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The real Saba Naqvi: Here is how the ‘neutral journalist’ supported killers of Ram Sevaks in Sabarmati Express burning

GujaratRiots.com
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The real Saba Naqvi: Here is how the ‘neutral journalist’ supported killers of Ram Sevaks in Sabarmati Express burning

In this tweet by Saba Naqvi, she talks of articles on her by OpIndia. Saba Naqvi is hailed as a so-called ‘secular’ journalist. However, her reality is horrific and another full proper article is needed to expose her true face.


She had stooped to an unimaginably low level on the Godhra carnage of 27 Feb 2002 to defend the fanatic Muslims who were the barbaric killers of 59 Ram sevaks [including 25 women and 15 children, including babies] returning from Ayodhya. Her heart wouldn’t melt even in this case where 25 women and 15 children including babies and toddlers were burnt to coal by a mob of Muslims.

The word “Godhra” records the gruesome killing of some 59 innocent people, including 25 women and 15 children and injuries to 40. The attackers had a plan to set on fire the entire train but could not do so because the train was late for four hours and they could not take the advantage ofthe darkness of night. There were many witnesse, and survivors of the train attack in Godhra whose testimonies prove beyond doubt what had happened. Initially, even the self-styled ‘secularist’ media houses had reported and accepted the truth, though they changed track later.

27 February 2002 was not the first time, nor the last time, that Godhra witnessed communal vandalism.  The town had a long history of bloody communalism. It was well-known for it. There were major acts of violence and fanaticism by Muslims recorded in 1928, 1946, 1948, 1965, 1980, 1990 and 1992.  There were acts of Muslim fanaticism in Godhra even after 27 February 2002.

In September 2003, Ganesh idol immersion saw stone pelting and conflicts between Hindus and Muslims. This was reported by rediff.com and The Times of India, but was forgotten by everyone, including the Sangh Parivar leadership.

On 13 March 2002, a mob of 500 Muslims again attacked Hindus in Jahurpura area of Godhra near the Old Bus Stand. The report of NDTV was:

“Mob Attack in Godhra, 12 Arrested

Wednesday, March 13, 2002 (Godhra): Within a fortnight of the February 27 railway station mayhem and subsequent violent fallout, tension escalated again today with a minority mob allegedly attacking people in the town, leading to police firing. Police said a ‘500-people strong mob of minority community’ attacked people in the Jahurpura area near the Old Bus Stand. They resorted to stone pelting and also ‘opened fire’ with private arms, police said. Police opened fire and hurled tear gas shells to disperse the mob. There was no report of any injury or casualty so far.

Additional forces of police, State Reserve Police and anti-riot Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel led by senior DSP, Raju Bhargava, rushed to the spot and carried out a combing operation. ‘Twelve persons including two women were picked up from a nearby place of worship,’ police said. The situation was under control but tense, police said”.

Thus Muslims attacked Hindus in Godhra again soon after the 27th  February carnage. The Times of India also reported this PTI news. All the above details of Godhra (except the 2003 stone pelting and mob attack of March 2002) are also mentioned in an article titled “Godhra in Ferment even before Independence” in the Milli Gazette magazine on 16 March, 2002.

This magazine is considered as a voice of Muslims in India. This is the Indian Muslims’ leading English newspaper and it had also published these details about Godhra.

Even the Nanavati Commission report on Godhra said: “Communal riots had taken place in Godhra in the years 1925, 1928, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1953, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992. The communal riots that had taken place in 1948 were very serious…”

The then Railway Minister Lalu Yadav appointed a Banerjee Committee which was a departmental committee and not a full-fledged Commission of Inquiry which gave its interim report in January 2005, a fortnight before the 2005 Bihar Assembly elections, that Godhra was an accident (as expected, absolving the heinous killers of their crime). What was not expected was the extent of support this act of Lalu got from the media. Other mainstream parties like the Congress, CPM staunchly defended this report insulting both the dead Ramsewaksand the intelligence of the people (thinking that people would believe Godhra could have been an accident and Ram sewaks would not run out of the train had there not been a mob of 2000 Muslims surrounding the train and preventing the Ramsewaks from running out). The report of The Tribune on 18 January 2005, one day after the Banerjee report was made public can make one easily know the Banerjee report.

Saba Naqvi writing in Outlook fully supported the findings of the Banerjee Committee in January 2005. She said in an article along with Darshan Desai:

“Is the Godhra report only a political stunt being pulled by Laloo Prasad Yadav? Will the real facts about Godhra never be known because it is such a political hot potato? The truth perhaps is not as obscured by circumstances or motives. Laloo may well have done a disservice to the credibility of the U.C. Banerjee Committee report by blatantly extracting political mileage from it. Yet, senior police officials from Gujarat and technical experts Outlookspoke to believe that to date the Banerjee report offers the most coherent explanation of the Godhra tragedy, if not the complete picture.

So, even as political clouds gather around the report, it has somewhat lifted the fog of smoke that engulfed coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express, claiming 59 lives, and sparking off the most horrific communal violence in independent India.

Justice Banerjee himself made two trips to Godhra and examined the report of the Gujarat state forensic science laboratory. And throughout his three-month probe, he was assisted by S.K. Dheri, a retired chief fire officer of the Delhi Fire Services. Sources in Rail Bhawan say Banerjee even experimented with an old abandoned railway bogie in Calcutta. It was set afire to draw conclusions from the burn patterns. He also drew on the expertise of Calcutta forensic experts.

Even more significant is the information an independent group of IIT engineers and multi-disciplinary experts from the Hazards Centre, New Delhi, submitted to him. One of the most imaginative steps they took was to locate another coach—16526 gscn—known to have caught fire from the inside while under maintenance at the Jagadhri yard in Delhi. The burn marks were highly similar to those on S-6.

