Sonam Kapoor was in Saudi Arabia recently as an ‘influencer’ to attend The MDL Beast Festival which took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, things turned a little sour after the women present there were faced with sexual harassment. A lot of celebrities got backlash for attending and promoting the festival despite human rights in Saudi.
Fashion and culture commentary Instagram account Diet_Prada publicly called out these celebrities including Bollywood entertainer Sonam Kapoor.
Diet Prada accused the celebrities of ‘cashing big fat checks in exchange for content creation (aka propaganda) to rehabilitate the image of Saudi Arabia” especially over human rights violation. Moreover, there were allegations of sexual harassment of women in the concert too.
One of the attendees even recalled how girls in hijabs were also harassed. However, Sonam Kapoor, Bollywood starlet whose hypocrisy is as nauseating as acting skills, dismissed these harassment concerns by claiming how she was respected even as a “Hindu brown female actor”.
Sonam Kapoor’s tone-deaf response to sexual harassment concerns at Saudi Arabia’s MDL Beast festival
Sonam Kapoor conveniently forgot that while she may be ‘Hindu brown female actor’, she was still an actor. That comes with privilege. That just because she was the quintessential ‘minority’ in an Islamic country, she was still a celebrity invited by organisers and that comes with privilege. Diet Prada called out hypocrisy of Sonam Kapoor even louder in subsequent posts.
Diet Prada calls out Sonam Kapoor’s hypocrisy.
Diet Prada questioned Sonam Kapoor on her choice to promote Saudi Arabia, a country where homosexuality is subjected to capital punishment, when she is such a vocal supporter of LGBT community. Taking a dig at her, Diet Prada even asked her to donate the money she received as ‘influencer’ from Saudi authorities to LGBTQ advocacy groups.
The country has been burning as Muslim mobs have gone on a rampage, rioting against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Registry of Citizens. In the midst of the chaos, Prime Minister Modi addressed a massive rally in Ramlila Maidan in Delhi where he also addressed the riots against CAA and NRC. In his speech, while training his guns at all and sundry anti-India forces, PM Modi said “Hate me if you want but don’t hate India. Burn my effigy, but don’t burn a poor man’s auto-rickshaw”. PM Modi’s speech seems to have ruffled many feathers, one of them, is that of filmmaker and hobby propagandist, Anurag Kashyap. He has claimed that a sentence from PM Modi’s speech was the same as what Hitler had once said.
Anurag Kashyap, who has often been caught spreading blatant lies and shoddy propaganda took to Twitter to plug a short clip. The short clip was of a speech by Adolf Hitler, the German dictator with his speech translated.
In the tweet, Anurag Kashyap called the Prime Minister an ‘Urban Nazi’ insinuating that his ‘hate me but don’t hate India’ line was taken directly from a speech by Hitler.
The translation text in the video reads, “I know who is hating me. Hate me if you wish, but don’t hate Germany”.
The insinuation that Anurag Kashyap made was obvious. He alleged that Prime Minister Modi is akin to a Nazi and that his speech was inspired by the German dictator.
The truth, however, is far from it. The translation of the German speech is wildly inaccurate.
Maria Wirth, a German author with deep links to India and the Indic tradition, living in India for the past 3 decades tweeted that the translation was inaccurate and actually had nothing to do with what the translation said or what Anurag Kashyap insinuated.
Wirth said that the translation in the video was incorrect and pertained to a completely different topic where Hitler was not saying anything remotely similar to what PM Modi said. She said the Hitler speech was about ‘going amidst people’, ‘help them and help them again and again’.
When OpIndia spoke to Maria Wirth, she said that the translation in the video plugged by Anurag Kashyap was completely incorrect. She said that Hitler in the speech said, “…to talk of this people as brothers (volk) to go in the midst of the people of the nation, to overcome all its …. To help and to help again and again”. Since it is a short clip and starts mid-sentence, she theorised that the context in which Hitler was talking about was to say that simply to call fellow Germans as ‘brothers’ is not enough, but the need is to go amidst people and help them over and over again.
