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Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot dismisses ‘Love Jihad’ cases as jumla: Watch

OpIndia Staff
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Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot dismisses ‘Love Jihad’ cases as jumla: Watch

A series of brutal murders and abuse centred around forced conversion has been reported in recent times, highlighting the growing menace of love jihad and forced religious conversion of Hindu women to Islam in name of ‘love’. When clearly asked about his views on this phenomenon, Rajasthan CM and Congress senior leader Ashok Gehlot Monday went on to dismiss cases of Love Jihad by calling it ‘Jumla.’

In a video clip posted by news agency ANI on Monday, November 21, the reporter is heard explicitly asking Gehlot what he thinks of ‘Love Jihad.’ Gehlot casually suggested, citing Shraddha Walkar’s horrific death as a mere context, that “love jihad” is a “Jumla” devised to attack and defame a particular community.

The question posed to Gehlot was about the Love Jihad cases, however, the Rajasthan CM brought in Shraddha’s case, which is not a case of Love Jihad, and used it as an excuse to dismiss all Love jihad cases as ‘Jumla’.

Rajasthan’s chief minister stated, “Shraddha’s death was an unfortunate incident. Inter-caste and interfaith marriages have been common for a long time. However, by linking the ‘Jumla’ to the tragedy, politics is being done in a way that targets one specific community.”

The Rajasthan Chief Minister’s reaction is consistent with the left ecosystem and mainstream media, which have consistently turned a blind eye to Hindu (and even Sikh and Christian) victims. So much so, that even forceful and rampant religious conversions plaguing the country have been termed as a Hindu right-wing conspiracy.

Cases of Grooming Jihad, more commonly known as ‘love jihad’ fly in from every part of the country. From Islamists luring Hindu women by disguising themselves as Hindu men, bribing Hindu men of jobs and marriage on conversion to converting deaf and mute kids to push them into terrorism. There’s no dearth of cases to indicate how the forced religious conversion industry works like well-oiled and planned machinery. 

Whether the widespread liberals and the left-controlled education system believe it or not, it is now a well-established fact that the menace of Grooming Jihad or Love Jihad exists and a well-organised syndicate, sponsored by many radical Islamic organisations has been working towards it in an attempt to push the Islamist political goals of demography change and eventual establishment of a caliphate in non-Islamic regions.

We at OpIndia have, over the years, reported multiple such incidents where susceptible and vulnerable Hindu women are being targeted by Muslim men, lured and brainwashed, forcefully converted to Islam, tortured, raped and then either killed or abandoned.

Gehlot had earlier claimed that the murder of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur, where 2 self-confessed Islamic jihadis beheaded a poor tailor and proclaimed it as a punishment for ‘insulting Islam and Islam’s prophet’, is not communal. He had called it an act of terror and had tried to insinuate that religion had nothing to do with it.

Excise policy scam: Delhi HC directs news channels to report the case based on press releases by investigative agencies

OpIndia Staff
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Excise policy scam: Delhi HC directs news channels to report the case based on press releases by investigative agencies

On Monday, the Delhi High Court ordered news channels to follow the standards that govern them and to assure that all broadcasts covering the liquor scam case are predicated on official press releases issued by the investigative agencies. The court ordered television news channels to affirm that all telecasts on the excise fraud case are “in tune with the official press releases.”

The directives were issued in response to a plea brought by AAP communication in-charge Vijay Nair, an accused in the Delhi liquor scam case, who claimed that the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate had released sensitive material to news channels. Nair said that the purported disclosure jeopardised his legal rights.

Five television news networks received notices from a single-judge panel chaired by Justice Yashwant Varma, and the National Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) was given instructions to “duly examine the broadcasts and tell the court whether they have complied with their guidelines.”

During the hearing, the high court directed the CBI and the ED to document their official press releases and communications, and stated that it would assess the statements issued to the media to ascertain whether the TV channels reported the case on the basis of the official statements or on “a figment of their imagination.”

