After the police arrested the women involved and unearthed the Madhya Pradesh honey trap racket, there are new skeletons tumbling out of the closet every day. It was earlier reported that among the names of high profile and powerful persons ‘trapped’ by the women, there are several names of ministers and IAS officers in the state.
As per latest reports, the investigating team has found that the racket also included names of several Bhopal-based media persons. As per an IANS report, the names include a resident editor of a Hindi newspaper, a cameraman of a news channel and the owner of the regional satellite channel.
The media persons, as per the report, were not the victims of the honey trap racket but rather the ‘conduits’. The media persons allegedly helped broker deals between the bureaucrat victims and Shweta Jain, the kingpin of the racket.
The allegation of journalists and key media persons being involved in the racket was first made by BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya recently. Speaking to media, Vijayvargiya had stated that he has specific information about 3 or 4 journalists being involved in the racket.
IANS has quoted Hemant Sharma, the editor-in-chief of a Hindi daily saying that there is a certain group of journalists who move in the power corridors only with the sole purpose of blackmailing and extorting money from the senior government officials and politicians who they know are involved in corruption. Sharma has also stated that Shweta and Arti Dayal did have some journalists in their racket who they used for negotiating deals with their victims.
In another development, the father of Monika Yadav, the 18-year-old girl who was arrested among other women, was detained by the Indore police for interrogation. Reports stated that Monika had revealed that some material evidence is hidden in her house and the police team had gone to the Sawansi village in Rajgarh district along with Monika.
Monika, reportedly a talented girl from a poor family, was trapped by Arti Dayal with the promise of financial help for a journalism course. Monika and Arti were arrested along with their driver Omprakash on September 18 from a hotel in Indore, where they had gone to collect Rs 50 lakh from a government official whom they were blackmailing.
Arti Dayal, Shweta Swapnil Jain, Barkha Soni, Shweta Vijay Jain, Monika Yadav and a driver named Omprakash Kori were the first persons to be arrested in the high profile honey trapping racket. Barkha is the wife of a former Congress IT cell vice president and a former Mahila Congress member. Shweta had even tried to get an election ticket from Sagar but could not do it after her MMS went viral.
As many as 13 IAS officers, a former governor and a former chief minister are reportedly among the people used by the racket to extort money and favourable deals for their NGOs. The police are now examining thousands of digital files, filled with lurid sex chats, videos and images that were recovered from the arrested persons.
The American space agency, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has released images captured by its lunar orbiter of the targeted landing site of Chandrayaan-2’s lander, Vikram.
Our @LRO_NASA mission imaged the targeted landing site of India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram. The images were taken at dusk, and the team was not able to locate the lander. More images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting. More: https://t.co/1bMVGRKslppic.twitter.com/kqTp3GkwuM
The images were taken at dusk and the NASA team was unable to locate the lander which crash landed earlier this month. According to NASA, the images are captured by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Quickmap and was not able to locate the lander. “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over the landing site on Sept. 17 and acquired a set of high resolution images of the area; so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander. It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus large shadows covered much of the terrain; it is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow. The lighting will be favorable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander,” NASA said in a statement.
On 7th September, Chandrayaan-2’s landing module had gone silent after Vikram Lander lost connection when it was merely 2 KMs from the landing surface of the moon. While ISRO was able to locate the lunar module in one piece, it had tiled a little because of the hard landing. All efforts to resume the communication has so far been unsuccessful.
Pakistan has invited the diplomats of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (P-5) to visit the terror camps to prove that India’s claims are ‘baseless’. On Thursday, ahead of the UNGA session in New York, Pakistan offered the diplomats of P-5 countries to visit the sites where India has claimed that terror camps have been ‘reactivated’ by Islamabad. Prime Minister Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan are scheduled to address the UNGA later today in New York.
This invitation comes a day after Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat said that Pakistan has reactivated the Balakot terror camp which was destroyed in 26th February air strikes Indian Air Force carried out following the ghastly Pulwama terror attack. He also said that at least 500 terrorists are waiting to infiltrate in India from across the border.
Pakistan has called it India’s ‘propaganda’ against it. While briefing the ambassadors of P-5 countries, Pakistan’s Acting Foreign Secretary Moazzam Ahmad Khan called it an ‘anti-Pakistan propaganda’. He even asked the ambassadors to ask New Delhi to provide proofs of these terror camps.
“Pakistan is ready to provide full cooperation to delegates from P5 countries or diplomats from any other country who wish to visit any of the alleged locations to see for themselves that such Indian allegations are totally baseless and a mere rhetoric, to mislead both the international community, as well as Indian domestic audience,” Pakistan’s foreign office reportedly said in a statement.
