Home Blog Page 3

The Print platforms Marxist historian Irfan Habib to distort the history of Ram Mandir: Read how he opposed ASI excavation and questioned archaeological evidence

Shriti Sagar
-
0
The Print platforms Marxist historian Irfan Habib to distort the history of Ram Mandir: Read how he opposed ASI excavation and questioned archaeological evidence

In another attempt by leftists to distort the history of the sacred Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Shekhar Gupta’s ThePrint platformed Marxist historian Irfan Habib and published an interview with him on Friday, 30th October. The Marxist historian claimed that the Supreme Court’s 2019 Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid verdict was “totally illegitimate”. 

During the interview, Irfan Habib claimed that the Supreme Court’s 2019 Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid verdict was “totally illegitimate” and questioned the archaeological evidence presented in support of the temple that existed at the disputed site.

Speaking to ThePrint in Aligarh, the 95-year-old historian claimed, “It is illegitimate because there is no proof that there was a temple there. They assumed, but archaeologically, there was no proof… The evidence for Babri Masjid being a temple is very slight.”

Habib further alleged that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had selectively interpreted the findings from the excavation. He claimed that bricks associated with Muslim construction were discarded while stones were presented as parts of Hindu idols. “You first destroy a mosque, and then you start digging. So when a brick comes out of Muslim construction, you throw it away. But when a stone comes out, you say it is a part of an idol,” he said.

He also questioned whether the archaeological findings could establish that a temple had existed at the exact location. According to him, stones recovered from the site could have been brought from elsewhere and reused in the construction of the mosque. He claimed that no archaeologist of repute had supported the conclusion that a temple stood beneath the Babri Masjid.

Pre-excavation manoeuvres: Unmasking Habib’s earlier stance

This latest commentary is a continuation of his long-standing strategy to derail historical truth. Habib’s position on the Ayodhya dispute was discussed by a veteran journalist, Arvind Singh, in his book, “India’s Rogue Historians – How They Fought Against Hindus at Ayodhya & Lost.”

The book describes how, even before the ASI excavation began, Habib had written an article in Hindustan Times arguing that the archaeological team should not dig deeper than two metres.

According to the account in the book, Habib argued that the dispute concerned medieval India and that digging beyond two metres could take the excavation into much older historical layers. He suggested that the ASI might then discover remains from ancient India, including bricks from the Kushan period. Such discoveries, he feared, could be presented as evidence of an earlier Hindu structure at the site.

The Muslim side even adopted Habib’s argument and asked the High Court to restrict the ASI’s excavation to two metres. The court then asked the ASI to respond.

The ASI opposed the demand, arguing that imposing an arbitrary depth limit would violate established archaeological principles and make the excavation incomplete and meaningless. Archaeologists need to examine the layers of earth to understand the history of a site. Restricting the excavation in advance could prevent archaeologists from examining important evidence lying beneath the surface.

The book also points out that, a couple of months before the excavation, Habib had admitted the existence of a structure beneath the ground but described it as a “residential quarter for marginalised sections”. 

Constant subversion of Archaeological evidence

This is not the first time Habib has openly backed the Muslim side in the Ayodhya dispute and questioned the archaeological findings that supported the existence of a temple beneath the demolished Babri Masjid.

In August 2003, Habib accused the ASI of tampering with the evidence to suit its own conclusions and claimed the findings from the site suggest that the structure below the demolished Babri Masjid could well have been a mosque and not a temple. The leftist historian claimed that the presence of animal bones was decisive evidence against the existence of a temple.

“Bone fragments with cut marks are a sure sign of animals being eaten at the site and therefore rule out a temple existing at the site at that time,” he argued.

Similarly, he alleged, glazed ware, often called Muslim glazed ware, also constitutes an equally definite piece of evidence which militates against the temple theory, as this was not used in temples. 

These arguments were part of the objections raised by the Marxist historian Habib. However, the ASI’s findings were subsequently examined during the legal proceedings in the Ayodhya dispute. The Allahabad High Court’s 2010 judgment discussed the archaeological evidence, including the remains of a large structure beneath the demolished mosque. The Supreme Court later considered the evidence and other material before delivering its November 2019 verdict.

Attacks on Prime Minister Modi and school curricula

Apart from the Ram Mandir, the leftist historian made another outrageous claim in the same interview. Habib used the interview to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defend former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and claimed, “Nehru is one of the most important minds and what people like the present Prime Minister say about him is useless. It’s hardly worth any attention. What has he done in history?”

Habib also criticised the changes being made to social science textbooks and the school curriculum. Referring to the recent changes in NCERT textbooks, he accused the present government of rewriting history and claimed that India was now going ahead of Pakistan in falsifying historical accounts. The leftist historian claimed, “Unfortunately, that is present in India. Earlier, Pakistan glorified it. But now we are practically outpacing Pakistan by falsification.” 

He also accused the current government of rewriting history. “The syllabus drawn up in the name of the Government of India and the Ministry of Education is atrocious. As if somebody who has drawn it has no idea of Indian history, no idea of the origins of the caste system,” Habib added.

Irfan Habib admitted Aurangzeb demolished temples in Varanasi and Mathura

These statements add to the long list of controversial statements about Hindu temples and Mughal rulers in the past. In January 2024, an old video of the Marxist historian from May 2022 went viral on social media. In the video, he admitted that Mughal emperor Aurangzeb had demolished temples in Varanasi and Mathura to build mosques.

The video had surfaced days after the discovery of a Shivling-like structure inside the Gyanvapi complex in Varanasi. Habib acknowledged the demolition of temples but questioned whether the government could act against structures that had existed since the 17th century.

“It is correct that Aurangzeb demolished the temple, but it is not specified that it was Lord Shiva’s temple. It became a Shiv Temple after they found a Shivling. Aurangzeb demolished this temple in Varanasi. Another temple was demolished in Mathura. There’s no two ways about it,” he said.

He then questioned the demand for the restoration of the temples, asking, “Can the government demolish something that was built in 1670? It is against India’s Monument Protection Act.”

Habib has constantly targeted Hindu organisations and the administration. In an interview with NewsClick, he remarked that Mughals would not disappear from history just because the Sangh wished so.  In another interview with The Quint in May 2022, Habib had also acknowledged the destruction of temples by Aurangzeb but questioned whether the discovery of old temple stones should lead to the demolition of existing mosques.

Habib has also repeatedly made controversial remarks against the RSS and the BJP government. In January 2020, a legal notice was sent to him over his remarks at Aligarh Muslim University, where he claimed that the RSS had been formed to attack Muslims. He had also targeted Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar, accusing him of being responsible for India’s Partition and claiming that there was circumstantial evidence linking him to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. He had also referred to Prime Minister Modi as ‘Jahil’.

Ideological roots: Whitewashing separatism and demanding class history

Notably, Irfan Habib is the son of Marxist historian Mohammad Habib of Aligarh Muslim University. Mohammad Habib had turned to Marxism after the Anglo-Soviet Pact of 1941, when previously banned communist literature entered India. He was among the early influential converts and was the first to propound the notion in his 1927 work Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni that Muslim rulers of medieval India razed temples purely out of avarice and greed, denying any religious motivation behind the destruction.

Mohammad Habib maintained a close friendship with the Nehrus and was a protégé of Motilal Nehru. His theories regarding Mahmud were directly echoed in Jawaharlal Nehru’s The Discovery of India (1945), where Mahmud was painted as a warrior interested in culture who broke temples merely for building materials. After independence, Nehru relied heavily on Marxist historians to justify his pro-Muslim policies, providing them the blueprint to push class as the primary organising principle. 

In his 1947 presidential address to the Indian History Congress, Mohammad Habib called upon historians to use their pens to fashion a society based on class, asserting that past historical works suffered from “bourgeois” biases and urging scholars to lead India to the “shrine of her newfound, classless God.” Through such ideological frameworks, Marxist historians sought to whitewash the violent history of Islamic rule and smooth over fault lines, laying the groundwork for decades of historical distortion.

Conclusion

The publication of Irfan Habib’s latest interview by ThePrint underscores a persistent effort by leftist platforms to amplify discredited ideological narratives under the guise of historical commentary. By providing an uncritical platform to a Marxist historian whose career has been defined by selective archaeology, political activism, and explicit legal manoeuvring to block pre-excavation truths at Ayodhya, ThePrint effectively enables the revival of claims already settled by exhaustive archaeological evidence and the highest court of the land.

Promoting Habib’s assertion that the Supreme Court’s 2019 verdict was “illegitimate” ignores both the extensive findings of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Habib’s own long history of attempting to pre-empt and restrict scientific excavation. 

Who is the scam-accused Archbishop Peter Machado, who wants Karnataka’s anti-conversion law repealed and the cow slaughter ban reviewed? 

Shraddha Pandey
-
0
Who is the scam-accused Archbishop Peter Machado, who wants Karnataka’s anti-conversion law repealed and the cow slaughter ban reviewed? 

On 30th October 2026, Archbishop of Bangalore, Peter Machado, urged the Congress government in Karnataka to fulfil its promise of repealing the state’s anti-conversion law. During a media interaction in Bengaluru, Peter Machado said that a meeting of minority communities, Dalit communities, and farmer communities was called to press their demands pertaining to the repeal of the anti-conversion law in the state. 

A day prior to the meeting, the Karnataka United Christian Forum for Human Rights issued a statement identifying three priority areas requiring government intervention, including religious freedom, protection against communal hostility and fulfilment of electoral promises. 

c He said that it has been around three years since the Congress Party formed government in the state and that it also has numbers in the State Assembly to repeal the law. 