Following a review of the press releases, the court concluded that there is no correlation between the news broadcasts and the information supplied by the agency. However, the court noted that “…it is not a case where information was collectively leaked by investigative agencies.”

The court was surprised by the News Broadcaster and Digital Standard Authority (NBDSA)’s claim that it lacked the authority to restrict the channels. According to Advocate Nisha Bhambhani, counsel for the NBDSA, some of the broadcasters were not their partners. After taking note of the submission, the bench directed to Implead NBDSA and investigate what had been broadcast. The case has been adjourned until February 7, 2023.

On September 27, Vijay Nair was arrested and held in CBI custody for five days. In court, the CBI alleged that Nair was actively involved in the formulation of the Delhi government’s liquor policy for 2021-22 and that he met with the co-accused, liquor manufacturers, and distributors in various hotels in Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Delhi to arrange illicit money through hawala operators.

Vijay Nair was the former CEO of Only Much Louder, a Mumbai-based entertainment and event management organisation (OML). He served as a ‘part-time volunteer’ for the Aam Aadmi Party in the run-up to the 2020 Delhi State Legislative Assembly elections. OpIndia published a detailed report on Vijay Nair and his association with the Aam Aadmi Party.

‘Ladki hoon lad sakti hoon’ but Bharatsinh Solanki, accused by his estranged wife of domestic violence, shares stage with Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat

OpIndia Staff
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‘Ladki hoon lad sakti hoon’ but Bharatsinh Solanki, accused by his estranged wife of domestic violence, shares stage with Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat

Ahead of Gujarat state assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi took a slight detour from his Bharat Jodo ‘container yatra’ and visited the poll bound state to address rallies. His one rally was in Surat, where he arrived via helicopter, and other in Rajkot. While addressing a rally in Surat, Congress brought up former Gujarat Pradesh Congress President Bharatsinh Solanki on stage as ‘translator’ so he could translate Rahul Gandhi’s speech from Hindi to Gujarati.

However, amusingly, after about 13 minutes into addressing the gathering, while Rahul Gandhi was recounting the anecdote about his grandmother and how he enjoyed reading a picture book, Solanki stopped translation midway and left the stage saying how people in Gujarat can understand Rahul Gandhi’s Hindi and they would not quite need a translator.

Gujaratis, as a community, have always been welcoming and even if they are not fluent in Hindi, they would try to accommodate those who do not understand regional language to make them feel at home. Further, Gujarati and Hindi being sister languages, Hindi becomes fairly simpler to comprehend.

Bharatsinh Solanki had taken ‘break’ from politics over altercation with estrange wife

Former Gujarat Congress President Bharatsinh Solanki, in June this year announced a ‘short break’ from active politics after his estranged wife beat him up along with a woman she accused him of having an affair with. She had earlier accused him of domestic violence.

In the viral video from June this year, Solanki’s wife caught him with a girl in the girl’s house, and that even led to a physical altercation. During the press conference, Bharatsinh Solanki leveled several allegations against his wife, with whom he has been having a long-standing dispute.

Reshma Patel, Bharatsinh Solanki’s estranged wife, was seen beating him up after she caught her husband red-handed with another girl in his bungalow in Anand. 

In the video, it is seen that as soon as Reshma Patel opens the door and enters the house, Bharatsinh Solanki comes running and stops Reshma Patel and asks to call the police. However, Reshma Patel and the people accompanying her enter the house and Reshma Patel catches hold of the girl and starts beating her and pulling her hair. However, in the meantime, Bharatsinh Solanki appears to be stopping them.

In the video, ‘You are sitting with my husband… I won’t leave you…’ and more sentences like ‘Take the video of this’ and ‘Show your face’ are heard. Meanwhile, the girl is seen trying to hide her face.

Later Solanki had said he had gone to the woman’s house to have an ice cream. “That house belonged to the girl Riddhi Parmar. Let me be frank and tell you that if I get rid of my wife, she will be ready to accept me and it will be my third marriage. If someone agrees to accept me, then I am destined to have a third marriage,” he had said.

