On Sunday, Union Minister Piyush Goyal was at an event which was organised so Bollywood celebrities can meet and interact with the minister regarding the newly enacted Citizenship Amendment Act and the truth and myths surrounding the legislation. Bollywood is essentially a part of the “Liberal” ecosystem and the magnitude of bullying and abuse that stars have faced in the past for meeting PM Modi or even supporting a step the government, has been apparent. However, despite the bullying and abuse, over 70 celebrities chose to attend that meeting.
Several veteran Bollywood personalities attended the meeting. Among those who attended the meeting were veteran producer and writer Shabbir Boxwala who has been in the industry for the past 3 decades and Ritesh Sidhwani who is an Indian film producer and executive. He is the co-founder of Excel Entertainment with Farhan Akhtar. Siidhwani has produced movies like Rock On, Fukrey returns, KGF – Chapter 1, Dil Chahta Hai, Don etc. Director and Producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah too attended the event along with leading singers like Shaan and Kailash Kher.
Some famous names that attended the event included Ranveer Shorey, Kailash Kher, Prasoon Joshi, Prahlad Kakkar, Rahul Rawail and a host of other actors, directors, producers and writers.
While several personalities attended the meeting, the media has been insistent that “A-Listers” gave the meeting a miss, insinuating that they did so because they oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act or that there is disenchantment that is brewing against the Modi government. However, the reality is far from it.
According to our sources, when the invites were sent, Rajkumar Rao said that he was not in the country till the 15th of January and thus, won’t be able to make it. Imtiaz Ali’s message read, “I am very far away in Antarctica. But great that this is happening :)”. In fact, even Javed Jaffri, who was invited for the meeting said that he would not be able to attend since he was in London and would be back only on the 19th.
Dia Mirza, who has been one of the names doing the rounds for not attending the meeting, had messaged the organisers to say, “Thank you so much for your kind invitation. Unfortunately, I am in Hyderabad tomorrow. Will miss this opportunity to be a part of this important conversation. May this prove to be insightful and productive for all”.
While the media has tried to portray that most of these celebrities did not attend because of their opposition to the Modi government, the reason that our sources confirmed was very different.
In fact, another propaganda that was spread by the media was that the event did not bother inviting “dissenting voices” such as Anurag Kashyap. However, this is also a lie. Director Vipul Shah has confirmed that he personally invited Anurag Kashyap and Swara Bhaskar too, however, they chose not to be a part of the conversation.
The bullying and propaganda of the media were such that T-Series Chief Bhushan Kumar went on record to cleverly insinuate that while he was present at the hotel, he did not attend the meeting with Piyush Goyal.
Was it so embarrassing to attend a meeting with a minister to discuss “myths and realities” of CAA that Bhushan Kumar—one of the biggest producers in Bollywood— had to completely deny it in front of the media? This, after a BJP leader thanked him for attending it ? pic.twitter.com/ccRkk7I4E6
However, this is far from the truth. OpIndia has accessed photographs from this meeting that prove Bhushan Kumar was present at the meeting.
Bollywood celebrities meeting Piyush Goyal
As one can see, the circled individual behind actor Ranveer Shorey is Bhushan Kumar.
One has to wonder how much the celebrities fear the Liberal-Fascist bullying that they would have to publicly deny attending a meeting with a Union Minister aimed to understand legislation better just because the Liberals think it is fashionable to oppose it.
Kritika Sen, a JNU student who was injured in the clashes and violence that ensured in the University campus on Sunday, has stated to India Today that the doctors at AIIMS discriminated against the injured students on the basis of ideology.
As per a report in Aaj Tak, Kritika Sen, a JNU student and ABVP member, has alleged that when the injured students were being admitted to AIIMS, the doctors there were asking each student whether they belonged to ABVP or the left. She has also alleged misbehaviour by the medical staff.
As per the report, Sen has also stated that ABVP members are less in numbers than the leftists in JNU campus and they are not safe. She also alleged that while she was admitted in AIIMS at 6 in the evening and JNUSU president Aishee Ghosh was admitted at 9, still, Ghosh’s supporters were treated on a priority basis.
The report also mentions that ABVP members treated in AIIMS have also alleged that when Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited AIIMS to meet the injured students, her supporters first inquired which ideology did the injured persons belong to. They have also alleged that Priyanka’s Congress workers initially gave some shawls to the injured students, but later they took it away.
