A day after the brutal murder of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha in Shivamogga in Karnataka, the police have arrested 3 people on Monday (February 21) in connection to the case. It has come to light that a total of 5 people were involved in the gruesome attack.
While speaking about the matter, Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra informed, “We have arrested 3 people. As per my information, 5 people are involved in this murder.”
We have arrested 3 people. As per my information, 5 people are involved in this murder: Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra on Bajrang Dal activist Harsha murder case pic.twitter.com/lBmGsYvlEL
As per a report in Public TV, one of the accused was identified as Qasif. He and 2 others were apprehended by the cops on Monday (February 21). The police informed that a search for 2 other accused was underway using information sourced from the one arrested.
During his interrogation at the Doddapete Police Station, Qasif confessed that he along with 4 others came in a car and attacked Harsha when he was drinking tea at a canteen on Sunday night. After attacking him with sharp weapons, the accused fled the crime scene. The other two accused were taken out of Shivamogaa for further investigation.
The brutal murder of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha
On Sunday (February 20) night, Bajrang Dal activist Harsha was stabbed to death near Kamat petrol bunk in the Shivamogaa district of Karnataka. The Hindu activist was rushed to Mc Gann district hospital, where he succumbed to his stab injuries. He was a tailor by occupation and hailed from Seegehatti.
Harsha was a member of the Hindu organisation, Bajrang Dal, and was seen sporting saffron shawls to demand uniformity in the dress code of schools and colleges. It has come to light that he was issued threats by Islamists in 2015 over alleged ‘blasphemous’ social media posts.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister KS Eshwarappa had claimed that the Bajrang Dal activist was killed by ‘Musalman goondas’.
On Monday (February 21), the funeral procession of deceased 26-year-old Hindu activist Harsha was attacked by miscreants when it was en route to the Rotary cemetery at Wdyanagar from the District McGann Hospital in Shivamogga.
As per reports, three people were injured after unidentified assailants pelted stones at the funeral procession. A cop, a photojournalist and two other persons including a woman sustained injuries during the attack.
The visuals of the attack were shared on social media by News9 reporter Priyanka Rudrappa. In the video, people accompanying the procession were seen running to take cover as stones were hurled at the congregation.
Miscreants pelted stones at a funeral procession of Harsha, a Bajrang Dal worker, who was allegedly stabbed to death, was being carried under tight police security in Karnataka’s Shivamogga. pic.twitter.com/hFqnLlnywB
It must be mentioned that the stone-pelting took place amidst heavy police security. The police informed that 20 vehicles were damaged and some of them were set on fire. The situation was brought under control and the procession could continue smoothly thereafter.
According to images shared by news agency ANI, hundreds of people gathered to accompany the body of the 26-year-youth while it was being taken to his residence amid Police security after postmortem.
The brutal murder of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha
On Sunday (February 20) night, Bajrang Dal activist Harsha was stabbed to death near Kamat petrol bunk in the Shivamogaa district of Karnataka. The Hindu activist was rushed to Mc Gann district hospital, where he succumbed to his stab injuries. He was a tailor by occupation and hailed from Seegehatti.
Harsha was a member of the Hindu organisation, Bajrang Dal, and was seen sporting saffron shawls to demand uniformity in the dress code of schools and colleges. It has come to light that he was issued threats by Islamists in 2015 over alleged ‘blasphemous’ social media posts.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister KS Eshwarappa had claimed that the Bajrang Dal activist was killed by ‘Musalman goondas’.
The trailer for Zee Studios’ upcoming film ‘The Kashmir Files’ was released on Monday. The movie shows the agonising journey of Kashmiri Hindus and their plight after their genocide and exodus from the state of Kashmir. The riveting movie, written and directed by National Award-winning director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, recounts the plight of Kashmiri Pandit refugees following their exodus from the valley in 1990. The film is set to hit the theatres on March 11th, 2022.
The movie has been long-awaited given the hope that it would be an accurate representation of what Kashmiri Hindus went through in the 1990s when Islamists murdered, raped and drove the Hindus out of their homeland. More than 30 years on, the Kashmiri Pandits await justice with no path for them to go back to their home state. Living as refugees in their own country, their genocide has been whitewashed by the usual suspects to claim that the Muslim community from Kashmir did not commit a genocide but that the Hindus of the valley simply left on a whim.
