India on Friday reported 1,246 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours and logged two deaths. According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the active cases have now reached 7,927.

The country reported two deaths in a single day, one each from Karnataka and Gujarat, taking the death toll to 5,30,818.

The daily positivity was recorded at 1.19 percent while the weekly positivity was recorded at 1.14 percent, as per the official data.

The ministry said the active cases now comprise 0.02 percent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.79 percent.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,61,922, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 percent.

India on Thursday added 1,300 cases, the highest in 140 days, to the total Covid-19 cases in the country.

According to the ministry’s website, 220.65 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified from his membership as a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Lok Sabha after his conviction and subsequent two-year prison sentence in a 2019 defamation case by a court in Gujarat’s Surat city yesterday.

This is a breaking story and more details will follow.

Fugitive Khalistani leader Amritpal Singh may be headed for Delhi, a day after his last known location was traced to Haryana, reports quoting sources have claimed.

An NDTV report quoting sources said the security has been heightened across the national capital as its suspected that the notorious ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief may be headed to Delhi after last being spotted in Shahabad in Haryana’s Kurukshetra.

On Sunday, Amritpal Singh and his associate Papalpreet Singh, had stayed at Shahabad home of a woman identified as Baljeet Kaur, who was arrested yesterday, Punjab Police said.

A video with a time stamp of Monday, doing the rounds on the internet yesterday showed the fugitive Sikh preacher dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans, trying to hide his face with an umbrella as he was departing from the Baljeet Kaur’s house in Shahabad.

On Thursday, the Punjab Police arrested Amritpal Singh’s former gunman and notorious associate, Tejinder Singh aka Gorkha Baba.

A report quoted DSP Payal Harsimrat Singh of the Punjab Police as saying that Tejinder Singh, a resident of Punjab’s Mangewal village, was nabbed by the Khanna police.

DSP Harsimrat said Tejinder, who was a gunman for Amritpal Singh for a long period and often lived with the Waris Punjab De chief, is also involved in the Ajnala case. The officer said that Tejinder, also known as Gorkha Baba, was very active on social media and often posts pictures of himself brandishing different weapons due to which he’s wanted in a separate case registered against him at Malaud police station.

The official further said that Tejinder has been booked under sections 107/151 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and two other aides who accompanied him, have also been taken into custody and are being questioned.

A nation-wide crackdown was launched to nab Amritpal Singh after last month, the dreaded Khalistani leader and his supporters armed with swords and guns, stormed a police station in Ajnala on the outskirts of Amritsar city and clashed with police for the release of one of his aides Lovepreet Singh.