Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has fired a fresh salvo at its former alliance partner BJP stating that Shiv Sena will not side with the BJP even if offered Lord Indra’s throne.
Speaking to the reporters, senior Shiv Sena leader reiterated that the next Maharashtra Chief Minister will be from his party when the three-party alliance of Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP forms the next government in the state.
“The time for offers has ended,” Raut said while responding to reports that had mentioned BJP had agreed to share the post of Chief Minister with the Sena.
Reportedly, Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on Friday also reiterated that all the three parties, including the Congress and the NCP, had agreed to a Shiv Sena Chief Minister.
“There will be a Shiv Sena CM for five years, all three parties had agreed to it. Sena has taken this decision for Maharashtra’s pride and to give Maharashtra strong leadership. People of Maharashtra want Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray to become the CM. Shiv Sena has kept the CM post with itself on its own strength,” said Raut.
Raut also added that the new government will be formed in the next one or two days, and the government will be led by Shiv Sena.
Maharashtra has plunged into a political crisis after the Sena broke its three-decade-long ties with the BJP after two parties did not arrive at a decision on the post of Chief Minister of the state.
The BJP and Sena, which fought the Assembly polls in an alliance, had secured a comfortable majority by winning 105 and 56 seats, respectively, in the 288-member Assembly. The Congress and the NCP, pre-poll allies, won 44 and 54 seats, respectively.
The students of SVDV, which is the Dharma Vigyan department of Banaras Hindu University are protesting the appointment of one Dr Firoze Khan in the Dharma Vigyan department. The protests escalated today after the students burnt effigies of Vice-Chancellor of BHU. Rakesh Bhatnagar is currently VC of BHU. Hundreds of students congregated to burn the effigy of the Vice-Chancellor. Among then, were Mrityunjay Tiwari Azad, Abhishek Singh, Abhishek Tripathi, Avanindra Rai, Dilip Moriya, Alok Singh, Praveen Singh and Anshuman Dwivedi.
The protests were earlier limited to the Dharma Vigyan Faculty and the appointment of Dr Firoz Khan. However, now, the protests have made its way to several other departments. Students of several departments are not alleging that incorrect appointments have been made by the Vice-Chancellor and those must be investigated as well. The students are now alleging that the controversial appointment of Dr Firoze Khan in the Dharma Vigyan department was done by the VC to brush under the carpet and distract people from several other improper appointments.
The BHU protests that are now in its third week have finally reached the highest echelons of power. Now, the Prime Minister himself has taken note of the issue and a report has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The PMO asked for a report from the BHU administration and Divisional Officer Deepak Aggarwal sent the report to the PMO despite being on a foreign tour.
Now the administration is preparing a detailed report, which will be sent to the Prime Minister’s Office. The students have alleged that attempts are being made to discredit the university by making unqualified appointments in several departments.
On Thursday (November 21, 2019), Swami Avimukteshwaranand extended his support to the Dharma Vigyan students of BHU. He also addressed the students during the ongoing protests outside the residence of VC Rakesh Bhatnagar. He said that non-Hindus should not be appointed in the department of Malaviya ji established for Hindus.
He said that reading and experiencing the words are two different things. Shankaracharya also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling the appointment of Firoz Khan contrary to the values of religion.
Letter by Shankaracharya to Prime Minister Modi
Yesterday, the students presented a set of questions to the administration and have demanded answers. The students of the Dharma Vigyan department are protesting against the appointment of Dr Firoz Khan to teach Dharma Vigyan. While Khan is a professor of Sanskrit, he has been employed in the Dharma Vigyan department and not in the Arts department that teaches Sanskrit as a linguistic endeavour. The Dharma Vigyan department is a course for religious learning and Hindu Dharma.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious bullet train project between Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Mumbai may be scrapped if the Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress take power in Maharashtra.
According to the reports, the common minimum programme decided by the grand alliance of Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress has decided to scrap the bullet train project by withholding Maharashtra’s share of expenditure to the Rs 1 lakh crore project.