With the movie set to show, perhaps for the first time, the bloodbath that ensued in Kashmir, several liberals and their preferred news portals have come out of the woodworks to defame the movie.
While the trailer of the movie has only released today, NDTV had days ago already declared the upcoming movie a “propaganda film”.
A page on the upcoming movie published on NDTV’s ‘Gadgets 360’ lists out the details of the movie, like who the Director of the movie is, when the movie is being released etc.
NDTV page
After the details of the movie, NDTV published a short paragraph defining the movie, from their perspective.
NDTV page
In the description of the movie, NDTV, even before the trailer of the movie was released, declared that the movie was a “propaganda film” written and directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri who had previously made a “controversial movie” called The Tashkent Files, which basically asked the all-important question, “who killed Lal Bahadur Shastri”.
When did NDTV decide that the movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ was a “propaganda film”
Interestingly, the NDTV article on The Kashmir Files has no publishing date stamped on it. Usually, most articles would have a date of publication that is displayed prominently in the beginning of the article. The NDTV article, however, masks that date.
When one checks Archive.org, one sees that the earliest screen grab (archive) of this particular article was taken on the 18th of February 2022 – this is days before the trailer of the movie was released on the 21st of February 2022.
Archive.com and when the NDTV page was archived
This conclusively proves that the NDTV article was published at least 3 days before the trailer was released.
There is further evidence that the article by NDTV calling The Kashmir Files a ‘propaganda film’ was published months before the trailer was released.
When one clicks on the image used in the article published by NDTV, in the URL, the date when the image was uploaded by NDTV is mentioned clearly as November 2021.
URL of the image used in the NDTV page
Not only did NDTV declare The Kashmir Files a ‘propaganda movie’ weeks before even the trailer was released, but it should also be noted that the website did so via a page that was evidently created for SEO purposes. Many mainstream media outlets create optimized SEO pages for upcoming movies and events so that when people search for them through Google or other search engines, their website comes at the top and information as given by them gets displayed to maximum users.
In order to push its own propaganda through SEO, NDTV used the term ‘propaganda movie’ in Schema Markup of the page, which is present in the source code of the page even now. The following screenshot shows the source code of the NDTV page where one can find the term ‘propaganda movie’ present in Schema Mark being transmitted via JavaScript:
Screenshot of source code of NDTV’s page with ‘propaganda movie’ mentioned in Schema Mark.
Schema Markup is a language that is ‘understood’ well by machines and algorithms. It tells your computer and search engines about what part to highlight when someone is searching for a phrase. For example, a Schema Markup of most pages about ‘Narendra Modi’ will have ‘Prime Minister of India’ as jobTitle markup, and thus both these terms will automatically be displayed by Google if you search either of them.
NDTV essentially tried to feed the ‘propaganda movie’ term to internet algorithms so that the term gets linked to the movie about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, and eventually starts getting displayed in search results. The probability of the term getting displayed will become bigger if more and more websites copy NDTV and an associated Wikipedia or IMDb page is also vandalized to include the term.
At the time of writing this report, some small websites had already repeated what NDTV wrote while the Wikipedia page was ‘safe’. It should be noted that the Wikipedia page of Vivek Agnihotri has been regularly vandalized. OpIndia too has been a target of such vandalism, you can read more here.
Another important aspect of such language used in Schema Mark is that small websites and blogs often pick content from websites like NDTV and paraphrase it to create their own content. In many cases, they often copy/paste the entire segment without changing it. OpIndia found multiple websites using the same para for the movie. We found at least four websites/portals using the exact same paragraph used by NDTV.
Bollygrad Studioz is a popular YouTube channel with over 6.6 million subscribers.
Source: Youtube
Decades Life is an entertainment websitethat mostly talks about movies, web series TV series and more.
Source: Decades Life
Pop Diaries is another entertainment website. The article where they used the paragraph was published in December 2021.
Source: popdiaries
The entire shenanigan by NDTV makes it amply clear that they were out to vilify the movie The Kashmir Files simply because it shows the plight of Kashmiri Hindus and that does not suit their narrative. Not only did NDTV call it a ‘propaganda film’ without any proof, but they also tried to ensure that the phrase was pegged with the movie by other websites as well.
