On Wednesday, December 14, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) conducted voting to oust Iran from its Commission on Status of Women (CSW).
This comes after the 54-member ECOSOC adopted a US-drafted resolution that called for the removal of Iran with “immediate effect”. This is the first time that a member country of the CSW has been removed.
This resolution was co-sponsored by Australia, Albania, Canada, Guatemala, Israel, Liberia, New Zealand, North Macedonia, and the UK and Northern Ireland.
Before the voting, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield took to Twitter and said that removing Iran from CSW is the “right thing to do at the right time.”
We must remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women.
Ahead of the vote, Greenfield called Iran’s membership in the premiere UN body an “ugly stain on Commission’s credibility.” She added, “CSW cannot do its important work if it is being undermined from within. Iran’s membership at this moment is an ugly stain on the Commission’s credibility.”
Notably, the resolution received 29 votes in favour, 8 including Russia and China against it, while 16 countries abstained from voting, including India.
Image via UN CSW website
After the vote, Greenfield tweeted, “UN member states just voted to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women. Iranian women and activists called on us to do this and today we got it done.”
NEWS: UN Member States just voted to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women.
Iranian women and activists called on us to do this – and today, we got it done.
Notably, Iran started a four-year term on the commission in April this year and became a member of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) in 2016 after obtaining the necessary votes at the United Nations General Assembly.
The US resolution against Iran came in response to Iran’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters who took to the streets in September following the death of a 22-year-old girl named Mahsa Amini detained by Iran’s morality police.
Ever since the protests began, hundreds have been killed, thousands detained and 11 death sentences ruled so far. Women all over the world have expressed their solidarity with Iranian women. Iran’s authoritarian regime has now started executing protestors publicly. In recent weeks, two such execution cases have been reported. One Mohsin Shekari was executed last week while another Majidreza Rahnavard was hanged in Mashhad for ‘waging war against Allah.’
Iran condemns resolution
Before the vote, Iran’s ambassador, Amir Saeid Jalil Iravani, stated that the country “categorically rejected and strongly condemned” the resolution’s draft. Iravani accused the US of using its “longstanding hostility toward the Iranian people” to remove Iran from the commission under the guise of human rights. He also accused the US of attempting to topple Iran’s government.
On Thursday (December 15), a 52-year-old Islamic preacher by the name of Sheikh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara was sentenced to death in Nigeria for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad.
As per reports, the punishment was handed to him by an upper Sharia court in the Nigerian city of Kano. Abduljabbar had allegedly committed blasphemy during one of his preachings at his mosque.
According to the prosecution, the Islamic preacher had allegedly violated Sections 375, and 382 of the Kano State Sharia Penal Code Law, 2000. They claimed that his ‘blasphemous video’ went viral on social media.
While hearing the matter, Justice Ibrahim Sarki Yola of the Kano Sharia court claimed that Abduljabbar had failed to defend himself, despite being provided with ‘enough time.’
“I, Ibrahim Sarki Yola, Upper Sharia Court Judge City Number One, found you, Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara, committing an act contrary to section 283 (B) of Kano State Sharia Penal Code Law 2000, I, therefore, sentence you to death by hanging,” the judge declared.
“The prosecutors also convinced the court that the accused person deliberately interpreted the religious books and fabricated the blasphemous comments against the Holy Prophet Muhammad,” he further said.
Moment drama ensued during Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara court sentencing in Kano pic.twitter.com/UUWaKReImx
“I similarly order the total closure of your mosques located at Filin Mushe Gwale LGA and Jamiurrasul located at Sharada,” he added. The judge also put a ban on playing his sermons on radio stations and ordered the confiscation of his 189 books.
Sheikh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara accused the judge of being unfair and challenged him to condemn him to death. He said, “You Ibrahim Sarki Sani Yola, changed the whole narration about the case go ahead and sentence me to death, I will die honourably meeting my God.”
“And I am pleading to my followers not to worry about the sentencing as I will die as a righteous person,” he remarked while his lawyer desperately tried to make emotional appeals to Justice Ibrahim Sarki Sani Yola.
Islamic cleric had held Shia scriptures superior to Sunni counterparts
As per a report by Daily Trust, Sheikh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara belongs to the Qadiriyya Islamic sect and is regarded as a prominent Sunni scholar in Nigeria.
However, as early as 2020, he expressed his inclination towards being a Shia. “After a thoroughly long time research which I have made by myself, I realized that Shi’a has more scriptural evidence over Sunni…” he told the BBC.