The government, if at all formed, will be absolving itself of the financial load of the project. The common minimum programme being worked out by the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress plans to go big on loan waivers and intends to use the share of the state fund for building the high-speed rail line project (25%) for the farm-loan waiver programs.
Reportedly, the share of Maharashtra in the cost of building the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail line will be given to farmers in the form of loan waivers.
The foundation stone for the bullet train was laid back in 2017 when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had visited Modi in Ahmedabad. In order to aid the project, India is taking a loan of Rs 88,000 from Japan at an interest rate of 0.1%.
The proposed bullet train will run approximately 508 km between Mumbai and Ahmedabad with a top speed of 320 km/hr. The deadline for the project is August 15, 2022.
The National High-Speed Railway Corporation (NHSRCL), which is responsible for the construction, has already acquired over 48 per cent of the land for the project and also floated tenders for several works.
The Congress-NCP alliance are working out on a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) to form a government with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra to keep the BJP, the single largest party with 105 MLAs, away from power in the state. The Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress won 56, 54 and 44 seats respectively in the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly polls.
An audio clip was released on Wednesday which was allegedly a conversation between standup comic Utsav Chakraborty, who was accused of sexual harassment, and Mansi Kukreja, lawyer-sister of Mahima Kukreja (Twitter user @agirlofherwords) who had put up these allegations. In the conversation, the woman can be heard threatening legal action if Chakraborty releases screenshots of conversations which may, allegedly, prove his innocence.
Since then, another audio clip has been released, this one much longer than the previous one, where the conversation follows a similar trajectory as the earlier one. The man in the audio, identified as Utsav, appears to be on the verge of tears and asks the woman who is addressed as Mahima why did she not verify the screenshots that were sent to her.
The caption of the video says, “In this audio clip, Mahima Kukreja and her lawyer/sister Mansi Kukreja can be heard telling Utsav Chakraborty that his life will be destroyed by them if he releases screenshots that would exonerate him from all allegations made by Mahima. He tells them to file a police complaint and go to court so he can come out with his side of the story but they refuse, saying that he cannot release anything without her permission. But didn’t SHE release false information about him without HIS permission?”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1MpI6_XSxg]
‘You have put me through something I don’t think anyone should put even their worst enemy through this, I don’t even know why you did that,’ the man says, ‘but you have to understand the gravity of what happened.’ He also elaborates that he had troubles with numerous people and wasn’t getting too many shows. He had only started getting shows at that point of time when she treated him as ‘some sort of head-honcho, some Weinstein, someone who had so much control’.
The woman says she knew some of the women personally in real life who had made these allegations. She also says she received some accusations from people she did not know which she did not put up. ‘The point of the conversation is I didn’t want to put myself through more mental harassment which is the reason I did not file an FIR,’ the woman said. Utsav then questions why didn’t she and tells that he did tell her to file an FIR and reminds her that she still can.
Utsav then tells Mahima that she named and shamed him. ‘Mahima, listen, were you not naked right before?’ Utsav asked. Mahima then insists that it was her public Snapchat photo but Utsav denies it and says ‘stop saying that, be honest for one second’. ‘I asked you whether you were naked and you said yes, you were, I said prove it, you send me a picture,’ Utsav said. But Mahima continued to insist that it was a public photo but Utsav says she is confused and he has stuff on record to prove it. ‘Why would you ask for a selfie after sending me a nude?’ he asks. ‘I did not send you a nude, what the hell is wrong with you?’ Mahima insisted.
After a while, Utsav says, ‘You have destroyed my life and I am in pain. I will never have a job.’ Utsav eventually breaks down and says that he got ‘fu**ed’ more than anyone in this and more than he should have. He says, ‘I can’t go to the shrink because I don’t have money to go to the shrink. Even the lawyer I am talking to is a pro-bono lawyer. My parents are not rich. You kicked someone, Mahima, who had nothing.’ He also says that he was close to killing himself.