“Today we have called a press conference of the minority communities, the Dalit communities, the farmer communities, especially those that have been experiencing certain difficulties with the laws of the State. First of all, we Christians have come strongly asking the government to repeal the anti-conversion law that was passed in 2022. “…it was passed by the previous government, and this government, which was trying to get into power that time, they have put it in the manifesto that if they came to power, they would withdraw immediately the anti-conversion law as such…” Machado said. 

In addition to the anti-conversion law, Peter Machado also said that the Congress government had made promises to different communities, including the Muslim community, regarding the anti-cow slaughter bills. He alleged that “it doesn’t look to be very good on their part because Muslims and farmers are suffering because of it.” 

He then claimed that ageing cattle needed to be taken care of and “if they cannot go to cowsheds…,” insinuating that slaughterhouses were the only other destination. “In some places, the government has done it. It’s okay,” he added. 

In September this year, Machado took a Christian delegation to visit Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge at his Bengaluru home, where Kharge’s son and Karnataka home minister, Priyank Kharge, was also present. The delegation sought the abolition of the state’s anti-conversion law and a special 1% reservation for the community. 

Peter Machado’s public expression of discontent over the anti-conversion law and anti-cow slaughter law even though these laws only target illegal practices, has sparked outrage. 

Who is Archbishop Peter Machado? 

Born in 1954 in Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada, Peter Machado became an ordained priest on 8th December 1978 for the Diocese of Karwar.  

In February 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Machado the Bishop of Belgaum and ordained him bishop in March 2006.  

After serving there for around 12 years, Peter Machado was appointed the Archbishop of Bangalore in March 2018 by Pope Francis. 

Archbishop Peter Machado is also President of the Karnataka Regional Catholic Bishops Council and of the All-Karnataka United Forum for Christian Human Rights. 

Last year, Machado was elected Vice-President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) and chairs its Commission for Laity. 

Machado has consistently been pushing the ‘Christians under attack’ bogey through his speeches, petitions in courts, and engagements with political parties. 

In June 2022, the Supreme Court admitted a plea, which alleged that attacks on Christian priests and Churches have increased in the country. The petition was filed by the National Solidarity Forum, the Evangelical Fellowship of India and Archbishop of Bangalore Diocese, Peter Machado. 

The petition claimed that about 40-50 attacks, on average, were taking place on Christian institutions each month, alleging that 57 such attacks took place in May 2022 alone. 

In January 2020, the Bangalore Archbishop Peter Machado had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ‘reconsider’ his decision on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Machado’s opposition to the CAA came even though minorities in the Islamic or Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh faced persecution due to their religious identity, and there’s no way Muslims would be persecuted by Muslims in an Islamic country for being Muslims. 

In June 2020, the former judge of the Bombay High Court, Michael F Saldanha, had accused Machado of colluding and covering up murders allegedly committed by Bishop of Mysore KA William. He had accused Peter Machado and Bishop K A William of ‘criminally misappropriating’ ₹49.5 crores collected for Coorg Disaster Relief work in 2018.  

Accusing Machado of misappropriation, ex-Judge Michael F Saldanha wrote, “Perhaps Archbishop Peter Machado can tell us how many night shelters for homeless persons he has constructed because this was one of his appeals made more than a year back at the time of the concert. If it is there in writing in the annexure, then he is certainly accountable.” 

In 2020, the Karnataka Catholic Christian Association (AKCCA) accused him of being involved in a multi-million-dollar scam. Pope Francis appointed Machado, a vocal critic of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bangalore. 

In August of that year, the AKCCA demanded a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the financial misappropriation of Asha Charitable Trust, which is owned by the archdiocese. At a press conference in Bangalore, the group accused the Trust of siphoning off ₹3 billion ($42 million). 

“It is a scam worth three billion, and it needs investigation, AKCCA leader Raphael Raj informed the media. Raj stated that even though the archdiocese collected funds from foreign donors, it was not used as promised. 

Raj added that the annual audit report highlighted financial irregularities, but the archdiocese ignored it and did not act against the ‘guilty’.  

In 2021, Peter Machado was at the forefront of opposing the anti-conversion law in the State of Karnataka. Machado had handed over a memorandum to the Karnataka Chief Minister, saying the proposed anti-conversion law was unwarranted and would lead to ‘unnecessary communal issues’ and ‘unrest’ in Karnataka.  

In March 2024, Machado had urged PM Modi to ‘rein in’ his party (BJP) leaders, “who fail to rise above petty politics and hate speeches.” 

This came after a parent of a student filed a complaint in February that year at the Mangaluru South police station against a teacher from St. Gerosa Catholic Girls School in Mangaluru for allegedly making derogatory remarks against the Hindu religion, Lord Ram and PM Narendra Modi. 

The accused teacher named Prabha was reported to have used curse words against Lord Sri Ram and the Prime Minister while teaching students of class 7 while teaching the chapter ‘Work is worship’ on 8th February. 

After the incident, parents, Hindu organisations, and BJP MLA from Dakshin Kannada, Vedavyas Kamath, staged a protest demanding strict action against the accused teacher for making insulting and derogatory remarks about the Hindu religion and trying to convert students to Christianity. Instead of condemning the Christian teacher, Peter Machado vilified BJP leaders for backing Hindu victims. 

BJP government enacted an anti-conversion law in Karnataka

The previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government passed the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, 2022. Conversion from one faith to another through “use or practice of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by any of these means or by promise of marriage” is forbidden by law.

Forced conversion is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine of Rs 25,000.

Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cow Bill 2020

The Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cow Bill 2020, passed by the state’s previous BJP government, took effect in February 2021. According to the Act, slaughtering any cattle, except buffaloes over the age of 13, is a serious offence punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Targeting Hindus, religious discrimination, Islamist propaganda and more: UP STF submits report on love jihad, religious conversion activities at KGMU Lucknow; Yogi govt directs action against accused

Aditi
-
0
Targeting Hindus, religious discrimination, Islamist propaganda and more: UP STF submits report on love jihad, religious conversion activities at KGMU Lucknow; Yogi govt directs action against accused

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh on Friday (October 30, 2026) directed the Registrar of King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, to take strict departmental action against university personnel found complicit in Love Jihad, forced religious conversion, and other related activities at the university. The directive follows findings enclosed in a Special Task Force (STF) inquiry report. The University is required to submit an action taken report to the government.

The STF report dated October 25, 2026, was compiled following an investigation into allegations of religious conversion, love jihad, mental harassment, and sexual exploitation of female Hindu students and staff on campus. The investigation was initiated by the UP STF based on a complaint filed by Shri Shivam Srivastava, President of the UP Youth Association, requesting an inquiry into reports of religious conversion and Love Jihad that took place in the K.G.M.U. campus.

Findings of the STF Inquiry

Below are the details of department-wise findings noted in the STF Inquiry Report prepared by Inquiry Officer Pramod Kumar Shukla, Deputy Superintendent of Police, STF, Lucknow. The report notes findings on the activities relating to religious conversion and mental and physical harassment of Hindu students and employees, the conduct of certain faculty members and employees, incidents and complaints reported across different KGMU departments, and action taken by concerned authorities on the complaints.

Pathology Department

The report cites two major cases filed in December 2025 at the Chowk and Kaiserbagh police stations by resident doctor Dr Devarti Mitra and nursing staff Maviya from KGMU, Lucknow, under various provisions of the BNS and the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 against resident doctors in the Pathology Department, Dr Rameez (Rameezuddin) Malik and Mohd. Adil, respectively. Dr Rameez Malik was arrested in January 2026 and was found guilty by KGMU’s internal Vishakha Committee.

The inquiry found collusion among the Muslim faculty of the Pathology Department, shielding of Muslim staff, harassment of Hindu junior doctors/nursing personnel, and specific faculty members in relation to the above-mentioned two cases. “If any female employee raises her voice in protest against the same, full effort is made by the departmental faculty to suppress the matter by threatening to ruin her career, declare her mentally deranged, or terminate her from service,” the finding stated.

According to the report, resident doctor Dr Rameezuddin trapped Dr Devarti Mitra, who was his junior resident doctor, in a relationship and mentally and physically exploited her. He forced her to convert to Islam and perform a Nikah with him. Dr Devarti Mitra later came to know that Rameezuddin had already married Dr Mansi Saxena, his batchmate at Sarojini Naidu Medical College (SNMC), Agra, in February 2025. Dr Mansi Saxena told Dr Devarti Mitra that Rameezuddin had trapped several Hindu girls and planned to convert and marry them.

Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

After learning the truth about Rameezuddin, Dr Devarti became distressed and attempted suicide by consuming a large number of antidepressants and fell unconscious. After recovering, she filed the case against Rameezuddin. During the inquiry, names of several other Hindu female doctors emerged who had been similarly trapped by Rameezuddin. His victims included Dr Kritika Pandey and Dr Muskaan, both resident doctors at KGMU Lucknow, and another unidentified Hindu female doctor who graduated from SNMC Agra.

Faculty complicity and suppression of complaints

The inquiry revealed that the Head of the Pathology Department, Suresh Babu, along with Additional Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum, shielded Rameezuddin and indulged in character assassination of Dr Devarti Mitra. After she filed the case against Rameezuddin, HOD Suresh Babu declared Rameezuddin innocent and termed Dr Devarti Mitra a psychopath. He pressured the family of Dr Devarti Mitra to agree to a compromise.

The report states that HOD Suresh Babu follows Dalit ideology and is known to be anti-Hindu. He is also said to be deeply influenced by Additional Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum and to take decisions under her influence. “It is often also said that Prof. Suresh Babu is anti-Hindu to the extent that even in his phone, he first saves category and then name. It is also said that after taking charge, he had got the list of residents of each batch prepared category-wise,” the report noted.


Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

The inquiry findings regarding Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum also highlight alarming details with respect to her discriminatory conduct towards Hindu students. Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum is a native of Kashmir and is married to Khaliq-ur-Rahman, a Professor in the Pathology Department of SGPGI, Lucknow. They are both graduates from Aligarh Muslim University and are known for having a hardcore Islamic ideology. Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum is entrusted with sanctioning leave for resident doctors.

The inquiry revealed that she discriminates against Hindu resident doctors in sanctioning leave and shows leniency towards Muslim resident doctors. “…it was found that the 2023 batch resident, Dr Sabina, was granted leave without replacement despite posting in the Trauma Lab in an irregular manner, whereas the resident, Dr Harshit Jain, appointed in her place, was subjected to harassment,” the inquiry report said.

The report cites an instance when resident Dr Harshit Jain requested leave for Chhat Puja and to take part in the last rites of his grandfather; Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum harassed him and made a derogatory remark saying, “Will you himself light your grandfather’s funeral pyre?” On the other hand, she easily granted permission to Muslim resident doctors to participate in Namaz, weddings, or any other personal work. Professor Sumaiya Qaiyum is said to have dismissed Dr Devarti Mitra’s case as a “small incident” and advised her batchmate residents not to blow it out of proportion. She also threatened resident doctors who supported Dr Devarti Mitra.


Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

Another member of the Pathology Department, Dr Wahid Ali, is also found to have given preferential treatment to Muslim students and provided them separate seating and praying space inside the Biochemistry Lab of the Pathology Department. Dr. Wahid Ali, who holds an M.Sc., PhD, is the in-charge of the Biochemistry Lab.

According to the STF report, he provided exclusive space for Muslim students to gather, offer namaz, and hold meetings in an HPLC Lab inside the Biochemistry Lab. He follows hardline Islamic ideology and discriminates against Hindu resident doctors. The report states that Dr Wahid Ali harassed Dr Harshit Jain by making him do double duty and giving him negative feedback about him. He also supported Rameezuddin against Dr Devarti Mitra.

Gandhi Ward

The STF Inquiry Report cites three incidents where Hindu female employees were trapped and mentally and physically exploited by Muslim staff members. In one incident, nursing staff Nafees trapped nursing employee Jyoti Singh. physically and mentally exploited her, converted her to Islam, and performed Nikah with her.


Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

In another case, nursing staff Furkan is accused of trapping nursing employee Jagriti Gupta, physically and mentally exploiting her, and coercing her to marry him after converting to Islam. The third incident involves resident doctor Adil, who targeted multiple women and exploited them. Adil lured nursing staff members Maviya, Meenakshi Pandey, and others into relationships and physically exploited them on the pretext of marriage. A case was filed against Adil by Maviya at Police Station Kaiserbagh, and an oral complaint was made by Meenakshi Pandey against him regarding the exploitation.

Microbiology Department

The report highlighted a similar pattern of harassment of Hindu employees in the Microbiology Department of the university. As per the inquiry report, a 25-year-old Hindu computer operator, Jyoti Rao, was teased and stalked by 50-year-old employee Shafaat Ali Khan, who also forced her to convert and perform Nikah with him.

Jyoti Rao’s oral and written complaints against Shafaat Ali Khan to the Head of the Department remained unaddressed. Instead, she faced retaliatory action and was terminated from her service, after which she went into depression.

Radiology Department

The report notes inquiry findings relating to the Radiology Department of the varsity involving resident Dr Rizwan. As per the report, Dr Rizwan has been forcing resident Dr Avanjala Singh and Dr Ishita to convert to Islam and subjecting them to blackmail. When the victims made oral complaints regarding the same to the department, they were suppressed and given threats of ruining their careers and failing them in examinations.

Islamic Medicos: A network of Muslim students

The report exposes an organised group of Muslim students from SNMC Agra and KGMU, which includes Dr Rameezuddin, Dr Rizwan Malik, Dr Adnan Ansari, Dr Sam Anees, and several others from the 2021/2022 batch. The members of the group maintain close ties, engage with Hindu female residents, and promote hardline Islamic ideology, supported by Prof. Sumaiya Qaiyum.

The report names a book titled Islamic Medicos published at SNMC, Agra, containing details of Muslim medical students of the 2012 to 2016 batches who are part of the group. Apart from the book, a similar magazine is also published at SNMC, Agra. According to the inquiry findings, new Muslim students taking admission to the college are organised and trained by these “Islamic Medicos”.

Dr Rameezuddin had introduced Dr Mansi, Dr Devarti, Dr Kritika Pandey, Dr Muskaan, and several other female Hindu students to the network. The report notes that when Rameezuddin introduced Dr Sam Anees to Devarti, he said that Anees, a resident of Saharanpur, had raped 19 Hindu women.

Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

Many members of the Islamic group, including Mohd. Kaif (SNMC 2021 batch), Mohd. Ehsaan, Aman Malik, Shadan Shameem, Mohd. Ayaan (all KGMU 2021 batch) and Mohd. Zaheer, Mohd. Aman and Shabir Khan (all KGMU 2022 batch) had close relations with Hindu female resident doctors, whom they had been grooming to be assimilated into Islamic ideology.

Administrative nexus within the university

The report uncovers an administrative nexus at KGMU that created a conducive environment for the harassment and exploitation of Hindu female students. The report states that most of the incidents of religious conversion happened at KGMU between 2006 and 2012. This period fell within the tenure of Dr Abbas Ali Mehdi as the H.O.D. of the Medicine Department.

The report also names S.A. Abbas, who worked as a clerk in various departments of KGMU and retired around 3 years ago. Abbas is said to have close ties to Dr Mehdi, who got all his work done through him. After retirement, Abbas was appointed as a P.S. to Dr Mehdi, who had taken VRS and currently owns Era Medical College.

The report states that the names of the members of committees formed to examine religious conversion complaints and other issues involving Muslim students are suggested by Dr Mehdi to the V.C. through Abbas. Notably, most Muslim doctors from the KGMU have invested their money in Era Medical College.

According to the report, since the retirement of Abbas, Professor Usman Kausar, a Nephrologist in the Medicine Department, has been leading the Muslim faculty and resident doctors at the KGMU. Having strong oratory skills, he is often entrusted with defending Muslim students and employees in cases involving them.

Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

Professor Kausar runs a private clinic named Diabetes Health, but does not write prescriptions himself in the clinic and keeps a compounder/assistant named Rizwan for the job. It is mentioned in the report that Dr Kausar’s brother-in-law, Dr Haider Abbas, who supports his ideology, is also appointed in the Medicine Department.

Furthermore, the report states that Assistant Professor Dr Ahmad and Assistant Professor Dr Kaleem in the Biochemistry Department play a key role in motivating and supporting Muslim students.

Another name in this series that is mentioned in the inquiry report is Dr Naseem Khan, currently in the Physiology Department of Integral University, Lucknow, and formerly worked in the Dental Department of KGMU Lucknow. As per the report, Dr Naseem Khan propagated the hardliner ideology of fugitive radical Islamic preacher Zakir Naik among Muslim students at KGMU.


Screenshot from the STF inquiry report

Citing unverified sources, the report states that Dr Naseem Khan is married to Dr Khalida Naseem, who resigned from Integral University following action against Dr Shaheen in connection with the 2025 Delhi Red Fort Blast Case. Before joining Integral University, Dr Khalida Naseem worked as an eye surgeon at KGMU. The inquiry revealed that under the influence of Zakir Naik’s ideology, the second floor of the gym at KGMU was converted into a Muslim Ibadatkhana (prayer room) in 2013 on the direction of Dr Naseem Khan, while a mosque already existed inside the university. The Muslim Ibadatkhana was frequently visited by Muslim clerics from places like Etawah, Mainpuri, and Karkhal who delivered religious speeches.

A wider network of Islamic radicalism

The renowned medical university has emerged as a den of Islamic radicalism and harassment and victimisation of Hindu female doctors. Rameezuddin has been named as a main accused in the sexual exploitation and religious conversion activities targeting Hindu female students on the campus. The investigation into the case filed against him disclosed that he was part of a major conversion network where a reward of ₹15 lakh was introduced for converting medical professionals (doctors) and ₹5 lakh for others.

The investigation also revealed Malik’s association with Dr Shaheen Saeed, who was apprehended in connection with the Delhi blast case. According to media reports, he encountered her at a medical conference. Afterwards, he became very influenced by her ideology and accepted his ties with her during the interrogation. Information recovered from his electronic devices revealed that Rameezuddin was in contact with multiple Hindu women, whom he had been enticing and forcing to embrace Islam. Photos of around 50 women were also found on his devices.

India recorded a 24.1% decline in extreme poverty in 12 years: Read in detail what the World Bank said in its report

Shriti Sagar
-
0
India recorded a 24.1% decline in extreme poverty in 12 years: Read in detail what the World Bank said in its report

India has recorded “one of the fastest poverty declines” in the world between 2011 and 2023, according to the World Bank’s latest report. In its report [pdf] titled India Poverty and Equity Brief: October 2026, the World Bank highlights that the country has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty across both monetary and non-monetary dimensions. 

Over this decade-long span, extreme poverty in the country fell drastically by 24.5%. As the World Bank noted in its note, “Over the past decade, India has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty across both monetary and non-monetary dimensions, recording one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.” 

This massive social transformation was largely driven by robust consumption growth, rising employment, particularly among women entering the workforce, and expanded social welfare programs like food subsidies. However, the report also cautions that poverty is becoming increasingly concentrated geographically, with roughly 57% of India’s poor population living in a contiguous belt stretching from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal.

