On June 20, Hindus are celebrating Ganga Dussehra, the day to mark the origin of the sacred river Ganga. It is believed that on this day, i.e. Dashmi (10th day) of the month of Jyeshtha (according to Hindu Calendar), sacred river Ganga came down to Earth and free ancestors of Bhagiratha from a curse. The festival is observed for a period of 10 days.
Stories that narrate how the Ganga came to Earth
According to the historical stories, the river Ganga was born during Bhagwan Vishnu’s Vamana Avatar. After Vamana pushed King Bali to the Patala Lok, Bhagwan Brahma washed Vishnu’s feet and collected the water in his Kamandala. That water took the form of Ganga, a young playful little girl.
Once, Rishi Durvasa, who was known for his aggressive mood, was taking a bath in a river and his clothes flew away due to breeze. Ganga, who was playing close to the river, saw the incident and burst into uncontrolled laughter. Rishi Durvassa got angry and cursed her that she will spend time on Earth as a river. When the time came, Ganga took the form of the river and resided in Bhagwan Brahma’s Kamandal in heaven.
Once King Sagar, ancestor of King Bhagiratha, performed Ashwamedha Yagna to make him powerful. Indra, the King of Gods, was afraid that if King Sagar become powerful, he may try to take his position. He stole Yagna’s horses and tied them outside Rishi Kapila’s Ashram. Sagar’s sons went looking for the horses and found them outside Ashram. Assuming Rishi stole the horses, they set the horses free, but noises disturbed meditating Rishi. When he realized he was being accused of stealing, he got furious and cursed them to be burnt down to ashes.
As the rituals of death could not be completed, all 60,000 sons who were burnt down to ashes due to curse wandered as ghosts. One remaining brother, Anshuman, begged the Rishi for a solution who asked him to pray to Bhagwan Brahma and bring Ganga to Earth to purify the souls.
After several generations, Bhagiratha, descendent of Sagar, finally managed to please Brahma, who granted him his wish to send River Ganga to Earth. To control the powerful river, Bhagiratha prayed to Bhagwan Shiva to accept Ganga in his locks and release her slowly towards Earth.
Ganga Dussehra, the celebrations
Ganga flows from Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. The festival is celebrated on the banks of Rishikesh, Garhmukteshwar, Haridwar, Prayagraj and Varanasi. Ganga Aarti on this day attracts thousands of devotees from around the world. People gather at the banks of Ganga and take holy dip to purify their body and soul. In Mathura and Vrindaban temples, this day is celebrated among the devotees with enthusiasm. It is believed that donating something on this day brings happiness and prosperity to the family of the devotees.
Water levels in Ganga rise from Ganga Dussehra onward
In many parts along the river Ganga in UP and Bihar, the water levels in the river start swelling from Ganga Dussehra onward. One reason could be the festival usually coincides with the pre-monsoon and onset of monsoon in some parts, because of which the water levels rise.
Ganga Dussehra during Covid-19
This year, due to Covid-19 norms and lockdown in several regions, the celebrations will not be held on a large scale.
American hedge fund manager Kyle Bass announced on Sunday that he had made new t-shirts for the Chinese Ambassador and the Chinese Embassy in the United States. In the t-shirt, China was marked as ‘West Taiwan’.
The ‘West Taiwan’ t-shirt did manage to attract the attention of Hu Xijin, the Editor-in-Chief of the Global Times, who had been tagged in Bass’ tweet. He made a weak attempt at a joke, dubbing the USA ‘East Taiwan’.
However, in his enthusiasm to mock China, Kyle Bass ended up showing Indian territory as part of China. The t-shirt shows Ladakh as part of ‘West Taiwan’ and includes Tibet in the same as well.
