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Former Pope Benedict XVI passes away at 95

ANI
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Former Pope Benedict XVI passes away at 95

Former Pope Benedict passed away at his Vatican residence on Saturday aged 95.

“With sorrow, I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” Vatican News tweeted. 

Pope Benedict passed away two days after Pontiff Francis asked to pray for the “very sick” former Pope, CNN said in a report.

“I want to ask you all for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict who sustains the Church in his silence. He is very sick,” Pope Francis said during his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday.

“We ask the Lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the Church to the very end,” added Pope Francis.

In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by making the almost unprecedented decision to stand down from his position, citing “advanced age.” Benedict’s announcement marked the first time a Pope had stepped down in nearly 600 years, reported CNN.

The last Pope to resign before his death was Gregory XII, who in 1415 quit ending a civil war within the Catholic Church in which more than one man claimed to be Pope.

(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)

The one who wears a sweater during winter is scared of the cold, I am not scared of the cold: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi

OpIndia Staff
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The one who wears a sweater during winter is scared of the cold, I am not scared of the cold: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi

On Saturday, in a press meeting, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that people wear sweaters because they are scared of the cold. “I do not wear a sweater because I am not scared of cold. You wear one because you are scared,” he said when one of the reporters asked him why he does not wear a sweater and how does he not feel cold.

The Congress leader is currently in Delhi and can be seen walking around the city in a t-shirt. Delhi is in the middle of the winter season right now as the temperature is hovering around 10 degrees Celsius. “Meri T-shirt se itni disturbance kyun hoti hai (Why are you so disturbed by my t-shirt),” Gandhi said as the media personnel asked him about the cold weather.

“Do you want me to wear a sweater?” he questioned reporters, adding that after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, he would produce a video showing how to walk in a t-shirt while braving the cold. The Wayanad MP added that he is not frightened of the cold and will put on a sweater if he starts feeling cold. The video of the exchange went viral over the internet with netizens mocking the leader for his ‘not scared of cold’ statement.

One of the users claimed that Rahul Gandhi was deliberately avoiding wearing a jacket. The user stated that he was probably scared that he might get mocked for using expensive jackets at the cost of public money. In 2018, Rahul Gandhi was attacked by the BJP for wearing an expensive Burberry jacket costing Rs 70,000 during the campaigning for the Meghalaya Assembly elections. The BJP criticized the Congress leader, who had mocked the Narendra Modi administration over GST, growing unemployment, and weak economic development earlier.

Meanwhile, another user indicated that Rahul Gandhi was a comedian and that he had wrongfully chosen the path of being in politics. “This guy is of a different level… He just came in the wrong line, otherwise, he would have gone very far,” the user tweeted.

Several other users went on to say that Gandhi was being illogical by making such a statement while many others came up with funny memes ultimately mocking the leader. One said Gandhi will wear a blanket in the summer season as he might not be scared of heat also. Another one sarcastically said that the leader deserved to be the PM of the country by making such a statement.

Some users also seriously commented on Rahul Gandhi’s remarks. “Your political career is so cold that no amount of dynastic and boot-licking sweaters will warm it.”

screenshot of people’s comments on Rahul Gandhi’s statement
screenshot of people’s comments on Rahul Gandhi’s statement

Earlier, it was reported that the Congress leaders were really impressed by Rahul Gandhi’s thermodynamic system. Long-time Congress loyalist Salman Khurshid was so impressed by Rahul Gandhi’s act of wearing a t-shirt that he called Rahul Gandhi superhuman for wearing one during Delhi winters. Salman Khurshid said that while they are freezing in the cold and wearing jackets, he (Rahul Gandhi) is going out in t-Shirts for his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Khurshid added that Rahul Gandhi is like a Yogi doing a tapasya since he wore a t-shirt.

Not satisfied with the comparison of Rahul Gandhi to superhumans, Khurshid went forward and compared him to Lord Ram. The Laal Singh Chaddha run of Rahul Gandhi largely skipped Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, and the state with the highest number of Lok Sabha seats, and Khurshid had an excuse ready for it. “Sometimes when Ram ji is not able to reach, Bharat takes the ‘khadau’ and goes to places. Like that, we have carried the ‘khadau’ in UP,” he was quoted as saying.

The Chairperson of Social Media and Digital Platforms for Congress in Maharajganj, Supriya Shrinate, had also sung Rahul Gandhi’s praises for wearing a t-shirt and compared him to a ‘tapasvi’.

Rahul Gandhi’s march, entered Delhi last week at the Badarpur border, near the Badarpur metro station. The Yatra is supposed to restart on January 3 and travel to Haryana, then to Punjab, and ultimately the journey will end in Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian media spreads fake news that Indian Rupee was the worst-performing Asian currency in 2022, here is the truth

Raju Das
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Indian media spreads fake news that Indian Rupee was the worst-performing Asian currency in 2022, here is the truth

Yesterday, several media houses published fake news claiming that Indian Rupee has ended the year as the worst-performing Asian currency. Despite the fact that a simple online search shows that value of several other Asian currencies fell much more than the fall of INR, leading media houses, including pink papers like Economic Times claimed that ‘the Indian rupee ended 2022 as the worst-performing Asian currency with a fall of 11.3%’.

Quoting or directly publishing a report by Reuters, several other newspapers and news channels like Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Times Now, Money Control and many others made the same claim in their headlines, that India Rupee was the worst-performing Asian currency in the year 2022. The reports stated that Indian Rupee against US Dollar fell 11.3% in the year, from ₹74.33 at the start of the year to ₹82.72 at the end of the year, and this is the worst performance by an Asian currency.

Screenshots of fake media reports

However, this is absolutely wrong claim. While it is correct that Indian Rupee fell 11.3% versus US Dollar during the year and it is a bad year for the Indian Currency, it was not the worst-performing Asian currency in the year. There are several other Asian currencies which fell much more than INR during the year.

As can be seen in the table below, the currencies of several Asian nations fell much more than Indian Rupee. Actually, Sri Lankan Rupee was the worst-performing Asian currency, which fell over 80% in the year, given the political turmoil the country faced after the country went bankrupt. The Turkish Lira was the second worst performer with a fall of over 40%.

In fact, the currencies of most neighbours of India fell at a much higher rate, with the Pakistani Rupee falling by 27.10%, and Bangladeshi Taka by 20.32%.

CurrencyOpening ValueClosing ValueDifference% Change
Sri Lankan Rupee202.92367.53164.6181.12%
Turkish lira13.3218.695.3740.32%
Pakistani Rupee178.25226.5548.3027.10%
Bangladeshi Taka85.74103.1617.4220.32%
Myanmar Kyat1778.412100.17321.7618.09%
Japanese Yen115.11131.1216.0113.91%
Israeli Shekel3.113.530.4213.50%
Indian Rupee74.5182.758.2411.06%
Nepalese Rupee118.99132.1313.1411.04%
Taiwan dollar27.7230.662.9410.61%
Indonesian Rupiah1424215538.51296.509.10%
Chinese Yuan6.366.900.548.53%

Even better economies like Israel and Japan saw their currencies fall at a higher rate than the fall of INR. Others like Taiwan and Indonesia saw their currencies fall at similar levels as the INR. Chinese Yuan fell by 8.53% in the year.

Moreover, outside Asia too, there are several major currencies that saw similar or more falls in the year. The British Pound fell by 11.75% against US Dollar. Worldwide, the worst-performing currency was Venezuelan Bolivar, which fell by a whopping 272.95% vs USD in the year. Ghanaian Cedi was another bad performer with a 65% fall.