How the World Bank estimates poverty

The World Bank uses three international poverty thresholds to measure poverty, based on daily income or consumption levels adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). The latest estimates use 2021 PPP values and three poverty lines: $3 per day, $4.20 per day and $8.30 per day.

The $3 daily threshold represents extreme poverty, while the $4.20 threshold is used for the lower middle-income poverty line. The $8.30 threshold represents the upper middle-income poverty line. These measures help track poverty across different income levels and allow comparisons between countries.

The estimates in the latest report are based on India’s three most recent Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys, conducted in 2011-12, 2022-23 and 2023-24. The report also uses other data to assess non-monetary poverty and living conditions.

Alongside monetary metrics, the report evaluates non-monetary deprivations, noting that Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s (OPHI) Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) fell sharply by 37.4% between 2005 and 2021, while the World Bank’s own MPI measure stood at 15.5% in 2022–23. 

Nevertheless, the report also adds a note of caution that these household surveys may not fully capture the consumption patterns of wealthier households, meaning they are likely to understate top-end inequality.

Expected decline and future projections

The World Bank report projects that poverty will continue to decline across the country, though at a more gradual pace. The poverty rate measured at the $4.20 per day line is expected to fall further from 14.2% in 2026 down to 12.1% by 2028. 

Future reductions in national poverty will heavily rely on generating productive employment opportunities, particularly in the states spanning from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal. The lower middle-income poverty rate also declined significantly, falling by 41.6% over the same period. This represents an estimated 496 million people moving above the $4.20-a-day poverty line.

The World Bank said this progress was mainly driven by strong growth in consumption, an increase in employment, particularly among women, and wider access to social welfare support, including food subsidies. The World Bank also clarified that these are indicative projections based on microsimulation models. They may be revised as fresh labour market and economic data become available.

The graphs show declining poverty and Consumption inequality

The World Bank report also includes two graphs to explain how poverty and consumption inequality have changed over the years. 

The first graph shows the downward trend in poverty rates across the three international poverty lines between 2011 and 2023. At the extreme poverty threshold of $3 per day, the rate dropped sharply from 27.1% to 2.6%. At the lower middle-income threshold of $4.20 per day, it declined from 57.7% to 16.1%, lifting an estimated 496 million people out of poverty.

Graph via World Bank report

At the upper middle-income threshold of $8.30 per day, the poverty rate also came down, from 92.5% in 2011 to 80% in 2023. However, the figures show that a large share of India’s population still lives below this higher income threshold. 

The second graph tracks consumption inequality using the Gini index. The index measures how equally or unequally consumption is distributed across a population. It ranges from 0 to 100, with a higher figure indicating greater inequality.

India’s Gini index fell from 28.8 in 2011-12 to 25.5 in 2022-23 and further to 23.0 in 2023. This indicates a decline in measured consumption inequality over the period.

Graph via World Bank report

While this consumption-based index reflects a slight compression in measured inequality, the broader report points out that wage disparities remain wide, with the top 10% of workers earning roughly 13 times more than the bottom 10% in 2023.

Poverty remains higher in Rural areas and among children

The report shows that poverty levels differ across regions and population groups. At the $4.20-a-day lower middle-income poverty line, the poverty rate in rural areas stood at 19.3%, compared with 8.6% in urban areas. This shows that rural households continue to face greater economic challenges, even though rural India has recorded significant improvements over the years.

The poverty rate was also slightly higher among women, at 16.6%, compared with 15.7% among men. The World Bank noted that poverty is becoming increasingly concentrated in certain parts of the country. Around 57% of India’s poor population lives in a continuous geographical belt stretching from Uttar Pradesh to West Bengal.

The report also pointed out that households with lower levels of education, fewer assets, limited access to stable jobs and more dependent family members are more likely to remain poor.

Employment growth has played an important role in reducing poverty. Between 2017 and 2023, the number of employed people increased by around 134 million, nearly twice the growth of the working-age population. A large part of this increase came from rural women joining paid work and adding to the number of earning members in households. 

However, the report also noted that youth unemployment increased from 14.6% to 15.9% between Q1 FY2026 and Q1 FY2027, particularly among rural young women. Real earnings also remained largely unchanged, with much of the employment growth coming from relatively low-productivity work.

The report also examines India’s multidimensional poverty rate

Apart from income, the World Bank also measures poverty through access to basic facilities such as education, drinking water, sanitation and electricity. This is known as multidimensional poverty because it looks at different difficulties people face in their daily lives.

According to the report, India’s multidimensional poverty rate, measured using the World Bank’s Multidimensional Poverty Measure, stood at 15.5% in 2022-23. The report also cited figures from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), which show that multidimensional poverty declined from 53.8% in 2005-06 to 16.4% in 2019-21.

Children remain more vulnerable to multidimensional poverty than other age groups. The rate stood at 21.8% among children aged 0 to 14, compared with 14.4% among people aged 15 to 64 and 14% among those aged 65 and above.

Education also makes a difference. Among people aged 16 and above, the poverty rate was 21.3% for those without education, 17.3% for those with primary education, 14% for those with secondary education and 7.4% for those with post-secondary or tertiary education.

The report also highlighted gaps in access to basic facilities. Around 29.6% of the population lacked access to limited-standard sanitation, while 13.8% lived in households where no adult had completed primary education. 

Kerala: VD Satheesan to join Congress-led “save democracy” march at Ramlila Maidan while filing cases against LPST rank-holders protesting for basic demands, corruption-free recruitment

Rukma Rathore
-
0
Kerala: VD Satheesan to join Congress-led “save democracy” march at Ramlila Maidan while filing cases against LPST rank-holders protesting for basic demands, corruption-free recruitment

The Indian National Congress-led I.N.D.I. Alliance has announced the “Chalo Dilli” march at Ramlila Maidan on 1st November to protest alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.

Kerala Chief Minister VD Satheesan is also going to participate in the opposition program, informing that he would join it to purportedly “stand with lakhs of citizens in defence of democracy, the Constitution, and the right to vote.” He added, “This is not just a protest. It is a firm declaration that we will not remain silent when democracy is under threat.”

While Satheesan is planning to attend the gathering to “save democracy,” people in his own state are being slapped with cases for raising legitimate demands. The matter is related to the consistent demonstration of Lower Primary School Teachers (LPST) rank holders in Thiruvananthapuram. They are yet to obtain formal appointment orders despite passing the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) screening procedure and appearing on the May 2025 rank list.

Their protest has already entered its 117th day, while the associated hunger strike is on its 5th day. However, instead of addressing their grievances, a case has been registered against 8 identified individuals and 50 others for holding an agitation near the Secretariat’s main gate. S Valarmathi, secretary of the All Kerala LPST Rank Holders Association, has been named as the first accused.

On 26th October, she had tonsured her head and pronounced an indefinite fast after Satheesan addressed the issue in the assembly, not to resolve their complaints but to make a political dig. He remarked that those who had not even bothered to take notice of people protesting outside the Secretariat for the past five years were going around with photographs of a shaved head.

Valarmathi had asked the government about measures it had implemented. “We will not back down from our demand to reduce the student-teacher ratio in classrooms,” she maintained and highlighted the hypocrisy by adding that those who are currently making such comments had supported the protests by Public Service Commission (PSC) rank holders when they were in the opposition.

The candidates had already warned they would organise a hunger strike and remove their hair if the government did not make a favourable decision. However, their appeals fell on deaf ears, after which they stepped up their efforts.

Their principal demands are to guarantee immediate and legal appointments for individuals on the PSC rank list, revise the critical student-teacher ratio to 1:25 from 1:30, postpone fresh notifications until everyone on the existing list is inducted and transfer aided school recruitments to the PSC to prevent any corruption-based procedures.

Congress government remains indifferent as protests continue

Valarmathi’s symbolic act of sacrifice came amid continuous accusations that the government had shown nothing but gross neglect towards them. She recently called out Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader N Samsudheen, who is serving as the Minister for General Education and Minority Welfare of Kerala. She outlined that he insisted there is a “financial crisis and is not willing to reduce the student-teacher ratio,” emphasising that the objective is to protect teachers and their jobs.

She asserted to have the details “on the number of existing vacancies, but the minister told the assembly that the data was still being collected. If that is the case, what exactly has the government studied about our issue? Who conducted the study, and who were the members of the committee? The government must release those records.”

Valarmathi lashed out, “You asked for 45 days only to mislead us. We are protesting because we want justice. Those sitting here have worked hard, cleared the examinations and secured places on the rank list. Please do not keep repeating false claims.”

She pointed out that the government had promised to change the student-teacher ratio to 1:40 and questioned how it had arrived at that figure, pointing out, “You are not even clearly stating how many divisions have been lost. Everything is being kept under wraps, and the only response we get is that any decision would create a financial burden.”

Valarmathi underlined that the government must first hire people from the existing rank lists before proceeding with admissions via other means. “The current system gives the impression that jobs can be secured by paying money. That system must change,” she pressed.

“We have no other option. It was only after our protest had entered its 13th day that the government said our demands would be considered sympathetically. But what action has it taken since then? There is no need to invite us for further discussions. We need a decision, not more assurances. We will continue our protest, even if it takes a death for the government to finally make a decision,” she declared.

Valarmathi earlier charged that Samsudheen’s plea for 45 days to settle the dispute was a ruse to put an end to the strike. She suspected that bribes might have been distributed to officials, including the chief minister. However, she was determined that they would be chosen on their credentials earned through education. The protesters also revealed that they could seek to meet Satheesan again and vowed to embark on a hunger strike until death if they are denied justice.

