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Haryana: 11-year-old Hindu girl raped by 32-year-old Sajid from Mewat, was sexually exploited for months

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A case of rape of a minor girl has been reported in Faridabad, Haryana. The victim is an 11-year-old fourth-grade student. The name of the accused is Sajid, who is originally said to be a resident of Mewat. Sajid, who is about 32 years old, is married and the father of three children, according to the information received. After filing an FIR on Monday (October 31), police apprehended Sajid.

According to media reports, the incident occurred in Faridabad’s Sector 58 police station area. The 11-year-old Hindu girl lives here with her five siblings and father. The child’s mother has already died. Sajid, the accused, lives in the victim’s neighborhood and works as a welder. He has been sexually exploiting the girl for about six months, as per the complaint. According to the complaint, Sajid invited the victim to his home by luring her with food and then raped her for the first time. Later, he kept threatening the girl and continued to sexually exploit her.

Reportedly, the victim also got pregnant. When the minor girl’s grandmother became concerned about the changes in her body, she questioned the victim. Then the victim narrated her ordeal to her family members. When the victim’s family members confronted the accused Sajid about it, he pushed them away and fled. A police report was eventually filed. Sajid was nabbed by Faridabad’s Sector 65 Crime Branch and Mahila Thana Police. According to the police, Sajid has been charged under Section 506 of the IPC and the POCSO Act.

While speaking to the media, the victim’s family and neighbors revealed Sajid’s horrific crime.  Hindu organizations and the victim’s family have called for the accused to be hanged.

Faridabad Hindu organizations have expressed their outrage at this incident. Bittu Bajrangi of the ‘Gau Raksha Bajrang Force,’ a Faridabad resident, told OpIndia that he and the victim’s family worked tirelessly to have the accused arrested.

Devesh Kumar, who is now being blamed by The Wire, had been in left-wing activism for a long. Read how

The Wire has accused one of its former employees and ‘tech expert’ of duping them by providing forged documents and evidence in the Meta stories. Devesh Kumar, who has worked on multiple stories for The Wire, is currently AWOL after he deleted his presence from the Internet entirely.

Since his name started to appear frequently following the Meta stories and fell apart, some disturbing and concerning facts about his history have come to light. Devesh also worked on Tek Fog “investigation” for The Wire. Those stories have also been pulled down by the portal. Interestingly, Devesh appeared on several platforms after Tek Fog stories and “explained” the investigation.

One such session with Devesh was done by the left-wing student organisation All India Students Association or AISA. On January 21, after Tek Fog’s story “shook” the nation, Devesh was called for an online session by AISA titled “Is the BJP-RSS regime turning skilled Young people into Criminals?”

In the session, Devesh explained the investigation he did with Ayushman for The Wire over a period of 20 months. He claimed that they found how trends were being run during the investigation. However, in the middle of QA during the session, he said, “We do not have any proof if these trends were being run via Tek Fog.” He added that BJP leader Kapil Mishra had quoted the story and said he should have been approached to know if he uses Tek Fog. Devesh said he told Mishra there was no proof, but it was about the network.

He further explained how Kapil Mishra and OpIndia were two main accounts that were the base points of the discussions on social media during the Delhi Riots. It was obvious OpIndia would have come up while checking trends on Delhi Riots as we were consistently covering the riots. Our stories exposed the biased of the mainstream media. OpIndia busted several misleading reports and propaganda against Hindus in the aftermath of the Delhi Riots 2020.

Devesh claimed that the content of OpIndia was non-verifiable, and portals like Alt News had raised questions over our coverage. However, the investigation into the Delhi Riots by the agencies, as well as remarks by different courts, proved on several occasions that our reporting was spot on about the larger conspiracy behind the riots.

The curious history of Devesh Kumar

Twitter user Herin Maru, who goes by the handle her1n on the platform, published a detailed thread on the curious history of Devesh. Here is what he pointed out in his thread. We are adding only those details that we could independently verify.

Adopting a girl child at the age of 19

In 2016, Devesh claimed in a blog post that he had adopted a girl child from a dead mother and HIV-positive parents. The timeline that Devesh mentioned was the time when he was only 19 years old and unmarried. Legally it was not possible for Devesh to adopt a child, that too a girl at the age of 19 while being single. It is possible that by adoption, he meant he was paying for the child’s day-to-day expenses, including food, schooling etc by way of sponsorship.

Devesh named the girl child Manjiri. In 2019, he claimed in a blog post that the girl child died. Manjiri, according to him, was only eight years old. He said that she died as a construction brick fell on her and crushed her head. Devesh claimed he did not go to see her one last time.

Women died around him a lot…

In a Quora post around five years ago, he mentioned that a 19-year-old woman named Rabya died in front of him in 2011. He claimed that he wanted to pay for her breast cancer treatment, but she passed away only 15 minutes after he promised to cover her bills.