After speaking to Maria, OpIndia did its own research. While it is difficult to place which exact speech this clip has been taken from, there are several indicators that we found.
We found a website where the date and the place of this particular speech were mentioned.
Date and subject of the speech in question
The note related to the video says, “German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler addresses volunteers and officials gathered for the opening rally of the annual Winterhilfswerk (Winter relief project), held in Deutschlandhalle, in Berlin, Germany. The hall is decorated with Nazi symbols and swastikas on sidewalls. Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann, are seen. Hitler gives an impassioned speech with much gesticulation. (Note: Midway through clip there is a brief 2 second shot from an unrelated speech by Hitler to the Reichstag)”.
The website claims that the speech was delivered by Hitler in Berlin, Germany on October 5th, 1937 at the Winterhilfswerk winter relief rally.
We then looked for a translation of the 1937 speech of Hitler and found an English version.
Translation of Hitler speech from 1937
We asked Ms Maria Wirth if the speech could be from 1937 and if this translation made sense. She said though it is not an exact translation if the speech is indeed from 1937, then the portion highlighted could be the loose translation.
The highlighted portion reads, “…behind it stands not the word, but the deed! With the aid of this tremendous society, countless people are being relieved of the feeling of social abandonment and isolation. Many are thus regaining the firm belief that they are not completely lost and alone in this world, but sheltered in their Volksgemeinschaft; that they, too, are being cared for, that they, too, are being thought of and remembered”.
Essentially, both her translation and that from this book would mean that Hitler was talking about how ‘deed’ is more important than ‘words’ and how just calling Germans brothers is not sufficient but what is needed is to go amongst the people and help them.
The Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes (English: Winter Relief of the German People), commonly known by its abbreviated form Winterhilfswerk (WHW) from where this speech is, was an annual drive by the National Socialist People’s Welfare (German: Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt) to help finance charitable work. Its slogan was “None shall starve or freeze”. The drive was originally set up under the government of Heinrich Brüning in 1931, though Adolf Hitler would later claim sole credit. It ran from 1933–1945 during the months of October through March and was designed to provide food, clothing, coal and other items to less fortunate Germans during the inclement months.
In the original video, from where Anurag Kashyap took the snippet to lie about the PM Modi speech being the same as the remark by PM Modi, the Hitler speech being from the Winterhilfswerk relief camp is proved by the banner displayed prominently. The original video was from a channel called ‘British pathe’.
Screengrab from the original youtube clip
Now, even if assume that the speech was not from the 1937 speech, the speech is obviously from one of the speeches that were made between 1936-37. However, in none of those speeches were the words ‘hate me’ used.
In fact, we searched multiple English translations of Hitler’s speeches spanning from 1922 to 1945. The phrase ‘hate me’ appears only once in all of Hitler’s speeches and that too, in a completely different context.
The speech of Hitler where ‘hate me’ appears
One can see from searching the PDF that “hate me” occurs just once while “hate Germany” has no mention at all in any of his speeches from 1922 to 1945.
It is thus evident that the translation peddled by Anurag Kashyap is completely false.
However, it was not even the first time that this false narrative was being peddled and Kashyap is certainly not the only person to do it.
“Comedian” Aditi Mittal too had posted the same propaganda which she promptly deleted later.
The now-deleted tweet by Aditi Mittal
The fallacious tweet by Aditi Mittal was then retweeted by Bollywood actor Sushant Singh as well.
In 2018, Prime Minister Modi had said, “Burn me alive if I am wrong”. The Leftists and Islamists, at that point of time too had claimed that the same sentence was used by Hitler in his 1935 speech as was used by PM Modi.
“Burn me alive if I am wrong”, said Hitler in 1935
But he ended up getting millions of Germans, Polls, Russians, Italians, French British & Jews killed before he killed himself.
