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Facebook tried to blackmail Australia, took down Australian govt emergency services and hospital pages to influence new law asking tech giants to pay

OpIndia Staff
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Facebook tried to blackmail Australia, took down Australian govt emergency services and hospital pages to influence new law asking tech giants to pay

Social media giant Facebook deliberately took down several pages of Australian hospitals, emergency services and charities to pressure the country as its lawmakers discussed a law that would make tech giants pay to host news articles.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook deliberately blocked access to pages of hospitals, emergency services, weather services, and charities for users in response to potential legislation making platforms pay publishers for content.

Facebook documents and testimony filed to the US and Australian authorities by whistleblowers alleged that the tech giant deliberately had created a vague and lax process to take down pages of Australian government and health services. The company had deployed an algorithm to decide on what pages to take down that affect more than publishers.

Last year in February, Facebook had tried waging war with Australia ever since the latter came up with legislation that would require social media giants like Facebook and Google to pay news outlets.

Angered over this proposed legislation, Facebook had also cut off Australia by cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services. However, at the time of the fallout, the tech giant had termed it as “inadvertent,” but whistleblowers have now revealed that the move was a deliberate step to try and gain leverage over Australian authorities discussing the new law.

“It was clear this was not us complying with the law, but a hit on civic institutions and emergency services in Australia,” a Facebook employee who worked on the project told The Journal.

A Facebook spokesperson has also revealed that the documents in question clearly show that the company intended to exempt Australian government pages from restrictions to minimise the impact of this misguided and harmful legislation.

“When we were unable to do so as intended due to a technical error, we apologised and worked to correct it. Any suggestion to the contrary is categorically and obviously false,” the spokesperson said.

The report suggested that Facebook created and imposed a filtering algorithm that it knew would affect more pages than just news outlets. The tech giant was aware that the process was so vague that it would hit government pages and did not want to try to define what news was as it feared it would breach the law.

The journal also said that the Facebook employees attempted to point out the issue to the team leaders overseeing the project but were met with a cold response.

A few weeks later, Australia’s parliament passed an amended version of the law. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had reportedly praised the executives for their “thoughtfulness of the strategy” and “precision of execution”.

The whistleblowers’ accounts and the internal Facebook documents have now been submitted to the US Department of Justice and the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, The Journal reported.

Pakistan: Unidentified men dig up the grave of a teenage woman and rape her corpse, 17 accused being interrogated, investigation underway

OpIndia Staff
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Pakistan: Unidentified men dig up the grave of a teenage woman and rape her corpse, 17 accused being interrogated, investigation underway

On May 5, Thursday, some unknown men dug out the corpse of a teenage girl and raped it in the Chak Kamala village in Gujrat, Pakistan.

Attaullah Tarar, the deputy secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN), took to Twitter on May 6 to inform that 17 suspects are being interrogated and the investigation of the case is being done as per scientific methods.

According to reports, the shocking incident came to light when the deceased girl’s relatives visited the graveyard the next morning as per their religious traditions. The kin found the body dug up and lying uncovered. The body showed signs of rape.

The uncle of the deceased teenager approached the police and filed an FIR regarding the same. Based on the FIR, the police have started investigating the case. Reportedly, it is still unclear how many men were involved in this shocking incident.

According to local media reports, the teenage deceased girl, who was mentally and physically handicapped, died on May 4, Wednesday. The family buried her in the graveyard as per their religious traditions at around 6 pm in the evening and returned home.

The next day, when they returned to the graveyard to perform some rituals over the girl’s dead body the kin found the grave dug up and the girl’s body missing. Upon searching, they later found the corpse lying around 200 square feet away from the graveyard. It showed signs of rape.

The shocked family members rushed to the police station to file a complaint and demanded that the perpetrators of the heinous crime be brought to justice as soon as possible. The police, in turn, began their searches to look for and detain the grave-digger.