According to another Quora post, Devesg said that another woman named Manvi died in 2011. She died after getting typhoid and a brain haemorrhage. Both Rabya and Manvi were talented women who died at an early age, he claimed.

In a 2016 post, Devesh claimed to have met a 12-year-old girl named Radhika in 2009. She passed away four years later, in 2013, due to HIV. She was allegedly abused by a police officer.

She also had a colleague named Snigdha who had passed away for reasons not mentioned in the blog post. However, he mentioned that another colleague who was drug-addicted fixed her life and named her child Snigdha.

It is unclear why so many women around him had such deep troubles, deaths and whatnot. Men around him seem to have lived a happy life.

A lot of money spent at a young age

Devesh claimed to have spent quite a large amount at a very young age. However, his posts where he boasted about spending money stopped at one point. Herin pointed out that this was when he started posting about running parallel servers to run bots to defeat BJP IT cell and allegedly organising conferences to raise funds.

OpIndia has a detailed report on Devesh’s claims about running a parallel IT cell to counter “BJP’s attempts to use social media for political gains”. He had claimed that he was spending lakhs of Rupees from his pocket to run up to 40 servers on Amazon Web Services to run and manipulate bots on Twitter. He had claimed that he was hijacking Twitter trends and polls using these bots. Essentially, he was doing the same thing using Twitter bots that he had claimed BJP was doing using Tek Fog, and he had justified his actions.

Devesh stole credit for illustrations

Another Twitter user Banbreach published a Tweet thread on October 31, explaining how illustrations credited to Devesh Kumar were created by someone else. A story written by Devesh on the Pegasus application is still available on The Wire. The story featured an artwork that was previously credited to Devesh. However, later it was credited to absurd.design and a footnote was added, “The article has been edited to reflect that the featured illustrations, previously credited to Devesh Kumar, are by illustrator Diana Valeanu, from absurd.design.”

The dubious claim of winning the Microsoft award

In the TedX speaker’s description, it was mentioned he won Devesh has also won the prestigious Microsoft Imagine Cup (India). However, the description failed to mention that his team, D Labs, had won the “people’s choice award”. It is clearly mentioned on the Microsoft website as well. Herin quoted a Twitter user saying Devesh lied about the award in the college and allegedly used scripts to get votes for his team. OpIndia could not verify the tweets as they seemed to have been deleted.

Source: Archive.org

In a report, OpIndia’s editor Nirwa Mehta explored an AMA session on Tek Fog hosted by The Wire’s Siddharth Vardarajan. The session meted out how conveniently Devesh, Ayushman and The Wire kept on building a story based on an app that “never existed”. You can check the details here.

North Korea fires 23 missiles, one landing off the South Korean coast for the first time; Seoul responds with counter missiles

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On Wednesday 2nd November 2022, North Korea fired as many as 23 missiles into the sea. The missiles were directed toward South Korea and Japan. One of the missiles landed less than 60 km off South Korea’s coast—a first in the enduring conflict between the two neighbours.

South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol termed the unwarranted provocation as territorial encroachment. The missile made landfall south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a contentious maritime boundary between North and South Korea, but outside of South Korea’s territorial seas.

It was also the most missiles launched by the North in a single day, and it was the first time a ballistic missile had fallen in close proximity to South Korean seas since the peninsula was divided in 1945. Rare air raid warnings were sent by South Korea, who also responded by launching its own missiles.

In retaliation, three air-to-ground missiles were fired into the sea north across the NLL by South Korean jets, according to the South’s military. AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER, a 360 kg warhead, “stand-off” precision strike weapon produced in the United States, was among the weapons deployed, according to an official. After Yoon’s administration promised a prompt and decisive reaction, the South launched its attacks.

His office said in a statement, “President Yoon Suk-yeol noted North Korea’s provocation today was an effective act of territorial encroachment by a missile intruding the NLL for the first time since (the two Koreas’) division.”

When questioned if the missile was headed towards South Korean soil and should have been destroyed, a top presidential official responded, “Strictly speaking, it did not land in our territory but in the Exclusive Economic Zone under our jurisdiction, therefore it was not subject to interception.”

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, “That missile was one of three short-range ballistic missiles fired from the North Korean coastal area of Wonsan into the sea. As many as 14 other missiles of various types had been fired from North Korea’s east and west coasts. At least one of the missiles landed 26 km south of the NLL, 57 km from the South Korean city of Sokcho, on the east coast, and 167 km from the island of Ulleung, where air raid warnings were sounded.”

According to a report by Reuters, an Ulleung county official said, “We heard the siren at around 8:55 a.m. and all of us in the building went down to the evacuation place in the basement. We stayed there until we came upstairs at around 9:15 after hearing that the projectile fell into the high seas.”