“I will not bother myself if you call me a Shi’a, but I’ll be concerned with calling me a Sunni,” the Islamic scholar on death row had said 2 years ago.
Reportedly, Sheikh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara had alleged on multiple occasions that some of the Hadiths (teachings of Prophet Muhammad), as narrated by other Islamic scholars, are either inaccurate or false.
Last year, he was held captive by the Kano State government, following complaints by scholars from other Islamic sects in the country. By then, he had 9 cases of blasphemy registered against him.
Following public outcry over the matter, a debate was organised between Abduljabbar and other Islamic scholars on July 10, 2021. The chairman of the debate concluded that the Islamic scholar was unable to answer a single question posed by other scholars.
He was thereafter remanded in custody again. Abduljabbar is the son of a prominent leader of Qadariyya Islamic Movement in West Africa named Nasiru Kabara. He has now 30 days to appeal against the death penalty, which was handed out to him.
A day after ‘Jo Piyega Wo Marega’ remark by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar sparked outrage in response to media questions regarding the Hooch tragedy, the Mahagathbandhan leader reiterated his stance on Friday and said that no compensation would be offered to those who died after drinking spurious alcohol in the state recently. While speaking in the state legislature on the alcohol ban in Bihar, the chief minister claimed that he has been telling people that if they drink alcohol, they will die, and therefore they should not drink alcohol.
He said, “Daaru peeke mar jaega usko hum compensation dengey… sawaal hi nahi paida hota hai” (We will pay compensation to those who die after drinking alcohol, that question does not even arise). “No compensation will be given to people who died after drinking…We have been appealing- if you drink, you will die…those who talk in favour of drinking will not bring any good to you…,” CM Nitish Kumar further said.
#WATCH | “No compensation will be given to people who died after drinking…We have been appealing- if you drink, you will die…those who talk in favour of drinking will not bring any good to you…”, said CM Nitish Kumar in assembly earlier today.
CM Kumar’s statement comes amid the death of 60 people who suffocated to death after consuming tainted liquor in Bihar’s Chhapra. It was also reported that five individuals died from alcohol poisoning in the state’s Siwan city on Friday, after Chhapra. It is being said that people in Bihar are resorting to drinking unsafe alcoholic drinks due to the ban on alcohol imposed by the Nitish Kumar government.
The Chief Minister stated that the deaths of individuals in Bihar are constantly emphasized, and he will use the same message to urge people to avoid consuming alcohol. “If you die from consuming alcohol and want us to compensate you, that is not going to happen. We are trying to support you…so you do the good work, don’t do this kind (alcohol drinking) a bad thing,” he stated.
Giving examples of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, he said that people are dying of spurious liquor in the states where alcohol is not banned. “Top per hai Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, UP…kahan nahi hai. Sab jagah ka dekh lijiye hisaab kitaab. See in those states too where alcohol is not banned, there also people die from drinking,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also has taken notice of the occurrence on its initiative. The Commission has written to the state’s Chief Secretary and DGP, requesting a thorough report on the situation, including the FIR filed by the police and the victims’ medical care.
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports that several people have died after allegedly consuming spurious liquor in Saran district of Bihar. pic.twitter.com/fq0LZLcF18
Earlier, the Bihar CM had said that Bihar was a ‘dry state’ since 2016 and that it was people who needed to understand this. “Last time, when people died after drinking toxic liquor, someone said they should be given compensation. When someone consumes alcohol, they will die, the example is before us (Jo Sharab Piyega Wo Marega). We should express grief and tell people that liquor is bad and it should not be consumed,” he had said.
However, LJP (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan stated that the CM was trying to protect the illicit liquor sellers. “Jo Piyega Wo Marega but what about those who are selling toxic liquor, Jo Bechega Wo Bachega (those who sell liquor will be saved), the state government is protecting those involved in this business. In Nitish Kumar’s rule, those who drink liquor are Mahapaapi but those who sell liquor are Maha Gyani,” the LJP leader said.
CM Nitish Kumar in the parliament on December 16 reiterated his stance and stated that he would again appeal to people that if they will drink alcohol, it is not going to be fruitful for them in any manner.
The government of India has strongly reacted to the personal attack on PM Narendra Modi made by Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in New York. Responding to Bhutto calling PM ‘butcher of Modi’ responding to external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s comments at the UNSC, MEA’s official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi issued a statement today.