This is not the first such incident in Pakistan. In 2021, some unknown men had carried out a similar barbaric act in Maulvi Ashraf Chandio village near coastal town Ghulamullah. In 2019, OpIndia also reported about in similar crime wherein a group of unidentified men dug up the grave of a woman in a graveyard in Karachi’s Landhi Town area and raped the dead body.

In 2011, a gravekeeper named Muhammad Rizwan from North Nazimabad, Karachi was arrested for necrophilia. He was arrested after he confessed to raping 48 female corpses. Rizwan was caught running away after desecrating a corpse. He had caught the attention of nearby grave diggers and some other people.

‘I will fight this battle’, says Tajinder Bagga as he reaches home: Here is his challenge to AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal

OpIndia Staff
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‘I will fight this battle’, says Tajinder Bagga as he reaches home: Here is his challenge to AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal

BJP spokesperson Tajinder Bagga, who was arrested ‘illegally’ by the Punjab police, returned home in the wee hours of Saturday (May 7).

While speaking about his ordeal, Bagga told ANI, “Those who believe they can do anything with the help of Police, I want to tell them a BJP worker will not be scared of anyone.” He thanked the Haryana and Delhi police for supporting him and informed that a case has been registered against the Punjab police.

“This was an illegal detention. No local police officer was informed about this. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal can register 100 more FIRs against me if he wants to. We will keep fighting until he apologises for what he said about Kashmiri Pandits,” the BJP leader emphasised.

While speaking about the treatment meted out to him, the father of Tajinder Bagga pointed out how the Punjab police personnel did not even let the BJP leader wear his turban.

“Police officials started dragging Tajinder, they didn’t allow him to wear his turban, this is against our religious principles. We’ve asked Punjabi brothers to raise their voices against this. Finally, Tajinder is back, this is the victory of truth,” PS Bagga added. He had earlier told Opindia that he was assaulted by a cop during the arrest of Tajinder Bagga.

BJP leader ready for a legal fight ahead

On returning home, Tajinder Bagga also issued a challenge to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal and said that he was ready to fight him out in courts.

“I challenge Kejriwal if he thinks that we will stop asking questions and stop raising our voices. I will fight this battle. I will not stop. I will keep asking questions of Arvind Kejriwal,” he informed. The BJP spokesperson also denied claims made by the Punjab police that he did not respond to the summons.

“I have already replied to all the summons that have been issued,” Bagga had emphasised.

High Court rejects Punjab govt’s plea to keep Tajinder Bagga in Haryana

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday (May 7) rejected the Punjab government’s request to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga in Haryana. After the Delhi police took custody of Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, the Punjab police reached the high court trying to stop the Delhi police from taking him back to Delhi.

Advocate General (AG) Anmol Rattan Sidhu said that the intervention by Haryana Police is ‘a violation of law’. He also argued that everything was going as per procedure but the Haryana police delayed the process. The Punjab government also urged the court to not let the Delhi Police cross the Haryana border with Bagga.

The Punjab Police objected to the Haryana Police’s actions when it stopped the Punjab Police team which had arrested BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga. The Haryana Police halted the Punjab Police team in Kurukshetra on their route to Punjab after arresting Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga from his Delhi residence.

‘My brother tried to kill me twice for marrying a Hindu, mother warned that brother would kill us’: Sulthana, wife of Nagaraju

OpIndia Staff
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‘My brother tried to kill me twice for marrying a Hindu, mother warned that brother would kill us’: Sulthana, wife of Nagaraju

Ashrin Sulthana, the wife of the deceased Billapuram Nagaraju, has recounted how her own family had threatened her to kill if she ever married the Hindu guy.

Speaking to News18, Ashrin Sulthana, the wife of the deceased Billapuram Nagaraju, has disclosed that her brother tried to kill her twice before her marriage to Nagaraju.

“Before my marriage, my brother tried to kill me. He tried to hang me twice,” Sulthana said.

The 23-year-old Syed Ashrin Sultana said that they fled to Hyderabad, and got married in an Arya Samaj temple. She added that they changed their SIM card so that her family could not contact them.