The findings of both the judge and the experts ruled out a planned conspiracy to set the coach on fire. “It is unbelievable that 150 kar sevaks armed with trishuls would allow themselves to be burnt without a murmur,” the judge states. “The inflammable liquid theory also gets negated by passengers who suffered burns on the upper parts but not the lower parts of the body,” the report notes.

The reason is this: any inflammable liquid thrown from the outside could not have produced the kind of marks found on the top of S-6. Since the only inflammable material inside the coach were the ply and foam berths, the experts say, the fire may have started under a seat. Eyewitness accounts and other evidence indicate this might have been so. There are accounts of cooking in the carriage.If clothes or mattresses under a seat caught fire, it would smoulder for some minutes before leaping out in flames. On the other hand, in the case of an inflammable liquid, the smoke would be noticed immediately.

In the Godhra coach, therefore, the independent experts conclude, “It is possible the fire originated in the…lower berths. The resultant dense and high-temperature smoke spread to the top of the carriage and moved along the ceiling, and between the ceiling and the roof, throughout the length of the coach. The radiative and convective heat generated eventually resulted in a flashover when the fire engulfed the entire coach towards the top.”

Before that, the burning foam and rexine would have released cyanide, carbon monoxide and dense smoke, causing passengers to faint. They would later burn to death. Only those near the exits would escape with minor burn injuries.

These findings are clearly not palatable to the BJP. The Godhra incident, with all its anti-Muslim resonance, had been the central plank of the party’s successful 2002 assembly poll campaign in Gujarat. Which is why the party dismisses the Banerjee report as mere “secularist propaganda” and insists that the Nanavati Commission appointed by the Gujarat government will present the “real truth” about Godhra and the subsequent riots.

Yet, as Outlookhas learnt, several testimonies and evidence presented before the Nanavati Commission also contradicted the Muslim conspiracy theory. And neither Laloo nor Banerjee could have influenced such accounts. For instance, DSP K.C. Bawa, who investigated the Godhra incident in the first crucial months, in his deposition before Justice Nanavati said he found no evidence of a conspiracy to burn the train nor any involvement of outside or foreign agencies. Then, no passenger, including the kar sevaks, said they saw anyone boarding the train and throwing inflammable material on the floor or setting the coach on fire. In fact, the Gujarat government’s own forensic science laboratory had found no trace of petroleum hydrocarbons in the debris, which report is also with the Nanavati Commission.

Moreover, the experts who probed Godhra, also say the post-mortem reports were a “charade”, made in 20 minutes. More outrageously, of the 27 post-mortem reports they studied, only five bodies were identified. So, if the majority of the victims are listed as “unknown”, how did the Modi government conclude the dead were exclusively kar sevaks?

While the BJP continues to squirm on the Godhra issue, the report’s release has come as a bit of a breather for Muslims across the country.The overwhelming sentiment is that a huge taint has been removed. But in the light of the assembly polls in Bihar, the more pertinent question is, will the report do for what the incident did for Modi in Gujarat?

…Given the EC’s strictures, Laloo will no longer wave copies of the interim report. But that won’t stop him from making tangential references to “having exposed the conspiracy to defame Muslims”…”

This report of Saba Naqvi in Outlook again defended the heinous crime of Muslims and did not answer how it could have been an accident when the kar sevaks would have ran out of the train had the fire been accidental, and how so many stones were pelted on the train. It totally ignored the testimonies of dozens of survivors and witnesses, like Gayatri Panchal and others, and resorted to stooping to this level to whitewash the heinous crime of Muslims of Godhra, just because the killers were Muslims and victims were Ram sevaks.  

It also lied that Godhra sparked off the ‘most horrific communal violence in Independent India’ while there have been many far worse riots in India post-1947, in Gujarat itself in 1969 and 1985 as examples. It exposes only Darshan Desai, Saba Naqvi and Outlook which published such a third class article.

Saba Naqvi lied horribly here saying: “Eyewitness accounts and other evidence indicate this might have been so. There are accounts of cooking in the carriage.”  This is nonsense and third-class lies by Saba Naqvi. The coach was so crowded that there was no space for any cooking. This was mentioned by survivors. Outlook itself reported in March 2006 when the final report of the Banerjee committee came:

“…Gayatri Panchal, a resident of Ahmedabad, who survived the incident on February 27, 2002, but lost both her parents in her reaction to the report has said, “The report of the Banerjee Commission is absolutely wrong. I have seen everything with my own eyes and barely escaped myself but lost both my parents.”

Panchal, who has three sisters, said the Banerjee Commission report was not correct as the fire could not have been accidental as no one was cooking in the S-6 coach and it was packed with passengers.“Mobs pelted stones at the coach for long and then threw in burning rags and also poured some inflammable material so that the coach was on fire.I will maintain the same whereever I am called to depose on the matter,” Panchal said.”

In Feb 2011, 31 Muslims were convicted for the Godhra carnage, of whom 11 were given death penalty and 20 were given life imprisonment by the trial court. Even after that, Saba Naqvi did not have a melt of heart. She defended the heinous Godhra killers even after their conviction in Feb 2011 and tried to imply that the ‘BJP and/or VHP did Godhra’. Her article in Outlook in March 2011 said:

“Molten Mindsets

The verdict in the Sabarmati Express fire at Godhra on February 27, 02, was delivered after nine years on February 22

Of the accused, 63 acquitted, 31 convicted

Alleged mastermind Maulana Umarji is acquitted

State government claims the verdict proved that the riots were triggered by a conspiracy hatched by Muslims in Godhra

Many believe that members of the minority community were picked up and targeted in order to justify the post-Godhra riots