During the conversation, the women also say that in case he does anything, they would be forced to take legal action which will be worse for him. Utsav then asks what is he supposed to do in the meantime, how is he supposed to get a job. One of the women say, ‘Do you want to know what the conversation I have been having with my sister? I said this guy needs reformation. You should own up, you should go to therapy, you should get into social work.’ Utsav then asks, ‘What about the ones who were lying? Including you.’
Towards the end, Mahima says, ‘If you get into it legally, then I will also get into it legally. You’ll also derail the movement.’ Utsav responds, ‘I don’t want to derail the movement.’ She also tells him that it’s his chance to ‘move on’, to ‘get better’, to ‘get help’, ‘this is the chance to change your life’. ‘I don’t think everyone’s lying,’ a woman says, Utsav responds, ‘are you saying no one is lying?’ The video continues on this trajectory and is over 40 minutes long.
Utsav Chakraborty, meanwhile, is also tweeting his version of events and allegations by Mahima Kukreja on the matter on the social media platform. In one case, it is claimed that the girl shared portions of the texts between them with her current boyfriend who then proceeded it to share with others without her consent. Thus, the edited version eventually ended up on the social media platform which apparently showed Utsav in a bad light. Utsav tweeted screenshots of the woman’s tweets on the matter which showed her issuing an apology to him.
This is the screenshot of the apology that @chanya_jaitly put up. She had to protect her tweets. Guys, PLEASE let her be. She did not intend any harm. It’s possible that she was caught in the vitriol of the movement but so were most of you. So lay off. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/6XUvDhqQRg
Utsav also claims that certain people with ‘online-cred’, an ‘exclusive in-group of ex-Buzzfeed writers, ex-pats and artists’ have been ‘regurgitating baseless lies’ in public and private circles. ‘This privileged cabal of cool’, he says, has been ‘furthering my decimation’.
An exclusive in-group of ex-Buzzfeed writers, expats and artists. People with ‘online-cred’ basically. For the past year or so, this privileged cabal of cool has been regurgitating Mahima and Kanika’s baseless words in private and public circles. Even furthering my decimation. pic.twitter.com/WVDsQxl3FX
Utsav is now ‘calling out’ women systematically on his profile. However, the truth of this ‘call-out’ on social media in response to the previous series of ‘call-out’ cannot be verified by OpIndia. OpIndia cannot verify any facts related to the matter and is only reporting what is already available on the public domain.
Furthermore, there are a great many allegations against Utsav himself and AIB which haven’t been refuted by anyone. Some women are still saying that Utsav did send extremely inappropriate texts to them and even now insist that he is ‘filth’ and a person with a ‘predatory mindset’. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to reach any hard and fast conclusion on the whole matter.
In a shocking incident, a 16-year-old teenager was raped and thereafter set on fire by her neighbour in a township named Nakhasa in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district, police said on Friday.
ASP AK Jaiswal confirmed that the accused, the victim’s neighbour named Zeeshan has been arrested and a case has been registered against him. The victim who suffered 70 per cent burns has been referred to the Safdarjung hospital in Delhi. The probe is on in the matter, said ASP.
Sambhal: A minor girl was allegedly raped and set ablaze in Nakhasa. AK Jaiswal, ASP says,”Case registered and the accused has been arrested. Doctor has informed that the victim has received 70% burn injuries. Further probe on.” pic.twitter.com/ATyO1ePEFW
The girl was alone at her house in Nakhasa police station area on Thursday when her neighbour, Zeeshan, allegedly raped her, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alok Jaiswal said. He later poured kerosene and set her ablaze, the ASP said, adding that she was rushed to the district hospital from where she was referred to Safdarjung hospital in Delhi.
The accused has been arrested and an FIR was lodged on the complaint of the family members, the officer added.
Last month, in a similar case of brutality, a 22-year-old woman, Shabana Begum, working in a beauty parlour, was set ablaze in her house in Kumarwadi, Tappachabutra in Hyderabad, by her jilted lover, Ibrahim, for refusing to marry him.