History repeats itself either as a tragedy or comedy https://t.co/CdZ6DaFSTZ
Maria Wirth calling out another mistranslation in 2018
Turns out, Hitler, in the speech peddled by the leftists had said something completely different and not ‘burn me alive if I am wrong”, which PM Modi had said in his speech.
The Leftists, Islamists and “Liberals” have often fantasised about Prime Minister Modi being a mirror image of Hitler. However, while they run amock spewing venom and lies from the comfort of their own homes, “Hitler” Modi has not even given them the time of the day or an iota of attention, let alone throwing them in detention camps. The propaganda peddled by these elements fall flat every time they decide to peddle it, however, one cannot credit them for anything else if not for being persistent.
A Delhi court has dismissed the bail plea of 15 persons accused in the Daryaganj violence case during anti-CAA protests last week. The accused were arrested on Saturday after large scale arson and rioting took place during the protests at Daryaganj in Old Delhi on Friday.
Dismissing the bail pleas filed by the accused persons, the court said that there are substantial grounds for keeping them in judicial custody for the time being. Citing the reason for their detention, the court noted that the rioters had assaulted Delhi police officials, pelted stones, and obstructed police in doing their duties. The court also said that all 15 persons were arrested from the spot during the act of violence, and violence for any reason can’t be justified. As the further probe is underway, the accused needed to kept in judicial custody, the court said. The court sent them to 14 days of judicial custody.
On Friday during the anti-CAA protests, a large number of protesters had resorted to violence, breaking police barricades and pelting stones at policemen. They also set ablaze private vehicles parked on the road. A total of 42 people, including policemen, were injured in the violence. Around forty persons were detained after the violence, and from them, 15 were arrested. They were charged with rioting and using force to deter policemen from duty. The detained persons also included eight minors, who were released on Saturday.
The Delhi court had sent the 15 persons to two days of judicial custody onj Saturday and had refused to hear their bail plea. Today the court extended their judicial custody by two weeks after the expiry of the two-day custody.
Shiv Sena supporters beat up a man in Mumbai over his alleged remarks on Shiv Sena chief and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. As per reports, one Rahul Tiwari alias Hiramani Tiwari, a resident of Wadala in Mumbai had posted a remark on Thackeray over his remarks on the Jamia issue.
As seen in the video above, the goons are forcefully tonsuring head of Tiwari.
Shiv Sena supporters first reportedly beat him up and then forced him to get his head shaved. Reportedly, the post criticised Thackeray for comparing the action against Jamia Nagar rioters with that of Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. After he got threats from some people, Tiwari deleted his Facebook post. However, on Sunday, a mob led by Shiv Sena functionaries Samadhan Jukdeo and Prakash Hasbe beat him up and tonsured his head outside his residence in Shanti Nagar area.
A notice under section 149 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) has been issued to both the sides. Tiwari, who was earlier associated with Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal has criticised this and said that action must be taken against Shiv Sena leaders for this.
The Calcutta High Court on December 23 has issued an interim order to the West Bengal government, asking them to remove all anti-Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) and anti-National Register of Citizens(NRC) advertisements from public platforms. The court has directed the provisional order until the next hearing scheduled to be held on January 9, 2020.
As per reports, the court has also sought a detailed report from the state government over the claim of the petitioners that campaign against the CAA was carried out using public money.
The matter has been put up to January 9th for the next hearing.
Reacting to the court order, BJP MP and Union Minister Babul Supriyo said if WB Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had “taken advice from few educated MPs & MLAs she has in her party about the CM’s authority over matters like this, she would have known that citizenship is centre’s prerogative.