Sulthana also said that her mother had warned them that her brother would kill the couple if they got married. The couple were in a relationship for nearly a decade and got married this January.

The wife of the deceased Nagaraju also said no one came to their rescue even as her brother thrashed Nagaraju with an iron rod and stabbed him to death.

“No one came to help us…Police arrived 30 minutes after the crime…The attackers came on two separate bikes,” she said.

The couple had informed the police about a threat from Sulthana’s family

She also added that the couple had gone to the SP office, where they also signed a bond and informed the police about the threat from her family.

However, Sultana’s brother, Syed Mobin Ahmed, has been seeking revenge since the couple married in January. Along with Mobin Ahmed, Mohammed Masood Ahmed hatched a plan to eliminate Nagaraju. Apparently, last month, the accused tried to locate Nagaraju but failed to identify his location.

On May 6, the accused followed him on their scooter and found him at Panjala Anil Kumar Colony, Saroornagar. As they reached the Mandal Revenue Office in Saroornagar, Sulthana’s brother stopped them and attacked Nagaraju with an iron rod. Syed Mobin Ahmed stabbed Nagaraju in public, who suffered serious injuries and died on the spot.

Earlier, Sulthana had revealed that Nagaraju had promised Sultana’s mother that he would convert to Islam. However, according to Sulthana, her mother did not listen.

Rajasthan: AAP Muslim leaders protest after party head office inaugurated with Havan and other Hindu rituals, question why Islam was ignored

OpIndia Staff
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Rajasthan: AAP Muslim leaders protest after party head office inaugurated with Havan and other Hindu rituals, question why Islam was ignored

The Aam Aadmi Party has started preparations for next year’s elections in Rajasthan. In such a situation, the state office was inaugurated in Jaipur on Thursday 5th May 2022. However, the party is already facing outrage from its Muslim workers, because Hindu rituals were performed during the inauguration of the state head office. Several Muslim workers associated with AAP came forward to criticise the party’s move.

According to a report by ETV Bharat, the Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday inaugurated its state headquarters building in Jaipur. The inauguration ceremony included full fledged Hindu rituals, including Havan, the recitation of the Sunderkand of Ramayana, and singing of Hindu devotional songs. These rituals lasted for around four hours. It was attended by hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party workers and leaders, including state election in-charge and MLA Vinay Mishra himself.

Image Source: ETV Bharat

The entire program of religious rituals took place according to Hindu customs. Though it is being seen as the soft Hindutva initiative of the Aam Aadmi Party, it was opposed by its own workers. Some Muslim workers associated with the party raised many questions in front of the media, criticizing the party’s move.

The Muslim workers also questioned why only Hindu rituals were performed and why Islamic rituals were not performed during the inauguration ceremony of the AAP head office in Rajasthan.

Rashid Hasan, an AAP worker, said, “The constitution says that all religions are equal. Every religion gets equal respect. Then why ‘Deen’ (Islam) was not given equal respect? This is the first question. Secondly, this was an office function. This was not any religious function. The inauguration program of the office was turned into a religious program. If you invite religions for making it a religious program, then we will be the first one to reach there. We don’t have any problem with anyone’s religion. But ignoring others is beyond tolerance. It is not accepted.”

Another AAP member Haji Mubarak Ali said, “We did not disturb those rituals. We had a meeting yesterday. People appointed four of us as representatives. This matter is being discussed in the party groups. It is communicated to them all in person as well as on the telephone that this is not a Gandhian way, this is not an Ambedkarite way either. Nor this is a constitutional way. This is a political party. This is not the Dharma of a political party.”

He further said, “We have inaugurated our offices in the past at the hands of a rickshaw driver. Right from the inception of this party, we have been its member and we will be the members unless we are expelled. It is possible that if we raise our voices, we will be expelled and our voices will be crushed. But we are all prepared for that too. I have been the General Secretary of AAP’s Jaipur unit.”