Safdar Nagori, one of the 38 convicts who was awarded death sentence along with 11 others who got life imprisonment in the 2008 serial bomb blasts case of Ahmedabad, was heard saying that the Indian Constitution has no value for him and he only believed in Quran. India TV quoted jail officials in a report who heard him saying that Constitution is worthless for him.
A resident of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, 54-years-old Nagori was associated with the banned Islamic terrorist organization Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). He was the main conspirator of the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts. He is currently lodged in Central Jail, Bhopal and had attended the hearing held in the special court in Ahmedabad via video conferencing. 56 people had died in the bomb blasts executed by him and his associates.
‘Quran’s verdict is above all’
Dinesh Nargave, Superintendent, Bhopal Central Jail, said soon after Nagori was sentenced to death, he said, “The Indian Constitution does not matter to me. The only thing that matters is the judgement of the Quran. It is at the top.” Nagori was General Secretary of SIMI. He was accused of arranging the explosives used in the serial blasts. He also raised funds for the other illegal activities of SIMI. His father was an assistant sub-inspector in the crime branch of Madhya Pradesh Police.
Expert in brainwashing
According to officials, Nagori is an expert in brainwashing people. So much so he was able to convince a guard at Bhopal Central Jail to convert to Islam. The guard was removed from duty after the superintendent came to know about the incident. According to the superintendent, whoever was placed on duty at his cell, tried to lure them into converting to Islam. He used to tell them, “Everyone is equal in Islam. Hindu religion does not support equality. Convert to Islam, and you will be treated as equal.” Another unusual thing that the officials noticed was that one of the SIMI terrorists stayed up all night. All of them wake up at around 5 AM to 6 AM. They spend most of the time reading literature written by anti-India authors.
Accused in 100 criminal cases
As per the reports, Nagori has been accused in around 100 criminal cases. The first criminal case was filed against him in 1997 at Mahakal Police Station, Ujjain. On March 26. 2008, he was arrested from a flat in Indore. Since his 2008 arrest, Nagori has been lodged in jail.
Ahmedabad Serial Bomb Blast case
On February 18, 2022, a special court in Ahmedabad announced a death sentence for 38 out of 49 convicts in the 2008 serial blast case. The remaining 11 have been sentenced to life imprisonment until death. Earlier on February 8 2022, the court had convicted 49 out of 77 accused in the case. The serial bomb blasts that took place in Ahmedabad on July 26 2008, had caused 56 deaths, and 243 innocent citizens were injured in the blasts.
The Director General of Police (DGP) Karnataka has refuted the allegations that 26-year-old activist Harsha, who was killed after he voiced his opinion against wearing burqa in schools, was a ‘terrorist’ associated with violence in Tripura last year.
DGP Karnataka’s tweet
“This is absolutely false. There is no connection of death to either terrorism or Tripura,” he said. He was responding to tweet by CJ Werleman, so-called journalist and also an apologist of Islamic terror. Werleman in his tweet, without any shred of evidence, had tweeted, “A terrorist belonging to the Hindu extremist group #BajrangDal, which carried out a wave of terrorist attacks against Muslims in Tripura in November, was killed in Karnataka – last night.”
Harsha’s ‘act of terrorism’ apparently was appealing for uniform dress code amid the ongoing burqa controversy in Karnataka. Since December 2021, some Muslim girl students have been protesting and demanding to wear hijab in school against the uniform dress policy which has been in place since years. The girls are protesting while wearing burqa (full body veil) instead of hijab (headscarf). The were approached by Campus Front of India (CFI), students wing of Islamist group Popular Front of India (PFI) who have since been counselling them on the same.
Harsha was killed last night in Shivamogga, Karnataka. In 2015, he was threatened by Islamists over allegations of blasphemy.
CJ Werleman and his Islamist propaganda
Radical Islam apologist CJ Werleman was once profiled by Shekhar Gupta’s ThePrint. In November 2021, he had appealed to boycott Indian products to supposedly save Muslims in India and Kashmir. Prior to that, he had tweeted a video of Pramod Muthalik, the chief of the Hindu activist group Shri Rama Sene, to allege that he called for violence against Muslims and the demolition of a mosque in Karnataka. Before that he claimed Indians had destroyed a Muslim graveyard in Himachal Pradesh, which was also fake news.