Kashmir & Ladakh is the integral part of india. I challenge no one can divide it. https://t.co/4yAp4FjA4B
Another account, apparently Chinese, said it was ‘humiliating’ which made him/her suffer ‘second hand embarrassment’.
this is so over the top humiliating i'm getting second hand embarassment just looking at this https://t.co/Ss1xu0c5U5
— 白石夫人??大錯特錯不要來?侮辱我的美?♀️ (@mitasuyou) June 20, 2021
While mocking China is indeed commendable, it is perhaps better to do a little research before engaging in such antics. Otherwise, a person runs the risk of committing goof-ups, as the person did by including Indian territory in China, thus, appearing to bolster Chinese claims.
China has long claimed that Taiwan is a part of itself and has prevented other countries from recognizing the latter as a separate country. The Chinese Communist Party is quite touchy about the matter and reacts quite disproportionately whenever someone calls Taiwan a country.
Amidst the growing scrutiny over the possibility of leakage of Coronavirus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reports have now emerged about the defection of a top Chinese official to the United States.
In February this year, China’s top counter-intelligence official Dong Jingwei reportedly flew to the US from Hong Kong with his daughter. The development was confirmed by a former top Chinese Ministry official named Dr. Han Lianchao, who had defected to the States after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. A pro-democracy activist in the US, Dr. Han said that the defection of Dong was discussed by top Chinese and US officials during a meeting in Alaska in May.
According to him, the request to send Dong Jingwei back was turned down by State Secretary Anthony Blinken. Interestingly, the top law enforcement of China i.e. Central Political Legal Affairs Commission had posted on social media about Dong Jingwei’s supposed warning to ‘anti-China’ forces. It alleged that Dong had directed spies to look out for ‘insiders’ who ‘bankroll’ their actions behind the scenes.
Reportedly, the lab leak theory for Covid-19 was taken seriously by the Biden administration after Dong Jingwei defected to USA. It is believed that Dong may have handed over evidence on the Wuhan lab leak theory to the USA, which prompted the U-turn by President Joe Biden as he ordered a probe on the matter. Originally, the influential left-win media and the Democrats had dismissed the possibility that the virus may have originated in the lab, terming it as a conspiracy theory by Donald Trump.
Dong Jingwei was the vice minister of State security and the alleged defection has made him the most influential Chinese official to do so. It is believed that the defection of Dong Jingwei and the information shared about the Wuhan Institute of Virology had prompted the incumbent US President to change his stance on the origins of the Wuhan Coronavirus.
US govt keen on encouraging defections of Chinese officials
While speaking about the matter, a former US government official remarked, “If you offer $5 million (€4.2m) and citizenship there will be plenty of people wanting to defect. We’ve been sitting on our asses for a year and a half looking for needles in haystacks. We need human intelligence. We need to hear from Chinese people who were direct witnesses. Then you’re off to the races. We have a lot of reason to be suspicious that it was a lab leak. We should be treating this like a potential crime scene.”
He further added, “I’ve never seen a bigger whitewash. China’s approach has been systematic cover-up and denial. If this had started in a lab in Oxford you can bet the UK government would be responsive to us. People get executed for (messing up) in China. So it is possible the Wuhan people covered it up from their own government.” The official had worked on the Wuhan lab leak hypotheses under the Donald Trump administration.
Jingwei’s defection is a rumour, claims experts
However, several other US officials have expressed skepticism over reports of Dong Jingwei’s defection. According to former CIA expert Nicholas Eftimiades, the alleged defection is a ‘rumour’. He claimed that reports of defection of Chinese officials surface all the time (as part of information warfare) and that it may not be correct. Senior Intelligence Analyst (Soufan Group) Molliw Saltskog emphasised that unconfirmed reports of defection surface regularly.
However, on June 4, pro-Trump website Red State had reported about an unnamed defector from China and that the Defense Intelligence Agency had received inputs about China concealing the research on biological warfare in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The site had questioned the integrity of Dr. Anthony Fauci and said that the defector’s information has put him under the spotlight.
A striking aspect of the Dravidian brand of rationalism is how it attacks only Hindu beliefs and icons and is very careful to never critique the beliefs and practices of any other religion. Let us peer back in history and see if it was always so.
