Two youths, Shahbaz and Ryan, have been reportedly arrested after a video in which they are seen selling watermelons stored and washed in sewage water in Basaveshwara Chowk in Nippani, Belgavi, Karnataka went viral. The incident allegedly took place on March 28. Belgavi police arrested the youths on March 19, after the video went viral on social media.
Shahbaz & Rihan arrested for selling watermelons dipped in gutter. But if we boycott them then secularism will come in danger.
The shocking video comes at a the time when the government has been stressing on sanitisation and hygiene to protect oneself from the coronavirus pathogen. The police were alerted after the video of these youths selling the contaminated fruit went viral on social media. The locals who identified the youths after watching the video on social media informed the Nippani police, who thereafter took action against the accused.
A case has been registered and the two have been sent to hindalga jail in Belgavi, Karnataka.
Coronavirus in Karnataka
13 new coronavirus cases were reported as of 8:00 AM on April 21 in Karnataka, according to data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This brings the total reported cases of coronavirus in Karnataka to 408. Among the total people infected as on date, 112 have recovered and 16 have passed away.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, sudden death of several cats in the Mananthavady and Mepaddi regions of Kerala’s Wayanad has created a panic in the local residents of the area.
After the residents approached the government authorities, the Animal Husbandry department arrived to take samples from the carcasses. Upon testing it was found that the death of the cats happened due to Feline Parvovirus. The virus does not transmit from animals to humans.
While speaking to ANI, Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. D Ramachandran said that the vaccines and medication is available for Feline Parvovirus. He said, “There were incidents of death of cats in Manathavady and Mepaddi region of Wayanad. That created panic among residents. The official of the Animal Husbandry Department visited the spots for epidemiological investigations.”
“The samples were collected from the carcasses and were sent to State Institute of Animal Diseases, who confirmed that the deaths were due to Feline Parvovirus. There is no need to worry as the virus does not spread to humans,” he added.
A cat owner claimed that over 13 cats have died within a span of two-three days in the Mepaddi region. She said, “We are afraid of sudden cat deaths during the coronavirus outbreak. We have informed the health department and Animal husbandry department. Officials came and collected the samples.”
The sudden death of several cats has led to a panic in the local residents of Wayanad when Kerala is grossly affected by the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic. The state has reported 408 cases including six new cases in the last 24 hours. 291 people have been recovered and discharged while 3 succumbed to the disease.
Feline Parvovirus
Feline Parvovirus, also referred to as feline panleukopenia virus, is one of the major diseases and carries high mortality rate amongst the unvaccinated kittens. This was one of the first diseases that was known to have been caused to cats due to virus. It is spread directly through faecal-oral contact, and indirectly following contamination of the environment or objects through food dishes, grooming equipment, bedding, floors, clothing or hands.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Home Affairs has said in a statement that the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) appointed by the Centre to make an on-spot assessment of Coronavirus situation has received support, with the exception of West Bengal, from local administration and State Governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra.
The MHA stated that the IMCT which visited Kolkata and Jalpaiguri are being stopped from visiting the designated areas. They were reportedly also barred from interacting with the local health workers. IMCT members are also being restricted from making an on-spot assessment of the Coronavirus crisis in the state. The central Government has also written a letter to the State asking for the enforcement of April 19 order besides facilitating the assessment team in doing their job.
#WATCH Inter-Ministerial Central Team visiting Kolkata&Jalpaiguri, West Bengal aren’t receiving cooperation from State govt&local administration. They’re being stopped from visiting the areas¬ being allowed make on-spot assessment of situation:Home Ministry pic.twitter.com/MgvwwKVt04
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday questioned the formation of the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) constituted by the Central Government for quick redressal of coronavirus crisis in states claiming that it is ‘not consistent with the spirit of federalism’.