A Shiv Sena MLA has threatened to “smash the head” and “break the legs” of anybody who tries to poach his party representatives. Sena MLA Abdul Sattar, who represents Sillod assembly constituency in Aurangabad district. was quoted as saying: “poaching or purchasing democratically elected representatives” was illegal in a democracy. “Our party is not some retail shop to buy MLAs from. If anybody tries to poach our MLAs, we will smash his head and break his legs too. However, the Sena will also summon an ambulance for the person and arrange for his medical treatment.”
Sattar’s comments came amid speculations that some Shiv Sena legislators have expressed displeasure with their party’s attempts to stitch an alliance with Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for government formation in the state.
After the Maharashtra Assembly Elections, Shiv Sena and BJP fell out of their alliance because Shiv Sena insisted on the CM position and BJP was in no mood to oblige. The erstwhile Hindutva party Shiv Sena has now allied with Sonia Gandhi led Congress and Sharad Pawar led NCP to form the government in Maharashtra.
Earlier this month, the Shiv Sena and the Congress had moved their MLAs away from the public eye over concerns of them being “poached” by the BJP. Reportedly when the MLAs were kept at The Retreat Hotel in Mumbai’s Malad, they engaged in abusive arguments over Uddhav Thackeray’s insistence on the post of Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Shiv Sena MLA Aaditya Thackeray had to rush to the hotel following a revolt by Sena MLAs.
Shiv Sena, which emerged as the second-largest party in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, ditched its alliance partner, BJP after it decided to tie-up with NCP-Congress in an expectation that the party could get the post of Chief Minister.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been reportedly facing resistance from the party’s old leaders as she attempts to rebuild the party in Uttar Pradesh.
The displeasure and discord within the party were evident when during a recent meeting, called by Gandhi scion at UP Congress headquarters on Wednesday, out of over 350 former MPs, MLAs, MLCs and 2017 Vidhan Sabha and 2019 Lok Sabha election candidates of Congress invited, only 40 persons showed up.
It is being speculated that Priyanka Gandhi, who was roped with a hope to get the upper hand in national politics has failed to make an impression within her own party. It is being believed that there is resentment within the party over the exclusion of old-timers from UPCC.
A report in Times Of India states that veteran members of the Congress party are planning to meet the interim president, Sonia Gandhi to raise this particular issue. The faction has already held two meetings in the past fortnight to voice resentment against the ‘undemocratic and ‘arbitrary’ way in which the ‘new leadership’ has been imposed on loyal cadres.
Priyanka Gandhi’s plans for replacing the older section with younger blood seems to be backfiring. The old guard, as per the TOI report, held the first meeting at the residence of Siraj Mehndi in the month of November. Interestingly, Mehdi had tendered resignation to Sonia in October saying that not a single Shia was taken in the Uttar Pradesh Congress team.
One leader expressing disappointment after the second meeting held on November 14 revealed that a Congress veteran even pointed fingers at Priyanka, saying “Congress is not a private limited company,”
Another meeting is to be held soon at former MLA Ranjan Singh Solanki’s residence in Noida where members of the delegation for meeting Sonia will be chosen.
If things continue like this, the grand old party is sure to fragmentise sooner or later. But what is surprising is that instead of trying to resolve this internal crisis in the party, the Gandhi scion has been putting her heart and soul in trying to malign the BJP government.
Priyanka’s activities have been betraying her lack of vision and any long-term planning to take on the BJP. She has been found giving in to cheap theatrics by her supporters, portraying a negative image by allowing the use of children to throw filthy expletives against the PM and at one point, even admitting to the media that Congress expects to only ‘cut’ BJP’s votes.
It is notable here that despite massive media support, PR machinery and constant projection of Priyanka as a ‘saviour’ for the sinking Congress, she had failed miserably in the general elections. The Congress had lost deposits in 63 of the 67 seats in Uttar Pradesh, where Priyanka was made the general secretary and in-charge. It had won only 1 seat, that of party president Sonia Gandhi in Raebareli. Priyanka’s eastern UP had seen a total and brutal rout of Congress.
Huffington Post is huffing in desperation, yet again, this time, over Electoral Bonds. How come India as a country has found a government that it loves? This is troubling this publication too hard. Desperation is so deep that it keeps contradicting itself in mindless vilification. It seems there is so much hurry that its editorial team does not even cross-check what it wrote itself on the same topic already.
