by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Hyderabad : A court will deliver on September 4 judgement in the 2007 Hyderabad twin bomb blasts which had claimed 42 lives.
The Second Metropolitan Sessions Court will deliver the judgement, a lawyer told reporters outside the Nampally Criminal Court complex on Monday.
All four accused were produced before the court through video conferencing from Cherlapalli Central Prison on the city’s outskirts where they are lodged.
The judge conducted the final hearing on Monday.
The near simultaneous bomb blasts at Gokul Chat, a popular eatery, and at Lumbini Park, near the State Secretariat, claimed 42 lives and injured over 50 on August 25, 2007. An unexploded bomb was also recovered under a foot-over bridge at Dilsukhnagar.
The alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives — Mohammed Sadiq Ahmed Sheikh, Anique Shafiq Syed, Mohammed Sadiq, Akbar Ismail Choudhary and Ansar Ahmed Badhsah Sheikh — are lodged in the Cherlapalli prison.
The trial against them was shifted to a court hall located in the premises of the prison in June 2018 on security grounds.
The accused were arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in October 2008. Three other accused including IM Chief Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal Bhatkal still remain at large.
The case was initially investigated by the Andhra Pradesh Police and following bifurcation of the state it was handed over to the Counter Intelligence wing of Telangana Police.
Three chargesheets were filed against the accused. In 2014, the court framed charges against them. They were charged with murder and other offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Explosive Substances Act.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Opinions, Politics
By Naresh Kaushik,
Taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book, Congress President Rahul Gandhi used his Europe tour to reach out to non-resident Indians, or NRIs — a group largely known to support Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years. Throughout the tour, he targeted Modi for his style and policies, bitterly attacked the BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and tried to project him and the Congress party as a better alternative.
Gandhi comes from a family where access is carefully controlled and only a select few are allowed to reach its members. But in London, he gave the impression that he’s accessible to the common man. He even mingled with the guests at his gatherings and shook their hands.
Speaking to journalists on Saturday (August 25), he mocked Modi for not talking to them openly. He accused the Prime Minister of not having the courage to answer reporters’ questions. This was a reminder of Modi’s public event in London in April, where he was accused of taking pre-planned and selected questions from the audience and not addressing even a single press conference. But one has to remember that Modi was also accessible to the media before he became Prime Minister. The question is, will Gandhi attend such open events and answer unscripted questions if he ever becomes the Prime Minister of India?
But still, this was a new Rahul Gandhi in London — more mature, aggressive, confident and ready to challenge his rivals. His sustained attacks on Modi, the BJP and the RSS were deliberate and sounded like part of a well-planned theme. It’s clear that he wanted to provoke the ruling party in India in order to set an agenda for debate. By comparing the RSS with Muslim Brotherhood, he wanted to plant a doubt in the minds of the Hindu right-wing organisation’s new supporters in India. This was also an attempt to drive away some voters from the BJP.
By targeting Modi and raising the issue of the alleged threat to India’s institutions under his government, Gandhi was trying to become the darling of the intelligentsia that supported the BJP in 2014. By praising Sushma Swaraj, who he’s bitterly criticised in the past, and attacking Modi for isolating her, Gandhi sought to create a wedge in the cabinet and was trying to impress upon the audience that he favoured an inclusive government where individual ministers were as important as the Prime Minister.
But we all know that Modi’S style of functioning is very similar to Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi. And it’s a fact that in present-day India, leaders of all political parties act like dictators and once in government they rarely allow individual ministers to have an independent voice.
In Europe, Rahul Gandhi cleverly avoided talking about his own ambitions of becoming Prime Minister. He didn’t want other opposition leaders to stop dreaming about that ambition and thus jeopardise their support for an anti-BJP front during next year’s elections. It also went with his theme of projecting himself as a consensus politician.
He fumbled at the press meet earlier when he seemed to agree with Pakistan’s position that the main problem currently between the two countries was that India didn’t want to talk. But later, in answer to a direct question about Imran Khan’s election, he made it clear that relations with Pakistan couldn’t improve as long as institutions like the ISI continued to export violence to India.
The Congress president rightly focussed on the unemployment issue and was honest in saying that most countries are facing that problem and don’t know how to tackle it. He wanted India to follow China where he said small and medium industries had resulted in large-scale industrialisation and massive job creation. But he should know that a democratic India can’t be compared to a totalitarian China. In India, no government can take a decision without attracting scrutiny by the opposition and the media.
But where Rahul Gandhi didn’t come out really clever and mature is when he said that the Congress party was not responsible for the massacre of Sikhs after the assassination of his grandmother in 1984. For the second day in London, he failed to correct himself that members of his party were not only responsible but some of them led mobs to kill Sikhs. Although later his party didn’t give them tickets for parliament and state assemblies, they were never expelled.
Gandhi’s explanation that he condemned all violence and wanted the guilty to be punished, is similar to Modi and BJP leaders saying that they condemned all violence, including those by cow vigilantes, and wanted the perpetrators to be brought to justice. All of a sudden, just months before the general election, Gandhi, has given the BJP and the Akali Dal a major political issue. As Sikhs are in large numbers among the NRIs, he has only managed to provoke their anger against the Congress party.
Gandhi still has a long way to go. He still appears to lack new ideas and the political acumen required to take on Modi. But his Europe tour suggests Modi and the BJP will have to take him seriously. The man they dismissed as “Pappu” for a long time appears to have emerged as a tough challenger.
(Naresh Kaushik is a senior journalist based in London. He can be contacted at uknaresh@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ahmedabad : A special trial court here on Monday sentenced two more persons to life imprisonment and acquitted three others in the 2002 Sabarmati Express train burning case at Godhra railway station, which triggered large scale communal violence across Gujarat.