Earlier, the Central government had constituted 6 IMCT to make an on-spot assessment of the coronavirus situation and issue necessary directions to state authorities for its redressal. The IMCT would also submit its report to the central government in the larger interest of the general public. These teams would visit West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan to ensure that lockdown is implemented there.
Concerns over West Bengal’s handling of coronavirus situation
In a video shared by Babul Supriyo, BJP MP from Asansol, a person admitted to an isolation ward in MR Bangur Hospital in Tollygunge in West Bengal narrates the deplorable conditions under which suspected Coronavirus patients have been quarantined. 45 seconds into the video, the man holding the camera points towards a dead body lying unattended on a bed for over hours, while other patients looked on.
The anguished Hindu family of a man, who recently passed away, has rubbished the report published by the Times of India alleging that the Muslim men organised the last rites and funeral of the deceased man after the neighbours “banished” the family since they suspected that he died after battling the Wuhan Coronavirus.
The report was published by Times of India on April 20, 2020, in all the major editions of the newspaper as well as on its official website. The report titled-‘5 Muslim men organise last rites of a man shunned by neighbours’ alleged that the family of the deceased Hindu man was ostracised by the neighbours on the suspicion that the man died from Coronavirus. The deceased, Venu Mudiraj, died of tuberculosis on April 16 in the hospital.
Snapshot of report published on TOI website
The report stated that 5 Muslim men carried out the last rites of Venu Mudiraj, an autorickshaw driver, after his neighbour ostracised the family following a heated argument with his teenage children and younger brother Vinod for bringing the body of the deceased home who they suspected had died of coronavirus.
However, a Hyderbad based journalist Sridharan Siddhu contacted Swarajya Magazine journalist Swati Goel Sharma to inform her that the family of the deceased is traumatised because of the false report and it intends to clarify things regarding the falsehoods published about them in the media.
The Times of India had quoted the deceased’s brother, Vinod, as saying,
relevant portion from the TOI report
Refuting the lies published in the report, Vinod accused the Times of India of concocting statements and attributing false comments to him. “I never said that. It is totally false,” he said.
Vinod then gave his account of the incident. According to him, after bringing his brother’s body home on April 16, some 5 Muslim men visited their house at around 10 PM in the night. One of them was Mohammad Ahmed, who was his brother’s friend, Vinod claimed. However, he did not recognise the rest of the 4 men who accompanied Ahmed. Vinod states that they all expressed their condolences and provided the family with food packets before leaving.
Vinod goes on to say that those men also attended the funeral and some of them asked if they could pick up the bier. Vinod assented to their request, completely oblivious to the fact that photos of them carrying the bier were clicked.
Vinod then said that the men visited him again the next day, April 18, and made him talk to press reporter over the phone.
“One of them asked me to talk over phone with the press reporter. He said the person is a journalist and the report could help us in getting a financial assistance from the government. I talked with the reporter quickly and got busy with the other rituals,” Vinod said.
However, the family was shocked to learn about the fallacious report published in the Times of India two days later.
“We have become a laughing stock in our community. we are subjected to ridicule by people, asking us we don’t have four men to lift the bier and depend on the members of other community. They are asking if my brother was an orphan,” an anguished Vinod said.
Vinod clarified that they are a large family and only because of the restrictions imposed during the lockdown, they had to carry out the funeral of his brother with a gathering of 20 men.
He further added that he spent Rs 35000 from his hard-earned money in his brother’s funeral but it pains him to see that five Muslims took away the credit without doing anything.
In a video-recorded statement to Swati, the deceased’s 18-year-old son Sachin said that initially people in his area opposed their entry in the colony due to the COVID-19 restrictions but when they called up police for the cooperation, the people in his neighbourhood helped the family in every way they could.
“5 Muslim men,claiming to be my father’s friend, came and requested us to carry the bier for sometime. We don’t know them at all. But since they said they were my father’s friends, we allowed them to hold the bier. They then took photos and spread the news in newspapers and on social media that they performed the entire last rites. That’s not true. They didn’t do anything,” Sachin said.