No support from Abhijit Dipke to Prakash Raj: The deafening silence of self-proclaimed champions of people’s rights

The demonstrators indicated that they have effectively been left to fend for themselves, with no support for their crucial fight, recounting, “We were running from one minister to another till some days ago. The same leaders who expressed solidarity with us when in opposition are now avoiding or ignoring us,” reported The New Indian Express.

Additionally, it was unveiled that the United Democratic Front (UDF) government headed by Congress had verbally agreed to grant four requests: lowering the student-teacher ratio to 1:25, putting off the new notification, extending the rank-list period, and bringing head teacher vacancies under the purview of the PSC. However, the protesters found out that no action had been taken.

The centre of the problem revolves around the loss of teaching positions when school divisions are consolidated to cater to the 1:30 student-teacher ratio. Valarmathi stated, “The teachers who are flushed out in this exercise are accommodated in retirement vacancies, depriving us of a chance to be appointed. There were around 600 such division-fall adjustments made last year.”

She added that the ratio can be modified to fit the state’s needs, similar to high schools. According to those on the rank list, they delivered thorough reports on open positions and reform recommendations to the government, but with no success.

The protesters also noted that they do not receive any help and have to pool their own money to sustain the agitation. They conveyed that some PSC coaching facilities used to offer them food, but at present they either prepare kanji by the roadside or make other local arrangements to feed themselves.

Interestingly, they also noticed the conspicuous absence of andolanjeevis or career agitators, recognising that their movement has received little attention because it is rooted in a genuine cause and has no agenda or affiliations with any party or outfit.

“No one noticed us till now. We wonder where the activists – like Ranjini Haridas – are. Where are the rappers? Where are the likes of Tovino Thomas, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Ashiq Abu and Reema Kallingal? Where were the writers and intellectuals? The systemic rot linked to PSC placements is out there for everyone to see, right,” the attendees enquired.

They also shared, “Many among us even tagged Abhijit Dipke of CJP (Cockroach Janta Party) in our protest pictures. We also commented on their social media posts, drawing their attention to our agitation. Even when actor Prakash Raj visited Manaveeyam Veedhi, we requested him to visit our protest venue. But no one even bothered.”

The account sheds light on the selective nature of those who claim to champion people’s causes, especially those concerning the country’s youth and students, but are conveniently silent when the subject does not serve their political interests. Furthermore, neither the former chief minister and Leader of the Opposition, Pinarayi Vijayan, nor officials at the Secretariat met Valarmathi despite her exhausting attempt.

Conclusion

Rahul Gandhi, Satheesan and the Congress leadership have regularly urged the young people to become a part of their political campaigns. The Gandhi scion even launched “Chhatron Ki Goonj” (Voice of Students), supposedly to flag concerns over shortcomings in the Indian education system.

However, it appears that the opposition and its ecosystem are deeply concerned about their future only when the state is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This duplicity has surfaced time and again and was also equally evident in Jharkhand, where protests against the I.N.D.I. bloc government were similarly ignored.

The challenges faced by the youth, it seems, deserve focus only depending on the region and the political ideology, and when the rhetoric is put to the test, it tells a different story. The protesters in Kerala even ate grass to underline their desperate conditions, as many women left their families and homes to struggle for their valid demands, only to see their pleas go unanswered.

This is the reality of the Indian opposition’s activism, which pretends to “save democracy,” but where equality is determined by political preferences rather than treated as a basic tenet. Borrowing from William Shakespeare’s famous line, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say, “Hypocrisy, thy name is the Indian opposition.”


As Wasim and others are awarded life imprisonment for illegal cow slaughter in Gujarat, read about the 2017 law that made it possible

મેઘલસિંહ પરમાર
-
0
As Wasim and others are awarded life imprisonment for illegal cow slaughter in Gujarat, read about the 2017 law that made it possible

In a major development, a Sessions Court in Gandhinagar convicted 3 men in a 2024 cow slaughter case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. They were identified as Wasim, Mohammad, and Asfaq. A fine of ₹3 lakh was imposed on each of the accused.

While pronouncing the verdict, the court cited the Vedas and sacred scriptures and observed that the cow is like a mother to the universe and its protection is an act rooted in duty and compassion. The court pointed out that if stringent punishments are not imposed to set a precedent in society, the cow could become extinct in India.

While sharing the news on X (formerly Twitter), Minister of State Harsh Sanghavi wrote, “This verdict under the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act sends a clear message that the law will never spare anyone who commits cow slaughter in Gujarat. The protection of Gau Mata is Gujarat’s steadfast resolve.”

The court sentenced the 3 men under Sections 325 (cruelty to animals) and 54 (abettor present when offense committed) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Section 119 of the Gujarat Police Act, Sections 5, 6(A), 6(B), 8(2), and 8(4) of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 2017, Section 11(1)(l) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act.

Courts in Gujarat have previously awarded life sentences to several convicts in cow slaughter cases as well. The basis for these rulings is a statutory amendment enacted by the Gujarat government in 2017. Because courts function strictly under statutory provisions, they cannot award stringent punishments such as life imprisonment without an explicit legal provision.

Gujarat: The only State that allows life imprisonment for cow slaughter

While cow slaughter is banned and regulated by legislation across several Indian states, Gujarat is the only state where the provision exists for punishment with life imprisonment. This provision was introduced in 2017.

In April 2017, the Gujarat government introduced the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, amending the original Gujarat Animal Preservation Act of 1954. Before that, several amendments had been enacted over the years, starting in 2011.

Under the Vijay Rupani administration in 2017, the newly amended Animal Preservation Act introduced life imprisonment for cow slaughter.

Even prior to this amendment, cow slaughter and the sale, storage, and transport of beef were already prohibited in Gujarat; however, the penalties were comparatively lighter.

Under the previous statutory framework, cow slaughter carried a prison sentence of three to seven years and a fine of up to ₹50,000. In effect, if an individual was caught, tried, and convicted of cow slaughter, the maximum sentence possible was seven years, with a minimum of three years, and the fine was capped at ₹50,000.

Similarly, the sale, storage, or transport of beef and beef-related products earlier attracted imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of up to ₹25,000. Additionally, authorities impounded any vehicle used to transport such items.

However, under the prior rules, it could not be released until a court order was issued or six months had passed, whichever was earlier. This allowed vehicles to be released either on court orders or upon the completion of six months.

In 2017, the Gujarat government made all these provisions considerably more stringent.

The government enhanced the punishment for cow slaughter from a maximum of seven years to life imprisonment, while the minimum sentence was raised from three years to 10 years. The fine was revised to a minimum of ₹1 lakh and a maximum of ₹5 lakh.

The 2017 amendments by the Gujarat government

Similarly, the penalty for selling, storing, and transporting beef was enhanced from up to three years to a minimum of seven years and a maximum of ten years, with fines ranging from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh.

Furthermore, the earlier provision that allowed impounded vehicles to be released after six months was amended, providing that seized vehicles remain permanently confiscated by the government and cannot be released.

Animal Preservation Act: History and Evolution

The Animal Preservation Act was originally enacted in 1948 for the post-independence Bombay State. Since Gujarat had not yet been separated from Maharashtra at that time, Bombay’s statutes applied across the territory of present-day Gujarat.

In 1954, a new act was introduced and implemented. At that time, there was no total ban on cow slaughter, but regulations required official statutory permission before any bovine animals (cows, buffaloes, calves, bullocks) could be slaughtered.

Specific conditions governed these slaughter permits. Permission could not be granted for any bovine that was useful for agriculture, necessary for breeding, or classified as a milch animal. Permits were granted only for animals outside these categories.

The law also contained a religious exemption: animals over 15 years of age could be cleared for slaughter on religious grounds without requiring verification of their ongoing utility for agriculture or breeding.

Gujarat enacted a blanket cow slaughter ban in 1961

After Gujarat was formed in 1960, the statute remained in force alongside many other existing laws. The following year, in 1961, the Gujarat government enacted an amendment that enforced a total ban on the slaughter of cows.

The Gujarat Legislative Assembly inserted a section into the 1954 Bombay Act providing that no certificate or permission could be issued for the slaughter of a cow under any circumstances. Furthermore, cow slaughter was banned even for religious occasions.

The new clause specified that authorities could process slaughter permits for religious occasions only if the animal was not a cow.

The 1979 Amendment

In 1979, the Gujarat government amended the Animal Preservation Act again, expanding the protected category to include calves. It also prohibited the slaughter of bulls and bullocks below 16 years of age, meaning slaughter permits could only be issued for bulls aged 16 and above.

A parallel rule applied to permits for religious occasions: while cows and calves could not be slaughtered under any religious pretext, the age floor for bulls was set at 15 years, permitting the slaughter of bulls over 15 on religious grounds.

Bulls protected in 1994, Supreme court upheld the law in 2005

In 1994, the state government introduced another amendment extending the blanket ban to bulls and bullocks as well. The rationale provided was that these animals are vital for farming and rural transport. Their dung serves as agricultural manure and fuel for biogas, making them central to the agrarian economy.

This amendment was subsequently challenged in court, particularly the prohibition on slaughtering bulls and bullocks. The Gujarat High Court initially held that older, unproductive animals could be permitted for slaughter, ruling that a total ban infringed upon the fundamental right of butchers and traders to practice their trade. The Gujarat government challenged this ruling before the Supreme Court.

In 2005, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the 1994 amendment. The apex court ruled that the protection of bovine progeny is in the public interest and that restrictions imposed under Article 19(6) of the Constitution were valid. The court also upheld the prohibition on slaughter for religious occasions, observing that bovine slaughter is not an essential religious practice and therefore does not violate religious freedoms.