However, despite the videos of a woman associated with Solanki being beaten up brutally by his estranged wife had gone viral, no one from party’s leadership have given a statement on it. For a party that claims to be about women empowerment, they have been quite silent on the two women in this story.

Bharatsinh Solanki is son of Madhavsinh Solanki, former Gujarat Chief Minister who came up with the ‘KHAM’ (Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim) theory for Congress votebank. Under his chief ministership, Gujarat witnessed some of the worst communal riots in the 80s.

Chennai: Police arrest Najibuddin over sexual assault and murder of his lover’s 18-year-old daughter; media outlets choose to refer to him by his alias ‘Raju’

OpIndia Staff
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Chennai: Police arrest Najibuddin over sexual assault and murder of his lover’s 18-year-old daughter; media outlets choose to refer to him by his alias ‘Raju’

On November 17, Chennai Police arrested 28-year-old Najibuddin alias Raju Mani Nair for killing his lover’s 18-year-old daughter. The incident took place on November 12. The forensic experts said Najibuddin had intercourse with the corpse before fleeing the crime scene. He was hiding in Virar East. Najibuddin was a live-in partner of the victim’s mother.

Media reports decided to use Najibuddin’s alias to report the crime

Najibuddin, who has an alias Raju Mani Nair, was named Raju in the media reports. While media houses like Times of India and New Indian Express at least named him Najibuddin once in their reports, Mid Day decided to use only Raju Mani Iyer in the report and completely ignored the name Najibuddin.

The mother found her daughter motionless

The mother of the victim filed a complaint at Poonamalle Police Station, Chennai, against her lover for allegedly strangulating her daughter when she was not at home. The complainant said, “When I returned home from work, the house was locked from the outside. I opened the door with my keys and found my daughter lying unconscious. There were marks around her neck, and she was not breathing. I was in shock. Later, when I asked a neighbour, she said Raju had left in a hurry after locking the door.”

Najibbudin stole jewellery and cash

She further told the police that Najibuddin took away the earrings and the silver anklet of her daughter that she was wearing at that time. “A part of the jewellery, Rs 20,000 in cash, were missing. As per reports, the woman was not living with her husband for the past five years. Both of her children lived with her husband. Later, she started living with Najibuddin. A few months ago, she brought her daughter to live with them. In her statement to the police, she said, “Raju had promised me that he would take care of my children. That is the reason I brought them to stay with me.”

The victim’s mother accused Najibuddin of making sexual advances on her daughter

She added recently, Najibuddin started making sexual advances at her daughter. Around fifteen days ago, he touched her daughter inappropriately while they were sleeping. “She got up and shouted at him. Even since then, my daughter started to dislike him,” the mother said in her complaint. As per the New Indian Express report, following the incident, the mother had a fight with Najibuddin and asked him to leave.

Najibuddin might have planned the murder

The police are not denying the possibility that Najibuddin might have planned the murder as he had asked the victim’s mother to leave the phone at home when he was leaving for work. Inspector PR Chidambaramurugesan of the Poonamallee police (law and order) said, “The forensic team orally told me that the killer had sexual intercourse with the girl’s body.”

The police booked the Poonamallee police (law and order) under Sections 302 (murder) and 380 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). After committing the crime, Najibuddin went to his wife. Chidambaramurugesan said, “At the time of fleeing, he had taken the mobile phones of the deceased and her mother. Though he had kept his phone switched off, he had turned on one of the stolen phones, sending an alert to the police. We then contacted Virar police and reached there to arrest him.”

Najibuddin was previously involved in robbery and chain snatching

As per reports, the police had formed five special teams to arrest Najibuddin. He was traced based on the mobile location and CCTV footage. On Thursday, he was located in Mumbai and arrested by the police. Najibuddin was allegedly involved in crimes previously, including robbery and chain-snatching.