Prime Minister Modi, who will be speaking at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York today is likely to talk about Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism. The 74th session will begin at 9 AM New York time with an address from Mauritius President Paramasivum Pillay Vyapoory.
Prime Minister Modi’s speech, which is expected to start at 11:30 AM in New York (9 PM India time) will follow a general debate between Prime Minister of Lesotho and Indonesian Vice-President. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to speak after PM Modi’s speech.
It is believed that PM Modi might speak about the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and the current situation prevailing there along with plans for peace and development in the valley. PM Modi may also talk about the Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in India at the UNGA.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to speak after PM Modi and is also expected to rake up the Kashmir issue, despite the fact that the international community has snubbed Pakistan time and again stating that the abrogation of Article 370 is an internal matter of India.
Yesterday, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi boycotted India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s opening statement at the SAARC Council of Foreign Ministers meeting saying that Pakistan will not ‘engage’ with India until and unless it ‘lifts the siege’ in Kashmir.
Ahead of Sharad Pawar’s visit to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in connection with the money laundering case, prohibitory orders are put in force in South Mumbai. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief is to visit the ED office today in Mumbai’s Ballard Estate area.
Dear Mumbaikars!
Please be advised that prohibitory orders have been issued u/s 144 CrPC for the following jurisdictions.
Mumbai Police, in a tweet last night, said that section 144 of the IPC has been imposed in Colaba, Cuffe Parade, Marine Drive, Azad Maidan, Dongri, JJ Marg and MRA Marg. The prohibitory orders were placed in view of security situation in South Mumbai where the ED office is situated. Pawar is visiting the ED office even though he is not summoned yet. Earlier this week, he had expressed his ‘desire’ to experience how it feels being jailed. In a sarcastic comment, he had said that he “wants to go to jail as he has ‘never had this experience before’.”
The former Maharashtra Chief Minister and his nephew, former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, were named in the Rs 25,000 crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam. A case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been registered against the accused.
In August, the Mumbai Police had filed a case against Ajit Pawar and 70 others in the bank scam. Scrutiny carried out by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and a charge sheet filed by a quasi-judicial enquiry commission under the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies (MCS) Act held Pawar and other accused, including several directors of the bank responsible for the loss. It stated that because of their decisions, actions and inactions, massive losses were incurred to the bank.
An audit report by NABARD revealed flagrant violations of several banking laws and RBI norms by the accused in the allotment of loans to sugar factories and spinning mills and the ensuing default on repayment and recovery of such loans. During that time, Ajit Pawar was the director of the bank.
Rajasthan Mahila Congress Secretary Reena Mimrot was caught spreading fake news to malign US President Donald Trump. She took to Twitter to share an obscene image of Donald Trump’s lookalike groping a woman claiming that he is the US President.
Reena Mimrot shared a snippet from an old video dated October 26, 2016, wherein Donald Trump’s impersonator appeared outside New York’s Trump Tower accompanied by two bikini-clad models.
“Nagpuriya sanghiyon ki shakkha se gyan prapt karke, aapne sanskaro ko sarvajanik karte andhbhakto ke jyeshth pitaji jinke prachar prasar ke inke papa lage hain”, said Reena Mimrot in her Tweet.
Displaying her cheap mindset, the Congress loyalist took a dig at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which is headquartered in Nagpur, by saying that the person in the images ‘flaunting his culture’ is the ‘father’ of the blind ‘bhakts’.
This is not the first time the Congress leader has exhibited her shallow mentality. In line with her party tradition, Reena Mimrot had earlier too taken to Twitter to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi for sharing playful pictures with his “special friend” who visited him in his office on July 24, 2019.
Mimrot had tweeted, “Modji samay par ghar jaate to aaj doosare ke bachche nahin khilaane padate.” This roughly translates as “Had Modiji settled down on time in life, he would not have to play with other’s kids.”
PM Modi had set the internet on fire when he had posted a few pictures of him playing with a kid on his official Instagram handle. In no time, the pictures became a hot topic of discussion on social media arousing the curiosity of the netizens to learn about the identity of the baby.
Modi had captioned the pictures as “A very special friend came to meet me in Parliament today.” It was later revealed the little kid playing with the PM was the grandaughter of BJP MP Satyanarayan Jatiya.
However, by making such a personal attack on the Prime Minister of India, Reena had just given the Twitter users a sneak peek into her rotten brains.