Moreover, the North launched about 100 artillery rounds into a military buffer zone created by a military accord with the South off its east coast. According to the South Korean JCS, an agreement from 2018 prohibiting aggressive conduct in border regions is broken by the firing. Due to the fact that the 1950–1953 Korean War concluded in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, North and South Korea are officially still at war. North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, has conducted a record number of missile tests this year, and authorities in Seoul and Washington claim the country is now ready to test nuclear weapons for the first time since 2017.

Arunachal Pradesh: Modi Government approves naming of Hollongi Greenfield Airport in Itanagar as Donyi Polo Airport

On Wednesday (November 2), Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the naming of Greenfield Airport at Hollongi, in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh as Donyi Polo Airport. 

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is developing a greenfield airport in Itanagar with the aid of the Centre and the state government at an expense of Rs 646 crore.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the naming of the greenfield airport as ‘Donyi Polo Airport, Itanagar,’ according to an official release.

The Arunachal Pradesh government passed a resolution naming the airport ‘Donyi Polo Airport, Itanagar.’ It reflects the people’s reverence for the Sun (Donyi) and the Moon (Polo) to symbolize the state’s traditions and rich cultural heritage,’ according to the press release.

Modi government’s decision to name the airport Donyi Polo after the religious and cultural heritage of Arunachal Pradesh will certainly not go well with the left-liberal ecosystem which has always blamed the Modi government for honouring indigenous traditions and native sentiments.

Interestingly, Arunachal Pradesh’s local media has already been using the Donyi Polo name ever since the proposal for its naming came up for consideration.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari took to Twitter to inform about the naming of Donyi Polo Airport. “Towards the Progress of North East India. Today’s Cabinet chaired by PM Shri @/narendramodi Ji approved the naming of the Greenfield Airport at Hollongi, Itanagar, in Arunachal Pradesh as Donyi Polo Airport, Itanagar,” he tweeted.

In another Tweet he wrote, “Symbolising the traditions and rich cultural heritage of the State,  the name reflects the Arunachal people’s reverence of the Sun (Donyi) and the Moon (Polo).”

In January 2019, the central government accorded ‘in-principle‘ approval for the development of the Greenfield Airport. 

The greenfield airport, with a 2,300-metre runway, would be the first in Arunachal Pradesh to be capable of landing huge aircraft. The airport which is the state’s third after Pasighat and Tezu covers an area of 4,100 square meters. Donyi Polo is the 16th airport in northeast India. 

Notably, the AAI undertook the airport development project to improve air connectivity in the mountainous state as the airport holds strategic significance. IndiGo’s Airbus A320 successfully completed a test landing at Donyi Polo airport. During peak hours, the Donyi Polo airport, which has eight check-in counters, can accommodate up to 200 passengers.

The Government of India devised a Greenfield Airports Policy in 2008, which outlines the guidelines, procedures, and conditions for the establishment of new Greenfield Airports in the country. The Government of India has given ‘in-principle’ approval for the establishment of 21 Greenfield Airports across the country under the Greenfield Airports Policy. As of now, there are 15 operational airports in the northeastern region which are Guwahati, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur, Lilalabari, and Rupsi (Assam), Tezu and Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh), Agartala (Tripura), Imphal (Manipur), Shillong (Meghalaya), Dimapur (Nagaland), Lengpui (Mizoram) and Pakyong (Sikkim).

Selling girls for sex in Rajasthan: Report details powerful prostitution racket in 4 districts, police, local administration aware and even complicit

An exclusive series of reports by the Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar reported that in Rajasthan, minor girls were being sold off by their family members to pay off loans and the system is prevalent in some districts where certain ‘caste’ Panchayats control the locals. The reports shared heartbreaking testimonies of victims.

As the Indian statutory bodies like the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and the National Commission for Women (NCW) initiate their action against this scandal a day after National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the Congress government in the state, it becomes evident to recollect the facts and go through the details of this heinous crime.

The modus operandi

The Bhaskar reports alleged that the loan traps are deliberate and targeted families are made to fall into it. The ‘caste’ panchayat members notice some poor families who have minor girls. They set quarrels between two families and when the aggrieved people approach the ‘caste’ panchayat members assuming them to be the responsible ones, the panchayat burdens such families with a fine of lakhs of rupees. In many settlements in the Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, even today, if there is a dispute or quarrel between two parties, they do not go to the police. A caste panchayat is set up to settle disputes. This is where the process of enslaving girls begins.

The families end up taking loans from private money lenders. Many times, the powerful members of the panchayat provide this loan. For repayment of these loans, these poor families are forced to sell their daughters to these ‘caste’ panchayat members who in turn sell these girls at yet higher prices and earn heavy commissions – the amount of which depends on multiple factors. These girls are then drawn into sexual slavery and prostitution. There have been instances where mothers and sisters are brutalised if the girl refuses to be taken away, as per the reports.