If only @MamataOfficial had taken advise from the few educated MPs & MLAs she has in her party about she (A CM) not having any authority, as per our constitution, to block an ACT that’s in the Central List & anyone other than Didi wud know that Citizenship is Centre’s prerogative pic.twitter.com/0aL3YAzFPk
Mamata Banerjee had been critical about the recently legislated Citizenship Amendment Act, asserting that she would not allow CAA and NRC to be implemented in her state West Bengal. A concerted campaign was run by the Trinamool Congress party to slam the Citizenship Law that aims to grant citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims from three neighbouring Islamic countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Posters were put up by TMC claiming that CAA and NRC will not be implemented in West Bengal. As many as 6 pleas were filed against the advertisements. Yesterday, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had accused Banerjee of splurging public money on the anti-CAA campaign. Terming them “unconstitutional”, he had demanded immediate withdrawal of the advertisements.
In addition, Mamata Banerjee was also criticised by the central ministers for demanding a UN-monitored referendum on NRC and CAA a few days ago following large-scale violent riots by Muslim mobs in her state.
What a mind-blowing week diary, what a mind-blowing week. The fascist forces are quaking in their boots after the mass uprising that shook the roots of their evil dictatorship. The streets of Delhi were on fire, Lucknow was more stoned than a South Bombay person at NH weekender, Trains in Bengal were hammered more than the hammering that Kuldeep Yadav got against Pollard, it was beautiful.
The fascist idea of giving fast-track citizenship to refugees has been opposed tooth and nail by our comrades, and with a united country opposing it, it doesn’t look like the government will be able to implement this law. There were rallies by Bollywood, there were mass protests by Jamia Millia students on the roads of Delhi, by students who were all studying in the library at the same time, Policemen were beaten on the roads of Ahmedabad, it was just beautiful.
There were historic sacrifices being made everywhere. Ramchandra Guha, the modern-day Mahatma Gandhi, had to tell his name to someone. Medha Patkar, modern-day Sarojini Naidu, had to smile at Pakistani Hindu refugees. Rahul Gandhi, modern-day King Edward The First, had to….. sorry, he didn’t do anything, which is a sacrifice in itself because he didn’t want to take way the spotlight from other revolutionaries.
Of course every revolution extracts a cost diary, and so did this one. We had to cancel a dinner at Civil House in Khan Market because our driver got arrested while practicing Shot Put in Seelampur, but we knew it beforehand that we will need to make tough choices to bring about this revolution. There were some deaths in UP and Mangaluru as well but UP has far too many people anyway and what is Mangaluru, is it a real place or just people mispronouncing Bengaluru?
Fascist Modi will always remember this week diary. The week in which people firmly rejected his Government’s NRC proposal, which is yet to be drafted.
The good news didn’t just come from the streets, it also came from the polling booths diary. Our secular parties have won Jharkhand and we can finally bring democracy to the state. As you know diary, Jharkhand is a very important state for us because of all our friends living there. Something tells me, we will get a farmhouse near Ranchi now, to help the tribals obviously.
In personal news diary, reached New York yesterday for our vacation. Such an energetic city, always on the move, no bandhs, no crowds blocking the roads, no burning buses, absolutely love it. Wish Delhi was more like this. Anyway, that’s enough for this week from me diary, hope the street protests in Delhi continue and we force Modi to go back to that evil state Gujarat.
Amidst motivated protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, controversial ‘journalist’ Rana Ayyub seems to be working overtime to add fuel to the fire by deliberately stoking fear amongst the Muslim community and painting the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh as an anti-Muslim regime. Ayyub had yesterday posted a tweet of a government order alleging that Yogi Adityanath is now confiscating the property of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh.
Why is Yogi Adityanath confiscating property of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh ? What fresh hell is this ? pic.twitter.com/jOBqQevLSL
Ayyub had gone berserk after the UP police took corrective action against the rioting mobs during the anti-CAA protests held in several cities and towns of Uttar Pradesh. In order to gain sympathy for the rioters in UP, Rana doubled-down on floating unverifiable stories of police oppression which were promptly busted by the UP police. To this end, Rana posted the above tweet asserting that the UP government is patently anti-Muslim and it has now resorted to impounding properties of Muslims in UP.
In this instance, the government order that Rana Ayyub has quoted claiming the Yogi government is confiscating the properties of ‘Muslims’, insinuating that the government action is driven by the concerned person’s religion, is in fact not related to the riots at all.