In another deplorable act of rape, a Dalit woman (20) was allegedly raped at the gunpoint and filmed by two men named Abdul and Naved, in the Kotwali area of Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh.
Police had arrested the main accused, Abdul, and sent him to the jail on Wednesday, while the other accused, Naved remains absconding. Rampur Superintendent of Police Ajay Pal Sharma told TOI, “The crime took place on September 12, but it was reported on Tuesday evening. Abdul was arrested from Topkhana Gate locality on Swar road within 12 hours of registering the FIR. Five police teams have been pressed into service to arrest the accused.”
In the incident which transpired on September 12, 2019, a Dalit girl had gone to a nearby field to get some fodder when two men namely Naved and Abdul nabbed her and forcefully took her to a deserted area where they raped her at the gunpoint by taking turns. When the victim protested the accused threatened to kill her. They also videographed the entire act which they later uploaded on social media.
Afraid of the threats the victim chose to hide what transpired with her from her family members. However, after the video filmed by the accused became viral on social media, the victim’s relatives came to know about the incident. Her family and relatives approached the Rampur police station on September 25 and lodged a complaint against the two accused. The police, in turn, registered a case against the accused under section 376-D (gangrape), 504 (criminal intimidation), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), relevant provisions of SC/ST Act and section 67 of the IT Act.
Rampur: A woman was gang-raped by 2 men of her village on 12 Sept, who also recorded the act&made the video viral. Police say “The woman & her relatives came to us with her complaint. FIR registered under various sec of IPC,SC/ST Act & IT Act. Accused will be arrested soon”(24.9) pic.twitter.com/BCsqk8b7lZ
Meanwhile, SP Ajay Pal Sharma added, “During the preliminary investigation, it was found that the woman had an affair with Abdul, who also produced recordings of their conversations over the mobile phone. We also found a 25-second video of the crime uploaded on various social media sites by the accused.”
“The woman has been sent for a medical examination. Afterwards, the investigating officer will produce her before the magistrate to record her statement under section 164 of the CrPc,” the SP added.
A similar incident was reported on September 24 wherein a Dalit minor was allegedly gang-raped and filmed by three men in Ghosia village of Kaushambi district that falls under Saray Akil police station, near Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. In this case, too, one of the accused named Nazik was caught by the villagers and handed over to the police while the main accused named Adil who was found the next day, hiding in a Mazar. He was nabbed following an encounter with the police.
In a high-level meeting chaired by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in Srinagar with security officials and bureaucrats on Thursday, he asked the Security Forces to strengthen the anti-terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir while asking them to ensure zero collateral damage. Doval was in Srinagar for the second time since the abrogation of Article 370, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of the separate status.
Officers from Army, Central Reserve Police Force, State Police and other agencies attended this high-level meeting held in Srinagar. Doval, who is back in the national capital after holding a series of meeting with security functionaries and office-bearers in Srinagar from Wednesday, had reportedly asked the officials to work towards creating such an atmosphere in the Kashmir Valley that the common man could follow his routine properly without being intimidated by terrorist groups.
According to the reports, the NSA took stock of the situation and directed the forces to expedite their counter-terrorism operations. However, Ajit Doval also cautioned the forces to protect the lives and property of the citizens in their campaign against terrorists. Besides, Doval also reviewed the developmental projects for people and urged officials for their expeditious implementation, which comprises giving best health care, the shipment of apple boxes out of the Kashmir Valley and other such things.
This was the second visit to the valley by the NSA after the central government revoked Article 370 on August 5 and bifurcated the state into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Both Union Territories will come into existence on October 31 and the first Lieutenant Governor of both the regions will take oath on the same day. On his maiden visit to Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, the NSA encamped here for 11 days to review the security situation and interact with the locals to understand the difficulties faced by them.
Speaking for the first time ever over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to be taking the moral responsibility for the killing by saying it “happened under his watch”.
Denying any prior knowledge of the killing, Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a reporter in December 2018, according to quotes released ahead of a new PBS documentary to be aired on October 1, ahead of the first anniversary of the journalist’s death: “It happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility because it happened under my watch.”
The documentary, “The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia”, slated to be released next week, examines the Saudi leader’s rise, his rule and ties to the events surrounding Khashoggi’s murder. It also features never-before-seen interview footage of Khashoggi months before his death, explaining how he went from being a supporter of the Crown Prince to a critic.
MBS, prior to this, has never been heard publically speaking of the killing in the last one year, though a UN expert had on July 19, 2019, citing ‘credible information’, linked the Saudi Arabia crown prince to journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. He had stated that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be investigated in the murder of Washington Post columnist and Kingdom critic Jamal Khashoggi.