In the statement, MEA has said that the comments of Bhutto are new low even for Pakistan. Calling it an uncivilised outburst of the Pakistan foreign minister, the statement said, “Pakistan FM’s uncivilised outburst seems to be a result of Pakistan’s increasing inability to use terrorists and their proxies.”
The MEA reminded how Pakistan has been spreading terrorism, and mentioned that on this year in 1971, the Bangladesh Liberation War had ended which was the result of “the genocide unleashed by Pakistani rulers against ethnic Bengalis and Hindus.”
Saying how several cities across the city have faced the effects of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, MEA said that “Make in Pakistan” terrorism has to stop. The statement also added that Pakistan not only sheltered Osama Bin Laden, but is still giving shelter to other terrorists like Lakhvi, Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar, Sajid Mir and Dawood Ibrahim. “No other country can boast having 126 UN-designated terrorists and 27 UN-designated terrorist entities!” the MEA added in a scathing remark.
The statement ended with an advice to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, “Pakistan FM’s frustration would be better directed towards the masterminds of terrorist enterprises in his own country, who have made terrorism a part of their State policy. Pakistan needs to change its own mindset or remain a pariah.”
The full statement by MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi is given below:
These comments are a new low, even for Pakistan. The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has obviously forgotten this day in 1971, which was a direct result of the genocide unleashed by Pakistani rulers against ethnic Bengalis and Hindus. Unfortunately, Pakistan does not seem to have changed much in the treatment of its minorities. It certainly lacks credentials to cast aspersions at India.
As recent conferences and events have demonstrated, counter terrorism remains high on the global agenda. Pakistan’s indisputable role in sponsoring, harbouring, and actively financing terrorist and terrorist organisations remains under the scanner. Pakistan FM’s uncivilised outburst seems to be a result of Pakistan’s increasing inability to use terrorists and their proxies.
Cities like New York, Mumbai, Pulwama, Pathankot and London are among the many that bear the scars of Pakistan-sponsored, supported and instigated terrorism. This violence has emanated from their Special Terrorist Zones and exported to all parts of the world. “Make in Pakistan” terrorism has to stop.
Pakistan is a country that glorifies Osama bin Laden as a martyr, and shelters terrorists like Lakhvi, Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar, Sajid Mir and Dawood Ibrahim. No other country can boast having 126 UN-designated terrorists and 27 UN-designated terrorist entities!
We wish that Pakistan FM would have listened more sincerely yesterday at the UN Security Council to the testimony of Ms. Anjali Kulthe, a Mumbai nurse who saved the lives of 20 pregnant women from the bullets of the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab. Clearly, the Foreign Minister was more interested in whitewashing Pakistan’s role.
Pakistan FM’s frustration would be better directed towards the masterminds of terrorist enterprises in his own country, who have made terrorism a part of their State policy. Pakistan needs to change its own mindset or remain a pariah.
It is notable that yesterday in New York, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called PM Narendra Modi the‘ butcher of Gujarat’. He also accused India of carrying out terror attacks in Pakistan, and denied that Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism. He made the comments responding to remarks of Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar at the UNSC, where he had pointed out that Osama Bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan.
“While we search for the best solutions, what are those that we must never accept include the normalisation of such threats. The question of justifying what the world regards as unacceptable should not even arise. It certainly applies to states’ sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. Nor can hosting Osama Bin Laden and attacking a neighbouring Parliament can serve as credentials for sermonizing before this council,” S Jaishankar had said in his address, directly slamming Pakistan for being a pro-terrorism country.
Addressing a press conference after that, Bilawal Bhutto said, “I will like to remind the honourable minister of external affairs of India, that Osama Bin Laden is dead, but the butcher of India lives. And he is the prime minister of India. He was banned from entering this country until he became the Prime Minister. This is the Prime Minister of the RSS and the Foreign Minister of the RSS. What is the RSS? The RSS takes inspiration from Hitler’s SS.”
Bhutto also claimed that they have proof that India is behind the Johar Town blast in Lahore in Pakistan.
Amidst ongoing outrage over ‘Pathaan’, Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair today cast aspersions on the Muslim identity of Maulanas who did not subscribe to his worldview and protested against Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming action movie.
In a post on Twitter, Zubair, who has, of late, fashioned himself as some authority on dishing out Muslimness certificates to Muslims online, shared some pictures to undermine a Muslim organisation’s protest against SRK’s ‘Pathaan’.
“There are reports that an organisation “All India Muslim Festival Committee” has also opposed the movie ‘Pathan’. A few pics of the ‘Maulana’ behind the organisation,” Zubair tweeted.