Different investigating agencies had arrested five persons in 2015-16 and they were put on trial by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court.
With this, as many as 33 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment in the case while 66 others have been acquitted. A Special SIT court had convicted 31 people on March 1, 2011, and 11 of them were awarded death penalty and the others were sentenced to life imprisonment. However, in October last year the Gujarat High Court commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment.
Special Additional Public Prosecutor N.N.Prajapati told reporters that the court sentenced Farukh Bhana and Imran alias Sheru Batik to life imprisonment. The judgment was pronounced from Sabarmati Central Jail where the trial took place.
Investigating agencies accused Bhana, who is in his 50s, of being a key conspirator of the train attack. He was arrested by Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad in May 2016. Bhana, a sitting corporator of Polan-Bazar area of Godhra municipality, was on the run since the day of the train burning incident on February 27, 2002.
It was alleged that on the night of February 26, Bhana and other accused persons had held a meeting at Aman Guest House near the railway station as part of their conspiracy to set ablaze the S6 coach of the train.
For almost a decade, he remained underground hiding his identity and would meet his family at different places. He was arrested in Panchmahal district from a toll plaza where he had come to meet his family members.
The convict Imran alias Sheru Batuk was also found guilty of conspiracy and being part of the mob which set the train on fire. He was arrested by Detection of Crime Branch, Ahmedabad in 2016 from Malegaon in Maharashtra.
The other three accused — Hussain Suleman Mohan, Kasam Bhamedi and Faruk Dhantiya — were acquitted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : A Supreme Court Judge on Monday recused from hearing a plea by Malegaon bomb blast case accused Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit for a judicial probe into his alleged abduction and torture by investigating agencies.
As the matter was called, a bench comprising Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit directed for the listing of the matter before another bench as Justice Lalit recused himself.
Blaming the then UPA government for his implication in an alleged terror plot and eight-year-long incarceration for “personal political gains”, the petitioner contended that as a consequence a “source network developed meticulously by him and other officers of the Indian Army was demolished”.
Purohit was granted bail by the Supreme Court on August 12, 2017.
He is the main accused in the Malegaon blast, which killed six persons in the Muslim-dominated powerloom town in Nashik district on September 29, 2008.
Purohit’s plea to seek a judicial probe into his alleged abduction and torture is based on revelation by former Home Ministry Joint Secretary R.V.S. Mani, in which he is said to have indicated that Purohit was “framed by some factions in the previous government for political reasons, including introducing a face of terror under the guise of ‘saffron terror’.”
Mani’s revelation, Purohit said, had shocked him as he had “finally understood his role, of being used as a pawn, in the larger scheme of political spectrum by selfish political interests.”
Mani, according to Purohit, had given interview to media houses and even written a book ‘The Hindu Terror — Insider Account of Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010’.
“In these circumstances, the perpetrators and schemers of such sinister modus operandi, compromising national security, are required to be identified and made accountable,” the petitioner said.
He pointed out that there was “complete subversion of the criminal justice system by the state itself, and there is credible reason to fear that a citizen of this country, no less than an officer of the Indian Army, can be abducted, brutally tortured, labelled a terrorist and put away for nine years without a trial.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, News, Politics
Amartya Sen
Kolkata : Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen on Saturday said the minorities and the liberal forces in India, who oppose the divisive politics of the present day, need to be more vocal and assertive.
Discussing the present scenario in India, Sen said those ruling the country do not constitute a majority, but they are in power by virtue of their ability to skilfully use the tools of the political system.
“I think in modern days, the majority and minority cannot be decided based on who is a Hindu or who is a Muslim, as it is not really clear who is a Hindu.
“Definitely, the number of Dalits and other minorities is very less. But the fact is that those who are ruling the nation they are not the majority in terms of number, but the reason of their power is that they are aptly using the tools of our political system,” Sen said at a discussion on where the Indian democracy is heading.
According to Sen, if the census is considered then the number of Hindu population is quite high.
“The result of 2014 only reflects that the victorious party was successful in that particular system,” said Sen.
Answering a question regarding the fear factor among Muslims residing in India, he said: “This very state of mind that if we are minority we will be deprived and will have to suffer, is very weakening in itself.”
“The result will not depend on numbers, but on the reach of electoral procedure and the political system. The important fact for victory would be the ability to strongly raise the issues that need immediate attention and deserve thorough discussion,” Sen said.
A social activist, Urba Choudhury raised the question of the relevance of leftist ideologies in the current scenario.
Talking about the presence of the Leftist forces in India, Sen said: “I consider myself a Leftist but one must remember all political questions don’t centre around Left and Right-wing ideologies. We have issues like Minority treatment and Secularism, fulfilling the needs of all different religions, but it is not just an issue addressed by leftists.”
“We have many reasons to join hands with other people who are not really leftists. This is a striking question even before the 2019 election. But one thing must be made clear that joining hands doesn’t mean that two parties forming an alliance must give consent to all views of each other. One needs to fight against the divisive politics and the minority treatment,” he added.
He insisted that all people who have liberal thinking must raise their voice together so that it can be loud enough to stand against the ruling majority.
Sen also expressed his concern about the prevalent gender discrimination after a panellist pointed out that as per the report of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, India is the world’s most dangerous country for women.
“It is very sad and shameful that little girls are kidnapped and treated as trade materials for which India holds a very bad record internationally. On one hand, we have to do away with the discrimination between girls and boys, on the other the rich-poor divide,” said the octogenarian.
—IANS