Dravidian publications and rationalist critique
In Kuti Arasu, EV Ramasamy’s journal, an essay titled – “Why Purdah must be abolished” – was published on 14-10-1928. On 4-11-1929, M S Hussain Saheb, writing for Kuti Arasu, wrote in an essay titled “The Injustice of Purdah” –
“Men and women must be allowed to see each other freely and intermingle, so that they may wed based on mutual attraction and understanding. Can a man have any greater pleasure than a wife of his heart’s desire? Why must we hide our women behind a visual prison in the name of religion?”
In 3-3-1929, Kuti Arasu published another essay – “Islam and the Self-Respect Movement”, in which they decried the clergy as “Pauranika liars” who would cheat young Muslims and mislead them away from the path of rationalism and making enlightened choices for themselves.
On Jun 17, 1932, a Self-Respect Conference was held in Mannargudi under the chairship of Smt Kunjitham, a young graduate and wife of “Kuthoosi” Gurusami, EV Ramasamy”s confidante. In this, Smt Kunjitham spoke –
“The Congress under Mr Gandhi wants to keep Hindu, Muslim and Christian faiths as they are and seek unity among all Indians. However, we wish to destroy all such religious faiths as we believe only freedom from such faith can lead to social unity.“
The backlash
P. Kalifullah, a Muslim League leader and sometime collaborator of the Justice Party leadership, openly said that if the Self-Respect Movement had to gain any support among Muslims of South India, they should give up on the habit of applying their principles of atheism to Islam. The Dar-ul-Islam, a Tamil publication wrote against the idea of Dravidian race politics and cautioned “The Tirukkural may be another Holy Book and Tiruvalluvar another Prophet in a Dravida Nadu“. In Aiyampettai, a small town in Thanjavur District, the local jamaat excommunicated all Muslim members of the Self-Respect Movement.
The climbdown
By November 1935, EV Ramasamy wrote –
“If, to shun the religion that imposes untouchability on them, Ambedkar and his followers turn to Islam for succour rather than to atheism, we would not have any objections to it.“
Ramanathapuram Baghdad Sahib writing in “Madras Mail” in January 1939 –
“Periyar is a Muslim inside. His plan is to outwardly stay in the Hindu faith and send the Depressed Classes over to Islam“. There was no objection from any quarters to this claim.
In the Kuti Arasu editorial of April 17, 1947, EV Ramasamy wrote –
“In a Dravidian Government, Muslims and Christians shall be regarded as groups friendly to the Dravidians. Muslims, being Dravidians, must have equal rights over the Tamil Land. Except for the small matter of religion, there is no means by which one can divide the Islamic and non-Islamic Dravidians“.
The capitulation
Writing in Viduthalai on July 15, 1947, EV Ramasamy –
“There is so much in common with the original Dravidian religion and Islam. The Arab word for Dravidian religion is Islam. When the Aryan faith was sought to be forced on our people, the Prophet Muhammed revived our people”s original faith by means of Islam“.
Addressing the Trichy Employees Association in March 1947, he said –
“Before Islam, Christianity, Shiva, Rama or Krishna, we Dravidians had our own pristine religion. Do not think Islam is an invention of the Prophet or that the Sahibs (Urdu speaking Muslims of Madras Presidency), Rowthers, Marakkaiyars or Mappillas are the sole Muslims of this land”.
As we can see, the slightest resistance from the Indian Muslim population was sufficient to make the Dravidian movement capitulate, while the campaign of abuse and calumny against Hinduism has gone on for decades, inspite of wide spread protests.
The Consulate General of India in Toronto has written a scathing letter to the Government of Ontario expressing its anguish over Canadian schools teaching hateful anti-India curriculum to their students and warned that such polarising narrative against Indians could harm peaceful relations between India and Canada.
In a strongly worded letter dated March 11, the Consulate General of India, representing the Indian government and Indian interests in Canada, said that they were approached by several Canadians of Indian heritage and Indian nationals who have children studying in various schools in Ontario recently. The parents raised serious concerns that some schools are using biased and factually incorrect study material as part of their academic curriculum, the letter of Consulate General said.