Types of ‘sale’

The ‘caste’ panchayat members often work as dealers and these ‘deals’ take place in two different ways. Either the girls are sold for a few years or they are sold for a lifetime. In the first type, the dealers sell the girls for 5 to 10 years. On stamp paper, buyers deal with the pretext of adopting a girl. In this, the girl is allowed to come home once a year at the festival of Rakhi. Buyers make girls ‘work’ as sex slaves, prostitutes and domestic helps for years, during which the tip that the customer gives, the girls send the money to their homes. Brokers get less commission in this deal. If a girl gets a deal for Rs 8 lakh, the broker gets Rs 2 lakh.

In the second type of ‘deal’, the girls are sold for a lifetime. The girl can never come back to her house. She can’t contact her family all her life. Buyers pay a higher commission to the broker to get this deal done. If someone sells a girl for Rs 8 lakh, then the broker gets a commission of Rs 3 to 4 lakh. Brokers get this deal done by promising the parents of the girls to get extra money. Agents associated with the panchayat have built luxurious houses in the village. No one dares to speak in front of the police and administration because they fear these powerful agents.

Training the girls

Buyers get girls of their choice in the age group of five to eight years. As minor girls, these girls are given specialized training for many years. The training brainwashes the girls to identify the buyer as their family member and refuse to divulge the details of their original family.

Girls from 4 districts including Bhilwada are purchased on stamp paper and sent across the country. The price of girls is decided according to age. After buying, they are kept hungry until the girls agree to obey every order of the broker. Special training is given to these girls to woo customers. Injections of oxytocin are given to these girls, which makes the body develop quickly. When these girls are caught in the police raid, the brokers cleverly take them back posing as their families.

Where exactly in Rajasthan?

Bhilwara, Tonk, Sawaimadhopur, and Bundi have been named as the districts with the highest number of cases of trafficking and selling of girls, as per the report. This gang is most active in the villages of Pander, Tola, Piplu, Sui, Sartala, Thamaniya, Mandalgarh, Surana’s Kheda, Kuchlwada, Badliawas, Udliyawas, Basni of Bhilwara. Apart from this, girls are also sold in Jaisinghpura, Manhatwas, Pozgarh, Ghuni, Kholiyada, Rajmahal, and Kakod villages of Tonk.

After buying girls from the villages of Bhilwara, Tonk, Sawaimadhopur, and Bundi the ‘dealers’ bring them all to Sawai Madhopur and Bundi. Here girls are kept in secret houses. As per the age, and physical appearance of the girls, they are auctioned and sent out of the state. The auction is done in lakhs of rupees. Touts have set up secret hideouts in Chauth Ka Barwada, Udalwada, Sonf, Mandawara, Vanobhabasti of Sawai Madhopur, and Dablana, Ramnagar of Bundi. From here, girls are sold to buyers across the country. After this, they are sent to Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Nashik, Goa, Vapi, Daman-Island in Gujarat, Meerut, Ghaziabad in UP, Gwalior, Neemuch, Mandsaur in MP, and Nagpur in Maharashtra.

The brokers make huge money while the victim girls’ families are deprived

Agents and brokers reportedly keep a track of girls from families struggling with finances. They offer loan s themselves or arrange for a loan from their contacts, ans convince the family to sell their daughters for the money. After the daughter’s family agrees, they call the buyers and get the deal done on stamp paper.

Even after selling daughters and sisters, the burden of the loan does not come down, because the amount of interest is very high. Apart from this, brokers take one-third of the amount received on selling the girl as a commission. For example, if a girl’s deal is for Rs 6 lakh, the broker takes a commission of Rs 2 lakh, the Bhaskar report says. Only interest is paid from the rest of the amount, the principal amount remains as it is. People living in these localities do not even have land for farming. They earn a living by daily wages or by selling daughters.

Suresh, a resident of Pander village in Bhilwara, said, “Our ancestors fought the British in the freedom struggle. That’s why I’ve always been in the forests. We never had land, and because of this, we could not even do farming. After independence, many people opted for theft to live. On this, the police launched a campaign and gave us land to settle outside the cities and motivated our people to work as laborers. This is the reason that be it a village or a city, our settlements are on the outskirts of the city. Most people work as laborers to feed themselves.”

Girls rescued in the last raid are sent to the Child Welfare Committee

In 2019, the police conducted a raid in the Pander village of Bhilwara and rescued 20 girls who were sold and drawn into prostitution. Dr. Suman Trivedi is a former chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee of Bhilwara and a judicial member of Standing ‘Lok Adalat’. Bhaskar quoted her saying, “During the counseling of the girls, it was revealed that capsules were given to the girls every day to make them ‘mature’ quickly. They also gave injections of oxytocin. We were also shocked to see a girl. She told her age to be 14 years, while she looked 25 years old. He was given several injections and daily capsules. At the age of just 14, she had had an abortion twice.