Therefore, it is completely false that Indian Rupee was the worst-performing currency in the year 2022, there are several Asian currencies that performed much worse.

Source of the fake news

Most of the media reports carrying the fake news quoted Reuters, but actually, Reuters didn’t make this false claim. The headline in the Reuters report is ‘Indian rupee ends down more than 10% in 2022, worst since 2013,’ which is factually correct. In the body of the report, it said that ‘the Indian rupee ended 2022 as one of the worst-performing Asian currencies’.

Reuters actually didn’t say that the Indian currency was the worst-performing Asian currency, it said that India Rupee was one of the worst-performing Asian currencies. But in an effort to show that Indian economy has suffered under the Modi government at the centre, the media houses distorted that sentence to claim that Indian Rupee was the worst-performing Asian currency in 2022. As we have seen above, there are several major Asian currencies that performed worse than INR.

From details on Rana Ayyub’s scam to debunking rumours of military coup in China, Nupur Sharma, Kashmir Files: Read Top 10 articles of 2022

Editorial Desk
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From details on Rana Ayyub’s scam to debunking rumours of military coup in China, Nupur Sharma, Kashmir Files: Read Top 10 articles of 2022

2022 has been a tumultuous year for Hindus. From hundreds of cases of Love Jihad (Grooming Jihad) to beheadings like that of Kanhaiya Lal, mob violence against Jihadis against Hindus, the Ukraine-Russia war that raised speculations of World War 3 and shocking cases like that of the murder of Shraddha Walkar by Aftab Poonawala.

OpIndia, on its part, tried to document as much as we could to ensure that our readers have the information that they deserve. 

As we bid adieu to 2022, here is a list of the top 10 most read articles on OpIndia.

1. ‘Film Critic’ Anupama Chopra attacks Madhvan starrer ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’ for showing ISRO scientist as a ‘true-blue Hindu patriot’. 

2022 was a year that saw a Bollywood battle – between the industry and its viewers. While several movies that were expected to do well at the Box Office tanked, there were other off-beat movies based on ignored realities that did exceptionally well. With star kids and A-listers failing to impress at the Box Office, the ‘liberals’ in the media launched a media blitzkrieg against movies that displayed the truth.

In July 2022, movie critic Anupama Chopra reviewed R Madhavan’s newly released movie named ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’ to report a problem with the subject’s Hindu religion and his patriotism. Writing a review of the movie based on the life of Padma Bhushan Nambi Narayanan, Chopra said that the movie repeatedly highlighted Nambi’s patriotism and also leaned pointedly into his religion.

“It’s admirable that the film has brought Narayanan’s many accomplishments into the spotlight, but the screenplay repeatedly underlines his patriotism and also leans pointedly into his religion”, she said in the review that was published on July 1.

Please click on the image to read the article

The movie ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’ is the story of one of India’s greatest space scientists, Nambi Narayanan. An exemplary achiever, instrumental in India’s space accomplishments only to be falsely implicated by a political-bureaucratic nexus in a bid to not only prevent the country’s technological progress but also to use it to further an evil political outcome. 

2. Russia removes US, UK, Japan flags from rocket carrying OneWeb satellites but keeps Indian flag, puts conditions for the launch

Perhaps for the first time in history, the impact of war on earth was felt in space. After Russia had said that the sanctions by the USA and European nations on Russia for invasion of Ukraine can result in a crash of the International Space Station, they removed all the flags of countries participating in a space program from a rocket they are launching, except the flag of India.

Please click on the image to read the article

Russian space agency ROSCOSMOS chief Dimitry Rogozin posted a video showing workers at the Baikonur launch pad covering up the flags of USA, Japan and UK on the OneWeb rocket which is scheduled to be launched on Friday. However, the flag of India was left intact.

3. As rumours of a military coup in China turns out to be false, here is how the claims of house arrest of Xi Jinping went viral

In September 2002, amid large-scale cancellations of flights at Beijing airport and massive military build-up in Beijing, rumours about a coup in China started doing the rounds for a few days.

Please click on the image to read the article

OpIndia did a comprehensive debunking of that rumour.

4. Many Hindus still think what Nupur Sharma said was ‘unnecessary’: Here is a necessary read for them

On the 5th of June, BJP suspended the now-former spokesperson of the party, Nupur Sharma, after certain Muslim countries started getting irate about certain comments she had made during a debate (basically, quoting the Hadit).

There was widespread condemnation by the Hindus for the manner in which Nupur Sharma was being hounded by the Islamists. However, there were still some Hindus who believed that what Nupur Sharma said as a response, after a Muslim panelist made disparaging statements against Hindus, was ‘unnecessary’.

Please click on the image to read the article

Hindus today might believe that Nupur Sharma’s comment was “unnecessary”, but if there was a word of caution, it would be this – tomorrow, they will say your very existence, the existence of the dirty Kafir that they are theologically and viscerally meant to hate is an affront to their faith. 

5. Personal expenses, fixed deposit in father’s name, transfers to her sister out of public funds: Details as ED attaches assets worth Rs 1.77 crores of Rana Ayyub

In February 2022, Enforcement Directorate attached assets worth Rs 1.77 crores of alleged journalist Rana Ayyub under the Money Laundering Act. The ED, in its attachment order said, “Rana Ayyub has cheated the general Public Donors in a pre-planned manner and with the intention to cheat the general public donors”.

Please click on the image to read the article

The order says that Rana Ayyub’s scam started right from the time she collected the money and started withdrawing it from the savings account of herself and her family members. The ED order further said that a Fixed Deposit amounting to Rs. 50 Lakh was booked from her saving bank account through net banking and opening a separate Current bank account and subsequently, funds were transferred from her saving bank account and bank account of her sister and father and did not utilize for the purpose for which it was raised by Rana Ayyub.

6. ‘My children have become Christian, they won’t perform my last rites’: 85-year-old Hindu man in TN donates his property to Temple

In January, a Hindu man from Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram has decided to donate his house worth Rs. 2 Crore after being fed up with children who have converted to Christianity.

Please click on the image to read the article

Velayudham who retired as a health inspector in the TN state government owns a 2,680 sq. ft. house worth Rs. 2 Crores. While talking to a local Tamil daily Dinamalar, he lamented that he had built this house with hard-earned money. He informed that all three of his children have married Christians and have converted to Christianity, so there is nobody left in the family to perform his final rites as per Hindu tradition. 

7. The Kashmir Files: The real stories of brutality presented in the movie

‘The Kashmir Files’ movie made thousands of people realise the harsh reality of Kashmir and the brutal genocide that had been converted up or denied for all these years. Some were are finding it hard to accept that the movie is based on true stories and that the victims of the episode were never heard. The dialogues of the movie like – “The truth of Kashmir is so true that people may find it unbelievable”, “Broken people don’t speak, they just need to be heard”, “This is a huge war of information, narratives”, have shaken the widely held notions established by decades of whitewashing and denials.

Please click on the image to read the article

In this article, we delved into the true incidents that were depicted in the gut wrenching movie that took India by storm.

8. Islamic terrorists force-fed blood-soaked rice to a Kashmiri Hindu, sawed a woman in half, but Anupma Chopra chooses to savour that blood

The movie The Kashmir Files, director by Vivek Agnihotri sent the liberal establishment in a tizzy in 2022. The entire ecosystem went from trashing the movie to denying the brutal genocide of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990s at the hands of the Muslims of Kashmir.