***

…Godhra was a decisive political event in the BJP’s history. The party had just lost power in its base in Uttar Pradesh in 2002 and was expected to lose the Gujarat elections later that year, when the Godhra incident happened. Indeed, the kar sevaks were travelling from Ayodhya via Godhra the day after the BJP was defeated in the UP assembly. Then coach S-6 blazed, 59 passengers died, many of them members of the VHP. The ensuing riots saw a massacre of Muslims, in the polarised communal situation Narendra Modi emerged as a Hindu strongman, and ever since the BJP under him has remained undefeated in the state…

…Similarly, in Gujarat Narendra Modi is in a very different position than he was in 2002. Then he had been sent to the state as a replacement for Keshubhai Patel against whom anti-incumbency had built up. He had been in power for just a few months when the train caught fire…

…Which is why the judgement delivered by the special court is politically expedient for Modi. On the one hand, the court has bought the theory of the train inferno being the result of a criminal conspiracy—a fig leaf he needs to try and cover the taint of the riots. On the other, the court has also let off some of the accused to keep up a semblance of justice being delivered in a state from where the Supreme Court shifted out many of the riot-related cases.

Yet there is no missing the fact that the so-called justice delivered in this case is as curious as the original incident of the burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. There was no logic behind a judgement that freed 63 of the chargesheeted but found 31 guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy although the so-called “mastermind” was let off. Gagan Sethi of the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Social Justice says “it’s crazy and cruel that people were kept in jail for nine years when even if they had been convicted for the skirmish at the Godhra station they would have spent less time inside”.

Social activist Hanif Lakdawala says, “I am very puzzled about this whole thing because the so-called main conspirator has been acquitted but still the conspiracy apparently hatched at his behest has been upheld. This means the police has done a very shoddy investigation…people were picked up randomly, sent to jail and also never granted bail. Who will compensate for those nine years in jail?”

There’s no logic behind a judgement that freed 63 of the accused, fixed 31 for murder and let off the ‘mastermind’.

Maulana Umarji was a businessman who had done a lot of relief work for the Muslim community after the riots. He had even made a presentation to then PM A.B. Vajpayee during his post-riots visit to Godhra, and had also spoken before some inquiry committees. Then suddenly Umarji was picked up and named as the mastermind who incited people to set the coach on fire in order to unleash a communal frenzy. In the police version of events, it seemed the man who was working for peace was actually behind the troubles. Now nine years later, he has been been let off, although others have not been so fortunate.

Several questions remain about the entire process, including about the witnesses on whose testimony a conspiracy has been proven. Then there is the basic question—why would the Muslims of Godhra plan such a horrific incident in a BJP-ruled state? After all, the incident became the trigger for the worst anti-Muslim violence in independent India as mobs seeking revenge rampaged through their neighbourhoods during three days of bloodshed.  It was the BJP, VHP and Modi who benefited from the gore.

Today, the BJP may be muted but the VHP is not. Praveen Togadia issued a statement: “Now that the honourable court has accepted the brutal criminal conspiracy that 59 Hindus were burnt alive by the jehadis, all conspirators must get the same punishment…a death penalty and nothing less than that.” At the time of writing, the sentence had not been pronounced though the prosecution is likely to seek death sentence for key convicts. The trial court has identified five accused who poured petrol on the bogey to set it on fire. They are: Aiyub Patalia, Mehbub Popa, Sadiq Vohra, Irfan Qalander and Saukat Patalia. Besides these five, Razaq Kurkur, owner of Aman guesthouse where the conspiracy was apparently hatched, has also been convicted.

The Gujarat government is naturally trying to showcase the judgement as an example of the exemplary justice meted out in the state (no matter that the state has been slammed by the SC and rights organisations). According to its spokesperson, Jaynarayan Vyas, “the verdict is a major setback to those elements out to defame Gujarat, its police, judiciary and people”. Actually, the trial only began after the SC asked the Gujarat HC to set up special fast-track courts to conduct trials in the nine most sensitive cases linked to ’02. The legal labyrinth has been a complex one till date, it’s a pity no one’s counted the human cost in all this.

By Saba Naqvi with bureau reports from Ahmedabad”

Saba Naqvi thus whitewashed the horrific crime of the heinous killers of the Godhra carnage of 2002 after the conviction in Feb 2011. She refused to blame Muslims for it writing in Outlook, and instead tried to imply that BJP-VHP did Godhra!

She said: “Yet there is no missing the fact that the so-called justice delivered in this case…” Why the words ‘so-called justice’? It implies that Muslims have been wrongly convicted.

She refused to call it a conspiracy though Godhra is impossible to have been anything but planned. She says: “Why would Muslims of Godhra plan such a horrific incident in a BJP-ruled state?” as if Muslims did not plan and do it. The question should be: “Why would Muslims of Godhra not plan such a horrific incident in a BJP-ruled state when they planned and executed such incidents since 1925 in Godhra during the rule of the British in Mahatma Gandhi’s times on which he had to write as well, and the Congress?”

“BJP had just lost power in UP in 2002 & was expected to lose the Gujarat elections later that year when Godhra happened.” Read her implications. She implied that BJP planned and killed the 59 Ram sevaks in Godhra in light of the Gujarat elections. But she is wrong on facts, elections in Gujarat were scheduled i.e. due to be held in Gujarat in Feb-March 2003, not that year in 2002! They were held on December 2002 due to the dissolution of Assembly on 19 July 2002. But the schedule was for Feb-March 2003, a good one year after Godhra occurred on 27 Feb 2002.