Dr. Suman Trivedi told, “Even after being rescued by the police, most of the girls are not able to go to their homes. The biggest problem is seen among those girls, who are either sold by their families in childhood or who are kidnapped. Due to the brainwashing of these girls in childhood, they do not remember the names of their parents and village. When asked, they tell the exploiters as their parents. In such a situation, these girls have to be sent to a juvenile home or Nari Niketan after counseling.”

She added, “When girls come to us, they do not say anything for many days. In the early days, they don’t believe us. They think the police will put them in jail or send them back to the buyer if they talk. Usually, it takes extensive counseling.”

Connecting the dots

Dr. Suman Trivedi also told how difficult it is to draw information from brainwashed girls. She said, “Counselling minor girls is the most difficult. They change their statements every time. As they don’t remember much, they forget most of the old things, what happened to them. Every statement of these girls has to be noted and talked about again and again. They remember everything in pieces, all these dots have to be connected.”

She added, “Many times girls just remember that they were lost at the fair. I don’t remember the village and the address. In such a situation, which fair was there, what was the atmosphere there, how was the path, whose temple was, try to find out by connecting these small links. All this sometimes takes months.”

Routing back to normal life

After rescuing the minor girls, the police have to hand over the girls to the Child Welfare Committee in a span of 24 hours. After this, the Child Welfare Committee sends the minor to the children’s home and the adult girls to Nari Niketan after counseling the girls. The Child Welfare Committee counsels minor girls and traces their parents. After this, the minor girl is sent home.

After finding out about the parents of many minor girls, it is revealed that it was their parents who sold them in the first place. In such a situation, the Child Welfare Committee does not hand over those girls to their parents. Such girls are sent to children’s homes, where they are taught. When they become adults, they are sent to Nari Niketan.

The Child Empowerment Department also provides skill development courses to many girls on behalf of the government. So that girls can be self-reliant. For this, a loan is also given by the department. The adult girl is kept in Nari Niketan, although due to being an adult, the girl can leave if she wants. However, many girls do not have identity cards or they have fake identity cards. In such a situation, they do not get to work anywhere and unfortunately, after leaving Nari Niketan, they are entangled in the dark world of prostitution once again.

Presidents of the state and the national commission for women visited the spot

National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma, along with state women’s commission chairperson Rehana Riaz Chishti, came for an investigation in Pander, Mandalgarh, Jahajpur, and Bhojgarh in the Bhilwara district on Monday along with the team. Both teams went to the villages and talked to the people and tried to know the truth. Apart from this, the administration and the police also briefed them about the case. After the investigation, both officers noted different observations.

Two days ago, National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma visited Bhilwara. She said, “In Bhilwara, an entire gang is working to drag young girls to sex work. Girls are being sent out of here.” She also accused the Bhilwara administration and police of working blindly. She said, “The police know all in which area the girls are being forced into sex work and which family is involved in it.”

Rekha Sharma said, “I went with a reporter in his car before my team arrived. As soon as the reporter went to those girls, they started wooing him like a client. I also have photos of it. I then called the Bhilwara SP. He conducted a survey there at night. The next day my team went everywhere. They didn’t find those girls there. But apart from the forced prostitution, there were a lot of complaints from villagers.”

On the arrival of the team the next day, the girls were not seen in the village. People in the suspected localities spoke of their daughters studying outside. When asked about whether their daughters were studying in colleges, schools, and educational institutions and in any district, there was no response from these people. State Women’s Commission Chairman Rehana Riyaz Chishti visited Bhilwara Collector and SP. The authorities ignored the issue as an old matter, as per Bhaskar. The report also stated that the flesh trade goes on without any hindrance on the highways. Makeshift shops and huts are visible on highways where vehicles stop and girls invite customers in full public view. When inquired, the pimps inform that the local police is aware and they give a part of their earnings to local policemen to keep the business running.

Uttar Pradesh: ED attaches 28 immovable properties worth Rs 10.12 crore of slain gangster Vikas Dubey, his aides

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On Wednesday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached 28 immovable properties worth Rs 10.12 crores belonging to gangster Vikas Dubey, his family, and his associates under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Dubey was gunned down by UP Special Task Force over two years ago.

According to the reports, ED had launched a money laundering investigation based on an FIR registered by the Uttar Pradesh Police. ED stated Dubey had acquired the properties out of illegal gains. “A provisional order has been issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for attaching a total of 28 immovable properties that are located in Kanpur and Lucknow”, the ED said in a statement.

