NUH MLAS ALLEGE ‘KHAKI TERROR’ IN COW SMUGGLING CASES
Even as the Nuh police claim to have arrested 300 persons this year for cow smuggling and slaughtering, local MLAs have alleged that people were being terrorised and even teenagers were not being spared. However, SP Varun Singla has refuted the allegations. Mamman Khan, a Congress legislator from Ferozepur Jhirka in Nuh district, has alleged blatant misuse of law. “They (police) are terrorising people, stopping their vehicles, barging into their homes and even taking away teenage boys. They should make public the names of all those arrested along with the charges.” Mamman on August 12 complained to the police, alleging a threat from cow vigilantes. Nuh MLA and Congress leader Aftab Ahmed said, “The police are harassing people without proper warrants and also patronising cow vigilantes, who have spread terror in the entire district. The Chief Minister needs to step in.”
UP MINISTER CONVICTED, LEAVES COURT ‘WITHOUT BAIL BONDS’
A court in Kanpur on August 6 held Uttar Pradesh minister Rakesh Sachan guilty in a three-decade-old Arms Acts case, after which the leader “disappeared” from the courtroom “without furnishing bail bonds”, a report citing PTI said on August 7. The minister, however, denied the disappearance charge, claiming his case “wasn’t listed for the final verdict”. Prosecution officer (PO) Richa Gupta said Sachan left the courtroom soon after his conviction when the court asked the defence counsel to make arguments over the quantum of punishment. Sachan allegedly “fled” with the court’s conviction order, which was given to him for putting his signature. A first information report (FIR) will be lodged against him in this regard, Gupta said.
HUSBANDS OF ELECTED WOMEN TAKE OATH IN MP PANCHAYATS
Following reports of husbands or male members of families taking oath instead of the elected women representatives in newly formed Madhya Pradesh panchayats, the State is coming out with an advisory to prevent a repeat of such instances, a report said on August 8. Such violations came to the fore in Dhar, Damoh, Sagar, Panna and Rewa where the women concerned were among the spectators or at home while their husbands or other relatives took the oath on their behalf. Videos of husbands, fathers or brothers-in-law taking oath had surfaced. Earlier, in Sagar’s Jaisinagar village, only three of the 10 women who were elected to the panchayat were present in the oath-taking ceremony on August 5. The hue and cry that followed led to the suspension of the Village Panchayat Secretary Asharam Sahu who could be seen administering oaths to the male relatives in one of the videos.
‘TRAINING CAMP’ IN ASSAM TEACHES COMBAT, SMALL ARMS
A nondescript location in Dhubri, about 250 kilometres west of Assam’s capital, Guwahati, witnessed unusual activity last month when 240 young men assembled for a training camp, The Quint reported on August 8. But this was no ordinary camp. The sessions almost resembled a commando training course, except that there was no actual firing from weapons. And it was being conducted neither by the police nor the armed forces, but by the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal (RBD), which is a branch of the Praveen Togadia-led Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The sessions included lessons on close combat tactics, martial arts, basics of handling small arms, yoga, survival in hostile conditions and ideological orientation lectures. A senior functionary reportedly arrived from the organisation’s headquarters in Delhi to supervise the programme, besides a host of retired government officials who lent a ‘helping hand’ to manage the sessions.