On Sunday, nearly 190 new cases of coronavirus were reported in Malaysia, most linked to Tablighi Ijtema, an Islamic evangelical event at a mosque that was attended by more than 16,000 people from several countries. Ijtema is a congregation of Muslims which is an essential part of Tablighi Jamaat. Often referred to as a show of strength of the Muslims, the 3-day event is all about moral reform of individuals and often described as ‘making Muslims true Muslims’.
According to the reports, a total of 243 people have been reported positive for coronavirus after they had attended the gathering at a mosque. Nine cases are considered to be critically ill and are closely monitored in intensive care. The health officials of Malaysia stated that all event participants and their close contacts will be placed under mandatory quarantine for 14 days.
The new cases bring the total number of infections in the country to 428, the health ministry said in a statement. Malaysian health authorities have said around 16,000 people attended the religious gathering held at a mosque near Kuala Lumpur between February 27 and March 1. Around 14,500 of the participants are Malaysian.
The Tabligh group had held a mass gathering at Masjid Jamek Sri Petaling on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur involving thousands of people leading to the spread of the deadly virus. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said on Friday that the country was facing a “second wave” of infections, and warned of an impact on economic growth.
In neighbouring Brunei, 45 of the total 50 cases have been linked to the religious gathering, the health ministry said on Sunday. Singapore has also reported some cases linked to the same event. The health ministry has said Bruneians and foreign residents are barred from leaving the country due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Coronavirus is a deadly respiratory disease which has killed more than 6,000 and so far more than 1,59,0000 cases are reported globally, according to the World Health Organisation. The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019.
On Thursday, the number of people infected with coronavirus in India rose to 110, with fresh cases reported from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The transmission of the virus takes place when someone who is infected comes in contact with another person. According to medical experts, coughing, sneezing or even shaking hands with an infected person can cause exposure.
Dr Zafar Mirza who represented Pakistan at the SAARC video-conference on COVID-19 on Sunday is being probed for his involvement in the smuggling 20 million face masks out of Pakistan as per reports.
Special Assistant on Health Dr Zafar Mirza took part in the SAARC conference on coronavirus instead of Pakistan PM Imran Khan. As the SAARC leaders got together to discuss ways to combat the deadly virus, the Pakistani leader raked up the Kashmir issue and politicised global pandemic. Even as India offered technology help, fund and rapid response teams to SAARC countries, Pakistan chose the platform to play petty politics.
“We hope that during this COVID-19 our member countries will provide access to all the regions. In this regard, it is a matter of concern that COVID-19 has reported from Jammu and Kashmir. In the view of emergency its imperative that all lockdown in Jammu and Kashmir must be lifted immediately, opening up communication and movement,” Zafar Mirza had remarked. It is important to note here that the security situation in Kashmir has not hampered administration efforts to ensure that the pandemic is contained.
Ironically, it is now reported that Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched a probe against Dr Zafar Mirza for his involvement in the smuggling of 20 million face masks to the foreign countries.
According to the complaint, the Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Zafar Mirza is accused of colluding with the deputy director of DRAP Ghazanfar Ali to smuggle 20 million face masks to other countries. The accusations against Imran Khan’s aide Mirza comes at a time when the world is facing a global epidemic of COVID-19 and there is a huge shortage of masks, sanitizers across the globe.
Young Pharmacists’ Association’s General Secretary Dr Furqan Ibrahim submitted an application to the Prime Minister’s complaint cell. Following the complaint, FIA’s Additional Director General has directed to submit the report within 15 days.
“20 million face masks were smuggled out of Pakistan by the aide of Mr Ghazanfar Ali Khan S/O Mr Maqbool Khan Deputy Director DRAP and Dr Zafar Mirza, Special Assistant to Prime Minister,” read the complaint submitted by Pakistan Young Pharmacists Association.
I
was 21 when I was first introduced to Veer Savarkar. As a young management
trainee in Paris trying to make a mark in my professional life, I felt that I was
going farther away from my roots. I was searching a connect, and that’s when I
came across the brilliance of Veer Savarkar. While every other history book is
busy capturing the lives of Nehru and Gandhi, Savarkar has always been ignored
by historians and if at all he does get some attention: it is negative.
Somehow, Savarkar was never relooked from a modern perspective as all other
freedom fighters of the day.
Let
us not forget that he was the one who formed the revolutionary secret society:
Mitra Mela which later got renamed to Abhinav Bharat Society in the early
1900s. He demanded for complete independence from the British, a thought that
was not yet conceived then. He was also the central figure to start the
revolutionary movement in London, where he gathered people to fight for India’s
independence. We should never forget the harsh treatment meted out to him in
the cellular jail of Andaman for eleven long years! He only got a conditional
release and was confined to Ratnagiri for a significant part of his life!