The order which she shared on Twitter pertains to a defaulter who failed to pay land revenue(Bhu-Rajasva) to the Uttar Pradesh government and happened to be a Muslim. However, the man’s Muslim identity was enough for Rana Ayyub to give it a communal spin and allege that the UP government has unleashed their vindictive streak against Muslims amidst widespread protests by them in opposition to the CAA.
According to the government order shared by Ayyub, the man in question has defaulted on tax amount of more than 7 lakhs. Since he had not paid the required amount, the government had passed an order to confiscate his property. But, Ayyub, fully convinced of the blind support she enjoys from the anti-India lobby and her gullible followers, proceeded to discredit the UP chief minister while simultaneously portraying a Muslim offender as an innocent victim of Yogi’s anti-Muslim prejudice.
The Yogi government had announced that as per law, the rioters who damage public properties will be identified and the damages will be recovered. Acting on its announcement, the government has also started the damages recovery process. But the order that Ayyub shared was regarding a tax defaulter, not riot damages.
Ayyub is a repeat offender when it comes to sharing fake news and making tall claims out of thin air. Riding on sheer Modi-hatred that gets her space in the leftist media, she has been found sharing fake news multiple times.
The counting of votes in the Jharkhand Assembly Elections are currently underway. The elections are being contested extremely hard and the face of results is changing after every round of counting. Only a short time ago, there were 27 seats where the margin between the leading candidate and his or her closest rival is less than 2000 votes. Of these 27 seats, the BJP was leading in 8 and trailing in 13.
Leads and trails under 2000 votes
In seats like Baghmara, Bishrampur, Jamshedpur East and Jharia, the BJP had won comfortably last time around with the margin of victory as huge as nearly 70,000 in Jamshedpur East and well over 33,000 in Jharia. In Baghmara s well, the margin of victory for the BJP was nearly 30,000 and in Bishrampur, it was nearly 14,000. In seats like Gandey and Giridih, the BJP’s margin of victory was around the 10,000 mark.
Interestingly enough, in Silli, where the JMM had won the last time around with a margin of victory of almost 30,000 votes, it was trailing there against the AJSU. Similarly, in Gomia, where the JMM had won comfortably the last time around with a margin exceeding 37,000 votes, it was struggling to hold on to that seat although it is leading there currently.
Panki is the only seat among these where the incumbent was a Congress candidate and there, the BJP was leading. There were 5 seats among these where the JVM had won the last time but among these 5, the JVM was leading only in one at the moment and that is Simaria.
Now, there are 21 such seats where the margin is less than 2500 votes. The BJP is trailing in 10 of those and leading in 7. The seats marked purple are those where the margin is less than 1500 votes.
Leads and trails under 2500 votes
The leads are likely to change again after the next round of counting. As per the latest ECI trends, the BJP is leading in 31 seats while the alliance is at 40, just one short of a majority. Thus, while the alliance is much better placed, the election is far from over. It will go right down to the wire.
Update
Most of the seats with close margins mentioned in this report went to the JMM+ alliance. Apart from Bishrampur, Chattarpur, Dhanbad, Kodarma, Mandu, Sarath and Simaria, the BJP failed to win any of the seats as mentioned in the last trends. Only in Sarath was the party leading. In the other six, it came from behind to win rather comfortably in most of them. In seats like Dumri and Gandey, it surrendered leads. In the end, the BJP was restricted to only 25 seats in the Jharkhand Assembly.
Can anyone Justify the Massive violence and vandalism of public property in the name of protests against Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA)? The answer is Certainly Not. In any country where there is a rule of law, no citizen has the right to take law in their hands and to create mischief to the public property. On the basis of false Propaganda spread through Social Media platforms against CAA 2019, parties with some vested interest are trying to create unrest in the country through the unlawful assembly of people who are knowingly involved in inciting violence in various parts of the Country. The question arises whether such act to enter into confrontation with police, agencies of the government and such assembly of protestors to damage public property in several parts of the country is a justified Act? No court in the country will justify such violent protests. Even the Chief Justice of India while hearing the petitions on CAA criticised the violence and public mischief.
