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Uttar Pradesh: Gangster Parvez Ahmed shot dead by STF in an encounter in Gorakhpur, was operating out of Nepal

OpIndia Staff
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Uttar Pradesh: Gangster Parvez Ahmed shot dead by STF in an encounter in Gorakhpur, was operating out of Nepal

Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Sunday shot dead gangster Parvez Ahmed in an encounter. Ahmed was wanted in BSP leader Jugaram Mehndi’s murder two years back. As per reports, he had escaped to Nepal after the murder and had a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head.

As per reports, he was spotted in Pipiganj of Gorakhpur area on a motorcycle with one of his aides. He had reportedly come to Gorakhpur from Nepal to meet someone where the police surrounded them. The police asked him to surrender but he opened fire at the police. According to police, he was killed in retaliatory firing.

In May this year, he had demanded extortion money from a businessman. When hew did not get the money, he allegedly killed him. Since then the STF had upped their ante to catch him.

Ahmed was a resident of Makhdoomnagar in Ambedkar Nagar district and was a close aide of underworld don Khan Mubarak and Chhota Rajan. He was involved in made in Pakistan fake currency smuggling racket from Nepal.

BSP leader Jugaram Mehndi’s murder

On 15th October 2018 at around 10 AM, assailants fired multiple bullets on BSP leader Jugaram Mehndi in Hirapur Bazar, Ambedkar Nagar. His driver was also killed while two passersby were injured. A case was registered against gangster Khan Mubarak and 10 others. Khan Mubarak himself is currently lodged in Hardoi jail.

A .32 mm pistol, one 9 mm pistol and 8 rounds of cartridge were recovered from Parvez. Rs 500 cash and a bag with some essentials were also recovered.

SMaRT, a collaboration of nationalistic media outlets to challenge the monopoly of left-liberal media, launches its website

OpIndia Staff
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SMaRT, a collaboration of nationalistic media outlets to challenge the monopoly of left-liberal media, launches its website

Samachar Manyata Association for Research and Training (SMaRT), a platform for nationalistic and dharmic digital media outlets, launched its website on June 5. Dr. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Rajya Sabha MP and the President of Indian Council for Cultural Relations, launched the website in a virtual event. SMaRT has been set up to break the monopoly of the left-liberals over the narrative in Indian media.

A statement issued by SMaRT said, “One of the biggest tragedies of independent India has been monopolisation of the narrative space by subscribers of one political ideology – starting from left of the Centre all the way to the extreme – communism and Marxism. While academia can be credited with providing the intellectual heft and popular media such as movies for subtly pushing the agenda, it is the news media which has been most influential for the simple reason that it reached more people than academics did (via radio, papers and finally tv) and was taken seriously unlike popular media.”

It adds that this narrative monopoly was broken in the last decade as social media emerged as a viable alternative to the mainstream media, which exposed the major names in the mainstream media what they are- shallow, partisan elites with disdain for India’s majority, their culture and their values.

It says that the people who challenged this old media are ordinary citizens with zero political access, graduated fresh from middle classes, holding the civilisational ethos of this land in high regard and nationalistic to a fault. One couldn’t have hoped for a more suited group of individuals to challenge the ‘manipulated media’, SMaRT said.

On various platforms such as news portals, social media, YouTube etc, such nationalistic people are making a disunited attempts to challenge the narratives set by the left-liberal media. As a result, even though well intentioned and highly motivated, they have not been able to achieve the desired result as they suffer from lack of a support system that the other side is well-armed with.

SMaRT is an initiative to fill this gap. SMaRT is not an industry association, and it does not attempt to influence editorial policies of any of its members. SMaRT aims to nurture and support its members through various initiatives that can help improve the quality of their content, widen its reach and help them achieve financial sustainability. These support initiatives include research grants, translation services, legal support, multimedia facilities for generating high quality content, start-up funding, advertisement support and more.

SMaRT was launched on 25th October, 2020, and within these 7 months, it has reached a key milestone of 60 members, with a combined reach of 80 million+ hits/views/impressions every month. SMaRT says it looks forward to encourage more nationalist and dharmic media members to join this initiative to amplify its voice to a much wider audience through this synergistic alliance.

“Monopolies are bad. They lead to lethargy, incompetence, inefficiency and ultimately bankruptcy. That’s what has happened in India’s media space as well. It’s time to change that”, the SMaRT press release added.

Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh glorifies Khalistani terrorist Bhindranwale on death anniversary, offers ‘pranam’

OpIndia Staff
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Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh glorifies Khalistani terrorist Bhindranwale on death anniversary, offers ‘pranam’

Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh glorified Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale on his death anniversary on Sunday. Harbhajan Singh hailed him as a ‘martyr’ and offered him ‘pranam’ in an Instagram story.

Harbhajan Singh glorifies Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (Image source: @netaji_bond/Twitter)

The poster says, “Live with pride, die for the religion.” He paid tribute to the terrorists on the 37th anniversary of Operation Blue Star. It features Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale at the center wearing a blue turban.

Posters of Bhindranwale as well as Khalistan flags were seen during an event inside Sri Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar earlier today. Pro-Khalistan group Dal Khalsa also carried out a march to the shrine to mark 6th June as ‘Khalistan Day’.

Operation Blue Star

Operation Blue Star was carried out between June 1 and June 8, 1984, in Amritsar’s Golden Temple. It was the biggest internal security mission ever undertaken by the Indian Army. It was ordered by Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India as a solution to law and order situation in Punjab.

During Operation Blue Star, Khalistan supporters took over the Akal Takht complex in Amritsar’s Golden Temple. The casualties as per the official reports were 83 Indian Army jawans and 492 civilians throughout the whole Operation. Few months later, on 31st October, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards to avenge for the Operation Blue Star. This led to large-scale anti-Sikh riots in India where Congress leaders were accused of leading mobs against Sikhs.

‘2 Rs Yogi toolkit’ fake, retired IAS officer Surya Pratap Singh had shared a doctored audio clip that showed UP CM in bad light

OpIndia Staff
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‘2 Rs Yogi toolkit’ fake, retired IAS officer Surya Pratap Singh had shared a doctored audio clip that showed UP CM in bad light

An audio clip had gone viral recently where a person could be heard being told to tweet in favour of Yogi Adityanath from a fake account. The name of Gajendra Chauhan is also mentioned. Propagandists had cited the audio clip to claim that people were being told to tweet in support of BJP for 2 rupees, which led it to being labeled ‘2 Rs Yogi toolkit’.

The audio was posted by retired IAS officer Surya Pratap Singh, who has been attacking the BJP govt continuous for last several months.

Uttar Pradesh police investigated the matter following a complaint by Atul Kushwaha on the 31st of May and found that it was a doctored video shared with the intention to cause defamation. In a statement, the Kanpur Nagar Media Cell has said that Ashish Pandey and Atul Kushwaha work in social media management for various clients.

Thus, due to professional rivalry, Pandey wanted to ruin Kushwaha’s reputation. Pandey solicited the help of subordinate Himanshu Saini to achieve the objective. Himanshu befriended a 15-year old boy on social media and recorded two calls which were conversations with him.

Statement by Kanpur Nagar Media Cell

After that, Ashish Pandey and Himanshu Saini edited the two audio clips to create a clip that could be made to go viral. It was this doctored ‘2 Rs Yogi toolkit’ audio that retired IAS officer SP Singh had shared on Twitter and ‘journalist’ Rohini Singh had tweeted about it.

Evidence has been recovered from the mobile phones and laptops of the accused and both of them have confessed to the crime. A case has been registered under sections 465/468/469/471/505/34 and other relevant provisions of the IT Act.

Earlier this week, the Kanpur Police had filed an FIR against Surya Pratap Singh, Puneet Saini and Himanshu Saini after Atul Khushwaha had registered a complaint against them. He had said that ‘as part of the cheap politics of the Opposition, his name is being ruined on social media. He added that “the audio is also attempting to defame the Yogi government.”

Another woman volunteer alleges harassment by ‘farmer’ protest activists, kept quiet so far because she did not want to compromise the ‘morcha’

OpIndia Staff
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Another woman volunteer alleges harassment by ‘farmer’ protest activists, kept quiet so far because she did not want to compromise the ‘morcha’

Less than a month after a woman from West Bengal was allegedly raped by two ‘farmer’ protestors at the Tikri border, another case of harassment has been reported from the farmer protest site.