There was a judicial confession by a Muslim in Feb 2003 that Godhra was planned and in that carnage, he had taken part and that confession had named Umarji as the chief conspirator. This was totally ignored by Saba Naqvi in this article. In her entire article nowhere does Naqvi blame Muslims for this horrific planned carnage, doesn’t mention that 25 women and 15 children including babies and toddlers were victims. Saba writes: “After all, the incident became the trigger for the worst anti-Muslim violence in independent India…BJP, VHP and Modi who benefited from the gore” as if they did Godhra and not Muslims! Has she said directly anywhere that ‘Muslims roasted the 59 Ramsewaks in the train?’ Not once.

She lied that “It was the worst anti-Muslim violence in independent India”. And of course, she lied that riots post-Godhra were ‘massacre of Muslims’ ignoring the killings of hundreds of Hindus even after Godhra completely! That’s nonsense. Even after Godhra, Muslims also killed Hindus and made them homeless. Saba whitewashes Muslim violence even after Godhra. Were Hindus killed in Gujarat even after Godhra, not humans?

This Lalu appointed Banerjee committee’s report was used by Lalu in the Bihar Assembly elections in January-February 2005. Lalu Yadav and his party RJD went to an extent to which even U C Banerjee did not go. He campaigned in Bihar in public rallies saying “BJP-RSS men burnt 59 to coal in Godhra, accused Muslims of doing so.”Banerjee report said that Godhra was an accident, not that BJP-RSS men burnt the train, a level to which Lalu went. At that time, the whole UPA backed Lalu, after this report of Banerjee, CPI (M) leader H S Surjeet openly said that this shows that Muslims did not burn the train in Godhra, etc. The Congress Party fully supported Banerjee’s report.

But Lalu Yadav did so in case of a heinous crime like Godhra, and the media did nothing of that sort, and Lalu is a media hero even today, there is and was no outrage in any of the ‘seculars’ for Lalu doing this. In fact, papers like The Tribune and journalists like Khushwant Singh and journalists like Saba Naqvi supported the claim of U C Banerjee and said it was an accident.

It is not as if Saba Naqvi does not know that the Godhra carnage was not done by Muslims. It was done by a mob of 2000 fanatic Muslims in Godhra’s densely Muslim dominated Signal Falia area, in a town where Muslims did many such horrific acts since 1925, and even after the 27 February train carnage when they attacked Hindus on 13 March 2002 within a fortnight again. But Saba Naqvi followed Vir Sanghvi’s observation on Godhra: “We (‘secularists’) shy away from the truth-that some Muslims committed an act that is indefensible- and resort to blaming the victims.”

Saba Naqvi, OpIndia will continue to publish such articles because people like you will never stop lying.

No Times of India, the Muslim mob did not damage ‘statues’, those are our Gods

K Bhattacharjee
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No Times of India, the Muslim mob did not damage ‘statues’, those are our Gods

The Indian mainstream media displays remarkable insensitivity towards the cultural ethos of the country. There appears to be a pervasive unawareness that radiates through every aspect of their conduct. Whether it’s deliberate or an unconscious consequences of their ideological biases is anybody’s guess. Now, it’s the Times of India which has published a report on the consecration of new Idols at the Durga Mandir at Lal Kuan, Hauz Qazi at Old Delhi calling the Murtis ‘Statues’.

As any Hindu would be aware, calling a Murti ‘statue’ is equivalent to calling a person, healthy and alive, dead.

To be clear, Murtis one consecrated are believed to contain an essence of the Deity. Only after It has been consecrated it It worthy of worship. It is an embodiment of the divine and considered extremely sacred. Because Hindus consider Deities to be extremely personal, it is why when Idols are desecrated, it causes so much anguish to Hindus. Unlike statues, an Idol isn’t merely mud and stone, It is verily an extension of the divine.

Such cultural insensitivity has become a hallmark of the liberal establishment. The indoctrination of the intellectual elite in western ideals has led them to completely abandon the nature of divinity that permeates through the fabric of Indian society. These are little little things which demonstrated how disassociated the elite of this country is from its cultural realities.

The conduct of the mainstream media cannot be attributed to ignorance alone. There is, undeniably, a certain amount of malice involved. The manner in which it consciously makes the effort to divert blame from the toxic elements of the Muslim community certainly hints toward that fact. Moreover, the other aspects of the TOI report is worthy of mention as well.

It was a hate crime that was committed against Hindus by Muslims. However, the headline makes no effort to mention that the mob was composed of people from the Muslim community. If the reverse was the case, the religious identity of the perpetrators would have been highlighted in bold letters.

Not merely that, the mainstream media has shown amply that its motivated to shield the Muslim community from all manners of criticism. It also seeks to perpetuate a fictional narrative that Muslims are perennial victims while Hindus are aggressors all the time. In doing so, it creates a fear psychosis within the Muslim community, which is prone to such delusions anyway due to the sermons of toxic religious preachers and leaders from their community.

The media invents fake hate crimes to serve this purpose while ignoring the spate of actual hate crimes that are committed against Hindus by toxic elements of the Muslim community. That it is fake hate crimes are invented with the deliberate intention of suppressing actual hate crimes against Hindus cannot be ignored either.

Thus, that the TOI refers to Murtis as ‘statues’ isn’t surprising at all considering the wider range of conduct of the mainstream media. While it spends an inordinate amount of time adhering to the norms set by Muslims, it deliberately insults and disrespects the religious sentiments of Hindus.

Twist in the tale: Kumaraswamy asks JD(S) MLAs to not leave the golf resort, BJP MLAs leave the assembly without meeting the speaker

OpIndia Staff
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Twist in the tale: Kumaraswamy asks JD(S) MLAs to not leave the golf resort, BJP MLAs leave the assembly without meeting the speaker

In a major twist in Karnataka crisis, the Karnataka state assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar has rejected the resignations of 8 out of 13 rebel Congress MLAs because they were not in the ‘prescribed format’. The BJP MLAs who had gone to the Vidhan Soudha to meet the Speaker left without meeting him as he was ‘not there’.