He further added, “We lost our mother two years ago and now we have lost our father. And then this misleading report published by TOI is further traumatising us. My relatives are calling me up to ask ‘Who are these 5 Muslim men who helped you?’ This is very humiliating and they are exploiting my father’s death to gain credit. This is fake news, Muslims did not help us, people in our neighbourhood have helped us.”
Sachin also revealed that contrary to media reports which claimed his father died of the tuberculosis but of “low BP”.
An audio recording between “one of those Muslim men” with his maternal uncle Bharath after the publication of the report was shared by Sachin. In the audio, Bharath angrily asks the man on the other side who he was and what he got published in the newspaper. The man on the other side defensively says “it’s nothing”. Bharath then questions him what help did he or his other friends offered and if getting photos clicked amounts to helping the family.
When Preeti Biswas, the journalist who wrote the contentious report in the Times of India, was approached for a comment after the family refuted the assertions made in her report, she defended herself saying she followed the protocol and had a conversation with the deceased’s brother Vinod which she reported in the article. Biswas said that Vinod informed her about the five Muslim men who visited their house and provided them with help such as arrangement of food for family members, sought police permissions and spoke to the house owner on behalf of the family members. He also told them how the five Muslim men helped the family in moving the body to crematorium and stayed until the funeral ended.
Meanwhile, one of the members of the family, who wished to remain anonymous, informed the Swarajya Magazine correspondent that they are mulling over taking a legal course against the “fake news” as it has besmirched the family’s reputation.
A New York-based Artificial Intelligence startup has revealed that Pakistan has silently removed the names of almost 4,000 terrorists from its terror watchlist. The removed named include LeT leader and Mumbai attack mastermind Zakir ur Rehman Lakhvi and many others.
EXCLUSIVE: We detected that Pakistan removed ~4K names from its terrorist watchlist. See our report https://t.co/0LJFtNWuDX and the Wall Street Journal article about our discovery https://t.co/tSQWZnapIR Removed possibly include terrorist leaders sanctioned by OFAC, EU and UN pic.twitter.com/zhc5ev5hEW
The Artificial Intelligence startup Castellum has revealed quoting Financial Action task Force that in October 2018 the country’s terror watchlist had 7,600 names. As the work of AI is to add new data sources, it noted that between March 9 and 27 data showed that Pakistan removed 1,069 names from the Proscribed person List and all those names appeared on the country’s denotified list. After 27 March, 800 names were also removed and eventually 3800 names have been placed in the denotified list till so far without any explanation or notification to the public.
Denotified list includes the names of those who are officially removed from the main list.
It is notable here that the terror watchlist is maintained to help financial institutions to avoid doing business with or to process money transactions linked to terrorists or terrorist organisations.
Several of the names removed are the aliases of designated terrorists listed by the US or the United Nations. The Wall Street Journal has stated that while nations are required to notify financial institutions when such names are included or excluded, Pakistan has a history of not doing so.
Pakistan and FATF
While Pakistan received a low rating from the global money laundering and terror watchdog Financial Action Task Force in this February, removing the names from the terror watchlist may be a strategy to implement the FATF recommendations.
The Global watchdog FATF had retained Pakistan in the Greylist in this February. The FATF subgroup International Cooperation Review Group had recommended retaining Pakistan in the ‘grey list’ citing that Pakistan failed to take appropriate action against terror financers.
In the 5-day plenary session, the ICRG noted that the Islamic country had addressed only 14 points out of 27 conditions to get out of the Greylist, which is considered unsatisfactory. The FATF will again look into the progress made by Pakistan in June 2020.
Earlier in October 2019, the Asia Pacific Group (APG) of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had published its annual report (Mutual Evaluation report of Pakistan) which stated, “With the exception of some recent actions discussed in detail below, Pakistan has not taken sufficient measures to fully implement UNSCR 1267 obligations against all listed individuals and entities – especially those associated with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)/Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) as well as the groups’ leader Hafiz Saeed.”