A social media user named Shivani Dhillon (@shivani_sikh) said that a Punjabi volunteer was harassed by farmer protest volunteers. Taking to Twitter, Dhillon accused followers of a person named Dr Swaiman Singh, an American doctor who is one of the organisers of the protests, of harassing a woman volunteer working at his organisation, promoting vaccine amongst protestors.

Sharing the screenshots of an Instagram post shared by the victim, Dhillon narrated how Dr Swaiman Singh and his followers harassed the victim.

Narrating her ordeal in the post, the victim said that after watching videos of Dr Swaiman Singh’s work, she wanted to create awareness about Covid-19 and vaccinations amongst protestors sitting at Tikri Border and hence she decided to volunteer in his organization in April this year.

As she came to the Tikri border, she was given a room with women protestors from a village at the end of the corridor in the building of Pind California, a medical centre established by Dr Swaiman Singh at the Tikri protest site.

“In the first few interactions themselves, I felt uneasy with some of the male volunteers, but I brushed it off. I did not interact much with them in these two days except when absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, on the third day, the female doctors and my women roommates had to leave, and I was left alone in the room. There were women protestors still in the other room, and I asked a few of them to sleep in my room as I didn’t want to be left alone,” the woman, whose identity is yet to be known, said.

According to the victim, the followers of Dr Singh passed lewd comments on her, who insinuated that she was in a romantic/sexual relationship with another volunteer. However, when the lady protested and gave an earful to the two and tried to complain to an uncle nearby, the alleged protestors ganged up on the latter and bullied the victim.

As the victim went to Dr Singh to complain about the behaviour of the two individuals, he refused to help her, saying, “this wasn’t America”, and that those volunteers had been here for 4-5 months, while she had been at the protest site for only 2-3 days.

“The next day the first thing I went to Dr Singh and told him that I needed to talk to him about something imp. We had a chat in the noon where I told him that his volunteers made me uncomfortable. To which his reaction was – I cannot take care of your safety. That he will leave me back to Singhu and will call me when the women doctors were here. That this wasn’t America etc,” the women noted her in post.

The victim further said that the during three-four days she spent at the Tikri border, she came to know that Dr Singh’s volunteers were slut-shaming her.

“They weren’t used to woman giving it back to them or listening to ‘No’, and their fragile ego had been shattered to pieces by my actions. Hence the slut-shaming. I thought it would end once I left the protest (and I shudder to think how many more women would have left coz of the rampant sexism, misogyny, and the harassment faced at the hands of these men! inclusive space much?)” the victim shared her story.

Interestingly, she also said that she had kept quiet so far because she did not want to want to affect the ‘morcha’ negatively.

Concluding her post, the woman said that if anyone did not care for morcha, it was Dr Singh and not her. The victim also said that the morcha is not affected by women who speak out the crimes of their perpetrators but by the men who do such things. “And this shame or guilt is not mine to have, but it is the harassers and their enablers who need self-introspection and stop treating us women as a dispensable part of this protest and society in general,” she said.

The horrific case of protestors sexually harassing a Punjabi volunteer comes just a month after a 25-year old women activist hailing from West Bengal was raped and blackmailed by the goons at the farmers’ protest at the Delhi-Haryana Tikri border.

Woman who died of COVID at the Tikri border protest site was raped and blackmailed

A woman protestor had reached the protest site at Tikri in mid-April, who was subjected to sexual assault on more than one occasion.

The incident had come to light after her father had filed an FIR. As per the complaint, on April 10, the woman, aged around 25 years, came to the Tikri border protest site from West Bengal with a group to join the farmers’ protest against the recently enacted agriculture laws.

The father of the victim had said that his daughter was raped by two men at the Tikri protest site. The whole story was narrated by the woman to her father over the phone as per the complaint. In his complaint, the father named six persons identified as Anil Malik, Anup Singh Chanaut, Ankur Sangwan, Kovita Arya, Jagdish Brar and Yogita Suhag, who went to West Bengal on behalf of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

The main perpetrators of the crime are alleged to be two AAP leaders who masterminded the entire incident. On April 26, the victim was admitted to a hospital in the Jhajjar district, who also showed Covid symptoms. However, the young woman succumbed to death on April 30 after contracting coronavirus.