On one hand, it has claimed that anonymity accorded upon any political donor or a donee political party via the Electoral Bonds in India is going to facilitate a rush of black money into the election funding of India to an extent that it can destabilize our currency and economy.
Huffpost article
On the other hand, it is ranting that there is no anonymity in these Electoral Bonds because the issuing agency, the State Bank of India knows who bought the bonds and who encashed them eventually.
Huffington Post article
Will Huffington Post ever have the gall to question why the Church offers anonymity to any believer of Christianity to go and pour their heart out at the confession box? Will Huffington Post ever have the courage to speculate if the clergy ensconced within the privacy behind the confession box can take undue advantage at a personal level by knowing the darkest secrets of those coming by to undertake confessions in belief? No, it will never dare to question such things for there is a strong faith and belief in the practitioners of Christianity who trust their church. But the same Huffington Post is challenging the faith and trust the people of India have in their Government.
So, Huffington Post heads you win & tails is India’s loss? If horses had wings they surely could fly. But horses don’t have wings. Someone must make Huffington Post realize this basic.
Anonymity is not immunity from law & morals. No facilitation of privacy can ever become a contract between any state and its people that provides immunity from existing laws. This is a basic denominator in all governance, jurisprudence & social value systems.
Will Huffington Post or for that matter any global or local institution ever be able to argue in a court of law in India or in any country, assume for a moment if any of their people are facing trial for treason, that the investigative agencies have violated the right to privacy by tapping phone calls to gather evidence? It won’t be able to do so. Then why rant about that State Bank of India maintains records of who bought the Electoral Bonds? Come on, do you wish to say that State Bank of India should write in its books of accounts someone whose name should not be disclosed bought the electoral bonds and it should also note that other someone encashed the bonds when they come back for redemption? What Utopia are you living in Huffington Post?
If your Utopia exists Huffington Post then you must go and question the church that the clergy behind the confession box should undergo a memory erasure therapy after each session of confession and that a confession box should have a digital device to scan and inform the person doing confession that there is no voice recording or evidence gathering digital device. But you will not question the trust people have in the institution of the church. Fair enough. Same way when people have trust in their democracy you should have the grace to not question it.
If abuse of this trust shall be made either at the church or at the democracy concerned, there will be a resolution. There will be grievance redressal if grievance arises. Huffington Post, your desperation is deeply soaked in paranoia, therefore!
If the issue at all is that the Election Commission, that is another arm of the state erected independently to serve the people of India, feels it must know the details of the donor, it can within the framework of the governance make a case for being allowed to do so & the process of legislation can take care of it. But then, you will come back and sneeze again that not only the State Bank of India but now even the Election Commission of India has breached the anonymity!
Its an act of utter shamelessness and not a mere disgrace to say that the Government in power will abuse the institutions of the Chief Election Commissioner or the State Bank of India to lay traps on citizens who choose to donate with privacy to the election process.
If such an allegation is not shameless then one would be able to say that the Government will abuse the police, the intelligence, the military to subvert the rights of its own people. You need to realize Huffington Post that India is today a vibrant democracy, the world’s largest democracy that is functional and fully functional. You need to realize that India today is not a colony of some imperialist masters any more who could exploit its people without any accountability or mechanisms for redressal of grievances.
Whether Modi Sarkar or any other Sarkar in the future tinkers with, toys with or breaches the rights of its citizens we have a fully functional redressal mechanism through our Courts of Law. So, thank you for your paranoia but no thank you since in your agenda you have lost even common-sense Huffington post.
Anyone indulgent in mindless sloganeering that there has been a scam with Electoral Bonds have some grace as agents of our democracy. You should build out a case with facts & points of law and approach a court of law seeking application of law and seeking justice if there is any scam. The real scam is that even after being routed by the people of India to permanent oblivion some political parties have accumulated so much fat over seven decades that they are maintaining well-greased machinery of deception, deceit and distraction. Imported Supari Journalism is now being served without realizing that Indians are no longer enchanted to lap up everything imported since Make in India is the real ethos of our people.