Criticizing is a straightforward task, but one should delve in deeper before
coming to any conclusions!
Savarkar was a voracious reader who was well-versed with almost all of the philosophers of the West. He, in fact, would even translate revolutionary literature from English to Marathi so that his peers could get inspired from it. Lest we forget, he lost many family members during his tenure in jail. He had to stay away from his wife and children as they were being shunned by the society owing to his arrest.
Don’t
think many of us know that it was Savarkar who first called the Sepoy mutiny
the first war of Indian independence. He was the one responsible for creating
the intellectual corpus for the freedom struggle. He was inspired by the
revolutionary movements of Italy, France, Ireland etc. He would translate all
these works in London and send them to India to be shared widely. In fact, even
Bhagat Singh lauded his work and was inspired by him. He would also make
Savarkar’s biography by Chitragupta a mandatory reading for all those who would
want to be part of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA).
Savarkar was way ahead of his times. He even challenged many orthodox and outdated Hindu customs. He wanted to dismantle the entire caste system for which he even undertook a massive reform movement. He had constructed a to-all-castes temple called Patit Pavan Mandir in Ratnagiri. Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar even lauded this endeavour. He defined Hindutva to all of us, which is inclusive and all-accepting.
He has often been ridiculed for begging to the Britishers for releasing him in return of not being a part of the freedom struggle. But that is absolutely ridiculous! He was a political prisoner, and it is only natural for him to file a petition. He was a renowned lawyer who very well knew what was best for him. Unlike Bhagat Singh who was ordered a death penalty in just one court hearing, he was ordered 50 years of rigorous imprisonment! In case we also forget, in 1920, even Mahatma Gandhi wrote a petition to the British for his release so that he could join the constitutional reform process. Also, if we even take a look at his petitions, not once did he apologize for what he did. Instead, he said that he would leave violent means of protests and take the route of non-violence!
This
recent demonization of Savarkar is part of a political ploy to insult the
ruling party. When Savarkar died in 1966, even Indira Gandhi hailed him as a
brave patriot. A few years later, she also released a stamp in his name. No,
she did not do it under any political pressure as the Jana Sangh was formed
only in 1980. We need to bring the legacy of Savarkar to the forefront. History
hasn’t been kind to Savarkar, and we all need to undo this mistake.
The Delhi Police informed the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that its control room received 4,000 SOS calls in the wake of Delhi Anti-Hindu riots on February 25, the first day of US President Donald Trump’s visit to India. The calls were made by locals to narrate the horrific incidents of violence, arson and clashes.
It was earlier reported that some of the mob involved in the Delhi Anti-Hindu riots came from nearby areas of Ghaziabad and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. The vital information came to light during a coordination meeting between the Delhi and the Uttar Pradesh police.
The meeting was held at the DCP office in North-East Delhi and had DCP Northeast Ved Prakash Surya, Meerut IG Praveen Kumar, and SSP Ghaziabad, besides the Joint Commissioner (Delhi Police) Alok Kumar. The cops suspect that a group of rioters came from Deoband and stayed in Mustafabad in North-East Delhi prior to the riots that claimed 53 lives.
The Delhi police said that they “collected all postmortem reports and DNA profile as well as fingerprints of all unknown dead bodies. Examining all injured persons, recording their statements. Examining all witnesses in the cases so that no aspect is left out. CCTV footage of all liquor shops in the area has been analysed.”
It further added, “Bad characters of all police station of North East Delhi have been rounded up and are being examined giving special focus on their presence/role during the riot. Collected clips from social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok uploads and gathering details of Whatsapp groups to retrieve chats. Analysing phone records of criminals and suspects in the riot-hit areas.”
44 localities reported large-scale violence during the riots that took place in last week of February. Case files from 5 police stations, namely Khajuri Khas, Karawal Nagar, Sonia Vihar, Welcome and Jaffrabad have also been collected. 1922 rioters had been identified out of 336 belong to Uttar Pradesh. The Delhi Anti-Hindu riots were fuelled by Islamic Supremacy and a direct consequence of the city being held hostage by rabid Islamists for their sinister objectives in the name of anti-CAA protests.
On Sunday, Sanjeeva Kumar, Special Secretary of the Ministry of Health said that both first and second confirmatory tests for COVID-19 are free for all citizens. He also added that the country has enough capacity to test all the citizens as only 10 per cent of the capacity has been utilised per day so far, reports ANI.