Editors note: In an earlier version of this article, we had identified the victim as a ‘nurse’ when she was actually just a volunteer. Further, this article classified this incident as a case of molestation when it was a case of sexual harassment. We had relied on social media posts and other reports from mainstream media like CNN News 18. It should be noted that the Instagram post by the victim matched with the screenshots put up by the Twitter user, however, we didn’t use the Instagram post as our source as we tried to avoid putting out any identifiable details of the victim as mandated by the law. Some errors crept in due to this process. This report has also been updated to reflect that the victim stayed silent for a long time because she did not want to compromise the ‘sanctity of the ‘farmers protest’ and continues to support the farmers protest. The report has been updated and the error is regretted.

Saayoni Ghosh, who made Hinduphobic posts, appointed president of TMC youth wing

OpIndia Staff
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Saayoni Ghosh, who made Hinduphobic posts, appointed president of TMC youth wing

Actress Saayoni Ghosh has been appointed the president of the All India Trinamool Youth Congress on Saturday. Incidentally, she is the same actress who had come under the scanner for her Hinduphobic social media posts.

“This is the first time in my career that I was offered but refused two films without even reading the scripts. Since acting is in my blood, I will act if I am given an offer that I can’t refuse. Currently I will give my 120% to politics and Mamata Banerjee,” the actress said following her appointment.

Saayoni Ghosh contested the 2021 Assembly Elections from the Asansol South constituency where she lost to BJP’s Agnimitra Paul by a margin of just under 4,500 votes.

Saayoni Ghosh
The controversial tweet by Saayoni Ghosh

On February 18, 2015, the actress had tweeted a picture wherein a female character was seen putting a condom over the sacred Hindu symbol of a Shivling. She wrote, “Gods cudnt have been more useful.” Her tweet maligning Hindu culture was posted on the auspicious occasion of Maha Shivratri, which was observed on February 17 that year.

Saayoni Ghosh had subsequently issued an apology claiming that her account had been hacked. Following the announcement of her candidature from Asansol South, people had outraged against the decision and accused the Trinamool Congress of not caring for Hindu sentiments.

Recently, during the campaign for the West Bengal assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee was spotted chanting the Chandi Paath and other Hindu incantations to rebut allegations that her party indulges in minority appeasement. However, with elections out of the way, she has cleared the path for Ghosh’s elevation to the position.

Rape of a 16-year-old minor girl in Mumbai by her ‘Instagram friends’ reveal a dark side of social media no one talks about

Akshita Bhadauria
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Rape of a 16-year-old minor girl in Mumbai by her ‘Instagram friends’ reveal a dark side of social media no one talks about

Mumbai police arrested six people in the age group of 19 and 23 for allegedly assaulting a 16-year-old girl sexually in the northern suburbs.

The six boys were arrested after the victim’s mother had lodged a complaint with the police when her daughter did not return home from a birthday party on the intervening night of May 31-June 01. 

A case of kidnapping was registered with the Malvani police when the mother approached the police with a missing complaint. “The accused are survivor’s social media friends,” said the police officer. On June 1, the girl returned home, however, she did not reveal anything to her parents. Her mother then informed the police who with a team took the victim into confidence to narrate the incident. 

The minor then informed that she had been invited for a friend’s birthday party near a hotel in Madh. Upon reaching the spot she saw three of her male friends were waiting for her. Post the birthday celebrations in a parked car the three boys raped her inside the vehicle. Scared to face her parents, the girl went to a friend’s house who she knew through Instagram. She said that he also raped her. She then went to the houses of two other friends she knew through Instagram, who also sexually assaulted her.

The accused have been booked under the charges of gang rape and various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. After being produced before the court, the accused have been remanded to police custody.

Privacy, data leaks, cyber crimes, morphing and doxxing are terms alien to the young who have unlimited access to digital devices and social media without understanding the perils of it. With technology at our fingertips but very little knowledge on how to make correct use of it, the humongous virtual world act more like a trap especially for young minds.

The dark side of social media 

As per a 2021 data, social media applications such as Snapchat, Tik Tok and Instagram have the 13-34 age group as their largest active audience. With abusive, sexual and violent content unfurled all across these platforms with very little monitoring, it is simply trapping more and more children in the virtual world, dragging them far away from reality.

From making friends to fans, social media acceptance is seen as an achievement by the teens thus pushing them to indulge in age-inappropriate activities to get the ‘desired reach.’

