EXPRESSING DISSENT HALLMARK OF DEMOCRACY: ALLAHABAD HC
The Allahabad High Court held that merely expressing dissent against the affairs of the State is not a criminal offence. A division bench of Justice Pankaj Naqvi and Justice Vivek Agarwal in its judgement, stated, “Expressing dissent on law and order situation in the State, is a hallmark of a constitutional liberal democracy like ours, constitutionally protected under Article 19 of the Constitution.” The Court was hearing a writ petition led by one Yashwant Singh, who had sought directions from the Court to quash an FIR that was lodged against him by the UP Police for his tweets which made critical remakes about the UP government. The petitioner had tweeted that the Chief Minister of UP, Yogi Adityanath, has turned UP into a ‘jungleraj’, where law and order have no prevalence. The petitioner also cited various incidents of abduction, demand of ransom and murders that rampantly taken place in the state.
JIH CONDEMNS POLICE RAID ON ADV PRACHA’S OFFICE
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has condemned the raid by the Delhi Police (Special Cell) at the office of Advocate Mehmood Pracha. In a statement, the JIH Vice President – Prof Salim Engineer said: “Advocate Pracha has been fighting cases for many victims of the North East Delhi riots and those unjustly arrested for their role in the anti-CAA protests. The raids appear to be an act of vengeance and intimidation. There is a visible pattern in the recent arrests by the Delhi Police. It appears as if the police want to send a message that those who take up cudgels on behalf of victims of injustice and police high-handedness will have to face inquiries, raids and arrest.” Expressing concern over the ‘raid-culture’ by the government agencies, the JIH Vice President said: “The government is misusing various agencies to intimidate those who oppose its policies and actions. Our Constitution has enjoined the law-enforcement agencies and the government institutions to be independent and free from executive control. However, recent events show that these constitutional norms are being disregarded.”
AN ASSAMESE FAMILY DECLARED INDIANS AFTER YEAR IN DETENTION
After a year-and-a-half in a detention centre as ‘illegal foreigners’, the New Year has brought freedom and citizenship to Mohammad Nur Hussain, 34, his wife Sahera Begum, 26, and their two minor children, who have been declared Indians in a re-trial by a Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT). “We are proud Indians. We belong to Assam. They wrongly accused us of being Bangladeshis and said we illegally crossed the border. How is that possible? I was born here,” Hussain, a rickshaw puller in Guwahati who hails from Lawdong village in Assam’s Udalguri district, reportedly said on December 30, 2020. “We are both unlettered and were in no position to make sense of the documents or what we were supposed to do,” Hussain added.
BAKERY IN KERALA FORCED TO REMOVE ‘HALAL’ SIGN
After pressure from the Hindu Aikya Vedi (Hindu United Front) organisation, a bakery named ‘Mody’ in Kerala’s Ernakulam district has been forced to remove a sign that said ‘halal’ food was available in the shop. In the notice that was sent to the shop on December 28 and signed by the organisation’s Parakkadavu unit president Arun Aravind and secretary Dhanesh Prabhakaran, they alleged that this was a display of discrimination of food based on religion and was equivalent to untouchability and therefore, criminal. The notice has since been circulating widely on social media. The incident followed after the unit president Aravind and a few others dropped by the shop for snacks and insisted on ‘non-halal’ food but the shopkeepers said that only halal food was available. Parakkadavu block’s new panchayath president, T. V. Pratheesh of the LDF said such demands as removing halal signage was unacceptable and the matter will be looked into.
BENGALURU STALLS PLAN TO RENAME 11 ROADS AFTER MUSLIM LEADERS
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the civic agency of the Karnataka capital, has put on hold its decision to change the names of streets in Muslim-majority pockets of an area to honour leaders from the community. The decision came after BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, who represents Bangalore South, shot off a letter to BBMP commissioner Manjunath Prasad, objecting to the renaming of roads in the Padarayanapura area of the city after Muslim leaders alone. Surya’s protest was supported by fellow BJP MP Anantkumar Hedge, who represents Uttara Kannada and also wrote his own letter to the BBMP commissioner. A third BJP MP, P.C. Mohan of the Bangalore Central constituency, also wrote to Prasad.
ARMED MEN VANDALISE, LOOT PROPERTIES IN MP VILLAGE
Armed with weapons, thousands of hooligans allegedly belonging to Hindutva groups from nearby villages on December 26 vandalised houses and other properties, looting cash and jewellery worth lakhs of rupees, in Dorana, a village near Mandsour city in Malwa district of Madhya Pradesh. The villagers, mostly Muslims, had fled their homes and businesses after the rallies taken out by the Hindutva groups struck panic in the area, a report citing locals said. “A 5,000-strong group had come to our village around 2 pm. They kept damaging properties for three to four hours. All Muslims had left the village. They played DJ in front of the mosque to incite the Muslims. No one said anything on this as no one was there. Then, they removed the Islamic flags from the houses and placed saffron flags there. Then, they started vandalising and looting properties,” a resident of Dorana reportedly said.
ANOTHER FARMER DIES AT DELHI-UP BORDER
A 57-year-old farmer on January 1 died while protesting at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border against the three contentious agriculture laws enacted by the centre last year. The farmer has been identified as Galtan Singh of UP’s Baghpat district. He had been protesting along with other farmers at the Ghazipur border. According to local authorities, the farmer appears to have died from Hypothermia – a life-threatening condition in which the body temperature suddenly drops – triggered by the cold wave that has gripped the national capital and its surrounding areas. “So far, 46 farmers have died protesting the laws, but the government has no shame – soon its arrogance will end. Farmers will not hesitate from sacrificing their lives for this movement,” the protesting farmers said in a statement.
RAM TEMPLE COLLECTION RALLIES LEAD TO COMMUNAL CLASHES
Villages in Madhya Pradesh have been witness to incidents of communal violence, all of which broke out during fund collection rallies for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. All processions were led by right-wing organisations from state’s Malwa-Nimar region, a stronghold of the RSS and the nerve centre of electoral politics in Madhya Pradesh. Violence was reported from the Gautumpura locality in Chandan Khedi village of Indore where clashes broke out during the Ram Mandir Nirman Nidhi Sangrah Abhiyan on December 28. Five people were injured.
DEMOLITION DRIVES LEFT SEVERAL HOMELESS, JOBLESS IN J&K IN 2020
The demolition drives conducted by the Jammu and Kashmir administration in different areas of the Kashmir Valley in this winter have rendered hundreds of people homeless and jobless. The demolition drives are being carried out by teams established by the district magistrates of different areas of Valley after notices had been issued from March onwards, asking people to vacate the land. Locals claim that these structures had been in their possession for years and the demolition drives are part of the changes that have been wrought in the Valley since Article 370 was abrogated in August 2019 and Jammu and Kashmir lost its special status.