisations, including the mastermind of IC-814 hijacking in 1999, officials said Saturday.


The funerals of these terrorists were attended by senior Pakistan Army officers and police personnel, besides wreaths were placed on behalf of the chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Maryam Nawaz, providing an open testimony of the Pakistan State's collusion with terrorist organisations, they said.


Mohammad Yusuf Azhar, listed at number 21 in the most wanted list of terrorists prepared by the Union Home Ministry, is the brother-in-law of Maulana Masood Azhar, the dreaded chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).


He was the mastermind of the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in which Masood Azhar was released with two other dreaded terrorists in exchange of passengers and crew members of the Indian Airlines flight that was taken to Kandhar in southern Afghanistan by the terrorists.


Yusuf Azhar was present in the Bahwalpur headquarters of the JeM, where he imparted weapons training to the cadres, with his family members when Indian munitions hit the centre with clinical precision, reducing it to rubble.


Another brother-in-law of Masood Azhar, Hafiz Muhammed Jameel, who was in-charge of Markaz Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, a massive training centre for JeM terrorists, was also eliminated in the strike, they said.


Jameel was actively involved in the radical indoctrination of youth and fundraising for the JeM.


Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Mudassar Khadian Khas, who went by the alias Mudassar and Abu Jundal and was in-charge of Markaz Taiba, Muridke, was killed in the strike on the proscribed organisation's nerve centre by Indian forces.


His funeral exposed the active collusion between the Pakistan State and terror after videos of him getting a guard of honour from the Pakistan Army were circulated on social media.


It was noticed that wreaths were laid on behalf of the Pakistan Army Chief and Punjab CM Maryam Nawaz, who is the daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and niece of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.


Army officers present

The funeral prayer was led by Hafiz Abdul Rauf of Jamaat al-Dawah -- who is a designated global terrorist -- and attended by a serving Lt. General of the Pakistan Army and the Inspector General of Punjab Police in a government school, concrete evidence of the State being hand in glove with the terrorists.


A Lashkar terrorist, Khalid alias Abu Akasha was involved in multiple terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, besides weapons smuggling from Afghanistan.


His funeral, held in Faisalabad, was attended by senior Pakistani Army officials and the Deputy Commissioner of Faisalabad.


Mohammad Hassan Khan, the son of the operational commander of JeM in PoJK, Mufti Asghar Khan Kashmiri, was also eliminated in the strike.

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