In August 2021 when the Islamist group Taliban took over Afghanistan, Werleman was caught spreading Taliban propaganda. Even as terrifying images of people falling off the aircraft as they tried to flee Afghanistan after Taliban takeover appeared, Werleman was busy claiming how not a single civilian was attacked by the Islamist group. He even tried to defend Taliban by comparing them with crime statistics from the United States of America without any context.
Shekhar Gupta’s ThePrint had eulogised Werleman in a profile describing him as a ‘bigot-turned-crusader against ‘Islamophobia’ who is taking on the Indian state’.
The tenet of free expression is the most often advocated postulate of liberalism in the world. It is the one principle that finds a spot everywhere in this world ranging from apex courts of countries to social media posts across major platforms. Especially, social media has gained massive attention because of its capacity to allow everyone to voice their opinions to a larger audience than ever. However, what most people, or rather, a subset of people, forget is that the right to express comes with a prerequisite i.e., tolerance.
The recent brutal killing of a 26-year-old Hindu named Harsha, allegedly over a social media post, exposes the one-sided interpretation of this notion of freedom of expression. It throws open before us the arena of recurring abuse of the notion of freedom of expression without regard for tolerance. Harsha was reportedly murdered for defending uniformity in dress code in educational institutions against students who demanded that hijab be permitted in classrooms. This is the irony. One side is lauded and supported in court for exercising personal liberty and displaying religious identity, while the other is stabbed to death for expressing solidarity over uniformity in educational institutions.
Kishan Bharwad was murdered for social media posts
Kishan Bharwad in Gujrat was assassinated in a similar fashion for similar reasons by a group of Muslims. The murder of Kishan Bharwad exposes the surreptitious endorsement of the notion of freedom of expression without regard for tolerance by a community that claims itself to be peaceful. Kishan was murdered because he wrote something that some Muslims found offensive, and as a result, they killed him. How simple it appears to be. Slay anybody who disagrees with you, yet defend your deeds of causing hindrance in the life of others under the veil of free expression. Finally, if anybody questions you, pummel them with a fist full of “I am being oppressed.”
And this isn’t the first introduction of this thing to the world. This is the actual modus operandi being put in action. We are all familiar with the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris, in which two Muslims stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and murdered more than a dozen people only because the publication published a satirical cartoon of the Islamic Prophet.
It is not strange for Hindus who are denied to use loudspeakers in temples but loud Azaan is echoed in loud volumes in the name of integral religious practice. The contradiction here is that, despite such discriminatory practices, the courts advise Hindus to be tolerant!
Prakash attacked just for smiley emojis
Another new case of such a targeted attack has come to be known in which a group of people attacked a young man named Prakash Lonare just because he posted “smiley” emoticons in a post having reference to Tipu Sultan. This is what we have attained as a society in which only Hindus get killed for expressing their opinions and the others have only one card to play i.e., victim.
Keeping aside others, if we talk about the Muslim community, we can find that the incidents having their involvement is specifically attributed to them being hurt over some comment or post made on any social media platform. And it is not strange that Quran itself says that a non-believer is the worst of creatures and is but to be brought to death. The verse from the Quran’s Al-Anfal chapter clearly states that disbelievers (non-Muslims) are to be beheaded and their fingers chopped. This is what is manifesting through the deaths of Kamlesh Tiwari, Kishan Bharwad, Rupesh Pandey, and now maybe Harsha. This is the paradox that murder is justified as freedom of expression and a social media timeline post is called discriminatory and offensive!
‘Terror has no religion’, but showing convicted terrorists is ‘offensive’ to Muslims
The ambidexterity of this endorsement of the tenet of free speech is clearly visible when people are killed for social media posts that are unpalatable to a certain group, but a post celebrating the judiciary’s victory in convicting terrorists involved in bomb blasts is made to be taken down by reporting it offensive. The BJP Gujrat tweet was removed because it offended some people, despite regular reminders by the same people that terrorism has no religion, whereas Harsha was reportedly stabbed to death by a bunch of Tipu Sultan loyalists.
The saddest aspect is that even the state apparatus has failed to safeguard Hindus from such attacks. Because of the Indian state’s long history of apathy toward Hindus, the community has been left at the mercy of others. A court encouraging Hindus to be tolerant while offering amplified opportunities to peddle victimhood to other communities is the bias that pervades the entire system. The fact that a community that has waited for generations for legal possession of the Ram Janambhoomi is being preached tolerance is what bolsters the fact that just because they are the majority population, Hindus getting murdered, lynched, looted and raped will never be deemed worthy of attention, but some mere tweets and Facebook posts that allegedly offend a perpetually offended and angry community will be seen as ‘oppression’.