A 2020 Netflix documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’ brought to light the world of the millennials and the Gen-Z chasing likes and shares on these virtual platforms. So much so, that rejection (not getting enough likes) has pushed enough children in the USA towards suicide and mental depression. 

Not built for children originally, the wide acceptance and very little parental control have encouraged the social media platforms to launch newer features and tools making it ‘child-friendly’ while they are busy making friends on social media. 

As if pushing the young minds into a virtual world with the existing platforms was not enough, after YouTube kids, Instagram is all set to launch ‘Instagram for kids.’

As parents worry about the mental health and growing lack of confidence and communication skills among their children, the big tech is viewing the teens and pre-teens as nothing more than an untapped market. 

17-year-old jumped to death for being labeled a ‘rapist’

On the 4th of May, 2020, a 17-year-old boy, Manav, jumped from the 11th floor of his apartment building, landing on the road below and ultimately, losing his life after being labeled as a ‘rapist’.

An Instagram group had been outed by a girl, where a bunch of teenage boys were seemingly discussing women, sharing their explicit photographs and discussing how they can gang-rape them. Though it was later found that the chat about ‘gang-rape‘ was initiated by a girl who was trying to “test” the boys, at the time, a raging discussion had erupted about the conduct of up-scale boys and the lack of respect for women and their privacy.

Amidst the controversy, a teenage girl took to Instagram and narrated a story about how she was allegedly raped over 2 years ago by a boy named Manav. In the one hour that followed, threats were made to the boy, he was vilified, branded, insulted, abused. The pressure and the prospect of a life of shame were too much for Manav to accept pushing him into committing suicide.

Girls locker room

Two days after the ‘Bois Locker Room’ Instagram chat took Twitter by storm for glorifying rape culture, another controversy, of a similar nature, had come to the fore. That time around, screenshots of voyeuristic chats between the girls of an alleged version of girls’ locker room were doing the rounds on the Internet. The alleged women-only group is run by girls and is allegedly used for objectifying men and making unsavoury remarks against them.

Cybercrimes on a rise

With the pandemic keeping the schools shut, children locked up at home and hooked to digital devices, cybercrime cases are on a rise. As per a Money Control report, two classmates (male and female) chatted frequently on social media. One day the boy’s account was hacked and the hacker started chatting with the girl and began sending “soiled” links, vulgar images and even posted it on the boy’s social media accounts, leading to an uproar.

Only upon a legal investigation was it found that the male student’s account was broken into and that he was innocent of the crimes for which he was arrested traumatizing both the students. 

In a serious case of online radicalization, four boys went missing from the Kalyan area of Maharashtra and were found dead in another country a few weeks later.

A police investigation revealed that the boys were chatting on social media with a girl, who was nothing but a bot. The boys went on to become ISIS fighters and traveled via multiple countries to reach their destination, with their families unaware of their situation and they are not the only ones.

Lack of parental control

While the internet can be a great place to surf, connect and shop, the content floating on the world wide web is not necessarily appropriate for minors with parents having very little knowledge of the content.

From abusive meme pages that are full of sexual inuendos to glamorous ‘reels’, a wide variety of content is dished out to the minors who ultimately think of it as regular content. 

As per a 2016 survey, 51 per cent of teens do not share incidents of the web with their parents. Most parents are unaware of hacking, cyberbullying, data theft and radicalization all of which are easily possible through social media networks. 

Unfortunately, keeping an eye over the online activities of children is now seen as restricting their freedom. However, there is a need to find a balance, educate parents about the content available on especially social media and a need to monitor not just the time but even the activities of especially teens and pre-teens on social media.

Apart from making use of the very same technology to keep an eye on the activities of children like parental control applications, it is imperative for the parents to establish a strong communication bond with the kids. While the crimes can be kept at bay with several applications, it is crucial to monitor the content being consumed by children and also be aware of the content being put out by them in the virtual space.

In the digital space where even children are not spared, it is not a bad idea for parents to take up some digital courses on ‘online safety for parents’ available for free.

Ekta Kapoor alleges child rape accusations against Pearl V Puri are false, Mumbai Police refutes her claims

OpIndia Staff
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Ekta Kapoor alleges child rape accusations against Pearl V Puri are false, Mumbai Police refutes her claims

Television actor Pearl V Puri, best known for his role in the Hindi television serial Naagin 3, was arrested on June 4 in an alleged rape case of a minor, sending ripples in the television industry. The actor along with five others was taken into custody by the Malad police for interrogation.