I may have my own definition of leadership but so do many others. However, a famous author once said: “A leader is one who knows the way, walks the way and shows the way”. Hence leadership is a beautiful relationship between the leader and the followers and the leader can sometimes be the follower of the followers if followers are bringing up something noble and show the way. Tested on the above parameters it is safe to conclude that Muslim leadership has failed Muslims and the country but at the same time, Muslims have had some very good leaders like A P J Abdul Kalam, Brig. Mohammad Usman and their failure today is so manifest in times of Coronavirus crisis.
The Maulvis of the kind of Tablighi Jamaat have taken over the leadership of the Muslim community even much prior to the independence and wearing a mask to hide their true identity and disseminating convenient teachings to brainwash Muslims that Ummah first Nation afterwards and that psychological imprint was so very visible from countrywide behaviour in corona crisis. A prime example is the rejection of Ram Mandir judgement after the verdict by the same leadership who swore by the Constitution and acceptance of whatever the verdict would be.
The fundamental question, therefore, is “Does the Muslim leadership knows the way? ” The answer is a big “NO”. The present leadership of the likes Owasi are vitriolic and communal to the core and incapable of uplifting Muslims and want their Ummah to remain in the red zone of Jahaliyat (ignorance) and prevent Muslims from imbibing scientific temper. This lack of scientific temper and sense of enquiry, since the time of banning printing press by Khalifa of Turkey for 250 years in medieval times, led to severe and grievously injuring attacks on our noble Coronavirus warriors who, in fact, are their saviours. The news is that apart from being 35 % of partners in direct corona cases in India, the Tablighis have infected Muslim children where ever they have gone. And the Muslim community and their leaders are loud and visible by their silence.
The good Muslims must be many are, absent by their presence, afraid of lethal attacks from orthodox rudderless leadership. There were some who paraded themselves before media fearfully were and are on the sides of Tabhligis who have worldwide notorious history. The partition, roasting of Kar Sewaks in Godhra, the involvement of Tablighi HQ in Nizamuddin in 9/11 are just a few examples of Tabhligis gift to India and the world and shockingly the Muslims are supporting them.
Infact the leadership of Muslim community by default or by design has been with non Muslim political leaders who have harmed the nation more by their appeasement politics and giving them false sense of superiority rather than of equality. Opportunistic slogans like Meem-Bheem are the means to exploit the SCs rather doing any good to them.The hollowness of their leadership was exhibited by Shaheen Bagh protest. The advocacy of Sharia law in civil affairs and not in criminal affairs highlights their hypocrisy and an effort to to take Muslims to stone age where as using every symbol of modernity and inventions at the same time.
The Muslim community must rise and unshackle the hold of maulvis and incompetent leadership and ask a very simple question… What has the Muslim community gained from them except backwardness and opposing the programmes of Polio vaccination, population control or the Coronavirus fight.
Therefore, a leader is not a leader who does not know the way and hence cannot walk the way or show the way and that, my Muslim brothers and sisters is the storey of muslim leadership in the past and present and hopefully not in the future.We therefore need a Muslim leadership, that does not prevent you from handing over hiding Tablighis or suspected corona patients, that prevents you from pelting stones on your saviours..The Corona Warriors.This is the time Muslims cannot fail for your own sake, for fellow Indians and Country or else the gap will increase. The Nation comes first and then everything else.
An incident of murder has been reported from the Warisaliganj village of Navada district in Bihar. A heated altercation between two sides in Maha Dalit colony in Warisaliganj rendered one dead and several others injured. The fight which started as a minor scuffle quickly escalated in a shootout after which a 55-year-old Dalit man named Ravidas was shot dead by the main accused Mohammad Irfan. Besides, 6 other people including a woman were injured in the brawl.