The Consulate General of India said that fall elementary and high schools in Peel, Toronto and York region are pushing study material that is based on disinformation and may possibly create hatred against India, Indian nationals and people with Indian heritage. The Indian government accused the Ontario schools of propagating misinformation about the recent farm protests through its school curriculum and added that such attempts could disrupt peaceful relations between Indian communities in Ontario.
“The Consulate General would further like to state that it considers this incident to be extremely serious and views it as a conspiracy to sabotage the goodwill and warm, friendly relations between India and Canada by inimical entities to further their own nefarious agenda,” the letter says.
Letter written by the Indian Consul General in Toronto to Canadian authorities
The Consulate General also conveyed that it has been informed by the parents that their children have been deeply disturbed and have also been subject to bullying and verbal harassment by students of other ethnicities in the school.
“The trauma of being subjected to false and hateful content about the country of their origin, coupled with harassment by their peers, has negatively impacted their mental health and well-being,” the letter accessed by OpIndia said.
Further, the Consulate General has been informed that such material is employed for education in these classes makes false and factually incorrect claims about some current developments in India and seeks to misrepresent these developments to impressionable minds with the ulterior intent of creating hatred, generating animosity and polarizing the Indian heritage communities along sectarian lines.
The consulate urged Ontario’s Office of International Relations and Protocol to alert the Canadian authorities to investigate what’s being taught and “to sensitize” the school boards so they immediately remove such hateful and factually incorrect material from their curriculum so as to spare the children being exposed to it, the mental trauma of its toxic, harmful influence.
Warning the Canadian authorities, the Consulate General said it views such controversies as extremely serious and added that such efforts by a section are a conspiracy to sabotage the goodwill and warm friendly relations between India and Canada.
“The Consulate General would like to convey that given the seriousness of this issue which can potentially poison the bilateral relations between India and Ontario, threaten the security of Indian nationals in Ontario and disrupt the peaceful relations between various communities with Indian heritage,” the letter further added.
Polarising content against Indian state being pushed through curriculum, says a parent
Meanwhile, CBS has obtained the “polarizing” lessons that have stirred up hatred toward Indians and bullying against students. The lesson asked students to consider why farmers in India are protesting, what protesting means, and explain the situation from different perspectives.
The lessons taught at Ontario schools also asked the students why the Indian government is trying to silence protesters. Strangely, it includes a letter from a Canadian Sikh student saying, “the Indian government passed three farm bills undemocratically for the benefit of private corporations.”
Ritesh Malick, a parent in Vaughan, Ontario, said he was aghast when his daughter in Grade 6 was taught about the protests in “a very biased way” that sided with farmers. Malick said his daughter was offended by the other students and the teacher speaking negatively about the country her family is from.
“My daughter said she didn’t want to go to school,” he said, adding that such a frenzy environment and conversations in schools have led to bullying and fights among kids.
Malick also has started an online petition, “NO To Hateful, Biased, Objectionable, InAppropriate, Propaganda Content at Schools,” which has close to 3,000 signatures. A group of Indian-origin parents, including from other communities, have reached out to the consulate urging it to intervene.
“What does Canada have to do with it?” Malick said. “Why should there be a rift in Canadian communities, and why should there be a rift in Canadian classrooms? We should concentrate on Canadian issues.”
Following the intervention of the Indian Consulate General in Toronto, Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce met with concerned parents in June to reaffirm its commitment to human rights and assure that all students feel respected. The ministry spokesperson said they expect “impartiality and sensitivity when raising world events — we insist kids make their own conclusions, in the bias-free environment”.
Teacher defends anti-India curriculum, says she has responsibility to speak about “oppression”
Reportedly, a high school teacher from Brampton identified Simmi Jaswal initiated such discussions about the farmer protests in her geography and social justice courses this school year.
Jaswal, a Sikh teacher, also has family members in India participating in the protests against the farm reforms since last November. Jaswal claimed that she feels responsible to “unpack the politics” surrounding the events with her students, as they are already aware of the protests through social media. Apparently, Jaiswal bases her lessons on media reports.