People getting slain over social media posts show how there is nothing left as freedom of expression for Hindus in India. It is a notion that is just valid for anyone but not Hindu. Every expression of opinion against Hindus is justified, whether it is done in jest by abusing Hindu deities, as Munawar Faruqui did, or by ordinary Muslims who refer to Hindus as “cow piss drinkers,” but any post made by a Hindu that refers to any Islamic entity is scrutinized rigorously on all levels, fuelling the hollow concept of Islamophobia. The other side kills, riots, burns and rapes over vague allegations of ‘blasphemy’ on mere social media posts, but it is the Hindu that gets branded as intolerant, fascist, oppressive and violent.
The trailer for Zee Studios’ upcoming film ‘The Kashmir Files’ has been released on Monday. The riveting movie, written and directed by National Award-winning director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, recounts the plight of Kashmiri Pandit refugees following their exodus from the valley in 1990. The film is set to hit the theatres on March 11th, 2022.
The makers used the official Twitter account to reveal the trailer for the much-anticipated film. “32 years later, the emotions & the pain remain the same. Witness the brutally honest story of the Kashmir Genocide,” the film crew wrote while posting a link to the film’s official trailer, which was released on YouTube.
Writer-director Vivek Agnihotri also Tweeted, “India is at war. But nobody is telling you. Not anymore. Pl watch the trailer of the most Brutally Honest story of Kashmir Genocide. Pl share ONLY if you like it”, while sharing the trailer of his forthcoming movie.
India is at war. But nobody is telling you. Not anymore. Pl watch the trailer of the most Brutally Honest story of Kashmir Genocide. Pl share ONLY if you like it. #TheKashmirFiles#RightToJustice https://t.co/xBpSNZVTnh
The three-minute-and-thirty-second trailer takes viewers through the lesser-known storey of Kashmiri Hindus escaping the union territory in the early 1990s as a result of the Kashmir insurgency. It also uncovers the gruesome bloodshed that occurred during the exodus, as well as the plight of the Hindus who were forced to flee their homeland.
The power-packed trailer of the forthcoming movie opens with protests against releasing Kashmir from the shackles that have enslaved it since the torture of the Kashmiri Pandits. Actor Chinmay Mandlekar, in the beginning, claims that he has murdered roughly 25 people and that he will not stop even if it means killing his own brother or mother.
As the trailer progresses, viewers will see political unrest in the territory as a result of the exodus and the deaths of Kashmiri Hindus who refuse to leave their homes and motherland.
Essentially, the trailer for the film ‘The Kashmir Files’ conjures a range of emotions, offering viewers a feeling of the fear, befuddlement, and sheer panic that gripped Kashmir at the time.
Users flooded the internet with favourable responses as soon as the movie’s “Gut-wrenching and brutally honest” trailer was released on social media.
.@vivekagnihotri’s The Kashmir Files looks promising with Pallavi Joshi & @DarshanKumaar’s powerful performance in the TRAILER. Can’t wait to watch if India has finally found the courage to unmask the culprits of the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus entirely.https://t.co/NFIwOn4yD1
Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri deactivates Twitter account after receiving death threats for his upcoming movie ‘The Kashmir Files’
It may be recalled that recently, the filmmaker had deactivated his Twitter account after he was shadow-banned by Twitter and received death threats and vulgar calls to stop the release of his upcoming movie, ‘The Kashmir Files’.
He had penned an open letter explaining the ordeal he has gone through since he started the campaign #TheKashmirFiles on the microblogging site to promote his upcoming movie. He explained how he and his family are being continuously hounded by what seems to be “Pakistani and Chinese bots” for making an “honest film on the pain and sufferings of our Kashmiri brothers and sisters.”
‘The Kashmir Files,’ written and directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, is based on video interviews with first-generation victims of the Kashmir Genocide of the Kashmiri Pandit Community.