There are reports that an organisation “All India Muslim Festival Committee” has also opposed the movie ‘Pathan’. A few pics of the ‘Maulana’ behind the organisation. ? pic.twitter.com/g9TD0ydCq9
As protests erupted over a particularly raunchy song featuring Deepika Padukone in skimpy dresses and racy dance moves, a Muslim organisation named ‘All India Muslim Tyohar Committee’ extended its support to the demonstrations calling for a ban on the screening of the movie.
Zubair shared pictures of the Maulanas associated with the organisation from his participation in events attended by Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, insinuating that Muslims attending events organised by the BJP or their leaders are lesser Muslims than others and perhaps undeserving of identifying themselves as Muslims.
The tweet by Alt News co-founder, notorious for his polarising views and inveterate dog-whistling on Twitter, reflects his polarising attempt to lord over a community of more than 20 crore people who have the democratic right to align with the party of their choice and protest against a movie they deem inappropriate without questions being raised over their piety.
However, Zubair, who rose to fame after dog-whistling against Nupur Sharma, precipitated a diplomatic nightmare for India in the Islamic autocracies in the middle east and spawned widespread domestic protests, Muslims who attend events organised by democratically elected governments or socialise with politicians for the betterment of their community should be stigmatised and discredited for political choices that run counter to his dogmatic beliefs.
For Alt News and Zubair, Muslims cease to be Muslims if they do not hate PM Modi and BJP
But this is not the first time that Zubair has called into question the religiosity of a Muslim whose political ideology does not converge with his. For Zubair and his propaganda website Alt News, whose entire existence rests on vilifying the Modi government and painting the regime as anti-Muslim, it is difficult to reconcile with the fact that some Muslims might be BJP supporters and admirers of PM Modi.
When Muslims express their association with the BJP, RSS or any other party that is bracketed by liberals as parties with ‘Hindutva’ ideology, Alt News goes into overdrive discrediting such voices. It denounces the Muslims who voice their support for PM Modi and his government and raising questions over their Muslimness by highlighting the fact they are associated with the RSS. Sometimes, they don’t even have to support the PM. The mere fact that as a Muslim they do not hate PM Modi with all their guts is sometimes enough to lose their Muslim credentials.
In 2020, on PM Modi’s birthday, members of Muslim community celebrated the occasion at Nizamuddin, Delhi. The event was covered by news agency ANI. However, this did not sit well with the anti-Modi propaganda website AltNews which was quick to slam ANI for presenting an RSS-backed event as ‘Muslim community’ celebrations of PM Modi’s birthday.
In yet another report published in August 2018, Alt News slammed ANI and News 18 for reporting RSS-affiliated Muslim organisation as “people in Lucknow” celebrating Bakrid by cutting a cake. Alt News was perturbed that some of the Muslims abhorred the custom of sacrificing a speechless animal and were exhorting others to shun the practice. This provided a reasonable opportunity to the leftist online rag to cast doubt over the Muslimness of the people by pointing out their association with the RSS.
For Alt News and its co-founder Mohammed Zubair, Muslims cease to exist as Muslims if they do not oppose the BJP and the RSS. Any association of the Muslims with the aforesaid organisations automatically raises doubts over their adherence to Islam. According to Alt News, resistance and opposition to PM Modi, BJP and its affiliate organisations, is the only measure of one’s Muslimness. Any Muslim who is found defying these conventions, his Muslimness is liable to be questioned by Alt News and its self-described custodians of Muslim community.
On 13th December 2022, India’s Drugs Controller General Dr VG Somani wrote a letter to Dr Rogerio Gaspar who is the Director of Regulation and Prequalification at the World Health Organization. In this letter, Somani asserted that the Indian cough syrups from Maiden Pharma meet the necessary regulatory standards and are therefore harmless.
He added that the WHO’s statement blaming Indian cough syrups for the deaths of children in Gambia has impacted India’s image in the world in an adverse manner.
Somani’s letter was written in a response to the WHO’s letter dated 6th December 2022.
It is notable that the WHO had blamed India’s Maiden pharmaceuticals for the deaths of children in the Gambia in October. In October 2022, the WHO expressed fears that the children died due to the company’s cough syrup.