“This is not just a distant connection. It’s about our students’ lived experiences,” Jaswal said. “It does ease some of their pain and anxiety a little bit to be acknowledged, to feel seen and to have it discussed,” the Sikh teacher added.
Speaking to CBS Canada, Jaswal said that she keeps it very frank to her students as she feel that they were looking protests as a form of oppression. “My preference is to centre on marginalized voices and identities. But if you feel like you’re not hearing a particular side, then we have that conversation,” she contended.
According to Jaiswal, the “oppressor” is not the Indian people, which includes Hindu, Muslims and Sikhs along with many other religious minorities, but rather the state.
In an undated video that has gone viral on social media, Shafi Saadi Kumaramputtur a teacher of Samastha Kerala Sunni education board preached that anyone who leaves the religion of Islam should be killed.
While taking an online session of class 12 students, Shafi Saadi can be heard saying, “If someone quits Islam/religion then what is his fate? Islam asks him to repent, still, if he does not repent then he needs to be killed by the ruler or who is responsible.”
“Is that violence? No. But it is to remind the followers of Islam that what is the consequence of leaving the religion and how he will be treated after death. He will go to hell,” Shafi Saadi preached further.
Children are taught not to show any reluctance to kill believers who leave Islam, this video is from Samastha Kerala Sunni Education board and the teacher is named Shafi saadi kumaramputhur, Hail secularism hail democracy NB: If you are alive pic.twitter.com/bdSpqbSD8x
Several social media users tagged Kerala Police demanding an arrest of Shafi Saadi Kumaramputtur for his inflammatory preaching.
Tweets demanding action.
Samastha Kerala Sunni Vidyabhyasa Board Islamic Education is one of the most influential organizations in Kerala headed by Indian Islamic scholar Mufthi Moulana Sheikh Aboobacker.
As per the official website, around ten thousand madarsas are affiliated with the Samastha Kerala Sunni Board. The madarsa children acquire religious education for a duration of two hours before heading to schools for general education.
Radicalization in Kerala
As per a July 2020 article, the UN in its report on terrorism had warned that there are “significant numbers” of ISIS terrorists in Kerala and Karnataka.
According to the 26th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning ISIS, “One member state reported that the ISIL Indian affiliate (Hind Wilayah), which was announced on May 10, 2019, has between 180 and 200 members”.
In May 2019 the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) terror group claimed to have established a new “province” in India.
ISIS terrorists want to return to India
We reported last week how ‘Fathima Isa’ along with 19 others from Kerala flew to Afghanistan in June 2016 to wage a war against the US forces in ISIS-controlled Khorasan Province.
After her terrorist husband was neutralised, she surrendered to the Afghan government in 2019 and she along with other women expressed the desire to return back to India.
According to the charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2017, another Sonia Sebastian had left India in 2016 to join the ISKP in Afghanistan along with a group of 21 men and women from Kerala. They had crossed over to Afghanistan on foot from Iran. The NIA said Sebastian, from Kasargod in Kerala, left India on May 31, 2016, with her husband, Abdul Rashid Abdulla, from Mumbai airport.
They had said the couple held secret classes supporting IS and jihad during the last part of Ramzan in Padanna and Kasaragod. Sebastian is an engineering graduate.
Another IS sympathiser, Merrin Jacob alias Mariyam, was married to Bestin Vincent, a resident of Palakkad. The couple escaped to Afghanistan in 2016 to live in the IS-controlled territory. Later, the Chrisitan couple converted to Islam after their marriage, and Vincent assumed the identity of Yahya. Vincent was later killed in Afghanistan.
Similarly, Vincent’s brother Bexon and his wife, Nimisha alias Fathima, also converted to Islam and escaped to Afghanistan with them. Raffaela was married to a 37-year-old physician Ijas Kallukettiya Purayil a physician from Kasargod. The couple is believed to have stormed a prison in a terror attack in Eastern Afghanistan’s Jalalabad in August 2020. Around 30 persons were killed in the attack.