In October, last year, the Turkish authorities had accused the Crown prince of Saudi Arabia of executing a premeditated homicide of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi inside Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
A report by the special rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, read that the “personal assets” should be targeted with sanctions until there is proof he was not responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Jamal Khashoggi, 58-year-old journalist, a US-based columnist for the Washington Post and prominent critic of Prince Mohammed, had been living in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2017. He was a citizen of the USA, with bonhomie with many Trump administration officials. He had a huge twitter following.
Khashoggi incriminated Saudi of being complicit in aggravating humanitarian crisis going in Yemen, he also spoke vocally about sanctions against Canada for speaking on behalf of jailed activist like Raif Badawi along with many scathing comments.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate on October 2, 2018, to obtain papers he needed to marry his fiancee Hatice Cengiz from where he suspiciously disappeared. According to reports, he was assassinated by Saudi government officials, inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. His fiancee was waiting outside the consulate when he was being killed.
Turkey was first to claim that Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate, saying it had evidences including audio recordings. Initially, Saudi authorities had strongly denied the allegation. However, subsequently, the investigators concluded that Khashoggi was forcibly restrained after a struggle and injected with a large amount of a drug, which resulted in an overdose that led to his death.
In January 2019, the UN’s human rights office tasked Callamard with establishing “the nature and extent of responsibilities states and individuals for the killing”.
Though the senior Saudi officials insisted that Khashoggi’s death was the result of a “rogue” operation, the Callamard’s report said Khashoggi was “brutally slain” inside the consulate that day and further concluded that it was “an extrajudicial killing for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible”.
A few days ago (September 22, 2019) there was a news about a minor girl gang raped in Kaushambi. When we looked in to the same, some details emerged pointing towards the fact that the girl was from Dalit community and rapists were all Muslims. As is the standard operating procedure of secular media, there was no outrage, humanity didn’t die. Even though the girl belongs to Dalit community, there was no media coverage. She could have got the coverage, had she been a victim of upper caste Hindus. Which she was not.
OpIndia took the story in September 22 and followed it up with two more stories about the accused getting caught. The details were shocking as the culprits, Adil, Najik and their unidentified friend, not only raped the girl, but they went on to make a video. The girl, media reports claim, knew the rapists and begged for mercy in the name of Allah.
It was shared on OpIndia Hindi Facebook page with the headline (see screenshot) that has not a single word that’s offending or manufactured, or fake, or goes against journalistic ethics. These words came from girl’s mouth and the names of rapists are not protected by some law of the land. Then comes Facebook, with its ‘community guidelines’ and deletes the post with the news report.
OpIndia Hindi news screenshot
The same Facebook hosts several news stories with words ‘Jai Shri Ram’, ‘she kept begging for mercy in the name of god’, ‘bhagwaan ke liye chhod do’, then how come Facebook gets all this touchy-feely about Muslim names and ‘Allah ki kasam’? This is a clear case of shielding rapists because they belong to a certain religion!
When we tried to talk it out with Facebook, I was told that image might be problematic, even after we blurred the girl. If you see the image, no sane mind would tell that the image of offensive, demeaning or promotes hatred in the name of religion. The face of the rapist is visible (unless of course Facebook finds that insulting somehow), and girl’s dress is yellow. You can’t make out what’s wrong with sharing this image as it is not graphic, nor depicts violence or shows blood etc.
So, the question is: what kind of image should be used to represent these ghastly crimes? Should we always use a girl timidly sitting in the corner of a room? Does that imagery somehow enhances or reduces the ghastliness of such criminal acts? How does that image promote hatred or is disturbing?
A 15 year old kid is being gang raped and this news, not even some opinion piece, the news itself is against Facebook’s community guidelines! At the same time, these companies won’t ever tell you the exact guidelines you have violated. They give you the link and ask you to familiarise yourself with their guidelines so that you don’t commit the mistake again. You can keep searching the link to know which section or subsection you violated and won’t ever reach a conclusion.
Yet, we try to understand things at our own level to figure out why Facebook people are annoyed. After spending good amount of time, you will realise that it’s ok to post condoms over Trishool, show Hindu devi as a prostitute, show male genitalia with Shiva’s tripund, portray Hindu deities in vulgar ways, but if you post a rape news, where culprits are Muslims and your headline has Allah, it gets in to their bottoms. And, boy! They don’t like it.