Eight accused in the connection with the shootout have been arrested by the Police. However, the prime accused, Mohammad Irfan is still at large. Soon after killing Ravidas, Irfan is said to have absconded from the spot. According to the reports, the situation between the two factions of the village had been tensed for the last 20 days, after which the killing was carried out on Friday (April 18, 2020).
It is being claimed that the dispute was mainly between Kishore Raja Ravidas and one Mohammad Mahir. The exact cause of the dispute between the two men is yet not clear. The altercation happened close to the Vivekananda Public School. After this, the family of Mohammad Mahir reached Ravidas’s house, dragged him out of his house and mercilessly thrashed him. The incident was not reported to the police until then. Even the local police were not informed about the beating that Ravidas received at the hands of Mahir and his men. Ravidas stayed in the Maha Dalit colony of the village, where on Friday morning, Mohammad Mahir arrived along with 60 people and started fighting with Ravidas.
When the Dalits opposed the beating, stones were pelted on them by the Muslim faction. In response to stone-pelting by Muslims, Dalits too started hurling bricks and stones at the Muslims in order to deter them from continuing the attack. However, the Muslim faction continued attacking the Dalits and vandalising their colony. Thereafter, Mohammad Irfan started firing indiscriminately towards the Dalits. Ravidas was mortally injured in the shootout and he succumbed to his injury during his treatment. All the other 6 injured, including a woman, belonged to the Dalit community. They are all under treatment at VIMS Pavapuri.
(Picture courtesy: Dainik Jagran)
Soon after the incident was reported, the ASP and the team of the local police station rushed to the spot. Additional soldiers were summoned from the district headquarters. Four large swords were also seized from the accused. Those accused of violating blockade were taken into custody. However, police is still on the lookout of Mohammad Irfan who is still on the run.
The two factions were engaged in a fight last month as well
Last month, on March 29, a skirmish had broken out between the two factions over who had killed the fish in a pit in the village. 8 people were injured in the clash during that time. The village panchayat had managed to somehow broker a truce between the sparring sides. No police complaint was registered by either of the sides then. However, the police had preemptively filed a case against several people from both the sides for defying strict lockdown amidst the raging coronavirus pandemic. No arrests were made by the police in the case.
A similar incident of Dalit murder in Madhubani
Recently, in a similar incident of murder was reported from Madhubani, where a 70-year-old Dalit woman Kala Devi (aka Kaili Devi) was killed by Suleiman Nadaf, Malil Nadaf and Sharif Nadaf on the intervening night of April 5 and 6. The sarpanch of the village, Fakre Alam, tried all his might to save the killers and alter the postmortem report.
Days after the horrific incident of mob lynching that claimed the lives of 3 men, including 2 sadhus, in Gadchinchle village of Palghar district, relatives of those arrested in the case have reportedly threatened BJP sarpanch Chitra Choudhary of dire consequences for colluding with the police. The relatives suspect that it was the sarpanch of the village who released the details of the murderers to the police.
The police have arrested 110 people in connection with the ghastly lynching of the three men who were on their way to Gujarat from Mumbai when they were stopped in Palghar district and brutally hacked to death by a mob of 400-500 people based on the rumours that they were involved in the abduction of children to harvest organs, including kidneys. As per the Lokmat report, the relatives of those arrested have threatened the BJP sarpanch of killing her, her two children as well as her husband for the leaking the identities of the murders of the three men to the police.
Palghar Sadhus lynched
The blood-curdling incident happened on 16th April 2020 in Palghar, Maharashtra. Two Sadhus, 70-year-old Kalpavrishka Giri Maharaj and 35-year-old Sushil Giri Maharaj along with their driver 30-year-old Nilesh Telgade associated with the Juna Akhara and were on their way from Mumbai to Gujarat to give Samadhi to another Sadhu. At Gadakchinchale village, a wild and frenzied crowd of over more than 100 people attacked them. The villagers deemed them as thieves and started attacking them. The police claim that their team which had rushed to the spot to rescue the 70-year-old man also came under the attack of the violent mob.