One attempt at this was made by the website of Anupama Chopra, who published a review of the movie and denied the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus.

Please click on the image to read the article

OpIndia published a comprehensive rebuttal of the review posted by Anupama Chopra’s website, showing how they were essentially using the movie to deny the genocide of Hindus in Kashmir.

9. Are US-run biological labs in Ukraine one of the reasons behind Russia invasion? Read how Russian govt had raised ‘bioweapons’ alarm

As Russia started attacking military installations in Ukraine, there were speculations that the United State’s Biolabs that have been established in Ukraine in the name of research and defence are also among the targets. The US has several such labs in Ukraine under its “Biological Threat Reduction Program”.

Please click on the image to read the article

As per the details made available by the US government, the US Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program has been working with partner countries to “to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental, or natural) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases.”

On several occasions, Russia has accused the US and Ukraine of developing bio-weapons close to its borders. In 2021, while talking about the inability of the World Health Organisation to establish the origin of the Covid-19 virus, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told Kommersant reporter that Russia believed the US was developing bio-weapons near its borders.

10. No, Aftab Amin Poonawalla is not a Parsi but a Muslim: Here is the truth about the murderer of Shraddha Walkar

On Saturday (November 12), the Delhi police nabbed a man named Aftab Amin Poonawalla for the gruesome murder of 26-year-old Shraddha Walkar. The victim’s body was chopped into 35 pieces and disposed off in 18 different locations by the accused.

When the news of the heinous crime went viral, the usual suspects began contradicting the religious affiliation of Aftab Amin Poonawalla. They claimed that the accused is a Parsi by Faith and his barbaric act was being used to ‘defame’ the Muslim community.

Please click on the image to read the article

OpIndia did a comprehensive fact-check on these fallacious claims.

From fake ‘Nobel nominations’, to fake news spread by ‘fact-checkers, Hinduphobic lies by western profs, media lies: Top 20 OpIndia fact-checks of 2022

OpIndia Staff
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From fake ‘Nobel nominations’, to fake news spread by ‘fact-checkers, Hinduphobic lies by western profs, media lies: Top 20 OpIndia fact-checks of 2022

The year 2020 saw an onslaught of fake news and propaganda spread not just by the mainstream media, but by politicians and ‘social media influencers’ as well. From Hinduphobic lies spread by western “professors” like Audrey Truschke to so-called ‘fact-checkers’, who are nothing more than apologists for radical Islamists spreading blatant lies, including fancying themselves as Nobel nominees – 2022 saw it all.

OpIndia, on its part, tried its best to bust as many lies as we possibly could. Here are top 20 fact-checks done by OpIndia in the year 2022, in no particular order.

1. Audrey Truschke repeats lie debunked in court, says belly of pregnant Muslim woman was cut during Gujarat riots: Here are the facts

Hinduphobic professor Audrey Truschke of Rutgers University in the USA, who keeps spreading fake news against Hindus and against India, did it again. But this time she posted a claim on Twitter which has been proven as a lie long ago. On November 26, she posted a tweet saying, “In 2002, Modi oversaw a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. They burnt shops, cut open the bellies of pregnant women, raped, and killed thousands.”

She further claimed that BJP is “celebrating those horrors”, citing a report that misquoted home minister Amit Shah’s speech yesterday in Gujarat.

OpIndia did a comprehensive fact-check of these Hinduphobic claims by Truschke. The full fact-check can be read here.

2. How propaganda was crafted to promote an out-on-bail fact-checker while he did not even make it to the shortlist by Soros-funded NGO for Nobel Peace Prize

October 5 was no less than Eid for the liberal cabal as their two favourite self-proclaimed fact-checkers and founders of propaganda website Alt News, Muhammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha, made the list of Time’s “favourites to win the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize“. The list of “favourites” was published by Time based on nominations that were made public via “Norwegian lawmakers, bookmakers’ odds, and a personal shortlist by the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).”

These claims, however, were bunkum. You can read our full fact-check here.

3. Was one Maulana Ataullah Qasmi burnt alive by Bajrang Dal worker in Shahdol as claimed by propaganda website and AIMIM’s Owaisi? Here’s the truth

On September 29, a New Delhi-based ‘independent news site’ courted controversy after falsely attributing the murder of an exorcist, accused of sexually harassing a woman, to Bajrang Dal. The deceased was identified as one Maulana Ataullah Qasmi.

In a tweet, ‘The Jamia Times’ wrote, “Maulana Ataullah Qasmi, a resident of Jharkhand, was burnt by a Bajrang Dal worker, and the body was thrown in the forest.”

This, however, was a lie, which was also promoted by elements like AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. In reality, the man who murdered him, had taken a woman to the Maulana for an exorcism, in the hopes that it would cure her ailments. Having won the trust of Yadav, the accused, Qasmi exploited the opportunity to sexually harass the woman. Angered by his act, the accused killed the exorcist and doused his body with the petrol from his bike.

There was no Bajrang Dal or communal link to the murder as claimed by Jamia Times or Asaduddin Owaisi. Our fact-check can be read here.

4. Fact-check: Did Rahul Gandhi meet ‘activist’ Amulya Leona during Bharat Jodo Yatra, who raised pro-Pakistan slogan in 2020 during anti-CAA protest

On September 23, several posts emerged that claimed that Congress scion Rahul Gandhi had met anti-India activist Amulya Leona Noronha during his ambitious ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra.’ After tweets on social media, a Whatsapp message also went viral where it was claimed that Rahul Gandhi had met Amulya Leona.

In February 2020, Amulya Leona Noronha created a ruckus during a public meeting of AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. She raised slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ and was attempting to say more but was dragged off the stage by those present. 

This claim, however, was untrue. Rahul Gandhi had not met Amulya Leona during his Bharat Jodo Yatra stint. In our fact-check, we debunked this rumour and identified the individual who Rahul Gandhi had actually met. Our fact-check can be read here.

5. Karnataka: Islamists share a stabbing incident at Chitradurga with a fake communal angle, here is the truth

On July 4, a piece of news about the stabbing of a 38-year-old Muslim man named Samiullah began doing the rounds of the internet. The story was tweeted by several handles with Muslim names with the hashtag #JusticeForSamiullah. It was alleged that the man was a resident of the Chitradurga district of Karnataka and was stabbed by a 22-year-old Hindu man named Nutan Gowda. It was also claimed that the accused was a member of the Sangh Parivar and that the stabbing incident was a hate crime.

The Chitradurga district police had debunked the ‘communal angle’ theory even before #JusticeForSamiullah began trending on Twitter. The OpIndia report on the fact check can be read here.

6. Al Jazeera spreads fake news over Maulvi’s death in Bihar, blames Hindus while local reports suggest family’s property dispute

On June 19, media house Al Jazeera Arabic published a report claiming Hindus killed a Maulvi in Siwan (Bihar). The image posted in the tweet has a message in Arabic that read, “Social media sites are buzzing with pictures of the imam of the mosque of Jeddah after he was killed by Hindus who beheaded him while he was sleeping in a mosque in the village of Khalispur in Siwan, eastern India. Calling for an investigation into the crime and calls for the “Justice of Imam Siwan” hashtag to hold the killers accountable.”

The reality behind the death of Maulvi in district Siwan of Bihar is far from what Aj Jazeera has claimed. 

The Police believed he was killed on the pretext of personal enmity over a piece of land. Station in-charge Vinod Kumar Singh said a case was filed in the matter based on the complaint of family members, and a probe was initiated. Ahmed was involved in a dispute over land ownership. The OpIndia report on the fact check can be read here.