The JD(S) has accused the BJP of ‘buying’ MLAs in Karnataka for Rs 1,000 crore.


The JD(S) MLAs who are huddled up at Prestige Golfshire Club in Bengaluru are asked by the Karnataka CM to stay there for four more days as the Karnataka crisis deepens.

Meanwhile, the BJP has demanded that Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy should resign. The BJP lawmakers will be protesting at the Gandhi statue in Vidhan Soudha in Karnataka.

The unholy alliance

Karnataka government has been threatening to collapse ever since the H D Kumaraswamy government sworn in in May last year. The unholy alliance was forged after May 2018 state assembly elections after the BJP which emerged as single largest party with 104 seats could not form a majority in the 222 seat state assembly. Congress and JD(S) had 78 and 38 seats respectively.

The Governor had invited the BJP to form the government since it was the single largest party and B S Yeddyurappa swore in as the chief minister. Congress went to the Supreme Court but the apex court did not entertain the petition. Eventually Yeddyurappa resigned as CM after claiming he did not have the majority. Eventually the Congress-JD(S) led coalition government was formed on May 23.

Rose Valley scam: ED summons Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee on July 19

OpIndia Staff
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Rose Valley scam: ED summons Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee on July 19

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee in connection with the multi-crore Rose Valley scam, in which many big names have surfaced previously.

The ED has asked Prosenjit to appear before them on July 19 to investigate whether any monetary transaction took place between him and Gautam Kundu, the chairman of the Rose Valley group.


According to reports, the Rose Valley group had produced several Bengali films between the year 2010 and 2012. One of the films produced by the chit fund company, named ‘Hangover’, starred Prosenjit Chatterjee. Sources believe that the total expense of the movie was less than Rs 5 lakh. The probe by the agency revealed that Rose Valley, on papers, undervalued the film’s production cost and used depositors money to fund the movie.

Moreover, Prosenjit Chatterjee has been regularly spotted at many Rose Valley events with the main accused Gautam Kundu.

The ED registered a case on the basis of an FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The agency is investigating the cases against Rose Valley Group of Companies, run by the Group’s Chairman Gautam Kundu, for laundering of funds received from the public by way of Ponzi scheme.

The entities affiliated to the group collected large sums of money from gullible investors promising them astronomical returns. The company also allegedly made cross investments in its various sister firms to escape its liability towards its investors.

According to the ED estimates, the Rose Valley scandal is at least five times the Saradha ponzi scam. The group allegedly floated 27 companies to run various schemes. It allegedly collected Rs.17,520 crore from depositors in West Bengal, Assam and Bihar.

The agency had registered an FIR against its Chairman Gautam Kundu and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in 2014 and arrested him on March 25, 2015. The ED also attached his assets worth Rs 2,300 crore, including hotels and resorts. Multiple charge sheets had been filed by the ED in the courts of Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

Chief of Shree Venkatesh Films and Mamata Banerjee’s close aide, Srikant Mohta had been arrested in January 2019 by the CBI in connection with the Rose Valley scam. The Bengali film producer and distributor was then interrogated by the CBI at his offices. He was served a notice by the agency regarding “acceptance of money from Rose Valley”.

Apart from these, several top leaders of the Trinamool Congress are named in the chit fund scam and facing investigation.

The ED had earlier also interrogated TMC leader Madan Mitra in connection with the scandal. He was interrogated for more than four hours.

Mitra, who was the then transport minister and believed to be a close aide of WB Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, was arrested in 2014 by the Central Bureau of Investigation for his alleged connection with the multi-crore Saradha Ponzi scam. He served a jail term of over 21 months before getting bail.

Last year, the ED had rounded up actor turned TMC MP Tapas Pal in connection to the same scam and interrogated him for over 9 hours. Pal was the director of the film division of the Rose Valley Group.

Previously, Tapas Pal was interrogated by CBI in connection with the Rose Valley Chit Fund scam case in 2015. In December 2016 Pal was arrested by the CBI and was kept in judicial custody. He was granted bail in February 2018.

NIA busts Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh terror module in Bengaluru, seizes live IEDs and components

OpIndia Staff
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NIA busts Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh terror module in Bengaluru, seizes live IEDs and components

In a significant terror crackdown, the National Investigating Agency (NIA) has arrested 3 terrorists belonging to the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) module in Karnataka. Live Improvised Explosive Devices(IEDs), hand grenades and other incriminating materials have also been recovered from the terror module. A plan to bomb several places in Karnataka has been foiled by the investigating agencies.


The IEDs recovered by the NIA are in fully functional and assembled state, along with the other components of IEDs. The IEDs, hand-grenades and other incriminating materials were recovered from Soladevanahalli area in Bengaluru, the capital city of the Karnataka state. The NIA has seized 5 fabricated hand-grenades, 1 Timer-device, 3 electronic circuits and suspected explosives and ready-made IEDs from the location. It is speculated that NIA was fed the information of this terror ring by arrested JMB operative Habibur Rehman Sheikh.

Bengaluru has been the preferred location for the JMB terror outfit for carrying out their nefarious activities. In the past, the Bengaluru police had retrieved two live bombs from Ramanagara, 50 kilometres from Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru. The discovery of bombs came hours after a key operative of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh Habibur Rehman Sheikh (28) alias Habibur or Sheikh was arrested in Karnataka.

JMB, an infamous terror outfit on India’s eastern border, was inactive for some time, but now it has managed to regroup under their chief Salauddin Ahmed and Jahidul Aslam and once again have resumed their operations. Recently, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh was banned by the government of India under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of section 35 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 with immediate effect.