Kerala HC questions the funding of madarsas
Early this month, the Kerala High Court asked the Pinarayi Vijayan-led state government why it was financing a religious activity by pumping vast amounts of public money to run madarsas in the state.
According to the reports, the Kerala High Court heard a petition filed by Manoj, secretary of Citizen Organisation for Democracy, Equality, Tranquility, and Secularism, seeking to quash the Kerala Madrasa Teachers’ Welfare Fund Act, 2019.
C Rajendran, counsel for the petitioner, said that these madrasas in Kerala only impart knowledge about the Quran and other textbooks pertaining to Islam. However, under the act, the madarsas in Kerala are getting huge amounts of money for the said purposes, which is unconstitutional and against the principles of secularism enshrined in the Constitution, the petitioner argued.
“In Kerala, these are involved purely in religious activity. What is the purpose of contributing funds by the state for a religious activity?” the Kerala HC asked the state government regarding funding madrasas in the state.
Months after China demanding Nepal to sign ‘non-disclosure agreements’ before providing Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccines to the Himalayan country, the Chinese officials have expressed their disappointment at Nepal authorities for failing to keep the vaccine deal ‘secret’, reports Kathmandu Post.
According to the reports, the Chinese officials are not happy with the Nepalese government over the issue of publicising details of the vaccine deal that was struck between Nepal and China. The Chinese officials have apparently communicated their displeasure at the disclosure regarding the vaccine procurement by the government of Nepal.
Similarly, the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu also had reminded the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the nature of the deal.
China wants Nepal to keep the ‘vaccine-deal’ secret
We had reported earlier in detail about the deadlock Nepal had reached in procuring the vaccines after China had insisted on the Himalayan nation signing a non-disclosure agreement before availing the Sinopharm vaccines.
Under such a non-disclosure agreement, it was agreed that China would provide four million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine to Nepal. China had strictly insisted that Nepal keep the details, including the price and delivery date, under wraps.
However, a few Nepal media outlets recently published information regarding the vaccine deal between the two countries. Kathmandu Post had reported that Sinopharm had agreed to supply four million vaccines to the Himalayan nation. The Nepalese reported that the price was yet to be fixed given the nature of the agreement, however as per officials, it could be around $10 per dose.
Media reports in Nepal has angered China
The Nepalese media reports on the possible vaccine deal have reportedly angered the Chinese officials, who have now warned the Nepal government against the publicisation of vaccine procurement by the government of Nepal.
Following the controversy, the Health Ministry on Thursday issued a statement, refuting media reports about buying vaccines from China. The Nepal government said that no deal has been reached yet and blamed the media for disseminating information on vaccine procurement from China.
“The government of Nepal has requested the government of the People’s Republic of China to give preference to Nepal on vaccine cooperation. The process to secure vaccines from different countries including China is still ongoing. Media reports on quantity, price, delivery, and other relevant information about vaccine procurement are premature, speculative and misleading. The ministry refutes such unfounded and baseless media reports,” said the statement.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the public broadcaster of the UK, recently published a video report on the Delta variant of Covid-19. It cut off the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh region from the map of India. The incomplete map was noticed by netizens who tagged the Ministry of External Affairs to take strict action against the agency.
In the video, Ros Atkins, Presenter & creator for BBC News UK, talked about how the Delta variant of Covid-19 codenamed B.1.617.2 was discovered in India in October 2020 and how the UK allegedly fail to consider travellers from India a threat to the spread of the new variant. The topic itself cannot be considered much of a problem as India was faced a massive surge in the Covid-19 cases, and several countries suspended flights to and from India for the time being.
The problem here was the map of India that BBC used in the report. The map that was depicted at the 24th second of the video did not have Jammu & Kashmir and the Ladakh region included.
Screenshot from the video’s now-replaced version. Source: Twitter
After the uproar, changes were made in the video, and the map was replaced by the Indian national flag.