European nations won’t wear One Love armbands at World Cup to support LGBTQ as FIFA threatens them into respecting Qatar’s anti-homosexuality stand

OpIndia Staff
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European nations won’t wear One Love armbands at World Cup to support LGBTQ as FIFA threatens them into respecting Qatar’s anti-homosexuality stand

9 European countries, including England, Wales, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark have decided that their captains will not be wearing ‘One Love’ armbands during the Qatar World Cup after FIFA threatened to sanction the players if they wear one. With the possibility that their captain may see a yellow card at best and even a red card, the football associations of these countries decided against the armband.

The idea behind the armbands was to extend support to the LGBTQ+ community during the World Cup in Qatar, a country where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by law. Treatment of LGBTQ+ community in Qatar has been a matter of a lot of discussion in the lead-up to the tournament, however, FIFA is in no mood to let that discussion continue.

The captains of these European countries, like Harry Kane, Gareth Gale, and Simon Kjaer had pledged to wear the armband to support LGBTQ+ community during the tournament but now that their football associations have bowed down to FIFA’s pressure, it is unlikely to happen.

A joint statement by the football associations said that they couldn’t put their captains in a situation where they could be sanctioned.

The statement said, “We were prepared to pay fines that would normally apply to breaches of kit regulations and had a strong commitment to wearing the armband. Fifa has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play”.

Qatar has come under a lot of criticism for its treatment of the migrant workers in the country and its treatment of the LGBTQ+ community before the tournament began last night in Al Bayt Stadium. However, looks like FIFA is in no mood to let anyone talk about Qatar’s controversial policies while the tournament is in progress.

In place of the one love armband, FIFA has proposed a “No Discrimination” armband that can be worn right through the tournament. FIFA will start its “No Discrimination” campaign from the Quarter Finals stage of the tournament, however, openly supporting LGBTQ+ community will not be allowed during the campaign.

BJP releases sting video of Aam Aadmi Party taking money in lieu of MCD tickets in Delhi, names of Gopal Rai and Atishi Marlena come up

OpIndia Staff
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BJP releases sting video of Aam Aadmi Party taking money in lieu of MCD tickets in Delhi, names of Gopal Rai and Atishi Marlena come up

In a disclosure of allegedly deep seeded corruption in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday presented two sting recordings at a media briefing allegedly showing the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) selling tickets for Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) elections.

Bindu Sriram, a former AAP worker, allegedly filmed the clips and asserted she was asked to pay 80 lakh rupees for a ticket. AAP leader Sriram, who filmed the sting, was also present at the press conference, along with BJP national spokesman Sambit Patra and Rohini MLA Vijender Gupta.

AAP official Puneet Goyal and a man by the name of Dinesh Saraf can be heard telling AAP leader Bindu Sriram that she must pay Rs. 80 lakh in return for an electoral ticket from Ward 54 Rohini-D in the first part of the sting operation. Saraf is a relative of AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Gupta, whilst Goyal is in charge of the Rohini-D seat and is reported to be close to Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai.

In the second portion of the sting operation, shot in a vehicle, Bindu Sriram demands confirmation of the bribe from senior AAP politician RR Pathania. He is the in-charge of the North West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency and the convenor of the Delhi AAP’s SC/ST wing. He also serves on the AAP National Executive. In the video, both of them can be heard saying that the choice of tickets is made by senior party leaders such as Gopal Rai, Atishi Marlena, Durgesh Pathak, and Saurabh Bharadwaj, upon confirmation of the payment.

In the media briefing, BJP leader Sambit Patra said, “Bindu had to pay a total amount of Rs.80 lakh. The first instalment was Rs.21 lakh. The second instalment was Rs.40 lakh. And the third instalment was Rs.21 lakh out of which Rs.10 lakh was cash and a cheque of Rs.11 lakh in the form of a donation to AAP.”