Speaking at the press conference, Sanjeeva Kumar said, “Both the first and second confirmatory tests for the coronavirus are free for all citizens and the country has enough testing capacities as only 10 per cent of the total capacity has been utilised per day so far”.
“An order has been placed for the procurement of an additional 80,56,365 N95 masks and personal protective equipment for the healthcare workers,” he said. He also added that AIIMS has instituted a 24×7 helpline – 9971876591 – dedicated to COVID 19. This number is continuously being manned by doctors, he added.
Regarding the death of a patient in a private hospital on March 14, Kumar said, “The patient’s blood sample was tested and it was reported negative for COVID-19.”
He said that 23 new cases have been detected since the last update – 17 from Maharashtra, 2 from Telangana, 1 from Rajasthan and 3 from Kerala. Hence, there are now 107 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, including 9 discharged cases and 2 deaths, he added.
He added that both the deceased patients had pre-existing co-morbidities and the contract tracing of these cases has led to the identification of more than 4,000 contacts and they have been put under surveillance.
On the 236 evacuees from Iran, the Special Secretary said that the third batch of 236 evacuees from Iran has arrived today. They are being quarantined at the Army facility in Jaisalmer. “All are reported to be asymptomatic at present,” he added.
He also said that the Air India flight from Milan in Italy arrived in Delhi on Sunday morning carrying 208 passengers. These evacuees have been taken to the ITBP camp at Chawla and quarantined as per protocol, he said.
As the world grapples to control the spread of coronavirus, with most countries closing their border for foreign visitors, Islamic terror organisation ISIS has also taken steps to avoid its members from being infected.
The Islamic State has issued an advisory on how to protect against epidemics. The terror group published already known Islamic verses on epidemics and hygiene on its newsletter al-Naba.
In its latest edition of al-Naba, ISIS has published a full-page infographic containing Sharia guidelines on dealing with epidemics, without specifically mentioning coronavirus. The advisories include:
To adopt protection from causes of illness and avoid them, and to stay away from sick people. It asks to “flee from the one afflicted with leprosy as one ould flee from the lion”.
No to travel to areas affected by an epidemic and not to exit from such places. The relevant verse says, “torment sent by God on whomsoever He wills, and God has made it a mercy for the believers. Whosoever dwells in his land patient and awaiting as the plague falls, knowing that it will only strike the one for whom God has decreed, for that person is the likes of the reward of a martyr”.
Covering mouth when coughing and sneezing. “The Messenger of God (SAWS) would place his hand or clothing on his mouth when he sneezed, and in this way reduced or diminished his voice,” according to the translation of the Arabic verse published by ISIS.
Washing hands before eating and drinking. The quoted Sharia verse says, “When one of you wakes from his sleep, let him not dip his hand into the vessels until he washes it three times, for he does not know where his hand spent the night”.
To cover the vessels and tie the waterskin.
To put trust in God and seek refuge in Him from illness.
The ISIS advisory also says that diseases do not strike by themselves, but they attack on the command and decree of God.
By quoting Sharia guidelines that forbad entering the land of epidemic, the ISIS has essentially asked its members to not go to the countries hit by the Coronavirus outbreak, which means the Islamist terrorists will not strike several countries for the time being, including several European and west Asian countries which are regularly hit by the terror organisation.
In yet another huge setback for the Congress party, five Gujarat Congress MLAs resigned from the party on Sunday ahead of the crucial Rajya Sabha election on March 26.
According to the reports, at first four Congress MLAs submitted their resignations with the Gujarat assembly Speaker on Sunday. Later, MLA Praveen Maroo also confirmed that he has also resigned, taking the total number of resignations to five. The resignations come at a time when Congress party had decided to move its MLAs to Jaipur fearing desertions just ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections.
While Congress took the first batch of 14 MLAs to Jaipur on Saturday, the four lawmakers were missing. Soma Patel, JV Kakadia, Mangal Gavit and Pradhyuman Jadeja have reportedly resigned from the Congress party but their names are not officially released yet.
The Gujarat Congress started shifting its MLAs out of the state amid fears of defection ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections. Another batch of 20-22 party MLAs is likely to reach the Rajasthan capital on Sunday evening.
In the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly, BJP has 103 seats, Congress 73, while two seats are with Bharatiya Tribal party and the Nationalist Congress Party has one. There is one independent legislator as well.
Further, the Congress leadership decided to shift its MLAs after BJP fielded three candidates despite having numbers to win only two seats out of four as per its strength in the Assembly. Two candidates from Congress have filed their nomination papers. The BJP will require cross-voting from Congress MLAs to win the third seat, as it needs a total of 111 votes.