Drug Controller of India writes to WHO over the premature conclusion linking Indian-made cough syrups to deaths in Gambia. pic.twitter.com/ytyYdhrJOp
The letter reads, “Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) would like to reiterate its full cooperation and collaboration with WHO on the subject. In line with this spirit, CDSCO has already shared available details with WHO regularly. However, it is to reiterate that subsequent to the initial reports received from WHO on the possible causality relationship between drugs manufactured in India and deaths in Gambia, the Government of India constituted a technical committee of subject experts to examine and analyze the details of the reports/ adverse events/ COAS received from WHO.”
“All control samples of 4 cough and cold syrups manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceutical were sent for testing to Government Laboratory as per extant rules and all the 4 products have been found to be of standard quality,” the letter reads
It adds, “India has been committed to rigorous monitoring and oversight to ensure that the highest standards of manufacturing are maintained in quality control of drugs and cosmetics. In the aftermath of the alerts received from WHO regarding the incidents in Gambia, an independent inspection was conducted in the premises of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, the firm in question.”
“India has been committed to rigorous monitoring and oversight to ensure that the highest standards of manufacture are maintained in quality control of drugs and cosmetics,” the letter reads further
The letter asserted, “All control samples of 4 cough and cold syrups manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceutical were sent for testing to Government Laboratory as per extant rules and all the 4 products have been found to be of standard quality.”
Underlining the ill effects of WHO’s statements on India’s image, Dr VG Somani wrote in the letter, “The statement issued by the WHO in October 2022 was unfortunately amplified by the global media which led to a narrative being built internationally targeting the quality of Indian pharmaceutical products. This in turn has adversely impacted the image of India’s pharmaceutical products across the globe and caused irreparable damage to the supply chain of pharmaceutical products, as well as the repute of the national regulatory framework over an assumption that has yet not been substantiated by the WHO or its partners on the ground.”
Somani’s letter also reiterates that the repeated requests by the CDSCO to WHO seeking documentation or any factual information from WHO that formed the basis of their initial claim blaming the deaths in Gambia on Maiden Pharma’s cough syrups have been met with silence from the WHO so far. The letter also says that the initial claim, and subsequent mentions by WHO has only amplified this allegation without any factual basis and Maiden Pharma’s cough syrups were found to be containing no harmful substances.
Dr VG Somani further wrote in this letter, “It may be emphasized here that the Gambia informed that there has been no direct causal relation established yet between the cough syrup consumption and the deaths, and that certain children who had died had not consumed the syrup in question. We believe that WHO would now allow the technical committee of subject experts constituted by the Government of India to arrive at the conclusion based on all the facts and evidence available. We would be more than willing to consider permitting WHO representatives to interact with this technical committee.”
On Wednesday 12th October 2022, the Central Government constituted a four-member expert committee to probe the World Health Organization (WHO) reports on the deaths of 66 children in the Gambia which was hastily blamed on cough syrups made by Sonipat-based firm Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited. Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited firm in Sonipat was instructed to cease producing all cough syrups, according to an order from the Haryana government. A show-cause notice for 12 irregularities discovered at the company’s production facility was also issued. The letter written by Dr VG Somani also informs the WHO director about this.
In November this year, an Economic Times report stated that the specialised agency of the United Nations (UN) has failed to provide the documents, to the Indian authorities, which are required to further the investigation into the deaths of 70 deceased children in Gambia.
“The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation(CDSCO), the drug regulator in India, has written thrice to the World Health Organisation but to no avail. It has so far received no response from WHO”, the report had added.
In a recent development in the ongoing argument between the union government and the Supreme Court on the issue of appointment of judges, today law minister Kiren Rijiju again said that the system reforms from the current collegium system. On Thursday, 15th December 2022, Kiren Rijiju said in Rajya Sabha that the nation needs a new system to appoint judges. The law minister also commented on long vacations of the courts, saying that it hampers justice delivery.
He said that the huge pendency of cases in the Indian courts is linked to the vacant posts of judges. According to Kiren Rijiju, this problem won’t be remedied until a new system for appointments is developed.
Kiren Rijiju said, “There is a feeling among people of India that the long vacation which the courts obtain is not very convenient for justice-seekers and it is my obligation and duty to convey the message or sense of this House to the judiciary.”
In response to a query on the number of court working days posed by Congress MP Rajeev Shukla in the Rajya Sabha, Rijiju stated that the country’s stockpile of cases was approaching 5 crores after reaching 4.90 crores. He added, “There are many reasons for this but the primary one is the appointment of judges and vacancies in the sanctioned strength.”