The court noted that the law did not impose a total ban on the meat trade as a whole, but rather protected specific cattle categories on rational grounds.

2011: Curbs on sale, storage, and transport of Beef

Until 2011, there was no dedicated statutory framework prohibiting the sale, storage, or transport of beef. That regulatory gap was addressed when the government enacted provisions completely banning the sale, storage, and transport of beef, making them cognizable offenses. Rules were also introduced prohibiting the night-time transport of bovine animals even for agricultural or authorized purposes.

In 2011, the Gujarat government also enhanced penalties. Since 1954, violations of the act had carried a maximum sentence of only one year. In 2011, the sentence for slaughtering bovine animals was raised to between three and seven years, and the penalty for selling, storing, or transporting beef was set at one to three years.

Finally, the 2017 amendment introduced life imprisonment for cow slaughter and up to 10 years’ imprisonment for beef-related offenses. This 2017 statutory regime remains in force today, providing the legal basis on which courts award life terms in cow slaughter cases.

Previous cases and verdicts

In November 2025, the Amreli Sessions Court sentenced three convicts, Kasim, Sattar, and Akram to life imprisonment in a cow slaughter case. The court noted that despite knowing the cow is regarded as sacred in Hinduism, the three committed slaughter and hurt the religious sentiments of the community.

The case originated in November 2023, when Amreli City Police raided Kasim’s residence, recovered beef, and arrested the accused. During sentencing, the court noted that adopting a lenient approach would send the wrong signal to society and fail to deter criminal mindsets.

In September 2024, an individual named Afzal Habib from Devgadh Baria was awarded a seven-year sentence for selling beef.

In September 2022, police acting on specific intelligence raided the premises of Afzal Habib Mirza and Hussain Ghanchi, apprehending both red-handed while running a beef trade. Police recovered nine live bovines, approximately 50 kg of beef, and other animals. Law enforcement seized the live animals and meat contraband, arresting the accused before securing a conviction in 2024.

In August 2024, a court in Amreli sentenced a man named Asif to 10 years’ imprisonment after he was caught with 50 kg of beef. Acting on a tip-off, police raided Asif’s residence and recovered 50 kg of beef along with butchering tools.

During the trial, the court observed that the accused was fully aware of the religious significance of cows to Hinduism, yet proceeded with the slaughter, hurting religious sentiments.

The court convicted Asif under IPC Sections 295 and 429, Section 8 of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act (for violations of Sections 5(1)(c) and 6(b)), and Section 119 of the Gujarat Police Act. He was awarded two years’ imprisonment and a ₹2,000 fine under IPC 295; three years’ imprisonment and a ₹3,000 fine under IPC 429; ten years’ imprisonment and a ₹2 lakh fine under the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act; and two months’ imprisonment under Section 119 of the GPA.

In February 2026, a Godhra court sentenced a father and son, Mehboob and Farhan, to 10 years’ imprisonment each for trafficking beef.

The court noted that despite the explicit statutory prohibition against cow slaughter in Gujarat, the duo procured and transported a large consignment of beef with the intention of retailing it from their residence. The court stated that handing down sentences in line with the 2017 amendments serves the core objective of the legislation, deters such offenses across society, and enforces strict legal accountability against perpetrators.

$6.3 billion Binance heist: North Korea’s notorious hacking unit suspected of pulling off world’s biggest crypto robbery, drains billions in just 20 minutes

Jinit Jain
-
0
$6.3 billion Binance heist: North Korea’s notorious hacking unit suspected of pulling off world’s biggest crypto robbery, drains billions in just 20 minutes

In what could go down as the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history, hackers have siphoned off approximately $6.3 billion from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, in an extraordinarily coordinated cyberattack that has sent shockwaves through the global financial technology industry.

The scale of the theft is staggering. Billions of dollars worth of digital assets were moved out of Binance-controlled wallets spread across ten different blockchain networks, with most of the transactions executed within just 20 minutes.

But what makes the incident even more alarming is the suspected involvement of North Korea. Two leading blockchain intelligence companies have independently pointed towards TraderTraitor, an elite hacking unit linked to Pyongyang’s cyber operations and associated with the notorious Lazarus Group.

If the allegations are confirmed, the attack would add another massive cryptocurrency theft to North Korea’s growing list of cyber operations targeting financial institutions and digital asset platforms.

The United States has repeatedly accused North Korean hackers of stealing cryptocurrency to generate funds for the sanctioned regime. The Binance incident could represent the most audacious operation yet attributed to these hackers.

How hackers pulled off the $6.3 billion Binance heist

According to blockchain investigation firm TRM Labs, the attacker moved approximately $6.36 billion worth of cryptocurrency from Binance wallets across ten blockchain networks on October 29, 2026.

The transactions involved Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Tron, Solana and several other digital assets.

What stands out is the speed at which the operation was executed. Rather than gradually siphoning off funds over several days, the attackers moved the bulk of the cryptocurrency within approximately 20 minutes.

TRM Labs described the incident as the largest cryptocurrency theft on record, approximately four times the size of the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025.

Binance subsequently acknowledged the security incident, describing it as a complex attack. The exchange began coordinating with blockchain intelligence companies, law enforcement agencies and cryptocurrency issuers to trace the stolen assets and prevent further movement.

The incident has also raised questions about how attackers managed to gain access to the exchange’s wallet infrastructure and execute transactions on such a massive scale.

Cryptocurrency exchanges maintain digital wallets to facilitate customer deposits, withdrawals and other transactions. Some wallets remain connected to the internet, allowing exchanges to process transactions quickly. However, these systems also present potential security vulnerabilities if access controls or transaction-authorisation mechanisms are compromised.

The exact method through which the attackers gained access remains subject to investigation.

North Korea’s TraderTraitor suspected of orchestrating the attack

The biggest development in the investigation is the suspected involvement of TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group associated with the Lazarus Group.

US-based blockchain investigation company TRM Labs has expressed “high confidence” that TraderTraitor was responsible for the attack.

“TRM attributes the attack to TraderTraitor, North Korea’s elite hacking unit, based on robust on- and off-chain intelligence. We make this judgment with high confidence,” the company said.

TRM added that several characteristics of the Binance incident resembled earlier cryptocurrency thefts attributed to North Korean hackers, particularly the February 2025 Bybit attack.

Chainalysis, another prominent blockchain intelligence company, has also pointed towards the same group.

Jonathan Levin, co-founder of Chainalysis, wrote on X that the $6.4 billion Binance attack was likely carried out by a North Korean group identified as TraderTraitor because of its links to previous hacking operations.

DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is the official name of North Korea.

The suspected involvement of the group is significant because North Korea has developed a notorious reputation for using cyber operations to target cryptocurrency exchanges, financial institutions and technology companies.

From the Sony Pictures hack to billion-dollar cryptocurrency thefts

TraderTraitor is associated with the wider Lazarus Group, one of the most notorious cyber-espionage and hacking organisations linked to North Korea.

The group came into international focus following the 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. North Korean hackers were accused of infiltrating the company’s systems, stealing confidential information and disrupting its operations after Sony produced The Interview, a comedy film depicting a fictional assassination plot against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Over the years, North Korean-linked hackers have increasingly turned their attention towards cryptocurrency platforms, where successful attacks can yield enormous financial returns.

The February 2025 Bybit hack was one of the most prominent examples. The FBI attributed the theft of approximately $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency from the Dubai-based exchange to North Korean hackers associated with TraderTraitor.

That attack had been considered the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history until the latest Binance incident.

TRM Labs has specifically highlighted similarities between the two operations, strengthening its assessment that the same North Korean-linked hacking network could be involved.

The pattern is particularly concerning because cryptocurrency theft offers North Korea a potential route to acquire funds outside conventional financial systems, which are heavily restricted by international sanctions.

Binance moves to freeze billions in stolen cryptocurrency

Following the discovery of the attack, Binance launched efforts to track the stolen funds and prevent hackers from converting them into other assets or moving them beyond the reach of investigators.

The exchange said it was working with blockchain partners to freeze approximately $3 billion in affected cryptocurrency.

Its response involved coordination with law enforcement agencies, cryptocurrency issuers, blockchain intelligence companies and other industry participants.

Binance said in a statement that it had begun recovering affected assets for users and would continue working with its partners to trace, freeze and recover additional funds.

The exchange also said it had reserved more than $6.34 billion in company funds to cover the incident. Of this amount, approximately $5 billion was held in the same token assets that were affected by the attack.

However, freezing cryptocurrency does not automatically mean that the money has been returned to its rightful owners. It merely prevents the affected assets from being transferred or used, depending on the intervention available to the relevant issuer or platform.

The attackers also attempted to move some of the stolen funds through different cryptocurrencies and trading platforms, complicating recovery efforts.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets react to the massive hack

News of the Binance heist sent jitters through cryptocurrency markets, with investors concerned about the security of digital assets held on centralised exchanges.

Bitcoin fell approximately 4% to $77,465 following reports of the attack. Ethereum also registered a decline of around 6%, while several other major cryptocurrencies came under pressure.

BNB, the native cryptocurrency associated with Binance, fell approximately 1%.

The reaction highlighted how a security incident involving one major exchange can affect sentiment across the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem.

The incident also raises uncomfortable questions about the security of platforms that collectively hold billions of dollars worth of customer assets. Even the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is not immune to sophisticated cyberattacks.

Unlike conventional banking transactions, cryptocurrency transfers are generally irreversible once confirmed on a blockchain. Recovering stolen assets therefore depends heavily on tracking transactions, identifying wallets and coordinating with issuers or other entities capable of freezing funds.