The Congress will need 74 votes to win two seats. Earlier, Independent MLA Jignesh Mevani on Friday had extended his support to the Congress. The Congress has fielded senior state leader Shaktisinh Gohil and Bharatsinh Solanki while the BJP has fielded Abhay Bhardwaj, Ramila Bara and Narhari Amin.
The BJP, with 103 MLAs, is banking on the support of two MLAs of the BTP, led by tribal leader Chotu Vasava, and one of the NCP, but will still need another five votes.
The rebellion in the Congress party comes amidst the ongoing crisis in the state of Madhya Pradesh, where 22 Congress MLAs have deserted the party after former Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia decided to quit the party and join hands with the BJP. With this development, the Kamal Nath-led government is at the brink of collapse.
A video of Retired Justice BG Kolse-Patil, an ultra-left wing activist who is the mastermind of the Elgar Parishad violence, has become viral on social media where he was caught making hate speech and inciting Muslims of the country to hit the streets so that they could indulge in violent protests against the Modi government.
BG Kolse Patil, known for his rabid hatred for Hindus especially Brahmins, had addressed a mob in January during one of the anti-CAA protests. In the event which was organised by the Islamic organisation named Jamat Islamic Hind, Kolse Patil was caught peddling dangerous fake news and inciting Muslims to hit the streets to protest against the Modi government.
In the video posted online in January this year, Kolse Patil resorted to blatant disinformation campaign by claiming that Modi government brought in the Citizenship Amendment Act to give citizenship to Hindus who were left out of the NRC exercise in Assam. Continuing his fearmongering over the citizenship act, Kolse Patil attempted to incite Muslims by stating that the law was fundamentally discriminatory towards the Muslims of the country and urged them to descend on to streets, lay their lives to end Modi’s rule in the country.
Kolse Patil went on to say that the people are suffering in detention camps in Assam. To protect the Hindus, who are out of the NRC exercise in Assam, the Modi government had to bring the Citizenship Act apart from the NPR and NRC, Patil claimed. The Muslims of the country should decide whether they choose to ‘rot and die’ or ‘fight and die’ against the Modi government.
“We have started a movement. You (Muslims) should take the initiative now. You are 20-25 crores in population and once if you hit the streets, the entire country will be shaken,” shockingly Kolse Patil said in an attempt to incite the Muslim mobs to resort to violence on the streets of the country.
In a classic case of hate-speech, Kolse Patil asked Muslims to not fear for the police or the rule of law, stating that if Muslims continue to do so they will die a painful death. Referring to Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah as ‘dogs’, Patil assured Muslims of starting a new movement against the Modi government and demanded that Muslims should send at least 10 people from their family to strengthen the movement against the Modi government.
The ultra-left ‘activist’ Kolse Patil had attempted to push the Muslims to rebel against the institutions of the country, by asking them to show their strength on the streets. In a way, Patil had resorted to fear-mongering by speaking lies against the Modi government to incite Muslims, so they could be used to fight his ideological and political battle against the Modi government.
Kolse Patil’s hate speech, dated to January, was made at a time when the country was facing large scale anti-CAA riots which were unleashed by Muslim mobs. By inciting Muslims during such a sensitive time, Kolse Patil seems to have played with the fire, just like he and his ideological compatriots had fanned the hatred against the Modi government during the Bhima-Koregaon violence resulting in large scale violence in 2018.
It can be noted that Justice Patil was the mastermind and one of the organisers of Elgar Parishad which was held in Maharashtra in 2017, which led to the Bhima Koregaon riots. Later, few of the organisers of the Elgar Parishad was also arrested in connection with the plot to kill the Prime Minister. Kolse Patil is known to have closely worked with the arrested Urban Naxals, who were nabbed by the Pune police in 2018.
Justice Patil is also known for his anti-Hindu and casteist speeches. In one such speech in 2016, he had alleged that RSS is spreading Hindu terror. In another speech he had said that ‘RSS is the biggest enemy of India, we need to defeat the poisonous ideology of RSS on the ideological level’. He also had mentioned that ‘Hindutva is nothing but deluding name of Brahmanism and the real enemy of India are Brahmanism and Capitalism’. He also has a problem with the word Hindustan, as according to him it refers to Hindus only and all Indians are not Hindus.
BG Kolse Patil is also accused of sexually harassing a woman who had gone to interview him. The lady in question had gone to Patil’s house to record an interview with him. The interview was recorded inside the house as there were lots of noise outside. At the end of the interview, he had asked the woman why the top button of her kurta is open and said that he thought they can be ‘friends’.