JNU had witnessed large-scale violence and chaos on Sunday when masked attackers had entered hostels and had beaten students up with sticks and rods. Several hundred policemen had been deployed to control the situation. Over 30 students had sustained injuries. The left and the ABVP have been throwing allegations at each other.
There were reports that outsiders, mainly students from Jamia Millia Islamia were called by leftists to attack student groups. The JNU administration, in a written statement, has stated that the agitating student groups had damaged the servers in the communication room to halt the registration process and have been physically stopping non-agitating students from visiting their respective schools for academic activities.
A ‘Free Kashmir’ placard was spotted at the protests in Mumbai in solidarity with the students of JNU after masked goons unleashed violence at the campus on Sunday. The presence of “Free Kashmir” poster at the protest led many to suspect that it is not merely a students’ protest against the JNU violence, but there were anti-national forces involved.
As it turns out, the DGISPR of Pakistan, Asif Ghafoor, cited a report about the placard to declare that it was the ‘beginning of the end’ for India. In his tweet, he also claimed that Kashmir is Pakistan.
Despite the statement made by the Pakistani, the former nationalist party Shiv Sena did not find anything wrong with these protests and downplayed the whole incident. Shiv Sena’s firebrand Shayari expert Sanjay Raut has stated that he has come to know that the ‘free Kashmir’ posters did not mean actually ‘free Kashmir’ and they wanted only freedom from restrictions of internet services, mobile services and other issues. Maharashtra government’s new tourism and environment minister Aaditya Thackeray also dismissed the ‘Free Kashmir’ placard at the protests and said that we need to “look at the larger picture”.
The woman who demonstrated with the placard, identified as Mehak Mirza Prabhu, has now issued an apology over the matter. “The picture created by entire social media came as an absolute shock to me. Placard meant freedom to express themselves, freedom from the internet lockdown which many people have been voicing for. I was voicing my solidarity for basic constitutional right,” she said. She added, “If by being naive in understanding the impact it would have, and in the process create this stir. I apologise.”
Mehak is a ‘storyteller’ and reportedly often works in collaboration with Mohammad Muneer Nazir, head of Kashmiri band Alif.
A fringe group named Hindu Raksha Dal has claimed responsibility for the violence on Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday. In a video clip released by its leader, Pinky Chaudhary, the outfit blamed the university for being a hotbed of anti-national activities.
Pinky Chaudhary,Hindu Raksha Dal: JNU is a hotbed of anti-national activities, we can’t tolerate this. We take full responsibility of the attack in JNU and would like to say that they were our workers. #JNUViolencepic.twitter.com/2GkCIOqOFO
Pinky Chaudhary said in the video, “JNU is a hotbed of anti-national activities and we cannot tolerate this. We take full responsibility of the attack in JNU and would like to say that they were our workers.” He added, “The way these people have been behaving over the years, especially the people in JNU, it is against our religion. We can never tolerate such anti-national activities.”
Pinky Chaudhary also stated, “These people live in our country, eat here, study here and indulge in anti-national activities. Hindu Raksha Dal will never tolerate this and again attack whoever tries such ideals.” “If in future others indulge in similar anti-national activities, we will again carry out similar action in those universities. We take responsibility to carry out these actions,” Pinky Chaudhary added.
The government has reportedly taken cognizance of the claims made by the outfit. According to sources quoted by ANI, “Delhi Police has taken cognizance. To identity masked men in JNU, Police is taking help of video footage as well as face recognition systems.”
Earlier, the Delhi Police had filed an FIR against JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh and 19 others for vandalising server room on 4th January, 2020. The complaint was filed by JNU administration on 5th January, 2020, Sunday.
Indrani Roy Chowdhury, Associate Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Monday took to Facebook to share what transpired on campus which led to unprecedented violence where masked goons wreaked havoc. In a now deleted post on Facebook, Roy Chowdhury throws some light on what happened on Sunday, January 5, 2020. Her post has been reproduced below verbatim.
Alas ! Media has finally waken up with half truths. JNU is again flashing back in the headlines.
Where were the media when JNU website was hacked for two days by the agitating students with masks (except the one, who perhaps is pursuing the ambition of being another Kanaiya Kumar)? Where were the media when the windows were broken, when the central server of JNU was vandalized, lakhs of rupees of optic fiber wires were cut and destroyed, staffs were evicted from the Communication & Information Service Centre (CIS), by a group of students, in order to disrupt the registration process of the willing students?