7. Scroll spreads fake news that ‘4 Dalit tanners were killed by upper-caste mob for skinning a dead cow in Gujarat’s Una’: Here’s the truth

Two days after the Assam police arrested Gujarat Congress supporter and Vadgam MLA Jignesh Mevani over his objectionable tweets, Scroll published a report to attack the BJP government in Gujarat. In a bid to portray the BJP government as intolerant and remorseless toward its detractors, the leftist propaganda website ‘Scroll’ resorted to peddling fake news by distorting a 2016 news story. 

The leftist media portal wrote that “four Dalit tanners were killed by an upper-caste mob for skinning a dead cow in Una in 2016”, whereas the fact is that the villagers had beaten up four cow smugglers for skinning a live cow. They were not ‘killed’ by any ‘upper-caste’ mob, as claimed by Scroll.

The full OpIndia fact-check can be read here.

8. Did over 700 farmers die during anti-farm bill protests at Delhi borders? A detailed analysis of the data reveals the truth

A lot of noise was made around the alleged deaths of protesting farmers who participated in farmer protests against now-repealed Agriculture Laws. One of the demands that the farmer unions had put forward in front of the union and state governments is to provide compensation to the families of the farmers who died during the protest. As per reports and claims made by the farmer unions, around 700-750 farmers allegedly died during the protests. 

Out of 702 deaths checked by analyst Vijay Patel, only 191 of them lost their lives at the Delhi border protest sites. 340 of them died after returning home from the protest sites. It is unclear on what basis the farmer unions connected these deaths to farmer protests. Another 108 people lost their lives while on the way to the site of the protests or on the way back home. The reasons for such deaths included hit-and-run cases as well. 

A full report on the analysis can be read here.

9. Times of India attempts to downplay West Bengal post-poll violence, twists CBI sending 21 rape cases back to state formed SIT

The heinous post-poll violence unleashed in the state of West Bengal has been whitewashed ever since the Assembly elections. The media has hardly reported on the crimes of rape, murder and looting and turned a blind eye. After the High Court came down heavily on the Mamata Banerjee government, the CBI has been investigating the cases. However, the media was still at the job of whitewashing the brutal post-poll violence in Bengal after the assembly elections where Mamata Banerjee won with a thumping majority. 

Times of India report published on January 4 that was headlined: “Post-poll violence in Bengal: No proof in 21 rape, rape-attempt cases mentioned by NHRC, CBI says”.

However, the headline by the Times of India was incorrect and misleading. Essentially, the CBI moved 21 cases of rape or attempted rape that occurred during the West Bengal post-poll violence to a state-formed SIT in order to acquire additional evidence because it was unable to locate enough in these cases. The full fact-check on the chicanery by TOI can be read here.

10. Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR blames ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Islamophobia’ in India after a Muslim mob beats up a Muslim couple for watching Kantara

On 9th December 2022, Ibrahim Hooper from Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) took to his Twitter account to complain about ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Islamophobia’ in India after a Muslim mob beat up a Muslim couple. Hooper shared news from the Free Press Journal with a caption that suggested Muslims in India are under threat from Hindus.

Interestingly, while it was a Muslim mob that beat up a Muslim couple for watching the movie Kantaara, Hooper from CAIR claimed that it was Hindus who had beaten up the couple of fearmongered about how Muslims were under threat in India. Our full fact-check can be read here.

11. Did BJP MLA threaten Muslims with no development if they don’t vote for him? AltNews’ Zubair spreads lies, Muslims say ‘ready to fact check misleading claims’

On the 13th of December, AltNews’ out-on-bail fact-checker, who fancied himself as winning the Nobel prize (which also turned out to be fake news) shared a video of Karnataka BJP MLA Preetam Gowda. In the tweet where he shared the video, Mohammad Zubair said, “BJP MLA Preetam Gowda from Hassan, Karnataka warns Muslims of not taking up any development work if they do not vote for him in the coming elections”.

However, this was untrue and the ‘fact-checker’ wilfully spread fake news. It is clear from the video and the transcript of his speech that he did not say that he will withhold development work in the area, instead, he said he will not be doing personal favours for them. The BJP MLA categorically says, “Water, road and drainage work will be done as it is my duty, but I will not be there for your personal work”. OpIndia also accessed what local Muslims were saying about the speech by the BJP MLA. The full fact-check can be read here.

12. No, Aftab Amin Poonawalla is not a Parsi but a Muslim: Here is the truth about the murderer of Shraddha Walkar

On November 12, the Delhi police nabbed a man named Aftab Amin Poonawalla for the gruesome murder of 26-year-old Shraddha Walkar. The victim’s body was chopped into 35 pieces and disposed off in 18 different locations by the accused.

When the news of the heinous crime went viral, the usual suspects began contradicting the religious affiliation of Aftab Amin Poonawalla. They claimed that the accused is a Parsi by Faith and his barbaric act was being used to ‘defame’ the Muslim community.

OpIndia found irrefutable evidence that Aftab was indeed a Muslim and not a Parsi. The full fact-check can be read here.

13. Congress leader shares image of Nigerian crowd in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra

Jitendra Patwari, State President of the Madhya Pradesh Congress, uploaded a fake image of a huge crowd on Twitter and portrayed it as the multitude of people participating in Congress family scion and revered figure in the party Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.

OpIndia reverse-searched the image and found that it is not a photo of Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. The image was captured in Nigeria during the Azusa Street Revival crusade. The full fact-check can be read here.

14. Virologist Dr Robert Malone claims UP govt withheld info from US about health kits handed out to Covid-19 patients: Here is the truth

American virologist and immunologist, Dr Robert Malone, courted controversy after he claimed that the Uttar Pradesh government in India refused to divulge information about its Covid-19 treatment procedure with the United States government.

However, to suggest that none knew about the contents of the medicine kits is a far-fetched claim, which is not grounded in reality. And for Dr Rober Malone to even insinuate that the Indian government withheld such a piece of information, already existing in the public domain, from the US government has no semblance of truth in it. Read OpIndia’s full fact-check here.

15. Raghuram Rajan: The establishment man, who descends on India when the weather is pleasant, now lies about PLIs helping Ambanis and Adanis

Raghuram Rajan said that PLI (production linked incentive scheme) only helps “well-connected” firms. To make his point clear he names the very same industrialists that have been demonised and abused on daily basis by corrupt dynasts – Ambani and Adani. For good measure, he added Tatas.

This, however, is patently false. You can read our full article here.

16. Was Queen Elizabeth 2, head of the Church of England, a descendant of Prophet Muhammad?

Following the death of British Queen Elizabeth II on September 8 at the age of 96, various statements emerged, reinvigorating a long-debated claim that the monarch had ancestral links to Prophet Muhammad, the founding leader of Islam. 

According to the claim, the British monarch is a great descendant of Prophet Muhammad. Her ancestors have been traced back for centuries, and there are doubts concerning Elizabeth’s probable ancestry from a Muslim princess named Zaida, as well as Zaida’s own origins and offspring.

OpIndia published a report tracing whatever we know about this theory. You can read the full article here.

17. Fact-Check: Did PM Modi try to click a photograph of cheetahs with the lens cover on

On September 17, a few photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi went viral on social media, where it was claimed that he tried to click photographs of Cheetah released on Konu National Park while the lens cover was on. Many Congress leaders, TMC leaders shared the morphed image in a bid to mock PM Modi on his birthday.