Horrifying visuals of the Palghar lynching incident where a mob of over 100 people killed two Sadhus and their driver even as the Police stood there as mute spectators, just letting the barbaric act unfold, had gone viral on the social media.
People of the Sadhu community say that this village is tribals dominated and most of them are Christians while some are Muslims. Some even say that the police, out of fear of the tribals, handed over the Sadhus to the mob which later beat up those Sadhus to death with sticks. Reportedly, when the tribals of a particular religion started beating up the Sadhus, the police did not intervene.
Investigation in incident
In the FIR, the assistant police inspector Anand Rao Kale, who led the initial response team of the police at the spot claimed that the police were heavily outnumbered as there were about 400 to 500 frenzied people who were baying for the blood of the three individuals. The report mentions that the police team which had reached the location to rescue the victims were also attacked by the mob. When they tried to rescue the victims by putting them in the police vehicle, the mob vandalised the police vehicle and kept attacking the three men with stones. Kale identified five men from the mob of 400-500 and included them in the FIR. They are- Jairam Bhavar (25), Mahesh Sitaram Ravte (19), Ganesh Devji Rao (31), Ramdas Rupji Asare (27) and Sunil Somji Ravte (25).
Offences under IPC sections 302 (murder), 120(B), 427, 147, 148 and 149 have been registered against the five accused along with the mob of 400-500 people. IPC Section 188 has also been invoked in the case due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown under which sweeping curbs have been imposed on movement and assembly of people, the report said.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump informed on Twitter that he would sign an executive order to ‘temporarily’ suspend immigration in the country in order to protect the jobs of the American citizens, amidst the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak. He has, however, not clarified on the duration of the order or the date from which it will be enforced in the country.
The White House has also not commented on the issue so far. Recently, executive powers were used by the US to deport undocumented migrants Mexico. It is important to mention that Public health measures can be used to override immigration laws.
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!
Donald Trump has been vocal about immigration and border security. He had also proposed and started building a wall across the Mexico border to prevent the inflow of illegal immigrants. The decision to temporarily suspend immigration comes at a time when the Wuhan Coronavirus has infected 7.92 lac people and claimed over 42,500 lives.
As per reports, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has already suspended routine in-person services but is offering only emergency services.
“Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organisation while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organisation’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what is going on there. American taxpayers provide between 400-500 million dollars per year to the WHO and in contrast, China contributes roughly 40 million dollars a year or even less. As the organisation’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability”, he said.
Defying lockdown and social distancing orders, hundreds of people gathered to be a part of the funeral procession in Azadpur, Malegaon, Maharashtra on Monday. The police, however, dispersed the mob of around 500 people who were part of the funeral procession, allowing only 20- 25 to proceed to the cremation ground.
Most of the people left the place after the police intervened in the matter. As per reports, the funeral procession was taking place in Malegaon’s Noorani Masjid area.
“Around 500 people were there during the funeral procession but only 20-25 proceeded for funeral ground, rest of them returned to their homes following our request to keep the strength of the gathering around 20 people,” said Police Sub Inspector Abhijit Jadhav of Malegaon.
Maharashtra: People gathered to participate in a funeral procession in the Azadpura area of Malegaon earlier today, but later dispersed, after being persuaded by the police. #CoronavirusLockdownpic.twitter.com/MiCk4KCWMj
As per the data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of cases in Maharashtra stands to 4,203, which includes 223 deaths.
The financial capital of the State Mumbai has been the worst affected district in the entire country, registering over a hundred cases per day. BMC has set up 438 containment zones throughout Mumbai since the rise in the number of cases.
Dharavi, Mumbai’s most densely populated area, has been under severe scrutiny. As Dharavi’s case tally touches 168 with 11 deaths, BMC has started screening all 7.5 lakh residents of Asia’s largest slum.