The movie reportedly takes the audiences back to the year 1989 when an unprecedented insurgency began in Kashmir and a vast majority of Hindus were forced to leave the valley. According to the reports, approximately 100,000 of an estimated Kashmiri Pandit population of 140,000 left the valley between February and March 1990. More of them left in the following years so that, by 2011, only around 3,000 families remained in the valley.
‘The Kashmir Files’ stars Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Pallavi Joshi, Chinmay Mandlekar, Puneet Issar among the prime cast.
In a new development, 17-year-old deceased student Lavanya‘s grandmother has backed the family’s claim of forced conversion which she had made in her dying declaration. In an interview to Youtube channel Chanakyaa, Lavanya’s maternal grandmother Mangayarkarasi has revealed that Lanvnya while being admitted to a hospital in Coimbatore, had confessed to her uncle that she had consumed poison only because she was forced to convert to Christianity.
17-year-old Lavanya, a student of the Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School in Michaelpatti, Tanjavur, had consumed pesticides. Her dying declaration while being treated in the hospital had stated that she was being harassed and humiliated, being made to clean toilets by the school authorities because she had refused to convert to Christianity.
On Sunday, Tamil Youtube channel Chanakyaa published a video of a commentary on the Lavanya suicide case with interviews of Lavanya’s maternal grandmother and her doctor. Mangayarkarasi, the deceased girl’s maternal grandmother, has stated that the state police has been making inquiries at her place, and has been trying to interrogate the family members even after the case was given to the CBI by Madras High Court on January 31.
While narrating her last meeting with Lavanya before her death she told that she visited Lavanya when she was admitted to the Thanjavur hospital for treatment. Speaking about what Lavanya had highlighted to her maternal uncle in front of her, she said, “Lavanya confessed to her uncle that she consumed poison only because they forced her to convert to Christianity.” (as translated by The Commune in English)
Mangayarkarasi who is a senior citizen talked in length about the police enquiry that followed after the incident. She added, “Initially an officer called Saravanan came to enquire us. I told them that I do not know anything related to the case. Another lady officer took us to investigate us. As I was a little tight-lipped, they started enquiring about my sister’s husband who was in Coimbatore. She then called me and asked me to tell them what I know.” She added that policemen continued to pay her house a visit, until as late as February 10, the day when the interview with Chanakyaa was shot.
It is to be noted here that the Madras High Court had already transferred the case to the CBI on January 31. Long after the case was transferred to the CBI, the state police continued with their enquiry, according to Lavanya’s maternal grandmother. “Every day 4-5 policemen would come to our house and conduct the same enquiry, even after the case was transferred. An SI was mostly accompanied by 2-3 constables, who all came in varied times, and asked us the same questions, again and again,” she added.
It is notable here that the Madras High Court had slammed the attempts by the state government to ignore the young girl’s dying declaration and dismiss the forced conversion angle in the Christian school where she studied. The High Court had clearly stated that the dying declaration of a victim cannot be ignored and the state police have been prejudiced in the case by trying to dismiss the dying declaration.
A special CBI Court in Ranchi has sentenced former Chief Minister of Bihar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav to five years imprisonment and a Rs 60 lakh fine in the Fodder scam case. He was found guilty by the court on February 15.
This is the fifth and the biggest fodder scam case against Yadav. In the last four similar cases, he was convicted in 2013. During the conviction, he was present with 98 co-accused in the Doranda treasury case before Judge SK Shashi in Ranchi.
Breaking :Fifth fodder scam case
CBI court in Ranchi sentences RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav to 5 years’ imprisonment and imposes Rs 60 Lakh fine on him. @laluprasadrjd
The scandal was first unearthed in 1996. By then, Lalu and his co-accused had siphoned off around Rs 950 crores under the pretence of spending on fodder and other expenses for cattle over many years. CBI had registered 53 separate cases during the investigation of the scam. The largest among which was the Doranda Treasury case RC 47 (A)/96 that involved the highest number of 170 people accused, including the RLD chief, who has been proven with embezzlement of collecting Rs 139.5 crore in the case.
Previous convictions in fodder scam
Infamous as Chara Ghotala, Lalu Prasad Yadav was convicted for the first time in the Chaibasa treasury case on September 30, 2013. He has accused scams worth Rs 37.30 crore in the case. As a result of the conviction, he was disqualified from Lok Sabha and sent to jail for five years. Later he was granted bail from Supreme Court in December 2013. In December 2017, he was convicted again pertaining to his involvement in the fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar treasury. While Lalu was sentenced to 42 months of jail term, in this case, he was out on bail within six months.