This is the heinous crime I ever heard of from the student community, this is incredible that some of our students like terrorists are hiding their faces and destroying the public properties of the University of national eminence. Ironically the media selectively and briefly shared the news. Ironically the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) instead of condemning remained mysteriously silent about this act of vandalism. Even after that some of us were surprised to learn that no police was called inside the campus and no action has been taken so far against those students who committed this crime. Only the internal security somehow cleared the blokage and we heard that students guarding the gate were beaten up. We heard (and saw the pictures) that the central server is damaged so much that it is still under restoration and the registration could not be started even today. We have learnt that JNUSU have strongly condemned the assault towards the students who were guarding the CIS. Curiously I asked one of the agitating student whom I taught, that “you talk about democratic rights and you condemned the assault of some students but you are not condemning this act of vandalism ? He replied “this was done by some miscreant students whom we don’t have control”. I asked then why you condemn the assault ? Don’t you think they deserve some punishments ? The answer is obviously blowing in the wind.
There is no answer for many things. No answer why the students are not celebrating their win when these two months of lock down has actually managed to reduce the hostel rents to 600 /300 and 150/300 for the BPL students ? Why they want to still continue this lock downs ? Some of them are saying they want full role back, some says we have some more agendas to fulfill. Some are suspicious of something. Of all these, some of our students are sharing confidentially that they want to withdraw from the movement because they suspect some hidden agendas and vested interests.
We the helpless, voiceless spectators, who have been thrown out from our own office rooms for the last two months, are biting nails, undergoing depressions, fighting all odds and sitting in roadsides or in the parking lot in the harsh winter for student advise or other important academic activities and hoping against all lost hopes that normalcy will be restored soon in the coming days, when we will get back to our own cosy corner, where we can again get lost in our own thoughts, without any interference. Some of us in some of the days under desperate situation have to plead the students, who are blocking all the gates of our school building, to allow access to our own office rooms, for just five minutes, to collect some important documents, books or hard disc etc. If we succeed we will be accompanied by some student to watch our movements. Many of the times, we face harsh words, indefinite wait, denial, asking us to come in the weekends or after the office hours. Many of the times our PhD students would get access to open our office room (instead of us) to take out some important stuffs. There is no platform in these days to raise voice about the intrusion of the democratic space of a teacher, for it us no longer a concern for JNUTA. But we do often talk, argue, debate so much about ‘democratic space’ in JNU!!
JNU administration has announced the registration for this winter semester from January 1st to 5th and opened the option for those students who have discarded the examination for three times (and therefore could not finish the last semester evaluation, because of the movements), by giving them provisional registration and has made the registration online for all. First two days the registration was taking in a slower pace, which always happens as the students have to collect the clearances from different places. But it seems many were interested to register, many are actually exhausted by the two whole months of agitation, many are the Masters students whose future are uncertain and have to prepare themselves for rounds of competitive procedures, many of them are 9B PhD students, who have to submit their thesis by this June, many are the MPhil 4th semester students who have to submit dissertation in the forthcoming June. The students now divided and in favour of registration are gaining strength.
So long things were more or less uncontested, there were support from the students, support from the teachers. But now something is going against, the student support base is getting thinner but the movement can not be withdrawn. The registration process should be disrupted, so that none can register.That becomes the root cause of the conflict.
I was in the Dean office yesterday from 10:00 am. and has been traumatized to witness the frenzy of the students shouting slogans for boycotting registration, threatening us to leave the place within 5 minutes or they will lock us for hours. Some students already were there for registration but the server was still under restoration. Around 11:00 am onward, around 20-25 aggressive students of JNUSU were entering the building in waves and it was strategically the girls who were threatening, shouting, abusing the office staffs and the students waiting inside for registration. The blocked the school gate for the faculty as well as students. Four of the PhD students (Suman, Shantu, Shubomoy and Arup) belonging to our Centre were there for registration and were guarding us. These students to the best of my knowledge are not actively belonging to any political camps. During that times students from both sides were taking the video clipage of those incidents. Four five girls students snatched the mobile from Shubhomoy and threw it outside, then they started abusing each of them, violently dragging them with snatching their collar to outside and slapping, thrashing and abusing verbally. Shantu was heckled and bullied for taking videos, his jacket was torn down in front of us, Arup was thrashed and abused for more than half an hour and his mobile had been snatched by somebody.