“These assets worth a total of Rs 10.12 crore are in the name of Vikas Dubey, his family members, aide Jaikant Bajpai and his family members and his (Dubey’s) associates and have been derived from proceeds of crime earned by criminal activities of Vikas Dubey”, the agency added.

Dubey was killed in an encounter on July 10 two years ago when the Uttar Pradesh police vehicle transporting him from Ujjain to Kanpur collided and he attempted to flee from the scene in the Bhauti area. Reportedly, five of Dubey’s alleged associates were killed in separate police encounters before his encounter.

This came after 8 police officers, including DSP Devendra Mishra, were attacked while on their way to arrest Dubey in Bikru village in Kanpur’s Chaubeypur area and were killed by shells fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3, 2020.

As per the agency, Dubey and his associates were involved in several crimes, including offenses like organized crime, land mafia, bribery, and embezzlement of funds intended for the public distribution system (PDS), among others. “The facts, evidence, and records cogently prove that the above-mentioned persons indulged in the commission of the offense of money laundering and have invested proceeds of crime in immovable properties mostly”, the ED noted.

The central agency had filed a money laundering complaint against Dubey and his associates after taking cognizance of multiple FIRs filed by Uttar Pradesh Police.

Freedom House, that downgraded India to ‘partly free’ and cited The Wire reports, fails to retract its pronouncements even after Tek Fog reports are withdrawn

US government funded human rights ‘watchdog’ Freedom House, that had downgraded India from ‘Free’ to ‘Partly Free’ and had cited The Wire’s Tek Fog ‘secret app’ has not yet removed references to the same. This, even after The Wire itself withdrew those stories pending internal review after allegations came up that their story on Meta, by The Wire associate, was based on fabricated documents. After allegations of forgery surfaced, The Wire, withdrew the story and are claiming they are carrying out an investigation. The Wire has filed a police complaint against their associate, Devesh Kumar, who was one of the authors for Meta stories, as well as Tek Fog stories, and have claimed he was mentally unwell.

Upon publishing of Tek Fog stories earlier this year in January by The Wire, the same were picked up by various international publications and ‘advocacy groups’, mostly to claim how democracy is in danger in India. In fact, as answered by Tek Fog team consisting of Devesh Kumar, Ayushman Kaul and The Wire Founding Editor Siddharth Varadarajan, they wanted international press to pick up the stories and were disheartened that Indian media was not picking them up as much. You can read more about their thoughts on the ‘secret app’ here.

Amongst other ‘advocacy groups’ that had picked up the Tek Fog fiction was Freedom House. The US government funded dubious Human Rights ‘watchdog’ that supported violent protests against a law that gave citizenship rights to persecuted minorities like Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians from Islamic states neighbouring India, dropped the country from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ in 2021. In 2022, too, the organisation maintained India as ‘partly free’, leaning on prejudiced reports and unfounded allegations, including The Wire’s story on Tek Fog, to claim that members of the BJP used it to shape public narratives and manipulate social media opinions.

Now that The Wire has withdrawn the stories, few other portals, too, have retracted their stories and opinions on them. US-based Bloomberg has been one of the few to do so. However, the other portals that used its syndicated feed for the said opinion piece, like Washington Post, ThePrint India, Times of India, have not yet withdrawn their stories. Neither has Freedom House removed reference from their report and apologised to the readers as well as Indians at large for not carrying out due diligence as a self appointed ‘watchdog’ themselves.

Essentially, the Freedom House has downgraded India based on facts that they did not find convenient and a fallacious narrative woven by left and Islamist elements in India who wanted to either shield the perpetrators or were an intrinsic part of the violence that erupted in India.

It is also pertinent to note that Freedom House has downgraded India based on the Supreme Court verdict that they did not approve of, based on their preconceived notions of the case. For example, the “activists” and “students” that they talk of are still in custody because the court of law, after reviewing the evidence filed, believed that there was enough material evidence for them to remain incarcerated in relevant cases. Even the case of BJP leaders being acquitted is a verdict that was delivered by the highest court of the land.

OpIndia has written to Freedom House for their comments on the same and have not yet heard back from them. We shall update the report if we hear back from them.

The truth about the Morbi tragedy survivor’s ‘bandage changed to plaster for Modi visit’ fake news spread by usual suspects

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid a visit to the Morbi bridge collapse site and also met the survivors of the incident at the hospital on Tuesday. He assessed the situation and also spoke to people involved in rescue and relief efforts at the site of the unfortunate incident in Morbi.

After PM Modi’s visit, several left liberals took to social media to mock the victims of the incident and claim that the survivors of the incident at the hospital were planted ahead of PM Modi’s visit to the town. Several left-liberal social media users and journalists shared two juxtaposed images of a man, one with a gauze rolled around his right knee, and another with a plaster on his right leg, to insinuate that the survivors at the hospital were not real.