Image Source: Twitter

When AAP’s state election in-charge and MLA Vinay Mishra was asked a question about this, he said, “Let us not look at it through a religious lens. Today we inaugurated the office. Whenever we inaugurate something, we do it by the set traditions and puja, etc. So we have done it in that way. We recited the Sunderkand because we the members of the Aam Aadmi Party are devotees of Lord Hanuman. Everywhere we take Lord Hanuman and his blessings with us. None of our tasks succeeds without him. So we recited the Sunderkand today. We have done the puja for purification. Besides, we have also offered a Chadar in the Ajmer Dargah and distributed Laddus in Gurudwara.”

AltNews co-founder insists they are not partisan, then admits that most of their work favours Rahul Gandhi, TMC and Muslims

OpIndia Staff
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AltNews co-founder insists they are not partisan, then admits that most of their work favours Rahul Gandhi, TMC and Muslims

Pratik Sinha, the co-founder of the self-described fact-checking website AltNews, the fountainhead of lies and a portal infamous for being an apologia for Islamist terrorism and the Left, recently took to Twitter to publish a tediously long thread to insist that his organisation is not partisan. 

However, in doing so, he inadvertently revealed the innate favouritism his organisation has routinely extended to political figures, parties and communities such as Rahul Gandhi, TMC and Muslims, under the pretext of carrying out dispassionate “fact-checks.”

The explanation proffered by Sinha seemingly stemmed from the criticism directed toward his organisation by “sympathisers” of Congress who have accused AltNews of being “pro-AAP.” 

“For months now, certain members and sympathisers of Congress have been running propaganda against @AltNews claiming that we’re pro-AAP. Till now, we have avoided responding to these allegations because they’re so utterly ridiculous,” Sinha posted in his first tweet. 

In a bid to allay misgivings that his organisation has turned from being online guardians of the Congress party into cheerleaders of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, Sinha asserted that AltNews remained at the vanguard in fighting “misinformation” targeting senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Curiously, Sinha did not elaborate on how his organisation has been averse to fact-checking misinformation peddled by Rahul Gandhi. For that would have proved it beyond a shred of doubt how loyal AltNews has been to the Congress party.

However, in his subsequent tweet, Sinha tried in vain to continue to put up with the sham of political neutrality. Despite any empirical data to substantiate his claims, Sinha declared that Gandhi had been the most targeted leader and ‘fact-checking’ news about him does not make his organisation pro-Rahul Gandhi or pro-Congress.

Source: Twitter

Sinha then proceeds to preen on how the maximum number of stories covered on his portal is from West Bengal, a state he claims was bitterly contested, notwithstanding the fact that TMC scored an emphatic victory in the assembly elections last year, triggering a horrifying spate of violence against BJP workers and Hindus in the state, a predicament that reports have pinned the blame on TMC affiliated goons and anti-social elements. 

Source: Twitter

Furthermore, as has been common among the left organisations, where commitment to truth is subordinated to reverence to Gandhi and Nehru, Sinha claimed that his organisation has carried out most fact-check stories on Gandhi and Nehru, insinuating that unearthing truth that has been scrupulously hidden by vested interests is akin to de-legitimising the two individuals. 

Moving ahead, Sinha pivoted to the Muslim community, a support bank that the Left has sedulously cultivated in their bid to malign the nationalist political parties, with a concerted attempt being made to perpetuate fear psychosis among the Muslims about the Modi government. Sinha alleged that his organisation, AltNews, has been at the forefront in “fact-checking” claims about the Muslim community, a section of the population that he describes as the target of the most hateful propaganda.

Regardless of the fact that Hindus across the country are targeted, persecuted and dehumanised almost nonchalantly and on a routine basis, Sinha’s assertion that Muslims are the most villanised community reveals the appalling indifference that the Left harbours for the Hindus.

In his subsequent tweets, Sinha continued to project AltNews as a neutral website, even going to the extent of insisting that his organisation has conducted many fact-checks about fake news on PM Modi, the most attacked leader after Rahul Gandhi, the AltNews co-founder claimed. However, that does not absolve the inherent bias of the organisation by using the cloak of fact-checks and blathering on about supposed impartiality.