These JNUSU students managed to do all these to those innocent students without any opposition, as there were not a single AVBP students around during that time. There were students in masked face standing and watching in groups and many of us were suspecting that some of them may not be our students and some may be from Jamia Millia. When Arup was finally resqued from the girls mob he was traumatised, crying and shivering like anything. We were simply shocked by their intensity of nastiness and vulgarity. Overhearing about FIR from us they shouted back by saying they will lodge FIR by alleging that these students (Arup etc) have sexually abused them. Around 5:00 pm we saw hundreds of students with masked face were running with big sticks, rods and stones towards the hostels. Later i heard that Tapti, Sabarmati, Koyena, one after another hostels were attacked, CC TVs have been vandalized and even the faculty quarters have been attacked. Some students are badly injured, some fled outside, some are missing and videos keep pouring from all corners with news of brutality, injury and blood shade. I left around 6:00 pm and didn’t witness the horrifying episodes followed by that. I am deeply anguished to learn that our seniour colleague (Prof Sucharita Sen) is badly injured. I am deeply worried about the safety of those vulnerable students, because it is easier to cause harm to someone with no political footings.
It is difficult to believe that it is the University which taught us to respect diversity, to create space for differences in opinions and thoughts and create harmony and coexistence. It is not the University I knew and taking pride of being that fraternity.
Crimes against women in Rajasthan increased by almost 50% in the year 2019, compared to the previous year, according to crime data published by Director General of Police of the state Bhupendra Singh on Monday. Overall crimes increased by 31% during the last year in the state, with cases of rape, abduction, murder, dacoity, theft, loot etc seeing a substantial hike.
A total of 41,155 cases of crime against women were reported in Rajasthan in 2019, which is 13,561 more than in 2018. This means the cases of rape went up by 49.14% compared to 2018, while it increased by 61.01% compared to the year 2017. The cases of molestation went up by a whopping 68%, while rape cases have gone up by 38.34% in the year. The cases of rape of minors also increased by 22%.
Police officials said that the increase in crime rate is mainly due to increasing awareness among people to register cases with the police. Addressing media, the DGP said, “although there has been a spike in crime rate, disposal of cases also increased simultaneously. The law and order situation was better than 2018 and even during the Lok Sabha elections, no cases of violence were reported along with the fact that repolling was not required. There are certain issues which still need to be worked on and we are focusing on those.”
Rajasthan Crime data for 2019
He added, “our focus in 2019 was on ensuring that every case is registered and no grievance gets left unattended. We took effective action against organised crimes last year.”
Although the cases of crime have gone up, the incidents of communal violence have gone down in Rajasthan in 2019. Compared to 313 incidents of communal violence in 2018, only 7 such cases were reported in 2019.
The disposal of cases also showed an increased, as a total of 2,07,319 cases were disposed of in the year, up 28% from the previous year.
DGP Singh added that the Special Operations Group constituted a Serious Frauds Investigation Unit and Cyber Crime Unit while CID was also planning to launch a Heinous Crime Monitoring Unit. He said that certain places like Alwar, Bhiwadi and Bharatpur needed special attention and more police personnel are being deployed in critical areas.
Expressing concern on the trend of youth seeing criminals as role models, the DGP said special emphasis will be given on motivating youngsters to look up to the work of police personnel. “Our aim is to also create awareness among youth about law as they are at times are both victims and perpetrators,” he added. The DGP also said, “We will be working more on improving the conduct of police personnel. We want to present the police force as a role model for people, particularly the youth.”
Amidst the widespread riots unleashed by Islamist mobs fuelled by the Left media and ‘activists’, an event was organised where Union Minister Piyush Goyal was to meet with some Bollywood personalities to discuss the myths and realities of Citizenship Amendment Act that gives citizenship to the persecuted minorities of neighbouring Islamic nations. Some Bollywood “stars” who were invited chose to not attend the meeting, while the ones who did were bullied by the “Liberal Fascists” who have this uncontrollable need to ensure that nobody must have the temerity to differ with their agenda, which is often based on lies and half-truths.
If one recalls, almost exactly a year ago, Bollywoood celebrities had met the Prime Minister. The famed selfie had become rather popular with celebrities such as Karan Johar, Ranvir Singh, Ekta Kapoor and several others huddled around the PM Modi.
The list had even included celebrities like Shahrukh Khan and Amir Khan, who were essentially seen as individuals who did not support the Prime Minister.