Twitter User Abhijit Dipke shared an image of a survivor and stated that he got a plaster overnight just because PM Modi was visiting. Vinod Kapri, a journalist turned filmmaker, repeated the same message from Abhijit by quoting it in a tweet.

Screenshot from Twitter

Abusive troll Swati Chaturvedi, who is referred to as a journalist, also took to Twitter and used the same image on similar lines in an attempt to tarnish the image of Gujarat and demean the visit by the Prime Minister. Swati wrote, “The permanent patient. How come the same gent met Vaghela & then Modi today? Is this the Gujarat model?”

Screenshot from Twitter

Rohini Singh, a ‘journalist’ working for The Wire, the left-leaning publication that made headlines for its hit job against Amit Malviya over its Meta stories, also partook in propagating the misleading claim. All these tweets had the same image implying that a survivor was planted and his leg was plastered before PM Modi’s visit of the hospital.

Screenshot from Twitter

However, victim Ashwin, whose image was shared on social media and who is undergoing treatment in the hospital at present, refuted the claims that he is a ‘planted’ patient at the hospital for the PM’s visit. He said that he is a victim of the bridge collapse, his leg was initially bandaged and later it was plastered after assessment by doctors. Ashwin revealed that the plaster was put up on his leg after the doctors carried out an X-ray and diagnosed a severe fracture in his leg. “Earlier, there was a small bandage. Later the doctors found out that my leg was fractured and so they put up plaster on my legs”, Ashwin said while talking to a Lallantop interviewer.

He also clarified that earlier he was allotted bed number 125 but now had been shifted to 126 as one of the patients in the ward had been discharged. “The doctors shifted one of the lady patients to another ward. So bed numbers of several patients including mine have been changed”, he stated. Further, he mentioned that PM Modi talked to him and also inquired about his health.

It is not sure why left-liberals would claim that the govt will plant fake patients in the hospital for the PM’s visit, or will apply unnecessary plaster, when the Morbi tragedy is real, where over a hundred people died and many more were injured, who are being treated. It is also common sense that when such incidents happen and a large number of injured people are admitted to a hospital, first all of them are given first aid, after that their medical conditions are assessed based on severity and only after that, their real treatment begins.

Therefore, it is quite normal that Ashwin, and perhaps many others, received only bandages and other such minor treatments at the beginning, and after that, they were examined and necessary additional treatments were prescribed. It is surprising that Modi-haters saw conspiracy in this tragic case also.

On Monday, hours after the suspension bridge over the Machchhu River in Morbi, Gujarat, collapsed claiming around 135 lives and injuring several other persons, CCTV footage emerged showing that a few people were continuously shaking the bridge, moments before the unfortunate tragedy. The bridge collapsed at around 6:30 pm when around 400 people were on the bridge.

The bridge was closed for operational use about 7 months ago. A private company by the name of Oreva Group (Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited) was given the contract in March of this year to renovate and maintain the said bridge. The suspension bridge, which is also known as the jhoolta pool, was reopened on the occasion of Gujarati New Year Day on October 26 this year after the completion of the renovation task of the bridge.

However, the Morbi Municipality said that the private firm threw open the bridge to the public without obtaining a fitness certificate from the Municipality. The 150-year-old bridge located 300 km from Vadodara could take the weight of only about 125 people but there were around 400 people on the bridge when the incident happened. Many of them were performing Chhath Puja rituals on the bridge. The death toll in the Morbi bridge disaster has risen to around 135 while a total of 180 were successfully rescued by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams.

The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh for each of those killed in the accident and Rs 50,000 for those injured. The Prime Minister also has announced monetary assistance of Rs. 2 lakh for each of the victims’ families.

As Pooja Bhatt joins Rahul Gandhi in ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, here’s a throwback to the time when her father praised hate preacher Zakir Naik

On 2nd November 2022, former Bollywood actress and filmmaker Pooja Bhatt joined Rahul Gandhi in his container rally called ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ which is currently passing through Telangana. Pooja Bhatt joined the yatra in Hyderabad as she walked alongside Rahul Gandhi for some time on Wednesday morning. Pooja is the daughter of director Mahesh Bhatt and is the first noted Bollywood celebrity to join this Yatra.

It, therefore, becomes evident to recall the connection of the Bhatt family with hate preacher Zakir Naik and terrorist David Coleman Headley. Director Mahesh Bhatt had praised Islamist hate preacher and fugitive Zakir Naik while his son and Pooja Bhatt’s brother Rahul Bhatt was in connection with David Coleman Headley who had carried out the recce of Mumbai for Lashkar-E-Taiba before the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

Mahesh Bhatt praised Zakir Naik

Zakir Naik was denied entry to the UK in June 2010. Several videos of Mahesh Bhatt praising hate preacher and fugitive Zakir Naik surfaced online, ahead of the scheduled release of his film ‘Sadak 2’ on July 10. In one such video, Bhatt can be seen singing praises for the radical Islamist.