If TRM Labs and Chainalysis are correct about the identity of the suspected attackers, the Binance incident would mark another major chapter in North Korea’s campaign of cryptocurrency thefts.

Investigators are now working to establish the full extent of the breach, identify the attackers and recover the affected assets. But one thing is already clear: the theft of $6.3 billion has exposed the enormous financial stakes involved in cryptocurrency security and the growing capabilities of state-linked cybercriminal networks.

Power, water, and strategy: Why India needs mega dams

Raju Das
-
0
Power, water, and strategy: Why India needs mega dams

Recent weeks have witnessed a significant escalation in protests across Arunachal Pradesh against the proposed 11,200-megawatt Siang Upper Multipurpose Project. While massive hydroelectric projects frequently encounter grassroots resistance due to displacement concerns, the sudden, coordinated violence witnessed in Pasighat represents a stark deviation from the state’s historically peaceful democratic norms. This unprecedented militancy strongly suggests sophisticated external influence, transforming a negotiable developmental dispute into a severe national security challenge.

The political narrative surrounding this opposition requires rigorous scrutiny. Paradoxically, political outfits that consistently criticise the Union government for a lack of development are frequently the first to mobilise against the large-scale infrastructure required to sustain industrial growth. A deeper investigation reveals a sophisticated financial underbelly actively sustaining this unrest. The Central Bureau of Investigation recently booked prominent anti-dam activist Bhanu Tatak for severe violations of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, highlighting the influx of unaccounted offshore funds. When opaque international capital is deployed to deliberately stall strategic border projects, the agitations effectively become a national security breach.

Globally, large hydroelectric projects have been absolutely central to the economic consolidation of modern nation-states. Facilities like the Hoover Dam in the United States and the Bhakra Nangal Dam in India were deliberate policy instruments aimed directly at national consolidation and agricultural resilience. Today, expanding this infrastructure is mathematically non-negotiable for India’s renewable energy transition. The Union government targets 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030. Because solar and wind energy are inherently intermittent, the national grid urgently requires massive reserves of dispatchable power. Hydroelectric reservoirs essentially function as colossal geographical water batteries, providing the rapid-response base-load power necessary to prevent catastrophic blackouts when solar generation drops at sunset.

Beyond grid stability, the geopolitical dimensions of the Siang project are of paramount importance. The Chinese state is currently constructing the colossal 60-gigawatt Medog hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, which is upstream of the Siang River. The ability of an upper riparian state to comprehensively control transboundary water flow constitutes a highly potent, asymmetric geopolitical weapon. Therefore, a massive holding dam on the Indian side of the Siang River is an absolute defensive necessity. The planned 9.2 billion cubic metre reservoir will act as a kinetic sponge, absorbing sudden peak floods arising from upstream Chinese releases and ensuring continuous, life-sustaining downstream flows.

The profound strategic value of possessing robust water control infrastructure was clearly demonstrated on India’s western frontier, where existing dams allowed the state to exert unprecedented riparian pressure on Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty. The successful weaponisation of geography requires the physical means to control it.

While the cynical political exploitation of infrastructure protests must be forcefully challenged, the genuine concerns of local communities cannot be dismissed. The state must implement comprehensive, multi-generational rehabilitation policies that guarantee displaced families become vested stakeholders in the project’s success. The comprehensive development of sensitive border regions is a strategic necessity, but it must be achieved through a transparent process that meticulously respects indigenous livelihoods.

Read the full article on Chapter 1 Magazine.

Swiss authorities suspend funding to ‘Doctors Without Borders’ over sexual exploitation of refugee women by staff: Read about the NGO’s links to terror groups

Aditi
-
0
Swiss authorities suspend funding to ‘Doctors Without Borders’ over sexual exploitation of refugee women by staff: Read about the NGO’s links to terror groups

In a major action against the independent medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as ‘Doctors Without Borders’, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has withheld funding of CHF 1.25 million ($1.52 million) from the NGO. The amount is part of the CHF 6.25 million pledged to MSF for the current year.

The financial action by the Swiss agency concerns two related actions on the part of the NGO: first, the cases of sexual exploitation of refugee women by its staff in Chad, and the NGO’s failure to inform the Swiss authorities about the cases. The decision follows the findings of an internal investigation by MSF, which revealed that the NGO’s staff members sexually exploited multiple refugee women and young girls, taking advantage of their helplessness.

MSF’s lax response to sexual exploitation reports

An internal investigation by MSF found 59 reported incidents of sexual violence and exploitation, particularly involving refugee women and young girls from Sudan. The investigation led to the dismissal of 18 MSF staff members, including six workers from the Swiss Branch of the organisation. The MSF staff members reportedly took advantage of the situation of refugee women and young girls and forced them to have sex in exchange for money, jobs, or humanitarian aid. The Swiss authorities have expressed concern not only about the misconduct by MSF staff but also about MSF’s failure to adequately inform its government donor about the scale of the problem.

Reports suggest that both the SDC and the MSF failed to take timely action on reports of sexual exploitation. The SDC received the first alert about the instances of sexual abuse in November 2024 through an email from the MSF staff at the Geneva headquarters. Subsequent media reports in the following years revealed the actual scale of the exploitation. It was decided at the Swiss foreign ministry in mid-December 2024 to hold a meeting regarding the same in January 2025, but the discussions did not happen until June-July 2025.

Subsequently, when media reports disclosed the scale of the abuse in June 2026, the SDC demanded documents from the MSF. The Swiss foreign ministry accused the MSF of breaching its contractual reporting obligations by failing to proactively and early enough communicate the true, expanding scale of the abuse allegations. MSF reportedly admitted that it had not proactively communicated the full scale of confirmed cases and dismissals to the Swiss agency. The Swiss authorities are considering the possibility of further sanctions and an external investigation in the matter.

Vulnerable refugee women sexually exploited by MSF staff

According to reports, several refugee women made complaints of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse against MSF employees at the end of 2024. These women had fled to Chad to escape the civil war in Sudan. These women, who were living in extremely vulnerable circumstances and depended on humanitarian organisations for necessities, including food, water, medical assistance and employment opportunities, were sexually exploited by MSF employees and other personnel operating in eastern Chad.

In its internal investigation, MSF reportedly found patterns of exploitation that might amount to “sexual trafficking”. Many of the victims chose not to report their sexual abuse, fearing that they would be deprived of vital aid. In its report, MSF admitted that several of the victims who reported the abuse received no response or support.

Reports of racism within the NGO

In 2020, Doctors Without Borders was described as a racist organisation, reinforcing colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work in a statement signed by 1,000 current and former MSF staff members. The statement accused the NGO of perpetuating racism through its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.

In 2021, some reports published shocking revelations made by the NGO’s own current and former staff members about racism and discrimination within the organisation. The revelations were made to reporters who interviewed around 100 MSF staff members, including former employees, in around 30 countries. The MSF staff members reportedly told the reporters that they experienced racism, mistreatment and inequality in the organisation.

The NGO, which sends medical aid to patients in crisis zones around the world, has a workforce comprising local and expatriate members. The MSF personnel interviewed by reporters disclosed that the organisation had a two-tiered employment and compensation structure that divided workers into “international staff” (predominantly white expats from wealthy Western nations) and “national staff” (local hires working in their own crisis-affected countries).

The MSF staffers revealed that personnel from Western countries used explicitly racist language against local staff and staff of colour. One staff member reportedly said that an African worker was addressed by his white colleagues as a chimpanzee, gorilla, and monkey.

The staff members also revealed that foreign workers, even if they had little experience, were given more decision-making power, higher salaries, better benefits, and better protection in the organisation. As per the information disclosed by the staff members, the average cost of an expatriate staffer (salary and benefits) was nearly six times that of the average local worker.

The MSF staffers further told the reporters that expat staffers scolded local staffers for eating food or drinking water designated for expats. And whenever the local workers fell ill, they received a lower level of medical care compared to that given to expat staffers. 

Links with terror groups like Hamas

The charges against the NGO do not end at sexual exploitation and racism; it is also accused of having links with the terrorist organisation Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups. In September this year, a UK-based lawyers’ group, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), urged the UK Home Secretary to ban the NGO for having terror links. This led to the opening of a regulatory compliance case against the organisation by the UK Charity Commission.

The UKLF submitted a dossier of concerns about the NGO’s relationships with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The lawyers’ group identified several individuals employed by MSF in Gaza who had been members or operatives of terrorist organisations, or had publicly glorified terrorist attacks and the organisations responsible for them.

One of the MSF staff members suspected by the UKLFI of having terror links was Fadi Jihad Mohammed al-Wadiya, who worked as a physiotherapist with the NGO. He was killed in Gaza in 2024. Israeli authorities described him as a PIJ operative involved in developing the terror group’s rocket capabilities. The UKLFI’s claim was verified when, after his death, PIJ’s military wing referred to him as a “martyr commander” and identified him as deputy head of its military manufacturing unit.

While the NGO claims to be engaged in the noble work of providing humanitarian aid in crisis zones, it has a shady track record involving allegations as serious as racism and terrorism. The latest action by the Swiss authorities following the sexual exploitation reports might have wider implications for it.

Mohammed Zubair admirer, Rana Ayyub advocate and PM Modi detractor: Meet Qadaruddin Shishir, the AFP “journalist” who facilitated regime change in Bangladesh

Rukma Rathore
-
0
Mohammed Zubair admirer, Rana Ayyub advocate and PM Modi detractor: Meet Qadaruddin Shishir, the AFP “journalist” who facilitated regime change in Bangladesh

Bangladesh‘s former Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus had been selected for the top post even before former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled Dhaka during violent protests in 2024. This explosive revelation was made by his former press secretary, Shafiqul Alam. Interestingly, Agence France-Presse (AFP) “journalist” Qadaruddin Shishir acted as an intermediary between the alleged student leaders and the Nobel laureate.