Bollywood actors with PM ModiBollywood actors with PM Modi
The bullying and name-calling that followed was shocking, to say the least. Liberal Fascists unleashed harsh comments on the actors, calling them, essentially, spineless.
Why Hollywood is Hollywood, and Bollywood is Bollywood? A bunch of cowards. https://t.co/DqL6WSLNfA
Essentially, the Liberal Fascists wanted an unconditional hold on everything the “Liberal” Bollywood and its actors did think, said and if their actions did not conform to their “Liberal” agenda, laden with lies, they were mocked and ostracised.
With the Piyush Goyal meeting, things haven’t changed much.
The list of people who attended the meeting with Piyush Goyal were Pralhad Kakkar, Atul Kasbekar, Ameya Hete, Prasoon Joshi, Pralhad Kakkar Rajkumar Santoshi, Raj Shandilya, Kunal Kohli, Abhishek Kapoor, Aruna Raje, Mrig Deep, Luv Ranjan, Anil Sharma, Rahul Rawail, Sanjay Tripathi, Shaan, Kailash Kher, Annu Malik, Suresh Wadkar, Neeraj Shridhar, Vaishali Samant, Roop Kumar Rathore, Bhushan Kumar and Ritesh Sidhwani.
These are just some of the names. Over 70 people from the B-town attended the meeting with Piyush Goyal despite the bullying tactics employed by the Liberal Fascists.
After this list of individuals from Bollywood and Marathi cinema who attended the meeting, the first reaction of the media was to denigrate them all and assert that only “small-time” players and the “A-Listers” skipped the meeting.
Essentially, what the media wished to do was to say that all the “big celebrities” from B-Town oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act and the ones who bothered to attend the meeting with Minister Piyush Goyal were merely “small-time players”.
However, if one reads mid-day, one realises that none of these portals has any of the “A-Listers” on record saying that they did not attend the meeting because they don’t support CAA.
According to mid-day, that boldly calls Dia Mirza an “A-lister”, she was attending an event in Hyderabad and hence could not attend the meeting. Or even Kangana Ranaut who supposedly could not attend the meeting due to scheduling issues.
Further, the subtle tactics used to browbeat the ones who attended were visible further in the mid-day article.
While mid-day chooses to describe Anu Malik and Kailash Kher as ‘MeToo accused’, Anurag Kashyap is given a free pass and his connection a sordid saga of sexual harassment is not even mentioned.
One recalls how during the MeToo movement, film director Vikas Bahl was accused by an employee of Phantom Films, a production house started by Bahl, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena in 2015 of inappropriate behaviour during the shooting of film Bombay Velvet. She says that even though later on she told Anurag Kashyap about it, he did nothing and she had to eventually quit working there as Bahl would allegedly continue harassing her, making it an unsafe working environment for her. Following the revelation, Queen actor Kangana Ranaut, who had worked with Bahl, came forward and backed the woman’s claims that Bahl he behaved inappropriately with her as well.
Further, Anurag Kashyap’s degenerate history is rather well known. He had in the past defended Tarun Tejpal, who was accused of molesting his junior colleague, declaring that the accusations against Tejpal were untrue.
If the Anu Malik and Kailash Kher can be called MeToo accused, why the mid-day chose not to mention that Anurag Kashyap is a rape apologist and that he had kept quiet about a MeToo accused even though he knew about the harassment she went through allegedly at the hands of his partner is beyond the realm of understanding.
The only reason that one can imagine is that mid-day wanted to deliberately denigrate the ones who attended the meeting while exonerating the ones who did not.
This theory is further substantiated with the fact that the same mid-day that describes Anu Malik and Kailash Kher as ‘Metoo accused’ after they attended a meeting with Piyush Goyal, failed to mention the same ‘credentials’ of another entertainer who is against the Citizenship Amenment Act and the Modi government.
Varun Grover, who had written the “Hum Kagaz Nahi Dikhayenge” poem opposing the CAA and NRC was described as follows:
Report by Mid-day
Mid-Day chose to describe Varun Grover as a “National Award winning lyricist”. Perhaps mid-day had selective amnesia and forgot to add “MeToo accused” like they did for Anu Malik and Kailash Kher.
The bullying, of course, did not end there. There are several ‘woke liberals’ who took to Twitter to make a list of the ones who attended the meeting with Piyush Goyal and exhort their fellow fascists to “never forget” their names.