While Sinha took strenuous efforts to paint AltNews as a bastion of truth and neutrality, in reality, Sinha’s tweets revealed that his organisation is anything but. Instead, his inordinately long Twitter thread only ended up reinforcing the prevailing belief around AltNews: that is a propaganda website with a strong predilection for Congress, Rahul Gandhi, TMC and Muslims, and a deep aversion to the BJP, Hindus and PM Modi.

IPL: Rohit Sharma back among runs as Mumbai Indians set up an imposing target for table-toppers Gujarat Titans

OpIndia Staff
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IPL: Rohit Sharma back among runs as Mumbai Indians set up an imposing target for table-toppers Gujarat Titans

Indian captain Rohit Sharma rediscovered his form after a lean season as he smashed 43 runs off 28 balls to power Mumbai to an imposing total of 177 runs against runaway leaders Gujarat Titans. This IPL season had been a nightmare thus far for the Indian selectors as their 2 biggest stars, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, kept struggling for runs. However, this performance from Rohit would have eased some of their concerns as the Indian skipper looked in imperious touch throughout his stay on the crease.

Having been put into bat by Gujarat skipper Hardik Pandya, Rohit, and his fellow opener Ishan Kishan looked confident from the start, and gave Mumbai the sort of positive start they have been craving for throughout this season. The duo scored at nearly 10 runs per over during their stay together as they put together 74 in their 7.3 overs partnership.

However, once Rohit was dismissed by the very impressive Rashid Khan, Gujarat managed to claw their way back into the game as they took 4 wickets for 45 runs off 45 balls in the middle of the innings. That brought Tim David to the crease and the Singapore all-rounder’s big-hitting brought some momentum back to Mumbai’s innings as he smashed 44 runs off 21 balls, punctuated with 4 sixes.

For Gujarat, Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan was once again the standout bowler as he conceded just 24 runs off his 4 overs taking 2 wickets. Rashid was also the star on the field as he took 3 catches to go with his 2 wickets.

Irrespective of the result tonight, Mumbai Indians will stay at the bottom of the table while Gujarat will stay on top of the table.

Vande Bharat trains to use made-in-India wheels as supplies from Ukraine halted due to the war

OpIndia Staff
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Vande Bharat trains to use made-in-India wheels as supplies from Ukraine halted due to the war

The made in India Vande Bharat Express train will get Indian made wheels, as a result of the war in Ukraine. While the semi-high speed train is designed and made in India, its wheels were planned to be imported, including from Ukraine. But the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has halted the import of the wheels, forcing the Railways to make the wheels also in India.

The wheels will now be made by Railway Wheel Factory in Bengaluru, and the factory has already issued tenders for parts needed to make the wheels. The factory is already making the axels for the wheels, and will now make the wheels also.

Reportedly, the first batch of 128 wheels were already made in Ukraine, but they are stuck in Romania due to the war. Now efforts are being to bring them to India, and it is expected that the Ukraine made wheels will be air-lifted to India later this month. The wheels will be brought to Chennai in batches between May 15 and May 20, and then will be taken to the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai where the Vande Bharat trainsets are being assembled.

The 128 wheels will be enough for one Vande Bharat train, because the train has 16 coaches, and each railway coach runs on 8 wheels, fitted on two bogies at each end.

Other than the 128 wheels from Ukraine stuck in Romania, other wheels ordered with two other foreign companies will also reach India by next month. These wheels will be used for the trial of the new version 2 of the Vande Bharat Express trains, and subsequently for the trains ordered by Indian Railways. After that, wheels made in the Indian plant will be used, as the manufacturing of wheels in Ukraine has stopped.

An official said that the goal is to have enough wheels not only for the 75 Vande Express trains planned to be rolled out by August 15 next year, but also surplus wheels for future productions. The required number of wheels will be made withing 2-3 months by Railway Wheel Factory. Railway Wheel Factory in Yelahanka in Bengaluru will give priority to these wheels for now. A total of 36,000 wheels have been ordered for the trains.

