80-YEAR-OLD...

accompanied the deceased’s son Shekhar Naik to file a missing person’s report on August 29.

The deceased, identified as Shamakant Tukaram Naik, owned several properties in Ulwe including shops, flats and plots and was worth several crores, senior police inspector Ravindra Patil from NRI Coastal police station informed.

Patil added, “Naik used to visit Chaudhary’s grocery shop. Naik had offered Chaudhary Rs5,000 to sleep with his wife. On August 29, Naik offered him Rs10,000 and told Chaudhary to send his wife Heena to Naik’s godown”

“Irked by his demand, Chaudhary pushed Naik, following which he fell on ground and started bleeding after his head hit against the corner of a table. Chaudhary immediately closed the shutter of the shop and then strangulated Naik. He kept the body in the washroom,”patil added.

The body was kept in the toilet till August 31, when at 5am, Chaudhary wrapped the body in a bedsheet and carrying it on his bike, dumped it in a pond. The accused in his statement claimed that he threw the clothes and mobile phone of the deceased in a garbage bin. It was not found yet by the police.

Naik’s family told the police that he had left home on the afternoon of August 29 and did not return home. His mobile was switched off. The police initially suspected that Naik was killed over property but CCTV footage led them to Chaudhary of foreign relations at NRF, said the Taliban’s claim of victory was false. “The NRF forces are present in all strategic positions across the valley to continue the fight,” he said on his Facebook page.

Experts have long doubted that the holdout efforts, despite Panjshir’s geographic advantage, could have succeeded long-term against the Taliban, whose rapid advance through Afghanistan met little resistance in the final days of America’s 20-year war in the country.

Panjshir, mainly inhabited by ethnic Tajik people, has immense symbolic value in Afghanistan as the area that has resisted occupation by invaders in the past.

Nestled in the towering Hindu Kush mountains, the valley has a single narrow entrance. Local fighters held off the Soviets there in the 1980s and also, for a brief time, the Taliban a decade later under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud.

‘OUR BROTHERS’

Taliban stuck to their assurances about having adopted a more moderate stand this time around. In the late 1990s, the last time they were in power, they became global pariahs for their harsh interpretation of Islamic law and restrictions on women.

On Monday, they sought to assure the people of Panjshir, who are ethnically distinct from the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, that there would be no “discriminatory act against them”.

“They are our brothers and would work together for a joint purpose and welfare of the country,” Mujahid said.

INTERIM GOVT

As they undertake a mammoth transition into overseeing key institutions and cities of hundreds of thousands of people, Mujahid said an interim government would first be announced, allowing for later changes.

“Final decisions have been taken, we are now working on the technical issues,” he said at the press conference.

The spokesperson said the Taliban will announce a new government “within days” — one that would be inclusive, he said, without elaborating. Once the government is formed, members of the former Afghan army and security forces would be asked to return to work to form an army with Taliban fighters, he added.

FLURRY OF DIPLOMACY

The international community too is coming to terms with the new Taliban regime.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken landed on Monday in Qatar, a key player in the Afghan saga. Qatar, which hosts a major US military base, has been the gateway for 55,000 people airlifted out of Afghanistan, nearly half the total evacuated by Us-led forces after the Taliban takeover on August 15.

Blinken was expected to speak to the Qataris about efforts alongside Turkey to reopen Kabul’s airport, which is necessary for flying in badly needed humanitarian aid and evacuating remaining Afghans.

The US withdrew its last troops a week ago, and ended a harrowing airlift to evacuate Western citizens and their Afghan allies that was marred by scenes of desperation and horrific violence.

During that evacuation, thousands of people descended on Kabul’s airport, hoping to flee the country because they feared what the Taliban’s rule might hold, given their history of repression, particularly of women.

In the last days of the US’S final departure on August 30, an Islamic State suicide bomber targeted the crowds, killing 169 Afghans and 13 American service members.

Many people are still hoping to leave the country, but with Kabul’s airport not yet running international flights, their choices are few. In the country’s north, officials said on Sunday that at least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people have been unable to leave the country for days. On Monday, the US confirmed its first overland extraction since it ended its air evacuation efforts.