Kiren Rijiju said, “At this point, the government has very limited powers to reduce vacancies. I don’t want to comment much on the courts as it sometimes looks like the government is trying to interfere with the court’s powers. If you look at the provisions of the Constitution, the process of appointments was the right of the government with the consultation of the court. This changed after 1993. We are giving our support to end the pendency of cases, but till we don’t set up a new system for appointments, questions on the appointment of judges will keep being raised.”
Days prior to his comments in the House, Rijiju had called the Collegium system “opaque,” and the Vice-President had referred to the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision to invalidate the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act as a “severe compromise” of parliamentary authority and a disregard for the “mandate of the people.”
According to the Minister’s written response, as of December 12, 2022, the working strength of the Supreme Court, High Courts, district, and lower court was 19,192, whereas the sanctioned level was 25,011. From May 1, 2014, until December 5, 2022, he said, 46 judges have been appointed to the Supreme Court. According to the response, 59.56 lakh petitions were still waiting in High Courts as of December 1, 2022, while 69,598 matters were still pending in the Supreme Court according to the court’s own website.
Kiren Rijiju noted that although the National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014, had been unanimously approved by Parliament, the Supreme Court had overturned it in 2015, and said that it was not a correct action by the court. He said that the Collegium system, which is now in place for appointing judges, did not adequately represent the views of the general people and the Parliament. Many former justices, including members of the Constitution Bench who overturned the NJAC, he said, have since made public statements arguing that it was improper to overturn a law enacted by Parliament.
The minister responded to a follow-up question from DMK MP Tiruchi Siva regarding the proportion of women, SC, ST, and OBC judges. Kiren Rijiju said, “There was no reservation policy, but the government had written to Chief Justices of High Courts to keep in mind disadvantaged groups while recommending names for appointment as judges. Until now, there had been just one judge from the ST community.”
With regard to holidays, the minister responded that the Supreme Court has 224, 217, and 202 working days in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. Similar to this, there are typically 210 working days in a year for all High Courts.
In a follow-up query, BJP MP Sushil Modi asked the Minister whether the government will approach the Chief Justice about moving away from annual holidays for the whole court to individual vacations for each judge. In response, Minister of State for Law and Justice S P Singh Baghel said, “the Supreme Court and High Courts decide their own working days and the government did not have a role. But there is no harm in talking.”
Responding to a similar suggestion by Congress MP Vivek Tankha, Kiren Rijiju said, “Definitely, there is a feeling among people of India that the long vacation which the courts obtain is not very convenient for justice-seekers. Definitely, as the Law Minister, it is also my bounded obligation and duty to convey the message or sense of this House to the judiciary. Will definitely ensure that even if there are vacations, the functioning of the court should not be stopped.”
In an uncommon case reported from the capital city of India, a Hindu woman has been booked by the Delhi police under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on charges of caste abuse and mental harassment. The woman was booked based on the complaint filed by her father-in-law Ashok Kumar (60). However, this is after the woman registered an FIR against him and other members of her husband’s family for allegedly assaulting her and executing fraud against her.
The woman, after the complaint filed on December 12 stated that she was being implicated in a false case and that all the accusations against her were fabricated. According to a report by Swati Goyal Sharma in Swarajya, the case against the woman was filed 20 days after the Delhi Police officials declared that they could not find any evidence against her in the case for casteist abuse.
The woman meanwhile mentioned that the case that she had filed against her father-in-law and other members of her husband’s family is still pending at the Gurugram Court. Ashok Kumar, in his recently filed complaint against the woman stated that she and her family members abused him for his caste and mentally harassed him. He also said that the family members of the woman had physically assaulted him in the past.
In the FIR he mentioned that he belongs to the Julaha caste which comes under Scheduled Castes. He said that his daughter-in-law was indifferent and never cooperated after getting married to his son Yatin. “She often used to pick up fights over petty issues. Within three-four months of her marriage, she left and went to her parent’s house,” he said.
He said that the girl’s family members thrashed him in August 2019 and hurled abuses at him, calling him ‘choora and chamar.’ He also alleged that his daughter-in-law called him ‘neech’ and said that he was equal to some kind of dirt. He meanwhile submitted CCTV footage as proof and introduced his neighbour and his brother-in-law Rajesh Munjal as witnesses to the incident.
The woman has been booked under Section 3(1)(r)(s) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. Reportedly, 20 days ago, the officials from Delhi Police had noted that they found no evidence of castist abuse against her. The Police in the Action Taken Report submitted to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) on a complaint by Ashok Kumar in 2021 stated that the woman used the word ‘uncivilized’ for her father-in-law. It is not a caste-based remark, they said.