At present only two Vande Bharat Express trains are operating, between Delhi and Varanasi and Delhi and Vaishno Devi Katra. From this year, the version 2 of the train will be launched in several other routes.

At present, Indian Railways imports nearly 60-70% of the wheels needed by it, but it may change following the fallout of the Ukraine war.

Train wheel making is a specialised process, only some plants across the world made them. The wheels are made from a single piece of steel, which is heated to a high temperature, and then pressed to give them the shape of the wheel. Such forging technique produces very strong wheels.

In this year’s budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that 400 new Vande Bharat trains will be introduced in the nest three years. The govt plans to introduce 75 trains by August 2023. The Railways has already started identifying routes to deploy the advanced trains. In most routes, initially the Vande Bharat trains will replace existing Shatabdi and Jan Shatabdi trains, as the Vande Bharat trains only have chair cars. However, Railways has already started the process to develop sleeper versions of the coaches, to replace Rajdhani Express and similar long-distance trains.

Tenders for development of 200 such trains already have been invited, which will be version 3 of the Vande Bharat train. These trains will have AC-3 Tier, AC-2 Tier and AC-1st class coaches, like the Rajdhani Express trains. Bids have been invited for 3200 such coaches.

Originally referred to as Train 18 during development, Vande Bharat Express does not have dedicated locomotive. Instead, every alternate coaches of the 16 coaches are motorised. Both ends of the train has driver cabins, which makes turning around the train at terminating stations faster and easier.

Jharkhand Illegal Mining Case: ED recovers crores in cash from CA of IAS Pooja Singhal

OpIndia Staff
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Jharkhand Illegal Mining Case: ED recovers crores in cash from CA of IAS Pooja Singhal

On Friday 6th May 2022, Enforcement Directorate (ED) recovered crores of rupees in cash from the house of IAS Pooja Singhal’s Chartered Accountant (CA). The house was raided in connection with the illegal mining case. According to the latest reports, cash of 25 crores was recovered.

The ED is also raiding the Pulse Hospital in Ranchi and 20 other places in the country. This hospital belongs to a close relative of Pooja Singhal. Pooja Singhal is the secretary of the mines and geology department of the Jharkhand. The search operations are on since the morning.

Raids which started at 6 AM under the leadership of a joint director spread to New Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Faridabad, Gurugram, Muzaffarpur, Ranchi, and other cities. Pooja Singhal is a 2000 batch IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre. ED recovered rupees 25 crores in cash from the office of her chartered accountant at Ranchi. 

Six places in Ranchi were raided by ED, one of which is a super specialty hospital of her second husband. Her first husband is a 1999 batch IAS officer in Jharkhand.

The case pertains to a case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act by the Enforcement Directorate in 2020 against Jharkhand junior engineer Ram Binod Prasad Sinha. Ram Binod Prasad Sinha was arrested by the ED on June 17, 2020, in the 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.

The central probe agency had taken cognizance of 16 FIRs and a charge sheet filed by the Jharkhand Vigilance Bureau against Sinha, according to which Sinha was accused of misappropriating government funds worth Rs 18.06 crore. Ram Binod Prasad Sinha was a junior engineer in Khunti when Pooja Singhal was the District Collector of Khunti.

Sinha is reported to have told the investigators that Pooja Singhal had obliged two NGOs, Welfare Point and Prerna Niketan with Rs 6 crores fund and had granted a mining lease on 83 acres of forest land in contravention of the environmental regulations. As deputy commissioners in Chatra, Palamu, and Khunti districts, she is alleged to have committed irregularities in the MNRGEA.

In Ranchi, Panchayati residency, block number 9, Chandni Chowk Hariom Tower, New Building, Lalpur, and Pulse Hospital in Ranchi have been raided. The Jharkhand High Court had ordered that the ED should file a counter affidavit in the case. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Nishikant Dubey tweeted, “She is the blue-eyed bureaucrat of chief minister Hemant Soren. She had obliged the chief minister, her brother, and close relatives with the allotment of mines.”