Majnu Ka Tilla: A Tilla of hope, dreams and aspirations for Pakistani Hindu refugees

nandini
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Majnu Ka Tilla: A Tilla of hope, dreams and aspirations for Pakistani Hindu refugees

‘What is it you like here?, I ask seventeen-year-old Shashi, who vigorously pounds the clothes under tube-well water while her neighbour’s toddler enjoys getting wet.

With her beautiful face beaming with joy she pauses, spreading her arms across an expanse of rickety shanties, a landfill of garbage, a swamp of fetid water she responds, ‘Bas, sab kuch! Sab kuch’!

Having arrived from Pakistan just three days ago, her parents and two young brothers are living from shanty to shanty, thanks to the generosity of those who have as little like them, till they get a roof, a small table fan, one light point and one socket of their own.

For someone who had lived her young life bound within four walls, never stepping out in fear of being picked up, used and thrown by the landowner who employed her parents or by other men outside the Hindu hamlet, Shashi is breathing as free as never before in her previously oppressed life.

Shashi

Minki with the blue eyes was one of the first refugees brought to the Majnu ka Tilla camp. She etched out her boundary with branches and twigs, put up a  rickety home, painted the walls & made it her own, exhaling for the first time in 50 years & now awaits to be embraced by the Indian State. “I hope by next year”.

In her neat little patch, she has her temple under a tree and a faded Tiranga fluttering atop.

“See!”, she points to a collection of idols, big and small.

Her toothless smile, priceless. ‘No one kicks it & breaks it here’.

I will confess, at that moment the recently desecrated Durga Ma Temple at Hauz Qazi immediately came to mind. But I did not have the heart to tell her it could happen here too. Yes, right here in India’s capital, the seat of our government, the haven she had escaped to from what she called living hell.

Her son sells phone covers at the traffic lights.

‘Teach him a skill please. The boy refused to go to school after a few years. He had to sit separately because he is Hindu and was being forced to learn the Kalma so, we made him work with us in the fields…’

Whereas next door Chander and Rampyaari are ready in starched uniforms for the afternoon shift at school. They came at an age when it was not too late for them.

Rampyaari
Chander

There is an inexplicable le emotion that overwhelms you seeing human resilience and the spark of dedication, hope, aspiration among abject poverty and squalor.

Ram Pyaari tells me with the matter of fact confidence that she wants to be a teacher because teachers can guide young people & also policewomen because they have authority.

So many young girls, gorgeous with shining, happy faces, show off their embroidered bedcovers and pillowcases. A dark, hot, windowless room with several donated sewing machines is humming with quiet diligence as they stitch commissioned kurtas and salwars.

Outside a mother shows me her four-year-old boy.

‘I left him with my brother in law when he was a few months old & took my other three and crossed the border’.

Hugging a resisting child she says “he now belongs to them but at least I get to see him as they recently came across too”.

Another woman tells me of the two she left behind.

Does the wound ever heal? Does that hole ever fill up?

Most of us thankfully and hopefully will never ever experience it or know the pain of leaving a child behind to seek a future for the others.

Coming from stock, that fled home, hearth, jobs, malta orchards by train & part on foot, in the summer of 1947, to bursting refugee camps at Kingsway, Outram Lines, Reed Lines, not far from Majnu Ka Tilla, the connect is strong.

From those camp, tents rose educationists and clerks, officers and soldiers, farmers & judges who made a new life through sheer dint of hard work.

Seventy-two years later these Pakistani Hindu refugees find their way to their natural home India, with the same anxieties, the same fears and hope for a safe and secure future for themselves as those before them.

Who knows how the Phoenix will rise from these ashes…

There are, no doubt many such shanties across our metropolises- each one with different stories and different tribulations.

All, without exception, badly equipped to handle any human existence and yet they exist right outside our islands of privilege which we pass by every day of our lives, without a thought.

I’m ashamed to say that I have never ventured into one and only imagined the worst.

But thanks to Sudhanshu Singh of Human Aid International (HAI), who is is doing such commendable work with a small dedicated team.

Saurabh who oversees daily issues and liaises with municipal agencies etc.

Chanda and Anishka who are profiling every family, its members, their medical background, educational abilities, skills, aspirations.

Neetu, who runs the stitching classes.

Stitching Centre

What could have been a hopeless mass of destitution was actually a story of real people with dreams for their offsprings and a hope for the future.

So please if you have time to spare and a vocation to teach, there are eager children just waiting to learn & have a world open up to them. Older ones need tuitions in Maths, Science, English.

If you know of mechanics, plumbers, electricians, carpenters who need apprentices there are able young men looking for an opportunity.

If you know of doctors who could devote some time for a monthly checkup and an experience no expensive hospital offers, this is the place.

Besides, the more serious ailments there is the problem of untreated water causing skin ailments and kidney stones. Mosquitos bites & scabs cover arms and legs.

If you can get the MCD to regularly fumigate or if counselling is what you do well, or portacabins and toilets, solar panels, tree saplings, mosquito nets..do help.

Till these people step out to eke a life armed with Indian citizenship and other survivors trickle in, risking it all.

“We make a living by what we get. But we make a life by what we give”.

Inefficient, dishonest, and lack of coordination: Urmila’s letter slams two of Sanjay Nirupam’s aides for her ‘disastrous campaign’

OpIndia Staff
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Inefficient, dishonest, and lack of coordination: Urmila’s letter slams two of Sanjay Nirupam’s aides for her ‘disastrous campaign’

The rift within in the Mumbai Congress has been more apparent after a letter written actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar making scathing comments against trusted aides of her senior colleague Sanjay Nirupam was publicised on Monday.

Reportedly, Urmila Matondkar, who had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Mumbai North constituency, had written a letter dated May 16 to the party leadership criticising the conduct of close associates of Sanjay Nirupam – Sandesh Kondvilkar and Bhushan Patil.