According to the letter, images and CCTV video of the residence on 4 August 2019 were analyzed, but no physical attack was observed. The film also lacked audio recording, thus no argumentative comments could be heard.
The woman talked to Swarajya over the incident and noted that she got married to Yatin on March 8, 2019, whom she found on a matrimonial site. She said that Yatin worked in the Ministry of External Affairs and mentioned his surname as Arora (Punjabi Hindu Caste). However, on the wedding card, Yatin’s parents happened to mention their surname as ‘Bajaj’. “We were surprised with the ‘Bajaj’ surnames as we knew them as Aroras but did not think much of it, and we did not confront them about this,” she said adding that her father-in-law would consume alcohol daily and his behaviour towards her was not at all good.
“I never had any problems with my husband, but I had problems with my father-in-law from the very initial days. He would show up in my washroom on the pretext of needing to talk to me. Once, he pointed to a dustbin where I had disposed of my sanitary pads and asked me what that was. I felt humiliated,” she was quoted.
On complaining about this to Yatin, he asked her to ignore it, as per the woman. Later she said she was sent to her parent’s house for some days and was never called back. The groom’s parents, according to her, made sure that she never returned home or to Yatin. The engagement soured, and in August, the woman filed a complaint with the Gurugram Police Women’s Cell, alleging that she was being harassed by her in-laws and that they would not allow her to return to her spouse after marriage.
To address the matrimonial conflict, the district court assigned a mediator. Despite many sittings, no conclusion was in sight. While she said she did not want to live with her father-in-law, he was insistent that his son would not be allowed to live apart from him. She claims that her father-in-law and other members of her husband’s family beat her up in court in November. She reported them to the Shivaji Nagar Police Station in Gurugram for assault in November 2019.
The woman stated that she and her family were harassed for dowry and were threatened that they would tear the woman into pieces. “My father-in-law slapped me in the court. He further grabbed me by my breasts while his wife Kamlesh tried to strangulate me with the gold chain she was wearing. But as she mounted pressure, the gold chain broke. I fell on the floor,” she said.
“Yatin and his father Ashok Kumar pushed me to the floor and kicked me on my chest and stomach. The staff present there intervened to rescue me. I then called the police helpline 100 at 2.11 pm and 2.19 pm for help. By the time Police arrived, they fled,” she added. The police then booked Ashok Kumar, Kamlesh, Yatin Kumar, and Ramesh Munjal under IPC sections 323 (causing hurt), 34 (crime done with common intention), and 506 (criminal intimidation).
The woman meanwhile stated that nobody was arrested after the incident. Later she learned that her husband had attained a foreign posting and was about to leave India for 3 years. “I then sent a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs to inform them about the FIR against their employee. I also marked the letter to EAM S Jaishankar. When I went to the Ministry’s office with my complaint, there, an official checked the records and told me that my husband and his father were marked in the SC category,” she said.
According to the reports, it was hard to believe that her husband and his family belonged to the SC community as the surnames they used were Arora and Bajaj, and Munjal. She wrote to NCSC in January 2020 to verify the findings at the MEA office and found them to be found true. Meenakshi filed an appeal with the commission, asking for a thorough investigation of her husband’s family. Hearings before the commission are still ongoing three years later. She said that “Ashok Kumar filed fake and falsified documents to attain the status of SC to profit from the quota.”
She claims she also filed a complaint with the Mukherjee Nagar Police Station, stating that her father-in-law got an SC certificate fraudulently, but the complaint was not processed into an FIR. However, another complaint filed at Sector-14 Police Station of Gurugram was converted into an FIR. This FIR was filed under IPC section 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating), on her complaint against her husband. “No arrest was made after this,” she said.
In the current scenario, the woman says that she is being implicated in a false case filed by her father-in-law Ashok Kumar. The complaint against the woman has been filed under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on charges of caste abuse and mental harassment.
A minor Hindu girl residing in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, who went missing a month and a half ago, has been converted to Islam and married thereafter by a youth named Nihal Ansari. The incident came to the fore after the mother of the victim approached the police and filed a missing complaint on Tuesday, December 13. The police arrested the accused and recovered the girl.
The mother, in her complaint, said that Nihal Ansari, a resident of Tilakhwar village in Karchhana tehsil of Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh, befriended her minor daughter by luring her with clothes and gifts. Since the victim belonged to a poor family, she fell into his trap.
The accused then forced the girl to get into a physical relationship with him. He recorded the act and started blackmailing her with the video. He sexually assaulted the minor multiple times by threatening to post the video on social media.