Screenshot from the video uploaded by BBC to replace the previous version. Source: BBC
Interestingly, another version of the video exists that is shared by Atkins. In that video, the flag has been replaced with the ambulance from Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Notably, the total number of cases reported by Maharashtra (59,63,420) is almost seven times more than Gujarat (8,22,149). Somehow, BBC thought it would be more appropriate to use a clip of an ambulance from BJP-ruled Gujarat instead of MVA-ruled Maharashtra.
Screenshot from the video uploaded by Atkins. Source: Twitter
In the tweet, Alkins wrote, “I’m afraid I’ve had to delete the previous version of our Delta video as it contained an incorrect map. Apologies. This is a new version. No other part of the video has changed. It’s the story of the Delta variant coming to the UK and how it delayed Boris Johnson’s COVID plans.”
BBC – A repeat offender
This is not the first time BBC has been accused of depicting an incomplete or wrong map of India. In January 2021, BBC had apologised for an incomplete map of India. The problematic video was about Joe Biden on BBC World Service titled ‘US Election 2020: What do countries around the world want from Joe Biden’. It showed a map of India without Jammu and Kashmir.
The war of words between Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Kerala Congress unit K Sudhakaran continues after the Congress leader made sensational allegations against Pinarayi, saying that the Communist leader was involved in political assassinations in the past.
A day after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan alleged that the newly-coronated Kerala PCC President had once planned to kidnap his children, the Lok Sabha MP from Kannur K Sudhakaran has hit back at him saying that Pinarayi Vijayan was main accused in the murder of Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, an RSS worker killed in 1969 at Thalassery.
Addressing a press conference at Kochi on Saturday, K Sudhakaran revealed that Vijayan had allegedly murdered RSS leader Ramakrishnan in 1969. Since no witnesses came forward to testify against Pinarayi, the court gave him the benefit of the doubt and was acquitted, said Sudhakaran, releasing the copy of FIR.
This is the first political murder case in Kannur, said K Sudhakaran, adding that CPI(M) workers have killed more than 28 Congress workers in the recent past. The Congress leader said that the Communists had tried to kill him at least three times in the past.
The Congress leader did not stop there. Revealing more details about the criminal background of the Kerala Chief Minister, K Sudhakaran, alleged that Vijayan was accused of the murder of his personal bodyguard Babu.
“Though Babu was a close associate of Vijayan, they fell apart, and the murder was the fall out of the parting of ways,” said Sudhakaran in the press conference.
Sudhakaran says Vijayan killed a beedi worker
Continuing, Sudhakaran also said that Vijayan was also responsible for the death of a former beedi worker named Kandoth Gopi. “During the emergency days, I was leading an agitation against the management of a beedi company for its decision to terminate the services of some workers. Vijayan with a group of armed Marxist leaders attacked me, and I had a providential escape,” alleged Gopi.
Responding to the statements put out by Vijayan, saying that the Congress leader was responsible for an alleged plot to kidnap his children, Sudhakaran hit back on Saturday and asked the CM to maintain the “dignity of his post”.
The Congress leader also posed a series of questions to Pinarayi Vijayan, “Why did Vijayan not inform the police if he had heard that I had planned to abduct his children? Why can’t Vijayan reveal the name of my friend who had told him about the plan? If children were facing a threat, why did Vijayan not share that information with his wife? It is unbecoming of his position as the Chief Minister to raise such an allegation.”
Addressing a press conference, Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier claimed that a former Congress local leader and Sudhakaran’s close friend had called on him at his house in Kannur many years back to warn him about a plan hatched by K Sudhakaran to kidnap his children. The Congress leader had cautioned Vijayan to be careful in the coming days.
War-of-words between Pinarayi Vijayan and K Sudhakaran
The war-of-words between Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Kerala Congress Chief K Sudhakaran started after K Sudhakaran, in a recent interview, had attacked the two-time Kerala Chief Minister. In an interview with ‘Malayala Manorama’ weekly, Sudhakaran had said that the Congress workers had beaten up Vijayanduring tensions at Brennen College at Thalassery in Kannur, who had to be rescued by police.
