Haryana Govt Sends Top Cop Accused of Caste-Based Harassment on Leave; Pakistan PM Sharif Pays Glowing Tribute to Peacemaker Trump; India, Canada to Resume Trade Talks, Increase Diplomatic Staffing

Zoho and Questions of Sovereignty In Swadeshi-Ware; Mumbai Police Book TISS Students For GN Saibaba Memorial; INDIA to Boycott Parliamentary Panel That Will Examine Amit Shah's Bills For Removing CMs

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Snapshot of the day

October 14, 2025

Sidharth Bhatia

Facing heat over the death by suicide of senior IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar, who belonged to a Dalit community and who had alleged caste-based harassment by Haryana top cop Shatrujeet Kapur and Rohtak police superintendent Narendra Bijarniya in a typed note, the state government late yesterday put Kapur on leave; it had transferred Bijarniya days earlier. It remains to be seen how Kumar’s family, which had demanded that both Kapur and Bijarniya be suspended and arrested as a precondition for granting permission for his post-mortem and cremation, will respond to this development. Meanwhile, the Indian Express reports that an assistant sub-inspector of police in Rohtak, Sandeep Kumar, died of suspected suicide today and left behind a message levelling corruption allegations against Puran Kumar.

It has been reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sonipat for a rally marking chief minister Nayab Saini’s first full year in power stands cancelled – presumably because of the controversy that has developed over the government’s failure to act on the demands of the deceased officer’s family. Vivek Gupta notes that pressure from both the opposition and the BJP’s allies including the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and the Republican Party of India is believed to have driven the government’s decision to put Kapur on leave.

Today Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi visited Kumar’s family in Chandigarh along with state Congress leaders Bhupender Hooda, Kumari Selja and Rao Narender Singh. Demanding the immediate arrest of the officers Kumar named in his final note, Gandhi said that the message the case is sending out to Dalit people across India is that “no matter how successful you are, no matter how intelligent you are but you can be suppressed, you can be crushed, you can be thrown away. This is not acceptable to us.”

During the ‘Gaza Peace Summit’ in Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – who was the only dignitary apart from Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to address the event after the ceasefire document was signed – said that even though he had already nominated the American president for a Nobel Peace Prize for ‘stopping the war’ between India and Pakistan, he would like to do so again in light of the breakthrough in Gaza. “I genuinely feel that he is the most genuine and most wonderful candidate for the Peace Prize,” said Sharif in an effusive speech, because not only did Trump “save millions of lives” in South Asia, he had done the same for West Asia. He continued:

“Mr President, I would like to salute you for your exemplary leadership, your visionary leadership, and I think that you’re the man the world needed most at this point in time. The world will always remember you as a man who did everything, went out of his way, to stop seven and today eight wars.”

Trump, who has reportedly been miffed over New Delhi’s refusal to endorse his claim of having mediated the end to the India-Pakistan conflict, was visibly pleased. “Wow, I didn’t expect that. Let’s go home, there’s nothing more I have to say, goodbye everybody. That was really beautiful and beautifully delivered, wow. Thank you very much,” he said after Sharif’s address. Notably he had also praised his “favourite field marshal” – Asim Munir – in absentia while inviting Sharif to take to the dais.

The Supreme Court questioned the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) raids in Tamil Nadu in connection with the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited (TASMAC) liquor shop licensing scam. The court asked the ED, “Are you not interfering in the powers of the state police?” The Supreme Court bench, comprising Chief Justice (CJI) B.R. Gavai and Justice Vinod Chandran, asked, “If the state police cannot investigate this scam, is the ED’s intervention necessary? What impact will this have