On October 30, Nihal went to the victim’s house and threatened the girl to come along with him. He took her to his house where he kept her locked in a room.
Besides physically assaulting her, the accused forced the victim to convert her religion and marry him. Whenever the girl resented, the accused used to beat her up.
The mother, after a lot of searching, came to know where Nihal Ansari had hidden her daughter. She immediately approached the police and filed a missing complaint. The police, in turn, registered a case against the accused on December 14 under sections 452, 366, 376 and 506 of the IPC. The accused was arrested and sent to jail while the girl was recovered and handed over to her mother after undergoing a medical examination.
Months after Islamists ran riots in Leicester city of England’s Midlands area, the Leicester police met members of the Hindu community on Monday (December 12) evening and attempted to downplay the violence perpetrated against them.
In a letter by Chief Inspector Paul Allen, he informed that certain events pertaining to the Leicester violence were discussed in detail with the Hindu community. He then went on to claim that an Islamic cleric (Imam), who was at the helm of peddling fake news against Hindus, did not commit any crime.
“I explained that the Imam’s conduct had been investigated, but that his retelling of the story as told to him did not amount to a criminal offence,” Paul Allen had claimed.
“To meet the definition of Incitement to religious hatred the perpetrator has to use Threatening words or behaviour or displays any written material… with intent to stir up religious hatred. As such his conduct did not meet the criminal threshold for this offence,” he justified.
The matter came to light on Thursday (December 15) when Australian researcher and activist, Sarah L Gates, posted a copy of the letter on Twitter. The archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.
Leicester Police failed to nab those who attacked Hindu homes, backed RSS conspiracy theory
The Chief Inspector of the Leicester Police informed that the law enforcement failed to identify those who selectively targeted Hindu homes. He said, “The second point was around the way in which the police identified and investigated the reports of egg-throwing at Hindu family homes.”
“I can confirm that these incidents were recorded and investigated as religiously motivated hate crimes, although at this time no suspects have been identified,” Paul Allen said.
Citing media reports, he backed the misleading statements of Leicester Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby. It must be mentioned that Solusby had met Islamist Majid Freeman, who was at the helm of the Leicester disinformation campaign and helped him set the narrative in favour of the perpetrators.
We had a productive meeting last night with Peter Soulsby (@CityMayorLeic) where he made some commitments re the rise in #Islamophobia, acknowledged the #Hindutva ideology is causing chaos & lack of funding for youth clubs. Thanks Active Muslims Leicester (AML) for facilitating. pic.twitter.com/rH4nEyFDLG
“With regard to the comments made by Sir Peter Soulsby on the Channel 4 broadcast referencing a briefing by Leicestershire Police, I confirmed that we did brief senior council officers that there was significant media reporting that extremist ideologies were playing a part in the disorder,” Paul Allen said.
“We also briefed around what was known about the ideologies, including material from research documents pertaining to Indian political and religious movements,” he further alleged in his letter
Paul Allen tried to insinuate the role of RSS and Hindutva groups in fomenting the Leicester violence, despite the conspiracy theory being debunked more than a month ago.
Read our latest research brief: Hindu-Muslim civil unrest in Leicester: “Hindutva” and the creation of a false narrativehttps://t.co/JYAyoeuHih
In a letter to the Leicester Council of Faiths on August 31 this year, Chief Inspector Paul Allen falsely claimed that a small group of people called for the death of Muslims and Pakistan.
He alleged that the provocative slogans were raised in Hindi, indicating that it must have been the handiwork of the Indian Hindu diaspora. “Unfortunately, a small minority of people began chanting in a racially offensive way, calling for (we believe) “death to Pakistan” and “Death to Muslims” In Hindi,” he claimed.
His email, the transcript of which has now gone viral on social media, was in reference to a minor scuffle that took place in Belgrave Road of Leicester. The grave assertion made by police chief Paul Allen gave a free licence to Islamists to unleash havoc on the Hindu community.
On September 1, he issued a clarification on the matter and rubbished his own claims.
He said, “On Tuesday (August 28) afternoon it was reported that the chanting which had taken place, some of which was captured on video and was circulated on social media, included the phrases (in Hindi) “Death to Pakistan” and “death to Muslims”.
“We have investigated this and can find no verifiable evidence that there were any chants of “death to Muslims”. This is significant in terms of the context and I would encourage you to share this with interested parties,” Paul Allen stated on September 1, 2022. However, it was too late by then.
