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1 ! "# $ ! ! " ! % & & ! ! " '() ( 'Two back-to-back incidentsof lynching over attemptedsacrilege, in less than 24 hours,have sent shockwaves acrossPunjab. Hours after the shock-ing incident of an unidentifiedyouth being beaten to death forattempting sacrilege of theGuru Granth Sahib in theSikhs holiest shrine theGolden Temple, another per-son was killed on Sundaymorning by a mob at a villageGurdwara in Kapurthala forsuspected theft and attemptedsacrilege, reportedly in thepresence of policemen, three ofwhom were left injured in the StateGovernment has set up aSpecial Investigation Team(SIT))

2 To probe the GoldenTemple sacrilege incidentwith directions to submit itsreport within two days, thepolice officials on Sundayclaimed that there was novisible sign of sacrilege in thesecond incident at theKapurthala Gurdwara. There is no visible sign ofsacrilege at Gurdwara sahib. AnFIR registered under Sections295A of the IPC (Indian PenalCode) has been about the attack iswith the police, and the iden-tity of the man killed is beingverified. If it appears to be mur-der, then the FIR will be regis-tered accordingly, saidInspector-General (IG)Jalandhar Range, GurinderSingh Dhillon, while address-ing the Dhillon said that peo-ple s sentiments had been run-ning high after the GoldenTemple incident, and as itwas a sensitive issue, the policeused restraint.

3 Those people,who managed to do this, weremore in number than thepolice. As per officials, theman was beaten to death by thelocals for allegedly disrespect-ing the Nishan Sahib (theSikh religious flag) at theGurdwara in village Nizampurin Kapurthala district. The res-idents claimed that the mandisrespected the sacred flagand tried to run away from per the informationavailable, soon after the youthwas caught by the people at theGurudwara in the morning, thepolice officials, includingKapurthala SeniorSuperintendent of Police (SSP)Harkamalpreet Singh Khakh,rushed to the spot.

4 The copsdirected the locals to handover the youth with the assur-ance that the police wouldinvestigate the matter, but theyrefused. Amidst several viralvideos of the incident, thepolice officials and the locals,mainly the Sikhs, were seenexchanging heated argumentsover the custody of the youth,who had been detained in a Continued on P4 )*+ *,' North India remained inthe grip of severe cold onSunday as the chilly north-westerly winds with speeds ofup to 15 kmph brought theminimum temperature belowthe freezing point in severalcities for the second-consecu-tive cold wave condi-tions swept parts of Delhi,Uttar Pradesh (UP)

5 , Punjab,Haryana, Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh (MP), Jammu andKashmir (J&K), Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Muzaffarabad,Uttarakhand and HimachalPradesh for the second day ina witnessed the sea-son's coldest morning onSunday with the city recordinga minimum temperature degrees Celsius, accordingto the weather maximum tempera-ture is likely to settle around 18degrees Celsius, said the IndiaMeteorological Department(IMD).According to the IMD,there would not be any let-upin the cold wave conditionover the next three days. Coldand dry north-westerly winds,gusting up to 15 kmph, are like-ly to continue over the plains ofnorthwest India till Tuesdayenhancing the adverse impactof the cold wave and cold dayconditions , it per the IMD data,Churu in Rajasthan reportedthe lowest minimum temper-ature of minus degreesCelsius in northwest India fol-lowed by Sikar (minus Celsius) and Amritsar(minus degree Celsius).

6 No significant change inminimum temperatures likelyover most parts of NorthwestIndia, Gujarat and Maharashtraduring the next two days andrise by two-three degreesCelsius thereafter. Gradual fallin minimum temperatures bytwo-three degrees Celsius verylikely over most parts of Eastand adjoining Central Indiaduring the next three days andno significant change there-after, said an IMD bulletinissued on fog is predicted in afew regions of Uttarakhandover the next two days and inPunjab and Haryana onDecember 23 and 24, it recorded a low ofminus six degrees Celsius on Continued on P4 )

7 *+ *,' India's Omicron count surgedto 147 on Sunday after twopeople, including a teenager,tested positive for the variantafter recently returning toGujarat from the UnitedKingdom. Maharashtra withsix more Omicron patients onSunday tops the list of theworst-hit State taking its tallyto 54. As many as 22 activecases of Omicron are fromMumbai. Ringing the alarm bell,Bhramar Mukherjee, Professorof Epidemiology at theUniversity of Michigan, tweet-ed that Omicron being high-ly transmissible, vaccines (with-out booster), past infectionsprovide only modest protec-tion, so, a huge portion of theIndian population may be sus-ceptible again.

8 Instead of just highlight-ing the possibility of Omicronbeing clinically mild, we needto recognise that a very largenumber of infections over ashort period of time may leadto the same number of peopleneeding hospital beds as thesecond wave: absolute numbersmatter, not just rates, shetweeted on WHO has alreadywarned that the Omicron coro-navirus variant cases are dou-bling in to 3 days in areaswith community reported the firsttwo cases of Omicron inKarnataka on December 2 afterthe heavily mutated variant ofthe coronavirus was firstreported in South Africa onNovember 24.

9 Since then thevirus is spreading fast in India,some cases are being reportedin travellers from South Africawhile many others have notravel history, indicating com-munity transmission of Saturday, India report-ed 30 fresh cases of theOmicron variant of the coron-avirus from Maharashtra,Karnataka, Kerala andTelangana. On Friday, therewere 26 new Omicron cases inthe country on Friday and 14on Thursday and there were 12infections on both Tuesdayand cases have nowbeen detected in 12 States andUnion territories-Maharashtrahas reported 48 cases, Delhi 22,Telangana 20, Rajasthan 17,Karnataka 14, Kerala 11,Gujarat 9, Uttar Pradesh 2, andone each in Andhra Pradesh,Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu andWe s t B e n g a l.

10 A Gujarat health depart-ment official said on Sunday anon-resident Indian (NRI) test-ed positive for Omicron in theRT-PCR test carried out at theAhmedabad international air-New Delhi: Amid an ongoingdebate whether booster shotsshould be administered or not,a team of researchers from theUK has said booster dosescould provide around 85 percent protection against to reports, thebooster dose-protection is a bitless than vaccines given againstearlier versions of Covid. But itmeans the top-up dose shouldstill keep many people out ofthe hospital.