KARNATAKA FRIENDS FORUM DEMANDS BAN ON THE KASHMIR FILES
As people are claiming that ‘The Kashmir Files’ film is spreading communalism in the country, the Hindu, Muslim, and Christian Friend’s Forum on March 19 requested a ban on it. Ashfaq Kumatakar of the Forum said that through the film ‘The Kashmir Files’, there is an endeavour to incite Hindus against the minorities. “India is a secular country. Each resident in this nation is to live with next to no sensations of station, belief and religion,” he added. ‘The Kashmir Files’ film is spreading contempt among little children. The public authority ought to have given charge concessions to film ‘James’ featuring late hotshot Puneeth Rajkumar. That would have been an acknowledgment of the charitable movement of the entertainer, he said. The President ought to promptly intercede and force a prohibition on ‘The Kashmir Files’, the Forum demanded.
POSING AS MUSLIM, MAN POSTS INFLAMMATORY POST ON FB
Police have arrested a man who had created a fake social media account and was posting inflammatory content while posing as a Muslim man. The police have identified the man as Siddharoodh Srikanth Nerale, 25, who is a resident of Gokak taluk in Belagavi district of Karnataka. He was posting on social media as Mushtaq Ali. The police were alerted by members of an organisation about the social media account. They filed a complaint against the inflammatory comments posted on the Facebook account of Mushtaq Ali from Bagalkot. When the cyber, economics and narcotics (CEN) police in Bagalkot started an investigation, they realised that there was no Mushtaq Ali behind the account. Lokesh Jagalsar, the superintendent of police of Bagalkot said: “After investigation, it was found that the accused person is actually Siddharoodh Srikanth Nerale, a resident of Gokak taluk, Belagavi district.” To make the account look believable, Nerale had created a fake profile of a non-existent person with a photograph of a man wearing a skull cap, Jagalsar said.
FORMER JNU STUDENT LEADER UMAR KHALID DENIED BAIL
Delhi’s Karkardooma Court on March 24 rejected bail to former JNU student activist Umar Khalid in a “larger conspiracy” case relating to the 2020 Northeast Delhi violence. He was arrested on September 14, 2020, and is currently imprisoned at Delhi’s Tihar jail. Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat had reserved the order on March 3 after hearing arguments from the counsel appearing for Mr Khalid and the prosecution. During the arguments, the accused told the court that the prosecution lacked the evidence to prove its case against him. Senior Advocate Trideep Pais, appearing for Umar Khalid, had argued that the entire charge sheet filed by Delhi Police in the case is a fabrication and that the case against him is based on the video clips run by two TV channels showing a truncated version of his speech. Umar Khalid’s defence in court was that statements in the charge sheet are “figments of imagination” and like “9 pm script of shouting news channels”.
JHARKHAND TO REINTRODUCE ANTI-LYNCHING BILL
Hemant Soren-led coalition government will reintroduce the Jharkhand (Prevention of Violence and Mob Lynching) Bill of 2021 in the monsoon session of the state assembly for its passage after studying the amendments proposed by governor Ramesh Bais, parliamentary affairs minister Alamgir Alam hinted on March 20. Bais had returned the bill on March 16 citing two objections – the English version of the bill dealt with the witness protection scheme which was missing in the Hindi version and that the bill’s definition of terming two or more people as a mob was not in line with legal lexicon and needed a relook. “We will revisit the bill and study the laws of other states too. The bill will be reintroduced in the assembly for passage. However, it is unlikely to happen during the ongoing session,” Alam said. The government, in an answer to a question during the ongoing budget session, had announced that it was planning to set up fast-track courts to dispose of lynching cases.
FOR WRONGLY PERSECUTED, COMPENSATION IS RIGHT
While raising the issue of legal remedies and compensation for the wrongly prosecuted, Indian Union Muslim League MP PV Abdul Wahab in Rajya Sabha on March 24 urged the Union government to implement the recommendations of 277th Law Commission. “The recommendation in the report of the Law Commission of India regarding ‘wrongful prosecution (miscarriage of justice) legal remedies’ should be implemented with utmost priority and immediate effect,” Wahab said. The Law Commission of India in its 277th report, released in 2018, had recommended the prosecution of erring government officers found to have maliciously prosecuted an innocent citizen. It had provided a framework for computing compensation and calculating the monetary value of the loss to a citizen in case of wrongful prosecution.
Image with caption: Lamya Majeed (centre) with her parents
HIJAB-CLAD MUSLIM STUDENT BAGS SEVEN GOLD MEDALS
A hijab-wearing student Lamya Majeed, an MSc Botany post-graduate student of the University of Mysore, has bagged seven gold medals and two cash prizes, at the university’s 102nd convocation on March 22. Lamya hails from Mangalore, Karnataka, the state which was engulfed by the hijab row until recently, is currently working on her master’s thesis at the University of Mysore. She is hoping to pursue her Ph.D. in a foreign university. Speaking to the media, Lamya said, “I am interested in plant pathology and plant disease. If I get any chance to go abroad for more research work, I will go. But my intention is to help farmers and agriculture.” Lamya has already cleared the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (Gate). Earlier on March 10, a 22-year-old girl Bushra Mateen became the first student of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) to win 16 gold medals.
52 JMI RCA STUDENTS CLEAR CIVIL SERVICES MAINS EXAM
As many as 52 students who studied at the Jamia Millia Islamia’s Residential Coaching Academy have cleared the civil services mains exam, the university said. These candidates will now appear for the personality test (interview), which will be held in April. The professor in-charge for RCA, Abid Haleem, expressed his happiness with the “magnificent result this year” and has “showered his best wishes for the upcoming exams”, it said. The RCA is funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to provide free coaching and residential facilities to students belonging to categories such as the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes, and minorities. The statement said that about 40 students are going to appear for various state mains exam in the coming days.