Mahesh Bhatt said, “At the onset, let me salute Dr Zakir Naik for daring to lock horns with the mighty British Empire… I salute his audacity which comes from his Imaan… If he had any grey spot in his heart, he wouldn’t have risked locking horns with these bullies… The world is becoming the most entertained and the least informed one… We, as Indians, owe it to our brother (Zakir Naik) who is national pride, (and) a prized treasure.”

He then went on a hysterical rant against the United States, United Kingdom (UK), and other Western powers and drew irrelevant analogies with the Persian Gulf War to substantiate his claim that Naik should have been allowed to preach in the UK. “They call Dr. Naik the warmonger but history knows who is the warmonger”, the director advocated.

He added, “Are you going to believe in the opinions of those people who have the means to lie, buy wordsmiths, get newspapers, have TV networks by their side to market lies, and hang a man like Dr Naik? I will say No.” Bhatt urged the Indian government to intervene, stand up for Zakir Naik and plead his case.

Pooja Bhatt’s father Mahesh Bhatt wanted to make a film on Zakir Naik

Mahesh Bhatt also expressed his will to make a film based on Zakir Naik. He made these remarks when he was speaking at an event organized by Peace TV. It is owned by Zakir Naik and fined £300,000 (around Rs 2.75 crore) for broadcasting hate speech. Mahesh Bhatt was invited as a guest on Zakir Naik’s Peace TV to address a group of Muslims. On being asked whether he would feature the hate preacher in his films, Bhatt stated, “The life of Zakir Saheb is a fascinating story in itself. It contains material for a feature film. I don’t know whether Zakir Naik will want to play the role of a hero in the movie. We can find someone to play his role, provided he gives me permission to do so. Please get the idea approved from him and then only I can make a film.”

Pooja Bhatt’s brother Rahul Bhatt was in contact with 26/11 terrorist

It may be noted that David Coleman Headley, an accused in the Mumbai terror attack case, was reportedly a close associate of Rahul Bhatt, Mahesh Bhatt’s son. As per reports, a day prior to the deadly Mumbai attack in 2008, Headley had warned Bhatt and asked him not to go to South Mumbai on 26th November 2008, the day of the attack.

With Pooja Bhatt throwing her weight behind Rahul Gandhi in his Bharat Jodo Yatra, eyebrows are raised as her father openly provided an intellectual cover to a fugitive hate-preaching Islamist and her brother was reportedly known to be in contact with a terrorist who reconnoitred Mumbai before the 26/11 terror attack.

Morbi Bridge Collapse: Morbi and Rajkot Bar Associations decide not to represent nine accused from the Oreva Group

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On Wednesday, Morbi and Rajkot Bar Association informed that they have decided not to take up the case and represent the nine accused of Oreva company who have been arrested in the Morbi Bridge collapse incident which claimed 135 lives on Sunday.

Those arrested include managers from Oreva, the company that renovated the Morbi bridge, ticket takers, bridge repair contractors, and three security officers tasked with crowd control.

Morbi Deputy Superintendent of Police PA Zala, who is investigating the tragic bridge collapse, alleged on Tuesday that the British-era suspension bridge collapsed due to poor maintenance. Zala told the local court that the bridge’s cables were rusted and that if the cables had been repaired, the incident would not have occurred.

The bridge, which was over a century old, had recently reopened after its repair and renovation work. Noticeably, 400 people were on the bridge at the time of the incident, as the ancient bridge could not withstand the weight.

According to The Indian Express report, one of the managers of the Oreva company, which was tasked with bridge renovation, stated in court that the company was not at fault and that the unfortunate incident occurred due to God’s will. “It was God’s will (Bhagwan ni ichchha) that such an unfortunate event occurred,” Deepak Parekh stated in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate and Additional Senior Civil Judge MJ Khan. Parekh is one of nine accused held by the administration in the aftermath of the incident.

So far, the police investigation into the case has revealed that the contractors tasked with renovating the bridge were not qualified engineers. “They did the fabrication work.” “The investigation indicates that the bridge may have collapsed due to the aluminum planks on the bridge,” Public prosecutor HS Panchal confirmed on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Gujarat observed a day of mourning on Wednesday to remember those who died in the Morbi cable bridge mishap.

“Took part in a peace prayer in Ahmedabad for the souls of those who died in the Morbi tragedy and for God to give strength to their families to bear this trauma, and paid heartfelt tributes to the deceased. The entire state of Gujarat is mourning with the families of the deceased,” Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel tweeted.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Morbi bridge collapse site to assess the situation. Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel joined PM Modi. Several NDRF and Indian Army teams have been deployed in the area where the search operation is taking place in the Machchhu River.