Legal position related to damage to Public Property
Part-IVA of the Constitution of India, Under Article 51A (i) says it shall be the fundamental duty of every citizen of India to safeguard public property and to abjure violence. But who cares for their duties in this Country? They know to create vandalism in the name of democracy, protest, free speech, liberty etc. However, people must remember that rights are corresponded by duties.
Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 was enacted with a view to curb acts of vandalism and damage to public property, including destruction and damage caused during riots and public commotion. It is high time to invoke provision of this law wide across this country and if needed also to promulgate Ordinance to increase punishment for all those miscreants involved in creating mischief under Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984.
The section-505 of the Indian Penal Code,1860 says statements conducing to public mischief are punishable under the act. It says whoever makes, publishes or circulates any statement, rumour or report with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquillity, will amount to Public Mischief. And, sadly many people are spreading rumour about NRC and CAA that these are Anti-Muslim.
Let’s understand the Citizenship Amendment Act
This Amendment adds proviso in section 2, in sub-section (1), in clause (b) in the Citizenship Act, 1955.
And the Proviso reads as “Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014 and who has been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act.”
Further, new section 6B added in the Citizenship Act, 1955 which states that on and from the date of commencement of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, any proceeding pending against a person under this section in respect of illegal migration or citizenship shall stand abated on conferment of citizenship to him, provided that such person shall not be disqualified for making application for citizenship under this section on the ground that the proceeding is pending against him and the Central Government or authority specified by it in this behalf shall not reject his application on that ground if he is otherwise found qualified for grant of citizenship under this section.
Further, it adds in the proviso that who makes the application for citizenship under this section shall not be deprived of his rights and privileges to which he was entitled on the date of receipt of his application on the ground of making such application.
The section 6B (4) adds that nothing in this section shall apply to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram or Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and the area covered under “The Inner Line” notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873.
The object sought by this Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 is to provide a remedy to the minorities who are victims of religious persecution aftermath of Partition of India as the new nation Pakistan declared itself an Islamic state. And further, this Act aims to provide exemption under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or inclusion in the Citizenship Act, 1955 those religious minorities who came before 31st December 2014 from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. This Act does not include Muslims as Muslims are not persecuted minorities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. This Act recognizes the right of Non-Muslims who came to India due to religious persecution from these three Muslim majority nations.
Indian Constitution and Citizenship
Now, understand the provision of law with regard to citizenship in the Constitution of India. Part two and Article-5 to 11 of the Constitution of India deals with Citizenship. Article 5 gives Citizenship at the Commencement of Constitution for those who had his domicile in the territory of India. Article 6 gives rights of citizenship of certain persons who have migrated to India from Pakistan before the 19th day of July 1948.
Then, a valid question arises what about the victim of partition who chose to stay in Pakistan when Pakistan became an Islamic state and religious persecution started on the minorities. When the situation became unbearable for those minorities in Pakistan they started migrating to India as this country was their last hope as they all were citizens of undivided India. So, what about the citizenship of those people who came to India in 1950 from Pakistan or say in 1971 from Bangladesh as a victim of religious persecution to Minorities?
Article-11 says Parliament can regulate the right of citizenship by law but Indian government took so many years to pass this legislation for granting the citizenship and finally it is being done through Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019. So, citizenship is not the subject of Part-III of the Constitution, rather it is subject to Part-II and Parliament have the power to regulate the Citizenship laws, therefore it is just and reasonable.
In addition to Article-246, Union List under 7th Schedule, Entry-17 gives exclusive rights to the union government for law-making power regarding Citizenship.
As far as Article-14 is concerned it talks about equality before law and equal protection of the laws. And three tests laid down under Article-14 are not violated by this Act. As the objective of CAA is to protect against religious persecution of minorities. Hence the reasonable classification is done on the basis of intelligible differentia is just and reasonable.