— Sulagna Chatterjee ? (@BeingChatterjee) 5 January 2020
While the Liberal Fascists make lists and plan to demonise and ostracise the ones who attended the meeting with Piyush Goyal, the same people had taken offence to Vivek Agnihotri wanting to make a list of “Urban Naxals”.
I want some bright young people to make a list of all those who are defending #UrbanNaxals Let’s see where it leads. If you want to volunteer with commitment, pl DM me. @squintneon would you like to take the lead?
It’s like ‘Slut Walk’ – by 1000s embracing the term of abuse, the ploy to single out and tarnish and shame and blame SOME using a nonsense term is demolished and solidarity is built. It’s a way of saying an injury to one is an injury to all #MeTooUrbanNaxal is therefore great! https://t.co/ycVyHv1bHU
What this does is only expose the hypocrisy of the Left-Liberals and tells us who the real fascists are. If a #MeToo accused or one making a “list” of people they don’t agree with happens to agree with them, all their sins will be forgotten and forgiven. However, if anyone dares to not toe their line, they immediately become fair game to be demonised, ostracised and even maligned.
With the Citizenship Amendment Act being passed in the parliament, the country has seen widespread riots by Muslim mobs egged on by our media and the very Liberal-Fascists who are now gunning for the people who bothered to meet a minister to understand the Act in its totality. The ones who have opposed this Act have maintained silence over the mobs rampaging in the country, rioting and unleashing violence. In fact, they have even remained silent on the Congress functionaries and leaders who have been arrested in for the riots. Some like Swara Bhaskar has gone a step further and demonised the Yogi Adityanath government for taking action against rioters.
One has to realise that just because individuals like Swara Bhaskar and Anurag Kashyap make a lot of useless noise, doesn’t mean that they are the who’s who of Bollywood. What the media is essentially doing now is calling over 70 Bollywood celebs who attended the meeting “small-timers” while propping up the handful of propagandists who either did not attend or were not invited. Of course, per the Liberal Fascists, only the ones who agree with them are “A-listers”, the ones who don’t are “small-timers” and 70 celebrities attending a meeting is “thin attendance”.
While the Liberal Fascists continue to call the non-Left ‘fascists’, the real Fascism is actually displayed by the very people who call themselves “liberals”. Anyone who does not bow to their agenda is the enemy who deserves to be annihilated, while they walk around shielding rioters and violent mobs.
Following the unprecedented violence at JNU by leftist goons who took over the server room and stopped students from registering for winter semester, a huge crowd gathered outside the JNU campus. When Republic TV journalist was there covering it, he was heckled by the students and was also manhandled by freelance journalist Abhimanyu Singh alias Abhimanyu Kumar, who has previously worked with The Hindu, Sunday Guardian and is also associated with online portal Youth Ki Awaaz.
This is how a JNU protestor misbehaved, abused and heckled me while I was reporting outside JNU and that also in presence of massive @DelhiPolice personnel. No police personnel stopped these goons. Expect an unexpected condemnation by @IndEditorsGuild#JNUViolencepic.twitter.com/cS1v6RTryP
At around 18 seconds in the video, a man in blue jacket and red scarf approaches Mishra and roughs him up.
Republic journalist Piyush Mishra being manhandled by Abhimanyu Singh
He is Abhimanyu Singh.
Abhimanyu Singh’s picture from his Facebook account. (image edited to blur out the child’s face)
After OpIndia’s report was published, a Haryana-based woman Meena (name changed) reached out to us alleging that Singh had misbehaved with her and called her names like ‘K*tti’ and ‘har*mzadi’ in the court of law. Meena claimed that Singh’s wife, Aletta Andre, a Dutch journalist in India, had maligned her in international publications after she had accused a Dutch citizen, Peter de Bruijn, of raping her.
In June 2022, However, Andre reached out to OpIndia and while denying allegations of maligning the rape victim shared transcript of the said publication. Andre said she did not specifically refer to the rape case which is currently sub judice in India.
Meena, in an FIR filed with Gurugram Police dated 7th July, 2018 (a copy of which is with OpIndia), stated that Peter had lied to her about his marital status and got into physical relationship with her. Meena alleged that Peter had unprotected sex with her and had promised marriage, should she get pregnant. However, when she did get pregnant, she was forced to undergo abortion, she alleges.
Meena, in her FIR states that she filed a rape case on Peter in September, 2014. However, in March 2017, the accused went to Netherlands and never returned.