Upon examination of the photographs in circulation, it was clear that the lens cover was not on and politicians were using a morphed image to mock the Prime Minister. Read the full fact-check here.

18. NDTV twists ‘pro-choice’ comment of boxer Nikhat Zareen to legitimise Karnataka hijab row, other media houses amplify misinformation

Days after Nikhat Zareen brought accolades to India by winning gold at the Women’s Boxing World Championships, leftist media portal NDTV deliberately misquoted her to give credence to the Karnataka hijab row.

Nikhat Zareen did not speak about the ‘right to wear hijab in schools’ or to make exceptions for anyone when it comes to school uniforms, however, NDTV deliberately twisted her statement. The OpIndia fact-check can be read here.

19. As Pfizer releases more than 80000 pages on its Covid-19 vaccine, claims about it flood social media: Here are the facts

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer published documents related to its m-RNA Covid-19 vaccine and the trials of the vaccine. The first batch of over 80,000 pages of documents were released on May 2, triggering many information and mis-information being spread about the vaccine on social media.

OpIndia did a comprehensive review of the facts related to the documents and the misinformation being spread. You can read the full article here.

20. ‘Nobel nominated fact-checker’ Md Zubair spreads fake news that Raghuram Rajan didn’t propose Islamic banking in India, uses a different unrelated report

On 15th December 2022, ‘fact-checker’ and Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair tried to ‘fact-check’ journalist Rahul Shivshankar but ended up spreading fake news himself. While Times Now editor Rahul Shivshankar had quoted a report by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan that talked about Islamic banking, Zubair claimed that the report was by Dr. C Rangarajan.

You can read OpIndia’s comprehensive fact-check here.

Rubika murder case: 29 of the 50 pieces of her body found, head recovered after 14 days of the murder by her husband Dildar Ansari

OpIndia Staff
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Rubika murder case: 29 of the 50 pieces of her body found, head recovered after 14 days of the murder by her husband Dildar Ansari

On 31st December 2022, Jharkhand police finally found the head of Rubika, a resident of Sahibganj in Jharkhand, 14 days after she was murdered. The head was discovered in a pond in the area. In the brutal murder case, Rubika’s husband Dildar Ansari, along with his family allegedly first killed Rubika Pahadan, then removed the skin of the corpse, and later it was cut into 50 pieces. After this, these pieces were disposed of by throwing them at different places.

Fishermen in the area noticed the head lying in the pond and reported it to the Borio police. Police have so far recovered 29 pieces of Rubika’s dead body. The remaining 21 pieces are also being searched around the same pond.

22-year-old Rubika Pahadan had a love marriage with Dildar Ansari (aged 25) about one and a half months before the murder. On December 17, she was murdered. Dildar and his family had chopped Rubika’s corpse into 50 pieces in an attempt to destroy evidence. Some pieces were hidden in the house, while other pieces were thrown at deserted places around the locality. When people saw dogs eating human meat, they informed the police.

Dildar Ansari was initially questioned by the police on suspicion. Following the investigation, the whole matter was revealed. Police have arrested 10 people for the murder, including Dildar’s mother Mariam Nisha, his maternal uncle, and a friend.

According to the police, Dildar Ansari’s mother Mariam Nisha had given a contract of Rs 20,000 to her brother Moinul Ansari to kill Rubika and dispose of the body.

After killing Rubika at his maternal uncle’s house, he took the body to his friend’s house. At his friend’s house, he had cut Rubika’s body into 50 pieces by laying it on black polythene on the ground.

The doctor who conducted the post-mortem of the body said, “The cruelty that took place with Rubika can not be imagined. The killers peeled off her body’s skin. Looking at the small pieces of the body, it seems that it would have taken 7 to 8 hours to cut the dead body.”

From Kanhaiya Lal, Umesh Kohle, Ankita Singh, to Ankita Bhandari and the Kerala human sacrifice saga: 10 crimes of 2022 that shook India

OpIndia Staff
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From Kanhaiya Lal, Umesh Kohle, Ankita Singh, to Ankita Bhandari and the Kerala human sacrifice saga: 10 crimes of 2022 that shook India

2022 saw several brutal crimes being unleashed by barbarians. From the brutal beheading of Kanhaiya Lal and his killers making the beheading video and their chilling confession viral, to the sordid saga where 10 people were burnt alive in Bengal and Ankita Bhandari being murdered by BJP leader’s resort owner in Himachal Pradesh, several such crimes shook the conscience of the nation in this past year.

Here, OpIndia compiles 10 such brutal cases that have left an indelible mark on the nation.

1. Kanhaiya Lal and Umesh Kohle

Former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s alleged ‘blasphemous’ remark about Prophet Muhammad on May 26 sparked outrage amongst Islamists not just in India but around the world. Her decision to merely quote an excerpt from the Islamic Hadith during a TV show proved catastrophic for her political career and mental peace after AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair dog-whistled about her comments to Islamists. 

This set off a series of incidents that culminated into a constant barrage of threats at Sharma and attacks on those who dared to speak out in her support, many of which turned out to be extremely brutal.

On June 28, a Hindu man named Kanhaiya Lal was brutally murdered by Jihadis in Udaipur, Rajasthan, over an alleged post in support of Nupur Sharma. 

His neighbour Nazim filed a complaint against Kanhaiya Lal, following which he was arrested. Nazim also leaked Kanhaiya Lal’s number, photograph, and address to his community groups. After being released on bail, he continued to receive threats. The murderers had, after murdering Kanhaiya Lal, make the video of his beheading viral. Along with this video, they also released a confession video holding a blood-soaked knife, boasting about avenging the perceived insult to the Prophet of Islam.

While Kanhaiya Lal was murdered on 28th June, on the night of 22nd June 2022, Chemist Umesh Kolhe was killed by some Islamists in Amravati of Maharashtra for allegedly sharing a social media post supporting former Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma.  Dr Yusuf Khan, Kolhe’s close friend, shared his social media post with another group called Rahebariya and informed his friends Sheikh Irrfan and others, and created hatred in their minds for Umesh Kolhe, resulting in the attack that led to his death.

Several other people were also murdered or brutally assaulted by Jihadis for extending support to Nupur Sharma. Here is our article detailing those incidents.

2. Kishan Bharwad murder

On January 25, 2022, Kishan Bharwad, a Dhandhuka (Ahmedabad) youth, was shot dead by two bike-borne assailants for a social media post about Prophet Muhammad. Notably, Islamists take offence if someone publishes an image of the Prophet Muhammad, and it is considered an act of blasphemy.

 Islamists reached the Police station in the form of a large mob and pressured the Police to take action against Kishan. When Kishan reached the Police station, he was beaten up by the mob. His father alleged some Police personnel also joined the mob to beat him. Kishan was made to apologise.

Just like in the case of Kanhaiya Lal, things did not calm down even after Kishan’s apology. He was later arrested by the Police under Islamist pressure. On the same day, Kishan’s wife gave birth to a daughter. Kishan, who would have been proud to become the father of a baby girl, never got a chance to see her.

A day later, his father arranged bail for him, and Kishan was sent away to live with his uncle for a few days. In desperation to see his little child, Kishan left his uncle’s house with his cousin on a bike to another uncle’s house. At 4 PM, he came back and at 5:30 PM, he was assassinated by the Islamists.

Investigation revealed a racket led by a maulvi to murder anyone who allegedly commits blasphemy. Multiple arrests were made, and the matter is sub-judice.

During the investigation, shocking revelations came to the fore. It was reported that investigating agencies uncovered profiles of as many as 26 people including Yati Narsinghanand of Dasna temple in Ghaziabad and Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, formerly known as Wasim Rizvi.