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren holds the Mining and Environment portfolios in the state. In a related update, on May 2, the Election Commission sent a notice to Hemant Soren over a mining lease granted in his name in alleged violation of Section 9A of the Representation of Peoples’ Act 1951. 

Delhi court frames charges against Tahir Hussain, 5 accomplices in 2020 Delhi Riots, says had made elaborate preparations to target Hindus: Details

OpIndia Staff
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Delhi court frames charges against Tahir Hussain, 5 accomplices in 2020 Delhi Riots, says had made elaborate preparations to target Hindus: Details

On Friday (May 6), a Delhi court framed charges against former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain in connection to the Delhi Anti-Hindu riots of 2020.

The Court observed that Tahir Hussain was an active participant in the riots and not a mute spectator. It was hearing a petition filed by a man named Karan, whose godown was gutted by a frenzied mob led by Tahir Hussain in the Khajuri Khas in the Chand Bagh area of Delhi.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat stated, “Tahir Hussain’s house throwing stone, patrol bombs etc. from there… He was not a mute spectator but was taking an active part in the riots and instigating the other members of the unlawful assembly to teach a lesson to the persons belonging to other community.”

The Court stated that Hussain and 5 others, namely, Shoaib, Gulfam, Javed, Firoz and Anas had an agreement to engage in arson and vandalism of properties belonging to the Hindu community. As such, the former AAP councillor had made ‘elaborate preparations’ to ensure that his plans became a reality.

“The above-referred circumstances nowhere indicate that it was a spontaneous act but clearly reveal that there had been an agreement between the accused herein to commit vandalisation and arson in the properties belonging to Hindu community from the building E-17 belonging to accused Tahir Hussain and elaborate preparations had been done to fulfil the object of the agreement/conspiracy,” the judge emphasised.

The Court had framed charges against the 6 men under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 148 (armed rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 395 (dacoity), and 427, 435, and 436. Tahir Hussain was also additionally charged with IPC 109 and 114, besides the other IPC Sections.

Role of Tahir Hussain in Delhi riots

OpIndia had earlier reported how Tahir Hussain had confessed in a disclosure statement that he chose his own house as a launchpad for the riots. Given that his house was a high-rise building and was under construction at that time, it was easy to collect stones and bricks without raising any suspicion. 

He confessed that he and his co-conspirators had started collecting stones, bricks and other ammunition, well in advance so that they could teach those, who were in support of the CAA, a lesson when the time was right. To that end, 2-3 days before the riots broke out, he had also got his licensed pistol released from the police station.

While gearing up for the riots and collecting ammunition to teach Hindus a lesson, Tahir Hussain said that he had instructed his supporters to be “ready for anything and in every manner” and also ensure that all the CCTV cameras, private and government installed, in the area, were broken so the evidence of the riots could not be captured.

It must be mentioned that all of this was done well before the anti-Hindu riots broke out in Delhi. Tahir Hussain admitted that he, along with his brother Shah Alam, Arshad, Abid, Shahid, Irshad and several others were present at his residence.

How Alt News tried to whitewash Tahir Hussain

After it had emerged that AAP leader Tahir Hussain was one of the main conspirators behind the riots in North East Delhi, Islamists and left-liberal ecosystem went overboard in defending him.

Leftist propaganda site AltNews had jumped the bandwagon to give a clean chit to Tahir Hussain. They have published an article to refute allegations that the AAP leader had posted an edited video, but now several people have questioned the arguments they have used to defend Tahir Hussain.

On February 27, 2020, AAP spokesperson Prince Soni posted a video where Tahir Hussain was seen making an appeal to the police to control the riots. He had alleged that rioters forcefully entered and vandalised his house. Prince claimed that the video was recorded on the day of the riots.

When netizens pointed out the obvious discrepancies in the video, Alt News came to shield the former AAP councillor. Opindia had reported in detail about how Alt News had no solid proof to back its claim and instead relied upon its dubious methodology to bolster its claims.

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