To try and wreck up a sense of paranoia within the minds of the people of India it has been argued that there was a hurry and rush in legislating the Electoral Bonds. Why are you failing to realize Huffington Post that in this New India our Government undertakes its business as seriously as any men in Business would undertake and this is our usual speed of achievements now! A Government that works with speed is a Government that must be doing something wrong is an idea that is at best an appeal to emotions and not an appeal to reason. At its worst such a thinking is a reflection of minds that are still living in the lost glories of fiefdoms of corruption.
If additional windows for issuances of bonds have been provided it is not a conspiracy to benefit any specific political party, but only facilitation since a country as big as a continent with as diverse weathers, demography and terrain must undertake its elections at dates that must respect all local logistics. The only beneficiary with such a conspiracy is the electoral system where more probity is facilitated, not just anyone specific political party. At most a polite editorial pointing to a suggestion that the Electoral Bond legislation may be made crisper and tighter by incorporating suitable amendments to allow additional windows of Electoral Bond Issuances to be made or even allowing for throughout the year issuances be facilitated. Don’t even try to tell us that these bonds will become a vehicle for storage of unaccounted wealth and become freely traded instruments of dark choices since their shelf life is only fifteen days. Within fifteen days of issuance, an Electoral Bond must be deposited by a political party in its bank accounts for converting into formal currency.
Haven’t you read in the very popular novel Da Vinci Code allusions to permanent bearer bonds issued by the Vatican being the favourite choice of the global Mafiosi & every clandestine operator and agent on the periphery of every state for seeking total anonymity for paying or being paid for a crime? Well, India hasn’t chosen such bonds that can be utilized for any purpose except for making donations to a political party and the process of donation and its encashment via these bonds must be completed within fifteen days.
The rant about the undoing of the limit of 7.5% of prior three years profits for corporate donors to election campaigns or political parties is a hollow one too. Firstly, it’s a separate issue & this undoing of the limit could have been done even without bringing about Election Bonds. Secondly, this independent idea of removing this limit along with the Election Bonds is simply an element of the rapidly rising ease of doing business in India. If any company will pay from even a loss-making balance sheet, it doesn’t add up to your paranoia that black money will enter more easily into politics. It will be accounted for money.
The heart-burn evident in the allegation that 95% of the Electoral Bonds have been donated to the ruling party cannot be a basis to say that the ruling party is corrupt. On the contrary, any political party that accepts more donations via the Electoral Bonds is having to account for a larger amount of expenses it makes from this white money since all Electoral Bonds provide white money to every political party that will accept them. With white money coming either via cheques, wire transfers or through Electoral Bonds it becomes far tougher to pay for country liquor, unlicensed arms, nautch girls at election rallies and pay cash bribes to the electorate.
Protests by students continued for the 16th day on the appointment of Dr Feroz Khan in the Sanskrit Vidya Dharma Vigyan faculty of Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Although the administration is continuously pressurizing the students to withdraw their protest, the students remain firm on their demands.
The students submitted their demand letters to the administration yesterday and sought answers from the university administration for several questions. There was a meeting between the SVDV faculty head, other heads of department and the Vice-Chancellor late in the night but no conclusion was reached. Meanwhile, it is also being said that the administration tried to remove Sasikanth Mishra, Shubham and Krishna from the protest site, who are leading the resistance, to pressure SVDV students. Despite this, the students continue to protest.
The Questions posed to the Vice-Chancellor by SVDV students
Which shortlisting procedure of UGC has the university adopted in this recruitment process?
Has the appointment procedure been completed according to the University constitution?
Has this appointment been made keeping in mind 1904, 1096, 1915, 1955, 1966 and 1969 Act of the BHU Act?
In the literature department of SVDV, has the shortlisting been done as per all other departments of the faculty?
Has the shortlisting been done keeping in mind the rules of Sanatan Dharma of the faculty?