3. Ankita Singh burnt alive by Shahrukh

On August 23, Ankita Kumari was set ablaze by her stalker neighbour identified as Shahrukh Hussain and his friend Naeem in Dumka, Jharkhand. She died in the hospital while receiving treatment for her injuries on August 28.

Because of one-sided “love”, Shahrukh Hussain had torched Ankita alive by pouring petrol on her. The only mistake of Ankita Kumari, a student studying in class 12, was that she did not want to talk to Shahrukh, after which the man torched her.

The horrific attack on Ankita happened on August 23 morning in Dhumka in Jharkhand. Ankita had told the police in a critical state that her neighbour, Shahrukh, used to harass her every day. He used to approach her and seek her friendship. He had also obtained her phone number and used to call her repeatedly, asking her for friendship. When Ankita chastised him for not stopping, he threatened to kill her.

Ankita informed her father of this on Monday. When she woke up the next morning, her body was in flames as she ran up to family members who attempted to extinguish the fire. Her family then hurried her to the hospital. It was found in the hospital that Ankita had suffered severe burns. It turned out that Shahrukh went to Ankita’s house on Tuesday morning, poured petrol on Ankita through a window when she was asleep in her bed and torched her, and then fled from the scene.

In the hospital, Ankita named Shahrukh as the culprit. After taking Ankita and her family members’ statements, police arrested Shahrukh the same day.

Following the murder, new revelations were made. It was reported that the second accused in the case, identified as Mohammed Naeem, was linked to a group indulged in Grooming Jihad. Advocate Priya Dutt told Hindi daily Dainik Jagran that there is an organization active in Dumka that is allegedly targeting Hindu girls. The Muslim men linked to the group trap young Hindu girls in love affairs and convert them to Islam on the pretext of marriage and happy life. Advocate Dutt lives in the same area.

A minor Hindu girl who was harassed and stalked by Naeem has come forward to tell her shocking story. The girl is a resident of the Kepatpada area in Dumka. She said when she used to go for coaching in 2021, Naeem not only molested her but also threatened her that if she refused his advances, he would harm her family. She further added that he continued to force her to give him her phone number.

The girl has further stated that she was once forcibly taken by Naeem to an unknown place. He took her to a room and imprisoned her. During that time, he pressured her to convert and marry. When she refused, he threatened to kill her and said he would sell her to his brother, who lives in Dubai.

4. 10 burnt to death in Birbhum after TMC leader murder

On March 21 at 8:20 p.m., a bombing at the Bogtui crossroads on NH-114A claimed the life of Bhadu Sheikh, the deputy chief of the nearby TMC-controlled Barshal gram panchayat. According to the charge sheet, Hossain then ordered a counter-assault in response to this. Bhadu Sheikh was rushed to the Rampurhat hospital, where he was declared dead. Hossain was also seen at that hospital, after Sheikh was taken there. Charges in two separate crimes are framed by the CBI but at the same time, CBI has underlined that both incidents are interlinked. Four people are accused in the Bhadu Sheikh murder case while 18 others including Anarul Hossain are accused in the violence that erupted after Sheikh’s murder.

Ten persons were killed in this counter-attack ordered by the TMC leader, when a dozen houses were burnt down. The miscreants had locked the houses from outside before torching them, leaving no room for the occupants to flee.  

On 25th March 2022, the Calcutta High Court ordered the CBI probe of the Birbhum killings and Sheikh’s murder. CBI has mentioned in its charge sheet that Rivalry between Sheikh and his colleagues over dubious land deals, fraudulent companies, and share of extortion money led to Sheikh’s murder. The charge sheet cites eyewitness statements to support its claim that Hossain directed the crowd to attack Sona Sheikh and Fatik Sheikh’s residences, expressly instructing the mob that no one should be spared.

The residences of Sona Sheikh and Fatik Sheikh were targeted in a section of Bogtui village, just 150 metres from the busy Rampurhat town, and fuel was transported there from a nearby store in an e-rickshaw whose driver the CBI had detained. Unmehani Khatun, an eight-year-old child, was one of the six women who were burnt alive that night. Nurnehar Bibi was the oldest victim, aged 77. Marjina Khatun, 21, and Sajidur Rehman, the lone male victim of the massacre, were among the others. 

The families living in at least eight other homes were attacked; but they were able to get out. The 10 victims were all members of the families of the three brothers Mihilal, Sheikhlal, and Banirul Sheikh, as well as Sona and Fatik Sheikh, who were related to the brothers.

Hossain is accused of instructing local cops not to rush to Bogtui. The charge sheet cites witnesses who informed CBI that Hossain gave the perpetrators assurances that no policeman would approach the area for at least an hour in accordance with his orders. The Bogtui village is at a distance of less than one kilometre from the Rampurhat police station but the police took more than one hour to reach the spot. 

Several witnesses informed the CBI that when they phoned Hossain for assistance, he told them they would have to bear the repercussions of the attack on a TMC leader. According to the charge sheet, Hossain deleted the call logs from his phone in order to destroy evidence.

West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party’s spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said, “Anarul Hossain is too small a fry to plan and commit such a massacre on his own. It is obvious that he was carrying out the orders given by someone senior to him in the TMC hierarchy. Are we to believe that top district police officers did not rush to Bogtui just because Hossain asked them not to?”

5. Praveen Nattaru murder

On July 26, Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha worker Praveen Nettaru was hacked to death by Islamist assailants. Nettaru, who ran a poultry business, was returning home when the attack happened. The killers came on a bike in Bellari, Dakshina Kannada of Karnataka, in the late evening and attacked Nettaru with sharp weapons. The assailants escaped after the attack. Nettaru was rushed to the hospital, but he could not be saved.

Praveen Nettaru was an active member of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing popularly known as Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. He was an executive committee member of the Dakshin Kannada district unit of the organization. He owned a poultry business in Bellari. On 26th July 2022, when he was returning home after closing his shop, he was attacked by sharp weapons and hacked to death by the attackers.

According to the eyewitnesses of the incident, the assailants came on a motorcycle. The motorcycle had a Kerala registration number. The location where the incident happened is close to the Kerala border. The assailants fled immediately after Praveen Nettaru fell down. Praveen Nettaru was taken to hospital but he could not survive. 

On July 28, the Karnataka Police arrested two persons on suspicion of involvement in the BJP Yuva Morcha member Praveen Kumar Nettaru’s murder case. The accused were identified as Zakir and Mohammed Shafiq. The duo was arrested from Kasargod, Kerala. Zakir is 29 years old and is a resident of Savanoor whereas Mohammed Shafiq who is 27 years old belongs to Bellari. These two were the conspirators of the murders and not the actual assailants.

Hours after the arrest of the two accused, reports emerged that Shafiq and Zakir are linked to the Islamist terrorist organization PFI and SDPI. The wife of Shafiq has confirmed that her husband was an active member of the PFI and that he used to participate in all the ‘social’ activities. She also said that on the day of the incident, he was not at home hinting that he might be involved in executing the murder of the BJP youth member. “My husband was a PFI member. He was aware that the murder took place,” Shafiq’s wife told India Today.

Shafiq was also associated with SDPI (Social Democratic Party of India) and had organized various ‘social’ events. The wife after the arrest while talking to the media also said that initially, her husband was not aware of the murder. Later he had tears in his eyes when he came to know about who was murdered in the village. 