“A candidate is bringing to your notice that AAP is selling tickets in Delhi. Every worker is working on the ground in every seat. But he doesn’t have the reach. Instead of him, the ticket is given to those rich people who have money. This is the proof. Many people will have proof. But they are scared of producing it,” Bindu Sriram said 

Bindu Sriram said that the entire gang is in action where a fully corrupt party has taken the voters of Delhi in confidence and has been dodging them to their advantage. She said the leader of the gang is Arvind ‘Natwarlal.’ Bindu appealed to the voters of Gujarat to not vote for Arvind Kejriwal as he is the one who is selling tickets for the MCD elections and “if he can sell a ticket, he can sell entire Gujarat.”

AAP MLA’s kin arrested for selling MCD election ticket

On November 16, Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Model Town MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi’s brother-in-law Om Singh, Tripathi’s Personal Assistant (PA) Shiv Shankar Pandey alias Vishal Pandey and Prince Raghuvanshi for allegedly taking bribe for tickets of Municipal Elections in Delhi.

They were arrested under relevant sections of the Corruption Act and bribery in elections. As per reports, cash worth Rs 33 lakh was recovered from their possession.

In his complaint to the Additional CP, complainant Gopal Khari alleged that on November 9, he went to Akhilesh Tripathi’s office seeking a ticket for his wife. He was told he had to pay Rs 90 lakh for the ticket.

Madhya Pradesh: Yunus Ansari killed and chopped his business aide Vikas Giri into 80 pieces before disposing of remains in a forest, arrested

OpIndia Staff
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Madhya Pradesh: Yunus Ansari killed and chopped his business aide Vikas Giri into 80 pieces before disposing of remains in a forest, arrested

On Thursday, November 17, the Rewa police in Madhya Pradesh solved a murder case they had been pursuing for nearly 9 months and arrested a 31-year-old man named Yunus Ansari. Ansari had brutally killed and dismembered his business partner Vikas Giri’s body in February of this year before disposing of it in the Dudhmuniya forest. The police started investigating the case after it recovered 80 pieces of the victim’s skeleton from the forest in the same month.

Police arrested Ansari under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

While the police arrested Yunus Ansari, the prime accused in the case, another accused, his brother-in-law Sirtaj Mohammad, is still at large, Rewa superintendent of police (SP), Navneet Bhasin said.

The Rewa SP added, “A resident of Chhuiya village Vikas Giri, 21, a plantation contractor of the forest department, went missing in October 2021. His father filed a missing complaint. In February, some cattle grazers found some parts of his skeleton and his Aadhaar Card in the Dudhmuniya forest and they informed the police. Later, on February 5, police recovered 80 pieces of the skeleton from the forest.”

“After investigating the case for nine months, police nabbed the accused. The villagers informed that Giri was seen many times with Ansari’s sister. Ansari was also a business partner of Giri. Police interrogated Ansari many times but he didn’t confess to the crime. Police detained Ansari on November 14 and cross-questioned him. In the interrogation, Ansari claimed that Giri was assaulting his sister. Sirtaj and Ansari caught him red-handed at their house. They attacked him with a rod. He died on the spot. Later, they took the body into deep forest and dumped it,” said the SP.

This incident follows the heinous murder of Shraddha Walkar, who was strangled and butchered into 35 pieces by her live-in lover Aftab Amin in Delhi’s Mehrauli neighbourhood. During Aftab’s police interrogation so far, police have learned that he chopped Shraddha’s dead body into 35 pieces and then threw those body parts around Delhi over the next 18 days. Aftab also revealed that he burnt his live-in partner Shraddha’s face after chopping her body into pieces, in order to hide her identity. 

No possible return to Twitter for Alex Jones who called the Sandy Hook shootings a hoax, Elon Musk clarifies

OpIndia Staff
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No possible return to Twitter for Alex Jones who called the Sandy Hook shootings a hoax, Elon Musk clarifies

Tesla CEO and the new Twitter owner, Elon Musk, has ruled out demands to reinstate the account of ultra Right-wing political commentator Alex Jones.