Urmila Matondkar had reportedly written a letter to Milind Deora, Chief of Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC)  just a week before the Lok Sabha election results were announced. Milind Deora has now announced his resignation from the post on Sunday after Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s resigned from the post of party president.

In her letter, the former Bollywood actress had shared her grievance by highlighting the failure of party leadership at the local level on coordination, organising workers at grassroots, failure to provide proper resources to her by the two campaign coordinators. The actress-politician accused the duo of showing a “total lack of coordination, honesty and efficiency, ensuring a disastrous outcome”.

Urmila Matondkar also said that the joint poll rally addressed by senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and NCP chief Sharad Pawar in suburban Borivali in April was organised in an “extremely shoddy” manner, bringing huge personal embarrassment for her.

In the letter, the 45-year-old Congress politician accused Nirupam’s aide Kondvilkar of calling up her family members and asking them for money to fund her election campaign. Matondkar alleged that Kondvilkar had asked her family members to speak to Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel for release of campaign funds.

She also claimed that the close aides of Nirupam also showed disrespect to North Mumbai district Congress president Ashok Sutrale. She sought disciplinary action against Kondvilkar and Patil and demanded changes at the organisational level to ensure a better and brighter future for the party.

In her letter, she said that she managed to run a decent campaign despite such difficulties and added she had highlighted certain issues with an intention to bring positive change in the party.

In reaction to Urmila’s letter, Sanjay Nirupam has now hit out at Milind Deora indirectly. He tweeted, “Young leader who desires to stabilise party at the national level has released copies of complaint letter of an LS candidate to media houses to publish it. It was addressed to him against party workers after the election. Is this the way he is going to adapt to stabilise the party?”

Responding to Urmila’s letter, Milind Deora, in a statement, said, “A party and its ideals are bigger than one individual. Some unpleasant and unwarranted commentary from certain quarters should be ignored and not countered. The Congress party has seen many upheavals and shall overcome this one too.”

Interestingly, both Milind Deora and Sanjay Nirupam lost the Lok Sabha elections from South Mumbai and Mumbai North West, respectively in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections along with Urmila Matondkar this year.

During her election campaign, Urmila Matondkar had stoked controversy when she had said that she has joined Congress because the ‘religion which is known for its religious tolerance has turned out to be the most violent religion of them all’.

IndiaSpend’s ‘FactChecker’ twists facts again, portrays Muslims as victims in the Hauz Qazi temple desecration case

OpIndia Staff
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IndiaSpend’s ‘FactChecker’ twists facts again, portrays Muslims as victims in the Hauz Qazi temple desecration case

On the 30th of June, a Muslim mob went on a rampage at Old Delhi and desecrated a Durga Mandir at the Lal Kuan area of Hauz Qazi. The conflict initially began with a fight over parking but soon turned escalated into a hate crime.

There is hardly any doubt over the fact that only Hindus were the victims of the hate crime that was committed on that night and consequently, all the perpetrators of the hate crime belonged to the Muslim community. However, the so-called fack checking portal factchecker.in, an initiative of IndiaSpend, begs to differ.


According to factchecker.in, tensions flared in the area on the 2nd of July after bike rallies by Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. They also classify Muslims as victims of the hate crime and Hindus as alleged perpetrators even though only a Hindu Temple was vandalized and Murtis were desecrated. The fact is that tensions were already high after the vandalism of the Durga temple on 30 June. They say the market was returning to normalcy albeit with the presence of security forces. Just because there is no visible fight among people does not mean the situation is normal.

No hate crime was committed against the Muslim community at all and yet, factchecker.in somehow managed to portray Muslims as victims in this particular incident as well where they were, without a shadow of a doubt, the perpetrators of the hate crime. It only goes on to show how agenda-driven factchecking websites peddle dubious propaganda to portray Muslims as victims using fictitious narratives.

At OpIndia.com, we have regularly demonstrated on several occasions the extremely problematic aspects of factchecker.in’s Hate Crime Watch. Swati Goel Sharma of Swarajya Mag, too, has busted the intended narrative on several occasions. There have been occasions when factchecker has deliberately twisted the facts of the matter to increase the number of Muslim victims in its database by including cases where the victim and the perpetrator both belonged to the Muslim community.

On other occasions, the organization has continued to maintain a case in its hate crime database even after it was proved that no such incident occurred merely because the alleged victim was from the Muslim community and the alleged perpetrators Hindu. According to the luminaries at FactChecker, the Pulwama Terror Attack wasn’t a hate crime either even though the Terrorist himself proclaimed that he was carrying the attack against ‘Cow-Piss drinkers’.

Despite their bigoted agenda and dubious track record, they were awarded an international prize recently for their ‘Hate Crime Watch’ database. It only shows the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the global liberal ecosystem that it not only tolerates such mediocrity, it celebrates them.

Here is the song for which rapper Honey Singh has been booked by Punjab police

OpIndia Staff
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Here is the song for which rapper Honey Singh has been booked by Punjab police

Punjabi rapper, Honey Singh has got into trouble over the lyrics of his latest song ‘Makhna’. The rapper had unveiled, what he called his come back song, in December 2018. The song was composed, written and sung by him.

The Punjab police have booked the rapper under IPC sections, 294 (obscene acts) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), under Information Technology Act and section 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, after it received a complaint by the state women’s commission chief, Manisha Gulati.

The case has been registered at the Mataur police station in Punjab’s Mohali district.

T-series owner and music producer Bhushan Kumar, who produced Singh’s latest album, along with Neha Kakkar, who has sung the song have also been booked.

Gulati had asked the police to file a criminal case against the Bollywood singer and sought a status report by July 12.