Another important fact in the matter is that father of the accused Shafiq and his father Ibrahim worked as a butcher at the chicken shop of Praveen Nettaru. This was revealed by Shafiq’s father Ibrahim himself while talking to the media. Ibrahim told India Today,  “I work at Praveen’s shop. My son and Praveen used to talk there.” Ibrahim denied his son’s involvement in the crime and alleged that they are targeted because they are Muslim. The brutal killing of Praveen Nettaru happens to be the latest case where the perpetrator and his family were known to the victim.

6. Hyderabad gangrape of minor by sons of politicians

A minor girl was gang-raped in Telangana’s capital Hyderabad on 28th May 2022. The names of kins of a All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA and a TRS leader had appeared in connection with the gang rape. One of them is the son of an AIMIM MLA, while the other is the son of a leader associated with TRS. The MLA’s son was interrogated by the police in this case. The car in which the crime took place belongs to the TRS leader.

Later, Addressing the media to brief the development of the case, Hyderabad West Zone DCP Joel Davis said that the victim minor girl could identify only one of the accused, and the rest were identified with the help of CCTV footage. He said that the police have identified 5 culprits as per CCTV footage and as per the statement of the victim.

He informed that out of the 5 culprits that were identified, three are minors. One of the adult culprits have been arrested, who have been identified as Saduddin Malik. The police had located one juvenile accused, but could not apprehend him because of night time.” I’m hopeful that we will be able to apprehend him tomorrow. He is the son of a VIP”, informed the police official. 

However, the DCP refuted the rumours of the involvement of a son of an MLA. “There were a lot of allegations in the media on MLA’s son. As per the statement of the victim, CDR analysis, and the CCTV footage, he was not among those 5,” he said.

In June, however, the Hyderabad police, investigating the Jubliee Hill gang rape case, confirmed that the five accused, all kins of AIMIM MLAs and TRS leaders, had clinically planned the entire crime. They were carrying condoms and even used it while raping the 17-year-old girl in a moving car on the night of May 28.

“They even had condoms on them and used protection while committing the offence. We are trying to ascertain where they got the condoms from,” said the police official as reported by Times of India.

7. Sharaddha Walkar murder

After the Delhi Police detained Poonawala on November 12, the shocking revelations surrounding Shraddha Walkar’s murder stunned the whole country. The 28-year-old admitted during questioning that he killed Shraddha Walkar, dissected her body, and dumped the pieces about the nation’s capital.

The corpse of Shraddha, 27, who had been murdered, was sawed into 35 pieces on May 18 and kept in a 300-litre refrigerator at Poonawala’s home in Mehrauli, south Delhi, for over three weeks before being dumped throughout the city over a number of days.

Poonawala also underwent a number of sessions of polygraph testing, which was followed by a narcoanalysis test performed at Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital by specialists from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Rohini. Aftab Amin Poonawala is currently lodged in Tihar Jail and is in judicial custody.

On Thursday, 15th December 2022, Delhi police sources revealed that DNA from skeletal remains found by the Delhi Police in the Mehrauli forest in connection with the gruesome Shraddha Walkar murder case matched with specimens from the victim’s father. While looking for Shraddha Walkar’s body parts, the police found 13 pieces of bones in the region. The pieces were then sent to Central Forensic Science Laboratory for DNA examination.

Shraddha Walkar’s murder case shook the national capital when it was revealed that she was killed by her live-in-relationship partner Aftab Amin Poonawala who chopped her dead body into 35 pieces and kept it in a fridge before disposing of it in parts.

A police source said, “The police has received the DNA report of the bones found. The DNA of the bones matches with the DNA samples of Shraddha Walkar’s father.”

8. Kerala human sacrifice and cannibalism

In October 2022, the Kerala police uncovered a disturbing case of human sacrifice and black magic practised to bring wealth and prosperity to a family. The Kochi city police apprehended three persons suspected of kidnapping and killing two women in Kochi as part of black magic rituals. The three accused persons have been identified as Mohammed Shafi (agent), BhagavalSingh, and his wife Laila.

According to the reports, Shafi is a resident of SRM Road, Ernakulam, while the Singh couple is a native of Thiruvalla, and were residing at Elanthoor, Pathanamthitta. The couple confessed to having murdered two women as a part of a witchcraft ritual. The accused justified their actions by saying that the women were murdered for the economic prosperity of their family in the Pathanamthitta district.

Police stated that Mohammed Shafi had persuaded Bhagaval Singh and Laila that performing human sacrifices would bring the family riches and great fortune. He also lured the two victim women and took them to the accused before they were murdered. 

The two women who were murdered have been identified as Padmam (52) of the Panchavady colony in Ponnurunni, and Rosily (50) a native of Vadakkencherry in Thrissur district. The two were residing at Kalady in Ernakulam district when the incident happened. Their bodies were severed into parts and buried at Elanthoor in the Pathanamthitta district.

Many disturbing details had emerged in the case. There were revelations made during the investigation that the accused’s breasts were chopped off and Shafi had inserted rods in the victim’s private parts. Full report can be read here.

9. The case of Ayushi Yadav

The Mathura police on November 21, said that they had solved the murder of a girl whose body was found stuffed in a trolley bag near Yamuna Expressway a week earlier. The body was identified as that of 21-year-old girl Ayushi Yadav, a resident of Delhi’s Badarpur. The deceased reportedly had bloodstains on the face and injuries, besides the mark of a gunshot to the chest. As per reports, Nitesh Yadav, father of the deceased shot her dead.

The Mathura police in a video byte revealed that the girl had gone somewhere a few days ago without informing her father. The girl had reportedly married someone against her family’s wishes. On November 18, when she returned home, an argument ensued between the girl and her family members, following which the father, who hails from UP’s Gorakhpur, fired two shots at the girl, leaving her dead.

The parents then wrapped their daughter’s body in a plastic bag and packed it into a suitcase. Around 3 am, the mother and father drove down to Yamuna Expressway with the suitcase containing their daughter’s dead body and dumped it in the bushes near the Agricultural Research Centre on the Yamuna Expressway service road.

The police stated that when they investigated the mother and father, they discovered several discrepancies in their statements. After additional questioning, the duo admitted to the crime. They disclosed that the father shot the girl before the mother and the brother of the girl.

10. Ankita Bhandari murdered by resort owner in Himachal Pradesh

In September 2022, the Uttarakhand Police arrested three persons in the case of Ankita Bhandari who had gone missing from a resort in Pauri district. The three arrested persons were identified as Pulkit Arya who is the son of former BJP state minister Vinod Arya, resort manager Saurabh Bhaskar, and another person named Ankit Gupta. 

Ankita worked as a receptionist in the Yamkeshwar Vidhan Sabha’s Ganga Bhojpur resort named Vanantra resort which is owned by Pulkit Arya. She was reported missing five days ago. However, the police launched an investigation after the girl’s family reported a missing case and feared murder. The culprits have informed police that Ankita was murdered after an argument with her as she was refusing to the demand of the resort owner for sexual favour for himself and his guests in the resort.

Pulkit Arya was forcing Ankita Bhandari to ‘service’ clients, which means she was being forced to become a prostitute for the resort customers, and she was refusing this demand. This led to a confrontation between the two, which escalated after Ankita told about Pulkit’s demands to other staff of the resort.