In a tweet on Friday (November 18), Elon Musk sought suggestions from his followers about the future course of action of the social media platform. “What should Twitter do next?” he asked.

A day later, one Twitter user (@hardcoreNolley) demanded that Musk un-ban the account of Alex Jones. The new ‘Twit Chief’ was quick to turn down such a request with a resounding ‘No’.

On Saturday (November 19), ‘Youtuber’ Viva Frei again asked Elon Musk to reconsider his stand on Alex Jones

“Alex Jones is the litmus test Elon Musk. Not just on the issue of freedom of speech, but on the issue of not bending the knee to political and judicial intimidation,” he claimed.

“If this is a hard “no”, your Twitter will never be any more trustworthy than Parag Agrawal or Jack Dorsey’s Twitter,” asserted Viva Frei. “Too bad”, Musk responded, indicating that he did not need to un-ban Jones to make Twitter trustworthy to its users.

The demand to restore the Twitter account of Alex Jones gained momentum following the re-activation of former US President Donald Trump and controversial American rapper Kanye West’s Twitter accounts.

Author Sam Harris asked on Monday (November 21), “Is it time to let Alex Jones back on Twitter, @elonmusk? If not, why not?” The new Twitter owner responded with a Biblical passage, indicating that those who mock the suffering of children won’t be entertained.

“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven,” Musk wrote.

However, supporters of Alex Jones kept insisting that Musk reinstate the account of the ultra-conservative political commentator.

Entrepreneur Kim Dotcom tweeted, “Alex fucked up with Sandy Hook. He admitted that and apologized. He also got a lot of “conspiracy theories” right.”

He further claimed that if ‘serial liars’ such as Donald Trump and Joe Biden can be platformed on Twitter, then, Alex Jones should not be made the scapegoat. “Please reconsider in the interest of ‘real’ free speech,” he added.

Elon Musk responded with a personal story and pointed out he has no respect for those who exploit the death of children for fame or political gains.

“My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame,” he emphasised, making it clear that Alex Jones will not return to Twitter in foreseeable future.

Alex Jones and Sandy Hook mass shooting

On December 14, 2012, a 20-year-old white supremacist Adam Lanza gunned down 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut.

The victims included 6 adults and 20 children, aged between 6-7 years. Through many of his shows, Jones had kept on claiming that the deadly 2012 school shooting in Connecticut was “an elaborate ruse to force gun control in the USA”, and that the grieving parents were all actors.

Alex Jones was sued by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of 6-year-old victim Jesse Lewis who had lost his life in the massacre, along with 19 other students and 6 teachers.

Following the courtroom drama, Jones reportedly admitted that he had been ‘irresponsible’ and that the shooting was 100% real. In August this year, he was asked by a Texas Court to compensate the victims’ families with $50 million.

In October, a jury in Connecticut decided that Jones must pay $965 million to those who suffered due to his disinformation campaign about the Sandy Hook mass shooting case.

Zomato fires three per cent of its workforce across departments, earlier co-founder Mohit Gupta quit among three high-level exits

OpIndia Staff
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Zomato fires three per cent of its workforce across departments, earlier co-founder Mohit Gupta quit among three high-level exits

Amid record-high inflation and a looming threat of recession, Zomato, the food ordering app, has laid off employees across functions, including technology, product and marketing, reported Livemint.

According to the report, almost 3 per cent of employees have already been affected across these divisions. 

“There has been a regular performance-based churn of under 3 per cent of our workforce; there’s nothing more to it,” the Livemint report quoted a Zomato spokesperson as saying.

According to other media reports, the layoffs at Zomato have apparently affected close to 100 staff thus far. While there has been no official confirmation of the exact number of employees laid off, it has been reported that the process has been ongoing for about two weeks.

Co-founder Mohit Gupta resigns, third high-profile exit in recent days

The report about the layoff comes three days after its co-founder Mohit Gupta stepped down in the third major exit of a senior executive in a leadership role this month.

