by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the trial in Junaid Khan lynching case as it sought response from the Central Bureau of Investigation and Haryana government on a plea seeking the transfer of investigation from the state police to the CBI.
Junaid Khan, 16, was lynched by a mob on board a Mathura-bound train in Haryana on June 22, 2017, following a row over seats which allegedly led to snowballed into religious slurs being hurled. The murder triggered nationwide outrage.
The bench of Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar stayed the trial before the court in Haryana’s Faridabad and sought response on transfer of investigation to CBI on a plea by Junaid Khan’s father Jalaluddin.
Jalaluddin has moved the top court challenging November 27, 2017 Punjab and Haryana High Court order rejecting his plea for handing over the investigation to CBI.
Holding that there was no substance in the plea to indicate that the investigation by the state police was tainted or shoddy, the High Court had said that there appeared no deliberate attempt to derail the investigation.
It had declined to exercise its extraordinary powers, saying that the case did not have any national or international ramifications.
Junaid and his cousins Hasim Moin and Shakir Moin were on the EMU train going from Ghaziabad to Mathura after Eid shopping on June 22.
The accused, along with around a dozen others, boarded at Okhla and ordered Junaid and his brothers to give them their seats.
When they refused, the three were brutally beaten up, stabbed and dumped at Asaoti railway station in Palwal district.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, News, Politics
By Nikhil M. Babu,
New Delhi : The BJP-led central government indirectly encourages Hindu communal extremists by “shying away from acting against them”, and this increases the insecurities of minorities, Sahitya Akademi awardee K.P. Ramanunni has said.
In an interview with IANS, Ramanunni said: “The (central) government is not acting against the Hindu communal extremists. They are shying away from the issue. It is like indirect encouragement.”
“When it comes to atrocities against minorities, they are not taking strict measures according to the law,” he said. “Minorities are insecure.”
Ramanunni, a Malayalam writer, made headlines last week when he gave away his Sahitya Akademi Award prize money, minutes after receiving it, to the mother of Junaid Khan, the 16-year-old Muslim boy who was killed in June 2017 in a train by a group of people who hurled communal slurs.
He kept Rs 3 and handed over the rest of the Rs 1 lakh award to Junaid’s mother Saira Begum.
“Communal hatred is like cancer — and once it comes, it is very difficult to heal it,” Ramanunni told IANS.
Asked whether he feels that communal incidents have increased after the present government came into power, Ramanunni said: “Yes.”
“After the current government came to power there have been many communal issues. When I say communal, I do not mean from both sides — but mostly the majority Hindu community treating Muslims with intolerance,” he said.
He said that the government does not try to put an end to communal clashes and acts like a bystander, adding that the current situation is bad for the well-being of the nation.
Ramanunni’s works are known for their message of communal harmony and in the book “Daivathinte Pusthakam” (“God’s Own Book”), which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2017, Prophet Muhammad calls Hindu God Krishna ‘Ikka’ (elder brother) and Krishna affectionately calls the Prophet ‘Muthe’ (precious dear).
When asked why he had given the prize money to Junaid’s mother, he said: “It’s not charity; if it was so, I would have given it to Junaid’s mother at her home. When you’re giving it at Sahitya Akademi’s platform, it has got many meanings. It’ll encourage other writers to write about atrocities and tell other Hindus that, according to true Hindu principles, you should not be communal.”
He said that Junaid was killed just because he was a Muslim and it was “shameful to the true Hindu culture”.
Ramanunni, who received a threat in July 2017 that his right hand would be chopped off, said that such incidents do stifle a writer’s mind.
“Many people asked me whether I’ll stop writing on communal harmony. I told them ‘no’ — it is like committing suicide because you have a death threat. For a writer, to not express his stand or change his stand is equal to suicide,” he said.
“Even though you say all these things, when you get threats, for many people the subconscious mind prevents them from saying everything… (it’s like you are being) controlled indirectly. Threats create that in people. That is a fact,” the writer said.
Talking about books in the internet area, Ramanunni said the quality of reading has come down over the years.
“People do not enjoy reading as much as they used to in the past; now it has become a superficial type of reading. Reading has not died, but the quality has come down,” he said.
(Nikhil M. Babu can be reached at nikhil.nmb@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Sahitya Akademi Awards 2017 were given away to writers from 23 languages here on Monday evening.
However, as a mark of protest against the murder of Haryana teenager Junaid Khan, who was killed in a train last June while returning home after Eid shopping, Malayalam writer K.P.Ramanunni gave away the award to his mother after taking Rs 3 from the total prize money of Rs 1 lakh.
Ramanunni said that the book for which he won the award is about communal harmony and said that Junaid was killed for no reason.
The family of Tamil poet Inquilab, awarded posthumously, who had earlier announced their refusal to accept the award also didn’t attend the award ceremony.
Jayanta Madhab Bora won the award in Assamese for his book “Moriahola”, Afsar Ahmed won the award in Bengali for his “Sei Nikhonj Manushta” and Rita Baro won the award in Bodo for “Thwisam”.
The award in Dogri went to Shiv Mehta for “Banna”, in English to Mamang Dai for her book “The Black Hill”, and in Gujarati to Urmi Ghanshyam Desai for her “Gujarati Vyakarana na Baso Varsha”.
The award in Hindi went to Ramesh Kuntal Megh for “Vishw Mithak, Sarit Sagar”, in Kannada to T.P. Ashoka for “Kathana Bharathi” in Kashmiri to Autar Krishen Rahbar for his “Yeli Parda Woth” and in Konkani to Gajanan Raghunath Jog for “Khand Ani Her Katha”.
In Maithili, Udaya Narayan Singh ‘Nachiketa’ won for “Jahalak Diary”, Ramanunni in Malayalam for “Daivathinte Pustakam”, Rajen Toijamba in Manipuri for his “Chahee Taret Khuntakpa”, in Marathi to Shrikant Deshmukh for “Bolave Te Amhi”, and in Nepali to Bina Hangkhim for her book Kriti Vimarsh.
The award in Odia went to Gayatri Saraf for “Etavatira Shilpi”, in Punjabi to Nachhatar for “Slow Down”, in Rajasthani to Neeraj Daiya for “Bina Hasalpai”, in Sanskrit to Niranjan Mishra for his “Gangaputravadanam”, in Santhali to Bhujanga Tudu for his book “Tahenan Tangi Re”, and in Sindhi to Jagdish Lachhani for his “Aachhende Laja Maraan”.
T.Devipriya bagged the award in Telugu for “Gaalirangu” and the award in Urdu went to Mohammed Baig Ehsas for his book “Dakhma”.
Sahitya Akademi President Chandrashekhar Kambar presented the winners with a citation, a shawl and a cheque of Rs 1 lakh.
—IANS