Gulati had written to the Additional Chief Secretary (Home and Justice), state Director General of police (DGP) and the Inspector General of police (crime), over the lyrics of Honey Singh’s song ‘Makhna’, seeking a ban on the song saying that the song is “indecent” and bound to have a “negative effect” on the society.

The song which is breaking the internet with over 200 million views in the last six months has a verse which reads:

“मैं और मेरे कलाकार सब बैठ के करें chill
पर मैं हूँ womanizer, मुझे अकेले में मत मिल
SiliconE वाली लड़की को मैं पकड़ता नही
Brown girl से मेरा दिल भरता नही
गोरी-गोरी skin के लिए मैं मरता नही
क्योंकि मैं हूँ शेर, घास चरता नही “

Honey Singh uses lyrics like “Mein Hoon womaniser (I am a womaniser)” and makes lewd remarks like “Silicone wali ladki” (referring to women who opt for artificial breast implants). He further makes racists remarks by using words like “brown girl” and “Gori-Gori skin” (fair-fair skin) in his song, which probably prompted the state women’s commission chief, Manisha Gulati, to seek a ban on the song and file a criminal case against the rapper.

Senior Superintendent of Police Harcharan Bhullar told reporters that Honey Singh’s song, has contents which are “objectionable” and the police, taking suo moto cognizance, would summon the rapper soon.

In 2013, the Punjabi rapper Honey Singh was involved in a controversy over the lyrics of his song ‘Main Hoon Balatkari’ (I am a rapist).

Toxic Femininity in Indian Politics: A phenomenon ignored entirely by Feminists

K Bhattacharjee
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Toxic Femininity in Indian Politics: A phenomenon ignored entirely by Feminists

Mehbooba Mufti, the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is one of many Muslim women who present a unique rebuttal to the dogma of feminism. Through her politics, she seeks to empower the most toxic men within the Kashmiri Muslim community who, in turn, subjugate and oppress the women in their society.

Her entire political career revolves around promoting an ideology the success of which will inevitably lead to the subjugation of women and relegating them to the status of second class citizens. Feminism explains away these inherent contradictions by suggesting that such women are ‘Agents of Patriarchy’. However, if Mufti was indeed an agent of patriarchy, then why is it that she hasn’t been criticized at all by feminists for her implicit support to radical Islam? Something does seem amiss here.

Recently, she had urged the Central government to hold talks with the Hurriyat, an outfit that is founded upon a very problematic set of ideas. Earlier, she had threatened that the entire country will burn should the Center decide to abolish Articles 35A and 370. When the central government had cracked down on Jamaat-e-Islami, another separatist organization with extremely problematic foundations, Mufti had again lent her vocal support for them.

Does any of it benefit women? Does any of it help combat the entrenched Toxic Masculinity in an Islamic society? Of course not, it only perpetuates the subjugation of women. And yet, Indian feminists have by and large ignored her vociferous support to toxic elements in Kashmir. Why have feminists maintained a stoic silence over the transgressions of an ‘Agent of Patriarchy’? On the contrary, on many occasions, they have actively supported her.

The same can be observed with regards to Mamata Banerjee. The Chief Minister of West Bengal is presiding over a regime where political violence is the norm and murders of political opponents has become extremely normalized. Her rule has robbed mothers of their sons, wives of their husbands, sisters of their brothers. Women have been raped because their husband joined a rival political party. And yet, she is still quite the hero in the liberal camp. Feminists haven’t yet found the time to commiserate with the misery of women whose lives have been destroyed under Mamata Banerjee’s rule. They haven’t treated her as an ‘Agent of Patriarchy’, have they?

The newfound hero in the Liberal world is Mahua Moitra, a Member of Parliament from Trinamool Congress. Apart from being an elected representative from Mamata Banerjee’s party, she was accused of assaulting a female constable at the Silchar Airport in Assam. She also once showed Arnab Goswami the middle finger on live television. And yet, she hasn’t been treated as an ‘Agent of Patriarchy’. She is a Feminist Hero.

There is an overabundance of such people. Hillary Clinton, who was accused of silencing the victims her husband raped, still continues to be a beacon for feminists. Shehla Rashid, who is great pals with Kanhaiya Kumar, who once flashed his penis at a woman for protesting against his urinating in public, has faced no flak for it. Rashid’s politics, like Mufti’s, directly helps those who wish to subjugate women. A poet of a pedestrian nature had defended her friend initially after his sexual perversions were exposed. Though she issued an apology later on, that she has hardly faced any consequences does reveal a lot about the Feminist movement.

Thus, in light of their own conduct, it begs the question, are feminists themselves ‘Agents of Patriarchy’? If Toxic Masculinity is the basis for Toxic forms of Patriarchy, is Feminism, then, founded upon the foundations of Toxic Femininity? If indeed that is the case, it makes perfect sense why female politicians such as Mehbooba Mufti and Mamata Banerjee have suffered no consequences at all for promoting and sustaining a culture which subjugates women and often, destroys their lives. It also makes sense why the feminist camp has an overabundance of Toxic Men. Toxic Femininity and Toxic Masculinity, of course, should be expected to make for perfect bedfellows.

Consider, on the other hand, the treatment Smriti Irani has received. A woman married to a person from a religious minority defeats a ‘Janeudhari Brahmin’ from one of the most powerful families of India since independence in his own den. Feminists should have hailed it as a great victory against Patriarchy. And yet, the only thing Irani has ever received from that camp is mockery and ridicule despite her stellar achievements.

Therefore, in light of their own conduct, we have to consider certain possibilities. Feminism, like Patriarchy, is a means toward the acquisition of power. It has very little to do with the welfare of women as is evidenced by the kind of female politicians feminists support. More fundamentally, there appears to be very little difference between feminist heroes and the Patriarchal ones they claim to oppose. Thus, essentially, it is a power struggle using the guise of women empowerment.

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