Both Vijayan and Sudhakaran were alumni of the Brennen College at Kannur. Vijayan and Sudhakaran share a long history as they started their political career in the same city Kannur.
In response to Sudhakaran’s statements, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had claimed that the Kerala PCC President K Sudhakaran had once planned to kidnap his children. Vijayan also denied Sudhakaran’s claim that the Congress leaders beat him in the past.
Sharing his side of the story, Vijayan said that he was at the college to write exams during the said incident, and following his intervention, Left student workers pulled away Sudhakaran. Vijayan had also recollected another incident saying Congress leaders had made some adverse remarks against K Sudhakaran in the past.
Following Pinarayi’s statements, K Sudhakaran had refuted the allegations and said that he would be coming out with his fresh versions in a day or two. In response, the Congress leader addressed the press conference on Saturday to reveal the alleged involvement of Pinarayi Vijayan in the political murders in the state.
K Sudhakaran, the Congress-strongman from Kannur was recently appointed as the president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee in a bid to revive the party, which was humiliated by the Communist Party-led Left Democratic Front in the recently held assembly elections. Sudhakaran, who hails from Kannur just as Vijayan, is pipped to challenge the two-times Chief Minister in the coming days.
Ratnesh Mishra, a state spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party’s youth wing lambasted Singh for his fake allegations of ‘land scam’ in Ram Mandir construction. Mishra in a Tweet wrote, “Sanjay Singh ji after lying about Ram Mandir Trust, now you are lying about your party worker too. Your lies will be exposed. My leader is Arvind Kejriwal ji and I demand from him that such an anti-national element should be immediately sacked from the party.”
संजय सिंह जी आप द्वारा कितना झूठ बोला जाएगा राम मंदिर ट्रस्ट के बाद अपने कार्यकर्ता पर भी झूठ । आपका झूठ बेनकाब होगा। मेरे नेता अरविंद केजरीवाल जी है उनसे मांग करता हु ऐसे देशविरोधी तत्व को तत्काल पार्टी से बर्खास्त करे ।@ArvindKejriwal
AAP leader Sanjay Singh had raked up a farce controversy alleging a ‘land scam’ by Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust last week. Not only by the Trust and VHP leaders but Singh has now also been slammed by his own party leader for spreading lies against the Ayodhya Ram Janmbhoomi Temple.
Ratnesh Mishra’s allegations
In startling revelations made during a press conference, Mishra alleged that since he is a resident of Gonda district, he was sent from Delhi to Ayodhya by the party to fan tensions between Hindu saints and BJP leaders and the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
Upon reaching, Mishra found out that the allegations made by Singh on the Trust were completely baseless. He lashed out at Singh for using Ayodhya Ram Temple for his political gains.
Mishra in the media interaction said, “My father Rameshchandra Mishra had lost his life during kar seva. I don’t think other than me there is anybody else from the party who gave a bigger sacrifice in the construction of the temple.”
He also alleged that Singh regularly siphons off party funds to build his personal mansion in Sultanpur.
Calling himself a loyal soldier of the party and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Mishra demanded suspension of Singh from the Aam Aadmi Party. If not done, Mishra hinted that many party workers might abandon the party.
Mishra also said that he spoke to various stakeholders in the Ram Mandir trust and realised that the allegations of Sanjay Singh are nothing but an attack on the faith of Hindus.
He said he has been deeply hurt by Singh’s false allegations of the temple Trust.
AAP leader and Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister conducted a press conference alleging scam
After Sanjay Singh accused the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust of a land scam, AAP leader and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had conducted a press conference to further the baseless allegations.
— Aam Aadmi Party- Uttar Pradesh (@AAPUttarPradesh) June 14, 2021
The controversy was supported by several opposition leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Sanjay Singh’s allegations
AAP leader Sanjay Singh had claimed that Ram Janmbhoomi Trust paid Rs 18 crore for a piece of land that costed Rs 2 crore in 2019. Singh and other party members presented ‘Agreement of Sale’ as ‘Sale Deed’ to propagate their theory further.