Post his arrest, several of his colleagues came out in support of the actor including Indian television producer Ekta Kapoor. Taking to social media, Kapoor had claimed that Pearl Puri had been falsely accused in the rape case of a minor and that the case was made up by the victim’s father to win an ongoing custody battle for their child.

Reacting to Kapoor’s allegations, Vasai DCP Sanjay Kumar Patil, who is handling the case, informed in a press conference that the accusations against Pearl are not baseless and that they have enough proof.

“No, the accusations are not false. His name has come up in the investigation. There is evidence against him. That is why the police has arrested him. The truth will be decided in the trial,” DCP Patil clarified. 

The officer also revealed that the case was filed by the victim’s father who claimed the incident happened on the sets of a show being shot in Naigaon in 2019. It is said that the victim’s mother was also a part of the same show.

“The victims’ statement was recorded and a medical examination was also done. Her statement was also recorded under CrPC 164. The accused was arrested as he had a role in the incident,” added the DCP. 

Ekta Kapoor claimed Puri being dragged into the matter

Ekta Kapoor in her Instagram post claimed that the actor was being falsely accused by the victim’s father. Her post read, “Will I support a child molester…or a molester of any kind? But what I witnessed from last night to now, was the absolute low in human depravity. How can humanity go to this level? How can people who are upset with each other, drag a third person into their own fight? How can a human being take on another human being and do this?”

Putting out more information, Kapoor wrote, “After various calls with the child‘s/girl’s mother, who openly said that Pearl was not involved and it’s her husband trying to create stories to keep her child and prove that a working mother on a set cannot take care of her kid. If this is true then it is wrong on so many levels,” she added.

“Using an extremely important movement like ‘Me Too’ frivolously, to get your own agendas met with and mentally torturing a child and making an innocent person guilty. I have no right to decide, the courts will decide who is right & wrong. My opinion only comes from what the girl’s mother said to me last night & that is – Pearl is innocent …and it is very very sad if people are using various tactics to prove working mothers are unable to take care of their children, because there are predators on the set,” she added.

TV celebrities come in support of Pearl Puri

Apart from Ekta Kapoor, popular television celebrities including Hina Khan, Nia Sharma, Aly Goni, Karishma Tanna and many more also have come out in support of the Naagin 3 actor. 

Actor Nia Sharma took to Instagram to register her protest against fake allegations. Her post read, “Actor Nia Sharma wrote on Instagram, “Rape is not a joke, no excuse, no means to come at someone to satisfy a bruised ego. Rape and molestation stories are terrifying and far beyond imagination in India. The real victims die, their stories go unheard, their families are waiting for justice all their lives. Do not belittle them. Do not make a mockery of it. Rape allegations cannot fu**ing be used at will. It Cannot. It should not. @pearlvpuri sorry it happened to you.”

Pearl Puri’s colleague Surbhi Jyoti tweeted, “I have worked with him. I know him very well. He is a very nice and humble human being. I stand with him. #istandwithpearl #letthetruthprevail @pearlvpuri.” Aly Goni said that he is the sweetest guy and said that the news cannot be true. On similar lines, Hina Khan too took to her Instagram stories and said that he is one of the kindest souls.

Actor Krystle D’Souza also extended her support saying, “I know @pearlvpuri and he is one of the nicest boys I’ve met in our tv industry. A thorough gentleman. Please don’t jump to conclusions on baseless allegations. Let’s wait for the truth to come out. #istandwithpearl #PearlVPuri.”

Pearl Puri has been sent to 14-day judicial custody. 

Uttar Pradesh: Hindu temple in Alampur attacked, Shivling found uprooted and desecrated

OpIndia Staff
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Uttar Pradesh: Hindu temple in Alampur attacked, Shivling found uprooted and desecrated

A Shiva temple in the Alampur village of Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh was attacked on the evening of June 5. The Shivling of the temple was found uprooted and desecrated outside the temple leading to a tense situation in the village.

After the images and posts of the desecrated temple went viral on social media, the OpIndia team contacted the locals and the police of the village to know more about the incident. 

