Archives for July 2017

Bengaluru: Congress leader Dinesh Gundu Rao and his wife Tabassum on Wednesday took condemned the remarks made by MP Shobha Karandlaje for commenting on their personal life.

Both Dinesh and Tabassum made statements against the remarks made on them and said that the minister should not link their personal life to politics. Tabassum reported took it on her Facebook Page while her husband Dinesh addressed the media and spoke out on the issue.

MP Shobha had earlier made statements over Dinesh and his wife Tabassum. It was after CM Siddaramaiah recently asked BJP leaders to make their children Dalits if they really care about them.

Dinesh advised Shobha to get married when he condemned her remarks. “I got married in 1994. Everybody knows whom I have married. I think Shobha still has a chance to marry somebody,” he said.

Dinesh further said “BJP is trying to divide society on the basis of religion. The BJP leaders have realised that they cannot win the next Assembly elections.” he added.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: A man was beaten up in Nagpur in Maharashtra by a four-member gang for allegedly carrying beef. The incident has been reported in Bharsingi area of the city. A case has been registered by Nagpur police and four people have been detained for interrogation, news agency reported.

A video showing the man, whose identity is not known yet, being dragged and kicked around by the men. The meat sample has reportedly been sent for forensic analysis.

The incident follows a long list of such cases of mobs taking law into their own hands often resulting in casualties. Last month, protests broke out in various parts of the country against targeted lynchings of minorities and Dalits after Junaid Khan, a 15-year-old, was stabbed to death on a Mathura-bound train by a mob in Ballabhgarh in Haryana.

Khan’s death ensued after an argument over train seats escalated. Khan and his friends were called ‘beef-eaters’ by the mob and they were mocked over their skull caps.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at an event at the Sabarmati ashram in Gujarat, soon condemned violence in the name of ‘gau raksha’. “Killing people in the name of Gau Bhakti is not acceptable. This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve,” he tweeted.

(Agencies)

Lahore: The Pakistan Rangers Monday handed over 78 Indian prisoners, mostly fishermen, to the Border Security Force (BSF) at the Wagah Border after they were released from a jail in Karachi.

A Rangers’ official told PTI that 77 Indian fishermen and one other Indian prisoner were handed over to the BSF after verification of their immigration papers.

Indian prisoners were handed over after a parade that concluded at dawn, the official said.

The Indian fishermen, who were released from Karachi’s Landhi jail, yesterday were brought here by a train this afternoon.

“We received the fishermen at the Lahore railways station and brought them to Edhi Foundation and served them food. We have also presented them with a pair of shalwar kameez and Rs 5,000 as gift,” Edhi Foundation spokesman Younis Bhatti said.

He said the fishermen were later transported to the Wagah border by bus.

Most of the fishermen handed over to the BSF had completed their sentences at the Landhi jail. They had been held for crossing into Pakistani waters inadvertently.

About 298 Indian fishermen are still languishing in the Sindh province of Pakistan, media reports said.

Indian fishermen often languish in jail in Sindh even after serving their terms because of bureaucratic hurdles.

(PTI)

Panaji: In a shocking incident, a woman, currently in her 50’s, was today found to be ‘confined’ in a room in her parents’ house for the last twenty years for her ‘abnormal behaviour’ in Candolim village near here, the police said.

The woman, locked in a dark room which has been her world for the last two decades, was rescued after an NGO alerted the police.

“The woman was locked in a dark room of her parents’ house currently occupied by her two brothers and their family members. She was being served food and water through a window,” a senior police official told PTI tonight.

A team from the Women’s Police Station raided the house on the information given by the NGO ‘Bailancho Saad’.

The official said the NGO came to know about the woman through an email sent to them by a person who claimed to have seen the woman.

“When the police team entered the room, they found that the woman was naked and was reluctant to move out of the room which is located on the backside of her parent’s house,” the official said, adding she was confined in the dark room for almost 20 years.

Citing her family members, the official said the woman was briefly married to a man from Mumbai, but returned home soon after finding that he was already married.

“Her family members locked her in the room after she started behaving abnormally after her return from Mumbai,” the official said.

The woman was taken for medical treatment by the police.

“We are yet to arrest anyone in this case. The investigation is still at primary stage. The statement of family members of the woman is being recorded,” he said.

(PTI)

Hisar: A Muslim trader from UP was allegedly slapped by an unidentified person when he refused to raise ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ slogan during a protest by Bajrang Dal activists here against the attack on Amarnath pilgrims, police said today.

The activists of the Dal took out a march near a mosque here yesterday to protest the attack on pilgrims in Kashmir Valley.

The Muslim trader hailing from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh had come to the mosque to offer prayers yesterday when the Dal activists were taking out a march.

As the Bajrang Dal activists were raising ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ slogans, someone in the crowd asked the trader who was at the gate of the mosque, to raise the slogan.

When he refused, he was allegedly slapped by someone in the crowd, police said today, adding a complaint was filed by the trader against around 100 unidentified people who were part of the crowd.

A Bajrang Dal leader here said no one from the Dal had slapped the trader.

After the incident, the people in the mosque closed the main door of the religious place and informed the police.

The activists of Bajrang Dal, in the meanwhile, also dispersed after burning effigies and raising slogans against Pakistan.

A case of rioting, promoting enmity between classes, maliciously insulting religious beliefs of any class, causing disturbance to an assembly engaged in religious worship, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation has been registered against 100-125 unknown persons, police said.

Lalit Kumar, SHO, City Police Station said no arrest has been made so far.

(PTI)

Kolkata: The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has verbally communicated to a filmmaker to mute four words including ‘cow’ in his documentary on Amartya Sen, the director said.

The four words CBFC’s regional office here wanted to be muted are ‘Gujarat’, ‘cow’, ‘Hindutva view of India’ and ‘Hindu India’, Suman Ghosh, director of the documentary ‘The Argumentative Indian’, told PTI.

“After sitting for three hours at the Censor Board office in Kolkata, during which my documentary was screened and the members scrutinised every single shot, I was verbally told last night to mute four words ‘Gujarat’, ‘cow’, ‘Hindutva view of India’ and ‘Hindu India’ for getting U/A certificate,’ Gosh said. ‘I expressed my inability to them,” he said.

Taking out certain words from the discussion between Sen and the interviewer, economist Kaushik Basu, would remove the soul of the documentary, Ghosh said.

“I am waiting for their written communication and whether they will send the film to review committee in Mumbai. In any situation my response will be the same,” he said.

“These days films get online certification. So I hope the issue gets resolved quickly. But no question of taking out some words,” he added.

Contacted, a member of the CBFC here said, “Nothing to comment to the media on what the director said.”

In the documentary, Sen speaks of social choice theory, development economics, philosophy and the rise of right-wing nationalism across the world including India.

It has been made over a span of 15 years from 2002 and is structured as a conversation between Sen and his student economist Kaushik Basu.

(PTI)