National Register of Citizen would be a separate exercise and we can’t say how it will be implemented as it is the question of future and state policy not of law in the present scenario. And CAA has nothing to do with NRC as the objective of both the laws are different. NRC’s Assam model will not be applied throughout India because Assam Accord, 1985 laid down certain binding obligations on the centre. However, that would not be a precedent for all India NRC. So, no need to worry for Muslims and we must avoid from falling the victim of any conspiracy or propaganda. Therefore, the need of the hour is to know the truth of CAA which is hard, while the propaganda of NRC is cheap.
Author: Abhinav Kumar
Advocate, Supreme Court of India
Uttar Pradesh Police today took to Twitter to debunk propaganda of ‘police brutality’ on ‘peacefully protesting’ citizens and ‘targeting of Muslims’. Indian ‘secular-liberals’ did their bit to fear-monger about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and creating an air that the Muslims of India are going to be rendered stateless on implementation of CAA, while the CAA does not affect Indian citizens, Muslims or otherwise in any way. Now, taking the propaganda internationally, habitual fake-news peddler and anti-Hindu bigot C J Werleman took to Twitter to claim that Indian security forces were brutally assaulting those who were ‘peacefully protesting’ against the ‘anti-Muslim’ CAA.
Indian security forces brutally assault those peacefully protesting the government’s anti-Muslim #CitizenshipAmendmentAct in Uttar Pradesh.
More than 20 Muslims, including an 8-year-old girl, have been murdered by police in India’s largest state since protests began last week. pic.twitter.com/gdLIZcXSAU
Despite multiple clarifications that CAA does not even affect the Indians citizens, including Muslims, Werleman decides to peddle the fake narrative. He also accused the Uttar Pradesh police of using brutality against those ‘peacefully protesting’ against the government.
Not taking the baseless allegations lying down, Uttar Pradesh Police called his bluff and informed him that the so-called peaceful protestors used arms against the police and over 250 policemen are injured.
More than 250 police persons have been injured- 62 with gunshot injuries. Live and fired cartridges of non-prohibited bore (not used by the police) in excess of 700 have been recovered from ‘peacefully protesting’ citizens.#uppolice#UttarPradesh@TOILucknow@News18Indiahttps://t.co/ETcK4LGmce
“More than 250 police persons have been injured- 62 with gunshot injuries. Live and fired cartridges of non-prohibited bore (not used by the police) in excess of 700 have been recovered from ‘peacefully protesting’ citizens,” UP Police tweeted. This statement by UP Police comes a day after they schooled conspiracy theorist Rana Ayyub over Muzaffarnagar violence. Ayyub, too, had accused the police of being anti-Muslim and alleged that they police along with RSS leaders were ‘attacking’ Muslim localities. Asking her to act responsibly, UP Police had asked her to share verifiable evidence of what she was claiming so that the police could look into the matter.
After large scale rioting and arson took place in several places in UP in the name of anti-CAA protests, section 144 of the CRPC has been extended in the state till 31st January. Section 144 was enforced in the state on Wednesday night.
According to reports, eleven persons have died and many others got injured as the protests against the CAA turned violent in Uttar Pradesh last week. UP’s Additional DGP PV Ramashastry also said that deaths were not caused by police action as the police have not fired a single bullet. Violence has taken place in places like Meerut, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Firozabad, Sambhal and Kanpur etc. Along with section 144, internet connection is also snapped in 21 districts in the state.
UP police have informed that 218 persons have been arrested and 3305 detained for defying prohibitory orders. Protesters in the state vandalised of torched several police vehicles in Amroha, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, BulandShahr and Hapur, and police were unable to stop them even after using teargas shells and batons. Rioters resorted to stone-pelting and other violent activities during the anti-CAA protests. In several cities, self-imposed curfew was seen as shopkeepers kept their shutters down in fear of vandalism.