Later in January 2018, he was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in Chaibasa treasury that involved siphoning off Rs 33.13 crores. Also, in March the same year, the special court found him guilty of illegal withdrawal of Rs 3.76 crores from the Dumka treasury and sentenced him to 14 years of imprisonment.
On February 21, hashtag #JusticeForHarsha trended on social media platforms as support for the murdered Bajrang Dal activist poured in. From actress Kangana Ranaut and Raveena Tondon to BJP leaders and prominent members of the society expressed their anger over the cold-blooded murder of Harsha in Karnataka over a Facebook post in connection to hijab controversy.
In a story, Actress Kangana Ranaut said, “This is wrong, for social media posts to simply voice their opinions people are being killed on the streets.” She was quoting a post by Instagram handle total.woke where the handle posted how ground reality was different from what is presented in the mainstream media.
The handle has posted a screenshot of a Twitter post by TMC leader Mahua Moitra in which she had posted an image of Swastika stabbed with a knife with the caption “Liberals creates intellectual cover”. TMC leader’s post read, “The only good fascist is a dead one.” Alongside, the image of the dead body of Harsha was posted with the caption “Street action team executes.”
Source: Instagram
Actress Raveena Tondon posted the hashtag #JusticeForHarsha with Praying Hands and Om emojis.
Dr Pradip Verma, State General Secretary BJP Jharkhand, said, “The brutal murder of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha in Karnataka is a part of the well-thought-out chain under which Hindus are being murdered, such crimes are instigated by the jihadi mindset.” He further asserted Rupesh Kumar was also killed by people of the same mentality in Jharkhand and demanded strict action against the culprits.
— Dr Pradip Varma डॉ प्रदीप वर्मा (@PKVarmaRanchi) February 21, 2022
Quoting a post on the matter by Scientist Anand Ranganathan, writer and director Jyoti Kapur Das said, “The fatwa against him was over six years old, and they finally got him yesterday. His ‘sin’- posting about the hijab row in Karnataka.”
Author Shefali Vaidya said, “So has Rajdeep Sardesai justified the brutal killing of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha in Karnataka yet like he justified the brutal murder of Prashanth Poojary of Moodbidri a few years ago?”
So has @sardesairajdeep justified the brutal kiIIing of Bajrang Dal activist Harsha in Karnataka yet, like he justified the brutal murder of Prashanth Poojary of Moodbidri a few years ago? #JusticeForHarsha
VHP national spokesperson Vinod Bansal said, “The Bajrang Dal youth Harsha (26) killed yesternight in #Shivamogga of Karnataka was attacked by Jihadists earlier too. The culprits must be hanged soon. Bajrang Dal to have statewide protest this Wednesday.”
Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, BJP State General Secretary, Andhra Pradesh, said, “Rana Ayyub to BBC – Students protesting in saffron scarves are ‘Hindu terrorists. Quint’s Sadhika Tiwari compared girls protesting in saffron scarves to Nazis. And who paid the price – An innocent student Harsha who was brutally murdered for wearing uniform.”
Rana Ayyub to BBC – Students protesting in saffron scarves are ‘Hindu terrorists’.
Quint’s Sadhika Tiwari compared girls protesting in saffron scarves to Nazis.
And who paid the price – An innocent student Harsha who was brutally murdered for wearing uniform.#justiceforharsha
BJP leader Kapil Mishra said, “Every day they are killing Kishan, Rupesh, Hira Gujrati, Harsha somewhere. On the other hand, they are spreading rumours of Muslims being attacked in India. This is the new form of Jihad, media and political leaders are involved in it.”
Every day they are killing Kishan, Rupesh, Hira Gujrati, Harsha somewhere
On other hand they are spreading rumours of muslims being attacked in India
This is the new form of Jihad, media and political leaders are involved in it.#justiceforharsha
On the night of February 20, Harsha, a Bajrang Dal activist was stabbed to death near Kamat petrol bunk in the Shivamogaa district of Karnataka. He was a tailor by occupation and hailed from Seegehatti. Harsha was a member of the Hindu organisation, Bajrang Dal, and was seen sporting saffron shawls to demand uniformity in the dress code of schools and colleges.