SVDV students’ Demand LetterSVDN students’ Demand Letter
The BHU administration has promised to give written answers to these questions asked by the agitating students within ten days. But since this morning, a lot of fake news including the dismantling of the dharna was run in the media, about which the students allege that such reports are being run deliberately to lower their morale with the connivance of the administration and the media.
It was for the first time that a Muslim assistant professor, Dr Feroz Khan, was appointed in the literature department of the SVDV of Banaras Hindu University, on the 5th of November. As soon as the students of the faculty came to know about it, protests started in the university against this appointment and since then there have been continuous protests.
It is noteworthy that when the students were protesting about the appointment of Professor Feroz Khan, all the media groups across the country ran this news as if the appointment of a Muslim teacher was being opposed in the entire BHU but it is not the case. On the lines of Aligarh, there may be some similarities in the name of BHU, but there has never been any opposition solely due to one’s Muslim identity.
In reality, the current protests are against the appointment of a non-Hindu to the ‘Faculty of Theology’. There are two departments for Sanskrit in BHU, one under Arts Faculty and the other under SVDV Faculty. The first is the study of Sanskrit and the other is the theology of religion. There are different ways of studying in these two. Sanskrit is taught as a language in the Sanskrit department. At the same time, in the SVDV, students are taught about the customs, mantras, shlokas, rituals of worship and rituals of Sanatan Dharma.
Students of Dharma Vigya department of BHU who are holding protests say that how can a Muslim person teach the Hindu Dharma and rituals of worship. This is what is being opposed by the students. The students said that they had no objection to Sanskrit being taught as a language by a teacher of any caste or religion. The students said that if the appointment was made as a Sanskrit teacher in any other faculty of the university, it would not be opposed. But now after the students’ protest, it has been made clear from the university that Firoz Khan will teach Sanskrit and not rituals.
OpIndia has been reporting the accurate version of the students demands from the very beginning. A deliberate attempt has been made by the media to demonize the students for their fair concerns. However, we have striven hard to portray the accurate version of events.
The picture of a poster at Hajipur that threatened to bomb-blast the Hajipur railway station and Sonepur Mela has caused the administration to deploy additional security measures in the area. As per reports, the image of the poster had gone viral on social media in Hajipur area on Thursday.
Reports say that on Thursday, the poster went viral on social media. It said, “Jihad, Jihad, Jihad, Pakistan Zindabad, Release Mohammad Shabbir or Hajipur Junction and Sonepur Mela will be blown away within three days.”
Reports say that a local student had first noticed the poster near the Samaharnalaya Gate at Hajipur. The student and some other persons had shared the image of the poster on social media which went viral soon, creating panic among the people. The Hajipur administration was soon alerted and upon SDPO’s order, police personnel were sent to scan the Hajipur station and nearby areas.
Security checks were initiated and metal detectors were used to scan every corner of the busy railway station. The police have also requested citizens to immediately alert the forces if they see any suspicious object or person. The police reportedly failed to locate the poster that had gone viral.
Who is Mohammad Shabbir
Mohammad Shabbir is a local Madarsa teacher who was arrested in September over allegations of running a terrorist sleeper cell. A local Muslim family in Hajipur had alleged that Shabbir was instigating their son Khalid to join terrorist activities. Shabbir had kidnapped Khalid and had fled to Mumbai. He was eventually arrested in Mumbai by Hajipur police and is currently under custody.
Khalid, a 12-year-old boy from Bihar’s Vaishali district, was allegedly being pressurised by Shabbir to join radical Islamist activities. Shabbir, who was a Maulana in a madarsa in Patepur, had urged the family to allow the boy to stay with him and had enrolled him in a school in Patna. However, when the family was notified by the school administration that Khalid’s activities were suspicious, they found that Khalid had an expensive smartphone, where Shabbir used to share messages related to jihad and violent Islamist ideologies.
Shabbir was allegedly involved with a group named Al-Furkan and was trying to get Khalid involved with the group. When Khalid’s family tried to take him back, Shabbir had kidnapped Khalid. He was eventually arrested in Mumbai.