On September 18, Pulkit Arya, his friend Ankit Gupta and resort manager Saurabh Bhaskar took Ankita out for a chat to resolve the issue. They went to Rishikesh on bikes, with Ankita riding pillion with Pulkit. They stopped at an isolated dark place, where they drank liquor. Their Pulik Arya and Ankita Bhandari started arguing about the matter, with Pulit being angry that she had told others about his demands to others. Saurabh Bhaskar said that the argument led to a physical fight between the two, and Ankita threw Pulkit’s phone in the river during this fight. Angry over this, Pulkit pushed her into the river, presumably killing her.

During the investigation into the murder case of Ankita Bhandari, the Vanantra Resort staff members revealed that the resort owned by Pulkit Arya was the hub of prostitution and drug abuse. They claimed that the resort owner would mentally harass the employees and force them into shady activities.

The full coverage of the case can be read here.

No one can occupy even an inch of India’s land as they know ITBP personnel are guarding Indian frontiers: HM Amit Shah

ANI
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No one can occupy even an inch of India’s land as they know ITBP personnel are guarding Indian frontiers: HM Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday asserted that he is never worried about the India-China border as he knows that the ITBP personnel are guarding the borders there and “because of this, no one can occupy even an inch of India’s land”.

Shah was speaking at the inauguration of newly constructed buildings of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) here in Karnataka’s Devanhalli region and laying the foundation stone for a Central Detective Training Institute (CDTI) of the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D). 

In his address, the Home Minister lauded the Himveers of ITBP for their dedicated service to the nation and said the government has been undertaking all possible steps to make the service conditions of the jawans better.

He said that ITBP serves in very difficult conditions and the nation knows the jawans as ‘Himveers’. “The ITBP has been doing yeomen service to the Nation by keeping the toughest borders on the Himalayas safe in inhospitable conditions,” said the Home Minister.

“People have bestowed ITBP jawans the title of ‘Himveer’ which is bigger than Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan.” Shah said: “No one can occupy even an inch of India’s land as he knows that the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel are guarding the frontiers.”

His remarks came days after the December 9 clashes along the Line of Actual Control between the Indian and Chinese forces at the Tawang sector in Arunachal Pradesh.

Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines, Prahlad Joshi; Chief Minister of Karnataka, Vasavraj Bommai; Home Minister of Karnataka, Araga Jnanendra; Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education Minister, Karnataka, K Sudhakar; DG ITBP Anish Dayal Singh; and DG BPR&D, Balaji Srivastava, were also present on the occasion.

Shah’s remarks came days after the recent clash near Yangtse along the LAC in the sensitive sector took place after the over 30-month border standoff between the two sides in eastern Ladakh.

“On December 9, PLA troops contacted the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Tawang Sector which was contested by own (Indian) troops in a firm and resolute manner. This face-off led to minor injuries to few personnel from both sides,” the Indian Army had said in a statement earlier this month.

“Both sides immediately disengaged from the area. As a follow up of the incident, own (Indian) commander in the area held a flag meeting with his counterpart to discuss the issue in accordance with structured mechanisms to restore peace and tranquillity,” it had said.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told in parliament that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops tried to transgress the LAC in the Yangtse area of Tawang Sector in Arunachal Pradesh and unilaterally change the status quo but they went back to their locations due to timely intervention of Indian military commanders.

Giving a statement in the House, the Defence Minister had also assured the Upper House that “our forces are committed to protecting our territorial integrity and will continue to thwart any attempt made on it”. 

(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)

Anti-Pakistan protests intensify in Gilgit Baltistan over illegal land grab by the Pakistan Army

ANI
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Anti-Pakistan protests intensify in Gilgit Baltistan over illegal land grab by the Pakistan Army

Widespread protests against the Pakistan Army and ISI have been sweeping across Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s (PoK) Gilgit Baltistan, with largescale demonstrations against the illegal land acquisition by Pakistani security agencies.

The Pakistan Army has been grabbing land from the locals for years, but this is the first time the locals have risen against the Army. In Minawar village of Gilgit, the locals confronted the Gilgit Scouts and Pakistan Army personnel when they came to demolish the properties of the local residents.

They even raised slogans against the Pakistan Army and accused them of occupying their land. One of the protesters said that Pakistan Army “is forcefully occupying our houses and agricultural land”.

“If any untoward incident occurred, the Pakistan Army will be responsible. The Chief Secretary must come to resolve this issue; else we will take this matter in front of the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” the protestor added.

Local residents have accused the Pakistan Army of systematically suppressing the people of Gilgit Baltistan for profits through the illegal occupation of their land.

Another protester said, “Pakistan Army comes and attacks us. They acquire our property. We have already given 12,000 Kanal of land without any compensation. We are not ready to give them an inch more.”

The residents of Minawar have received overwhelming support from all residents across Gilgit Baltistan in confronting the Pakistan Army and stopping their forceful acquisition of land. Several protestors said they were willing to take the bullet from the army but were not ready to give even an inch of their land. 

One of the protesters said, “This is our ancestral land. We will not give this land without any cost”.

The people of Gilgit Baltistan are facing several challenges due to meddling by Islamabad in their affairs. Anti-Pakistan sentiments are also mounting in the region due to illegal taxation, high inflation and rising unemployment.

Atrocities against the PoK residents are widespread in the region. The people in PoK are denied basic rights in the face of high inflation, and a lack of basic amenities. The demand for fundamental rights is met with the baton of Pakistan security agencies.

Earlier this week, Human rights activist and chairman of United Kashmir People’s National Party (UKPNP) Shaukat Ali Kashmiri raised concerns over the deprivation of basic rights in Gilgit Baltistan.

Taking a sharp dig at Pakistan, the rights activist said that Pakistan’s policy in Gilgit Baltistan is weaved in such a manner that deprives people of their fundamental rights. Pakistan is a country that always uses religious sentiments, he added.

“Gilgit Baltistan is part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir and people are deprived of basic rights. It’s Pakistani policy and fashioned to deprive people and propagation against Indian involvement. Pakistani is a country that always used religious sentiments,” Shaukat Ali Kashmiri wrote on Twitter.

(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)

As crimes peak in Punjab, the AAP government to set up fast-track courts for NRI Punjabis

OpIndia Staff
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As crimes peak in Punjab, the AAP government to set up fast-track courts for NRI Punjabis

On Saturday, December 30, 2022, Punjab’s NRI Affairs Minister, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, announced the setting up of fast-track courts to enable the Punjabi Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) to resolve their issues speedily.

Presiding over the fifth ‘Punjabi NRIs Naal Milni’ held at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, Minister Dhaliwal made this announcement saying that the fast-track courts will ensure a speedy redressal of NRI issues pertaining to civil cases. He said that the initiative has been taken for the NRIs so that heir precious energy, time and money could be saved.

Dhaliwal expressed satisfaction with the response of the Punjabi diaspora to the NRIs Naal Milni’ initiative and stated that NRIs would be made active stakeholders in the state’s progress. He also applauded NRIs for their contributions to the development of villages and cities. He also stated that nodal officers were being assigned to resolve NRI issues in a timely manner.

Minister Dhaliwal also heard the grievances of the NRIs from various districts including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, and Tarn Taran presence of police and civil department officials. 

During the meeting with the NRI Punjabis, district war counters were established for the convenience of the NRIs from various districts. Civil and police administration officials were listening to NRI issues at these district war counters. A total of  103 cases were heard during the event.

Dhaliwal said that the state government was committed to quick resolution of their grievances by taking the initiative of such meets. “These courts will be functioning dedicatedly for the speedy redressal of the issues pertaining to civil cases,” he said.

The Punjab minister also released a WhatsApp number through which NRIs can register their complaints online. NRIs can submit their grievances through WhatsApp using the number 9056009884.

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