As per a local, the temple which is around 40-50 years old came under attack on Saturday. The lock of the temple was found broken with the Shivling uprooted from its original place. The local also informed that the situation was tensed after the villagers found the idol vandalized. However, with the arrival of the police, the situation was brought under control. 

SO Amardeep Lal of Mirzapur police station who was at the site of the incident when contacted confirmed to OpIndia that the Hindu temple was found attacked. With the priest, village head and locals present at the location, SO Lal assured that efforts are already being made to resurrect the idol. 

Temples under attack in Andhra Pradesh

Early this year we had reported on how a series of temple vandalism incidents across Andhra Pradesh had left Hindus all over the country horrified and shaken.

A 400-year old mūrti of Sri Rāma at Ramathirtha, Vizianagaram District, AP on the 29th of December 2020 was found decapitated. The head of Sri Rāma was found after being thrown in the temple tank.

Prior to that a 12th century Nandi was found broken to pieces at a Śiva temple in Chittur district; two old Hindu temples in Suryaraopeta, East Godavari district was illegally demolished by neighbouring Church’s Pastor, who also stole the antique idols housed within, and 23 idols of small shrines in Pithapuram, East Godavari district was brutally vandalized.

In 2020, about 228 cases of attacks on temples were registered in Andhra Pradesh, 305 cases in 2019, 267 in 2018, 318 in 2017, 332 in 2016 and 290 in 2015. 

The unprovoked, systematic attacks on Hindu temples have increased both in magnitude and seriousness over the past few years. 

Did a pet hippo kill and eat his owner six years after he was ‘adopted’ as per viral message? Here are the details

OpIndia Staff
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Did a pet hippo kill and eat his owner six years after he was ‘adopted’ as per viral message? Here are the details

Earlier this week, several users took to Twitter to share a news report claiming that a hippopotamus had dragged a South African man named Marius Els and ate him near a river, six years after he had rescued and adopted the baby hippo.

A social media account named Facts (@StrangeFactoid) shared a news report on Twitter on Friday saying, in 2005, a South African man, Marius Els, had adopted a baby hippo after rescuing it from a river. However, six years later, after years of bonding between the two, the hippo dragged him into that same river and “ate” him.

Even though the news reports of a South African national being mauled to death by a hippo is true, however, it is misleading to claim that he was eaten by the same hippo that he had ‘adopted’ six years ago after rescuing from a river.

Did Hippopotamus eat the South African man?

The incident pertains to the tragic death of a farmer from South Africa named Marius Els, who was mauled to death by his pet hippo Humphrey. In an incident that had occurred in November 2011, 40-year-old Army Major Marius Els was killed by the 1.2-tonne hippo he had adopted and tried to domesticate on a farm in Free State province.

The body of Els was found in a river with marks of being bitten by a huge animal several times, which he had earlier described as his son. Els’s body was found submerged in the river where he had rescued the hippo from a flood six years ago.

The hippo grew too big for the people who adopted it and was bought by Els at the age of five months, becoming his pet on his 400-acre farm. Els was also photographed riding on the five-year-old hippo’s back.

Marius Els on the back of Humphrey near his farm/ Image Source: MTC

“Humphrey’s like a son to me, he’s just like a human,” he had said. “There’s a relationship between Humphrey and me and that’s what some people don’t understand. They think you can only have a relationship with dogs, cats and domestic animals. But I have a relationship with the most dangerous animal in Africa,” Els had said.

However, Els’s wife, Louise, a pharmacist, had a different story to tell. She had expressed misgivings about the hippo as the giant animal had caused trouble before. Earlier in 2011, a 52-year-old man and his seven-year-old grandson had to climb and stay atop a tree for two hours after being chased by Humphrey.

Similarly, Humphrey has also been accused of killing calves belonging to Els’s business partner. The animal also frequently broke out of its enclosure and chased golfers at a local golf club.

Els, who had also domesticated kept giraffe and rhino, claimed the sound of his voice would bring Humphrey back home. He regarded the hippo as “loveable” and a “gentle giant”.

Except, years later, Humphrey mauled Els in the river on that fateful day and left him submerged in the water for several hours, causing his death. Though there were some bitten marks on Els’s body, the hippo had not eaten up the body after killing him, as claimed by social media users.

Hence, social media users claiming that the hippo “killed and ate” the man, who had adopted and domesticated for years, is misleading.

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