He has even made an outrageous allegation that RSS has taken money from Pakistan’s ISI. Attending an event of Islamist fundamentalist Popular Front of India (PFI), he had insinuated that RSS chief la Mohan Bhagwat received ₹24 lakh to destabilise India, saying that ‘Brahmin-wadi’ people are dividing Hinduism.
In January this year, the Pune Police had registered a complaint against BG Kolse Patil under section 500 of the Indian Penal Code for his derogatory and defamatory statements against Veer Savarkar. Strangely, BG Kolse Patil had made the remarks in support of Rahul Gandhi who had tried to criticise Savarkar earlier.
In a shocking statement, Justice Patil had said that Veer Savarkar was convicted for rape in England. The retired judge claimed that Savarkar had confessed to the rape accusation, after which he was convicted. He also claimed that Veer Savarkar had always opposed the Indian freedom movement, and he said that Indians need not fight the British but the Muslims and Buddhists and Christians in our own country.
The Lucknow police on Friday imposed the “Gangster Act” against those arrested for violence during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh on December 19 last year.
“Over a dozen people were arrested from the spot while others were arrested after been identified through photographs and video footages of the violence”, said Additional deputy commissioner of police (west) Vikas Chandra Tripathi. He added that most of the rioters are still in jail and those out on bail would be arrested again.
Justifying the move to impose the Gangster Act, Tripathi said that investigations into the case had revealed that the violent rioters worked as a “gang” and deliberately targeted the police.
During the December 19 violence, police outposts in Thakurganj and Satkhanda were looted and set on fire by the rioters under the pretext of Anti-CAA protests. A media OB van was also set on fire in Lucknow’s Hazratganj. 28 people were arrested including the gang leader, Mohammed Tahir.
On December 23 last year, the Uttar Pradesh police had arrested the state head of the radical Islamic outfit Popular Front of India (PFI), Waseem and his two aides, namely, Nadeem and Ashfaq for allegedly masterminding the violence during the anti-CAA protests held in Lucknow. SSP Lucknow, Kalanidhi Naithani added that the police have retrieved placards, flags, pamphlets and papers, literature, newspaper cuttings, banners and posters of NRC/CAA protest from the accused.
On Friday, the Uttar Pradesh Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna announced that the state cabinet had approved the Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damage to Public Properties Ordinance, 2020, thereby providing the authorisation to the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh to confiscate properties of individuals involved in damaging property during riots in the state, including the recent anti-CAA riots.
In a bid to name and shame the hoodlums who indulged in vandalism during the anti-CAA stir in UP, the Yogi Adityanath government had put up hoardings carrying names, addresses and photographs of anti-CAA rioters, who were accused of damaging public property. On March 9, the Allahabad High Court had ordered the UP government to remove the hoardings, saying that there is no law backing the action of the government.
Last week, the Supreme Court had told the Uttar Pradesh government that there was no law as of then to support its action of putting roadside posters of those accused of vandalism during the anti-CAA protests in Lucknow, referring the issue of privacy to the larger bench.
After proposing the video conference among the SAARC counties to coordinate efforts in combating the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now proposed a G20 initiative to fight the pandemic. This is confirmed by Australian prime minister Scott Morrison at a press conference. He also said that his government supports the idea, saying that an urgent meeting among finance ministers is also needed due to the economic impact of the Covid-19.
The PM of Australia said, “one of the things I should
mention that I spoke to Prime Minister Johnson about is when it comes to the
G20, I am also aware that Prime Minister Modi is keen to organise a link up
between all the G20 leaders. I think that’s, I think that’s a commendable
initiative. Australia obviously supports that. I’ve communicated that. That’s a
matter for the Saudi government who’s the President of the G20 this year. But
the Prime Minister and I agreed last night that an even more urgent meeting
that could be needed would be a further meeting of the G20 finance ministers
and central bank governors. This is a health crisis, but it has very serious
economic impacts. Those economic impacts have been clearly affecting financial
markets. To date, that has been managed, but we’ve seen some highly volatile
and quite disruptive activity on our financial markets”.
Prime Minister Modi also talked to British PM Boris Johnson and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on telephone and discussed the issue of Covid-19 pandemic, among other issues.
Earlier, PM Modi had proposed a video conference among leaders of the SAARRC countries, to discuss measures to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. The conference has been scheduled for 5 PM today, where he will lead the talk to chalk out a strong common strategy to fight COVID-19 in the region. Although most SAARC leaders have welcomed the move and are joining the conference, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is reportedly skipping the same.