Gupta departed the Gurugram-based firm after four and a half years. He joined the company in 2018 and was in charge of Zomato’s food delivery unit. In 2020, he was promoted to co-founder.

This followed the exits earlier this month of Rahul Ganjoo, who was the new initiatives head, and Siddharth Jhawar, the previous head of the Intercity Legends service. Gaurav Gupta, another former Zomato co-founder, resigned two months after the firm went public.

Zomato had laid off 13% workforce last year

Notably, due to a commercial downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the food delivery app laid off approximately 520 people in May 2020, accounting for approximately 13 per cent of the workforce. Now, after the most recent wave of layoffs, Zomato has around 3,800 employees.

Both startups and the tech industry are having a difficult time right now. Amazon, Meta, and Twitter have all laid off thousands of staff worldwide, including in India. On November 9 it was reported that Meta has around 87000 employees worldwide, out of which around 11000 are being laid off by the company, in what was termed as the biggest employment layoffs in the history of the business. Prior to this, the microblogging social media platform Twitter laid off most of its employees in India on November 4, 2022. Though the company has laid off employees in its marketing, communication and engineering department in large numbers, other departments of the company are also undergoing significant shuffle and layoffs including the engineering department.

The CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, as well as the CFO and a few other senior executives were also fired by Elon Musk, who started his tenure there. 

As Zakir Naik arrives in Qatar to spread Islam during the FIFA World Cup, a 2016 video of him converting people goes viral

OpIndia Staff
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As Zakir Naik arrives in Qatar to spread Islam during the FIFA World Cup, a 2016 video of him converting people goes viral

Hours after it came to light that Qatar has invited Indian fugitive, Dr Zakir Naik, to preach Islam to football fans, a video of the ‘preacher’ converting four men to Islam went viral on social media.

On Sunday (November 20), a popular Twitter user (@KawuGarba) posted a video of Naik proselytising on stage and directing the new converts to recite the Kalma.

“They come to watch the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. After listening to the call of Allah, they converted to Islam. Allahu Akhbar!” the user tweeted. At the time of writing, the tweet by Kawu Garba had over 3.3K likes and 850+ retweets.

The Source of the Video

The video drew contempt from netizens and football fans, who were enraged at the thought of Qatar using an international tournament to convert non-Muslims to Islam. However, Opindia found that the video in question is not recent but has been doing the rounds on the internet since 2016.

In a tweet in May 2016, the Editor-in-Chief of the Qatari newspaper Al Sharq, Jaber Al Harami wrote, “4 people declare their allegiance to Islam after a lecture by Dr Zakir Naik in Qatar.”

We also found two additional videos of the event on Youtube, which were shot from different angles. One Meer Mohammed Yehya claimed that the conversion took place on May 26, 2016, in the cultural village of Katara in Doha city of Qatar.

“4 people accepting Islam after clarifying their doubts about Islam…Allahu Akbar…Ma sha Allah”, he wrote in the caption.

Another video of the event, shot on a mobile and from a wider angle, also pointed out the video was shot on May 26 of that year.

Hence, it can be safely concluded that the 4 people, who converted to Islam, were not visitors who came to watch the 2022 edition of the FIFA World Cup.

It must be pointed out that Zakir Naik had on multiple occasions coerced his non-Muslim audience members to convert to Islam after responding to their queries about the religion.

Zakir Naik’s Islamist preachings and their violent consequences

Zakir Naik has been avoiding Indian authorities ever since his name started cropping up in terror-related cases. In 2016, terrorists involved in the Dhaka blast case admitted that they were influenced by the preacher’s speeches.

In 2019, Zakir was banned from giving speeches in Malaysia after he made racist comments against Hindus and Chinese Malaysians. He was interrogated for hours in connection to the same.

Zakir Naik is wanted in India in cases involving money laundering. The government of India had taken his channel, Peace TV, off the air for peddling hate propaganda.

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