The discussions with Yunus had already begun two days before Hasina was undemocratically removed on 5th August 2024, as an operation to bring about regime change was already underway. Shishir had reached out to him as a representative of the “students” to invite him to head the interim government. 

The man who facilitated these talks had previously served as AFP’s “Bangladesh fact-check editor” and launched his own website, The Dissent, in 2025. However, he is also an admirer of another purported “fact-checker,” Mohammed Zubair of Alt News, and has a history of providing ideological cover to Islamists, downplaying the persecution of Hindus and labelling India as an intolerant nation under the Modi government.

His concerted effort to shape the narrative became particularly evident after the collapse of the Hasina government, which plunged Bangladesh into a bloody wave of violence against minorities, particularly Hindus.

However, Shishir, instead of condemning the radicals or holding the authorities accountable for failing to protect the citizens, sought to dismiss the deep-rooted hatred that had swiftly translated into rampant aggression against the community, in the name of countering a post that read “500 Hindus were killed in the country,” insisting that there were “no credible reports of any Hindu being killed or raped.”

However, it was subsequently revealed that between 4th and 20th August, 2,010 instances of communal violence unfolded in 68 out of 76 districts and metropolitan areas nationwide, with nine individuals killed. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Oikya Parishad shared this information at a news conference held at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU)’s Nasrul Hamid Auditorium in September. Khulna was the worst-affected division, where four women were raped.

A total of 1,705 families were directly affected, of which 157 faced assaults, looting, destruction and the burning of their homes. Their businesses were subjected to similar attacks. Furthermore, 69 places of worship suffered the same fate. The lands belonging to indigenous communities were also forcibly occupied. The victims had to live in dire conditions, living in uncertainty about their present and future.

Within just a few days, thousands of disturbing incidents were documented. However, several others never reached the media or police stations and remained unrecorded. Such underreporting is common during periods of large-scale upheaval, suggesting that the actual tally could be considerably higher than the figures made public.

Minorities clearly became prime targets on the very day Hasina was pushed out of power amid escalating unrest, and their condition grew increasingly precarious with each passing day. As a result, they were hardly in a position to make complaints about the atrocities inflicted upon them by jihadis.

However, Shishir chose to “fact-check” a number in a manner that tried to whitewash the unprecedented spate of brutality on Hindus as mere online propaganda rather than the deadly reality imposed upon the marginalised minorities. His concerted campaign did not end there. He also utilised his pen to advance his objective, claiming that although the community was under attack, its fears were being “turbocharged by false rumours.”

He made this assertion in an article co-authored with Sean Gleeson for AFP. The two entirely sidestepped the ideological motivations behind the onslaught and instead attributed the hostility towards the community to its supposed association with Hasina’s Awami League, as though this could justify the persecution of its members.


The abject failure of the Yunus government to protect minorities, or rather its tacit support for extremists, while consistently blaming India and its media for exposing the truth, was glossed over in the piece, which repeated his hollow rhetoric about not discriminating based on faith and building a “new Bangladesh,” an assurance that stood in stark contrast to his government’s actions.

The “young students” who had toppled an elected leader were described as the ones bearing the brunt and “stepped into the law-and-order vacuum.” Ironically, the tactic of volunteering to protect temples, which is also witnessed in India and abroad during such episodes to distort the facts about the actions of their co-religionists, was celebrated as an example of communal harmony in the country.

This shameless misrepresentation of ground realities played out despite admitting that Hindus were being targeted, their women were being abused, and members of the community were arriving at the Indian border to save their lives.

Twisting the truth to protect Islamists and peddle a wicked agenda

Of course, Shishir’s propaganda promptly found space in the Islamo-leftist media, which is invariably quick to highlight Muslim victimhood at the slightest opportunity while completely ignoring the genuine pain of Hindus.

Qatari-funded, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas mouthpiece Al Jazeera provided him a platform to shrug off the bloodshed of Hindus, mentioning that out of 119 listed deaths at that time “only two of the victims were Hindus: one policeman and one Awami League activist,” exposing how normalised their killings were for them, as though their deaths should not provoke any reaction, even as Islamists roamed the streets looking for potential prey.

The entire article was a hit job on Indian media and invoked Islamophobia charges for outlining the miserable circumstances of Hindus in Bangladesh. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s “WE News” also used Shishir to outright write off the cruelty perpetrated against the Hindu community.

He yet again declared that “some individuals might have used the chaos to loot” and, contrary to the truth, contended that “the majority of the attacks were politically motivated and there was no significant religious conflict between Muslims and Hindus in Bangladesh.”

He also spoke to the BBC, blaming “right-wing Indian accounts” for “spreading these politically motivated attacks as religious ones,” after confirming that “Hindu-owned properties” have been assaulted by Muslim mobs in his country.

Shishir continuously maintained that Hindus who backed Hasina were only singled out owing to their political affiliation and not due to their religious beliefs. The central goal was to showcase their persistent torment as merely collateral damage in a much larger public outcry.

“Immediately after the Awami League party was thrown out of power, angry mobs violently attacked the party’s leaders and supporters, and killed many of them. During these attacks, houses and businesses of all communities, including Hindus, were targeted,” he stressed while talking to The Week. The comment was also carried by outlets like the South China Morning Post to further the same propaganda.

Voice of America also included his views that “some hiding in the mobs might have targeted some households only to loot or steal household materials, as petty criminals do. But most attacks were politically motivated, targeting Muslims as well as Hindus who were linked to the Awami League. They did not stem from any religious reasons,” to trivialise the appeals by American politicians and India to protect Bangladeshi Hindus as unnecessary and misplaced.

New Age BD also quoted Shishir as he criticised the Indian media for calling a spade a spade. He accused the latter of misleading on Bangladesh’s “mass uprising” and argued that it has a track record of “spreading disinformation during important events and crises in Bangladesh for a long time.”

The selective fact-check to undermine the fact

Shishir, before trying to discredit the attacks on Hindus at the hands of his co-religionists, was busy shielding the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which had been quite vocal in its anti-India stance and urged its members and other fundamentalists in Bangladesh to boycott the country’s products, under the pretext of a fact-check.

The party had initiated an “India Out” campaign along the lines of the one in the Maldives. It was endorsed by BNP’s senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi but was short-lived, as the Hasina government took steps to curb it. “It is mainly being driven by the Bangladeshi diaspora who are either BNP members or closely associated with the party,” Imtiaz Ahmed, a political science professor at Dhaka University, had expressed in a conversation with Frontline magazine.

However, Shishir rejected that any movement was introduced, suggesting that it “was brewing among Bangladeshis on online social platforms like Facebook, X, and YouTube. To the best of my knowledge, the movement was initiated by social media influencers, some of whom are known as critics of the Awami League government.”

Shishir trained guns on the Indian media, specifically naming channels such as “Zee News, India TV, ABP Live, Aaj Tak, News18 India, Republic Bharat, TV9 Bharatvarsh, Oneindia Hindi, Times Now Navbharat, and many others” for covering the issue. He again accused a section of Indian media of alleged disinformation and echoed BNP’s unfounded allegations of interference in Bangladesh’s internal affairs and politics by New Delhi.

The mask slips to unveil a fanboy of Mohammed Zubair, Rana Ayyub and hatred for BJP

The co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair, was arrested by Delhi Police in 2022 over a derogatory tweet about Lord Hanuman that hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. However, Shishir, who exhibited complete indifference to Hindu lives, predictably had no respect for their faith as well and took aim at India over the action.

He seemingly wanted Zubair to be above the law of the land and cited dubious reports by the likes of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to highlight India’s lower ranking on the press freedom index, as though the latter had been apprehended for his “journalism” rather than for his objectionable post.

Shishir then proceeded to hail Rana Ayyub as “one of the most prominent faces of India’s journalism,” and also protested against the cases registered against her despite them being about allegations of money laundering. He further wrote that Zubair was taken into custody for exposing the so-called inflammatory speech and hate against the Muslim community.

He also dragged former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma, faulting her for insulting Prophet Muhammad while conveniently overlooking the disparaging remarks made by Dr Tasleem Ahmed Rehmani against Lord Shiva, which triggered her response. He also defended Zubair, who incited Islamist mobs against her through his deliberately edited clip.

Shishir praised Rahul Gandhi while terming the “ruling Hindu nationalist” BJP as “divisive.” He also could not hide his aversion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decrying that he was “a permanent member of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh),” as if being connected to a Hindu religious organisation were a crime.

The entire article was an exercise in Islamist propaganda, aimed at maligning a Hindu-majority nation governed by a saffron party while absolving members of his own ideological ecosystem, or maybe it is, in the eyes of Shishir and his coterie. Shishir nearly justified the life-threatening consequences Sharma could have faced for “blasphemy,” as in the cases of late Kanhaiya Lal and others, but wished to have Zubair handed the privilege to insult Hindu deities.

The column functioned as a vehicle for promoting his interests by maligning a Hindu-majority nation governed by a saffron party while absolving members of his own ideological and religious group of their wrongdoings.

Considering Shishir’s background, his appointment to a role in bringing down an elected government and ushering in an installed regime is hardly shocking. Additionally, he oversaw the fact-checking department at Boom Bangladesh in 2020-2021 and co-founded BD FactCheck in 2017. He was employed as a reporter for the Daily New Nation and as a new media researcher for Jamuna Television.

1234...7,677Page 3 of 7,677