In her FIR, along with Peter, Meena had named several other people, Aletta Andre, Jeori Boom, Sjoerd Weimer Sjoerdsma, Ferry Stoop, Loes Bomers, Janene Pieters, Manvee Sharma, Natalie Righton, who as per Meena are either journalists or people associated with politicians or friends of the accused who tried to print fake news about the rape case in international publications.
Speaking to OpIndia, Meena said that she identified Singh from the OpIndia report and recollected how he had abused her in a court room because she had named his Dutch journalist wife in the FIR and accused her of maligning her. “He shouted and abused a sexual assault victim. He came to a court for the case and abused me in front of the judge and and outside the court. He abused me, called me ‘k*tti’, ‘har*mzadi’ in front of judge and lawyers,” she said.
Meena has written about her grievances to Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as well as to Editors Guild of India.
Note: Article updated in June 2022 with latest information.
Congress minister Yashomati Thakur has stirred up controversy for saying she has just become a minister after her party managed to form a government in Maharashtra and they are ‘yet to fill their pockets’.
#WATCH Maharashtra Minister Yashomati Thakur in Washim: Our govt was not in power till now. But now I have taken oath as the State Minister. We are yet to fill our pockets. #Maharashtra (04.01.2020) pic.twitter.com/1AHE3LTBe1
In a video that had gone viral on social media, the minister for Women and Child Development in the Uddhav Thackeray-led government of the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra was seen saying, “Our government was not in power till now. We have just managed to form a government. I have just taken oath as a minister. We are yet to fill our pockets”. ‘Filling pocket’ is a euphemism for bribes.
Thakur was addressing a public meeting campaigning for the local body polls in Amravati, Maharashtra on Saturday.
Thakur was also in the news some months back for misbehaving with cops and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital.
As per a report in Navbharat Times, Thakur was seen saying, “You all know that all sorts of games have already been played. We were not in power till now, but now we have got power, but we are yet to fill our pockets. The opposition was in power and their pockets are deep. If they come to offer you money, please do not say no. Nobody denies entry to Lakshmi. Take money from them but vote for Congress only.”
When confronted over her controversial statement, Thakur stated to Times Now that her statement has been twisted by the media.
The West Bengal police resorted to lathi-charge when rallies by BJP and leftists at Kolkata’s Jadavpur area started turning violent on Monday evening. As per reports, leftists had organised a rally as a protest against the JNU violence. The BJP supporters had also organised a rally.
As the two groups started hurling abuses and slogans at each other, the police issued lathi-charge orders to disperse the crowd. The leftists had alleged that the BJP cadre was hurling abuses at them. The leftists had also reportedly burnt the BJP flag.
A large number of students, women in the protest were lathicharged by the police.
#WATCH West Bengal: Police lathicharge on Jadavpur University students, near Sulekha Mor in Kolkata, during protest against JNU violence. pic.twitter.com/mJKV2D3gXF
As per reports, leftists groups in the Jadavpur University, including SFI, AISA members and others had taken out a protest rally from 8B Bus Stand to Sulekha More, protesting against the violence at JNU campus on Sunday.
The BJP supporters had also taken out a protest march from Bagha Jatin Mor to Jadavpur police station area as a protest against the ransacking of its party office in Jadavpur on Sunday night.
As per reports, the two rallies were soon joined by another rally by CPM workers, which increased the leftist support base and intensified tension in the area.
The police also lathicharged women at the rally. There are videos doing rounds on social media where the West Bengal police are seen brutally beating women in the rally.
West Bengal police beating Women protestors at Jadhavpur
You won’t find any Bollywood stars speaking against it or Barkha going to interview the victim women as ‘Shero’. pic.twitter.com/Bi7yWXnA3T
It is notable here that the Delhi police and the UP police were being severely condemned by the mainstream media for issuing lathi-charge orders as retaliation to violent Muslim mobs engaged in stone-pelting, vandalism and arson during the anti-CAA protests.
As per a Times Now report, the police, after facing flak for beating women and students, have stated that they were thrashing BJP workers who were burning tyres and in the commotion had failed to differentiate between BJP workers and JU students.
Sudip Sarkar, DC (SSD) of Kolkata Police, has stated that the JU students getting beaten up was due to a misunderstanding. “We had no intention to use batons on them. There was some lathi-charge only when we were chasing the BJP workers in a bid to disperse them from the spot. During this, some students were caught up in the scene and got beaten up.”