Hinduphobia and content offending Hindu Dharma is flowing with uncontrolled fluidity on timelines of Facebook. Abusive words for Hindu deities, peeing on Shivlinga, desecration of temples and statues, poster of Bhagwan Hanuman being ripped and beaten by chappals are all fine under Facebook’s community guidelines. They don’t violate any chapter, section, subsection, sentence, phrase, word, thoughts or any part of anything from their community guidelines.
Then you start to think whether their community comprises of some 14th century Islamic attackers and thieves or those creating such biased policies have their DNAs where mocking Hindu deities, their vulgar portrayal is all fine but when you name a Muslim rapist, who makes a video, uploads it, Facebook suddenly gets a burning sensation up its you-know-where.
Whether it’s Facebook, or YouTube, these organisations have always taken shelter of arbitrary ‘community guidelines’. They want news organisations or general public to shield the culprits by the web of words where they are addressed as Ram (name changed) so that one particular community doesn’t feel hurt. But the fact is, any community, Hindu or Muslim, feels hurt because a rapist is named in a report, they should be ashamed of their existence.
So, who does this idiotic act: computers or humans?
When you think about it, look at the sequence of events, you wonder if computers and algorithms are doing the ‘deleting’ part, or are they busy targeting a few organisations or people based on their biases? When we shared it on our Facebook page, we got the message that it violated community guidelines. You can’t even appeal as the button which says ‘see details’ and enables you to appeal, is offline in these cases.
As you would expect, you would like to know what’s the issue. When we mailed Facebook they asked us to appeal and also tried to dictate how we should have formed the headline. I am an editor of this website. Someone who works at Facebook, has zero media experience, tells me how to frame headlines!
Perhaps, they wanted the headline to be like this: Some guys did something to a girl, police is doing something. And, they would expect you to write the report like this: “A 15 year old girl had gone somewhere, three guys Ram, Shyam and Kanhaiya (names changed) took her somewhere and did something bad.” Have you ever seen the ‘names changed’ prefixed with ‘Salim-Rashid-Parwez’? You wouldn’t have, because crimes of Muslims have been covered under ‘from particular community’ and their names ‘changed’ by Hindu names.
It is not about why do we want to write Muslim’s names. It is about the fact that if Hindu naming is very much conventional, and even the burden of Muslim crimes gets hidden under ‘name changed’, purposefully or ignorantly Hindu, why shouldn’t we write Muslim accused’s name? Is it protected by law?
When the story was removed by Facebook, I asked them if the same news was deleted for being on Facebook page, how come it still exists at over 30,000 places on Facebook itself, if it is deleted by algorithms or unbiased humans? Why isn’t all posts deleted? I told them that I shared the same news and it is very much there on my profile. Eight hours later they suspend my account for 24 hours. It means, it’s not automatic. When I gave them the information, they targeted me. As if this was not all, someone reported my tweet on Twitter. However, Twitter said it found no issues with the tweet.
Twitter said ‘it’s fine’, Facebook says ‘you are suspended’
The question is: Why does Facebook feel its backyard is on fire when Muslims are addressed as criminals in context of a crime? What’s so special about these Muslim culprits that their names should be hidden under Ram (name changed)? Does Facebook approve of Muslim rapists? Does Facebook uses parts of some particular book in its community guidelines where it says raping a kafir is all in good spirits?
If it’s actually as such, then Facebook must declare that their guidelines have descended from the heavens and Zuckerberg received it in some cave of Hawai Islands. And according to those commandments, we will allow Hinduphobic content, vulgar portrayal of Hindu deities, posts demeaning Hindu Dharma as freedom of expression, but reports of Muslims involved in a gang rape, however factual those may be, won’t be allowed as they go against our sacred guidelines.
It is for you to decide what’s going on here. Facebook takes our data, what we like or dislike, our images, posts, the style of our writing, our location, everything we posts is stored on a server. That data is sold to any political party, some food chain, some online shopping company, cosmetics giant, banks or anyone in need and has the money.
So, no one should say what do we pay Facebook. Or the statement that it is a private company, it can make its own policies. Of course, they can keep them at their whim, if they stop stealing and storing data, with or without consent. We are paying them and they ought to protect the rights that is provided by the countries they operate in to.
These companies, with their data machinery indulges in election meddling, suppresses news content from people/organisations that are against their ideology. They shouldn’t be preaching about some arbitrary guidelines, unless they come clean on their biases.
That’s why, Facebook should shed its doublespeak, and tell the world why does it protect Muslim rapists? Facebook should let the world know if posts being shared in Facebook should follow Sharia law? Facebook should speak up if media organisations should post news while facing Mecca and, maybe, offer Namaz while at it? Facebook should let us know if the news being shared on its platform get ‘Halal certification’?
