Delhi police 'deaf and dumb': AAP questions inaction

New Delhi, Feb 16, 2016 (PTI)

Attacking Delhi Police over its inaction when journalists and JNU students were being thrashed in a court complex here yesterday, AAP today dubbed them "deaf and dumb", and asked why no action was taken against BJP MLA O P Sharma for his alleged involvement in the assault.

The party also questioned why the police was not checking the video in which JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been arrested on sedition charges, was talking in favour of following the Constitution.

"The Delhi Police has become deaf and dumb since yesterday. It has taken no action against BJP MLA O P Sharma who is seen assaulting JNU students and journalists and terrorising them," AAP leader Sanjay Singh said.

Yesterday, groups of lawyers had beaten up journalists and JNU students and teachers in the Patiala House court complex ahead of the hearing of sedition case registered against Kumar in connection with an event at the varsity last week to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Delhi BJP MLA OP Sharma was also seen beating up a CPI activist.
Earlier, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said the alleged negligence on the part of police is being probed and the guilty will face legal action.

Singh also noted that those who raised anti-India slogans during the event have not been arrested yet and demanded an independent probe into who those people were.

"There were anti-India slogans in JNU and those who gave those slogans have not been arrested yet. There should be an independent probe into this, on who these people were whose faces were masked and which party they belong to," he said.

The AAP leader also accused BJP and RSS of "tarnishing" the image of JNU.
"JNU has given the country several IAS and IPS officers, thinkers and academicians and the BJP and the RSS are tarnishing the image of a reputed organisation. There are many in Delhi Police who are from JNU and I urge them to stand up against the campaign to defame the varsity," he said.

Singh also lashed out at BJP for "hobnobbing" with PDP leaders who consider Afzal Guru as "martyr" and not a terrorist involved in the attack on Parliament.

"The BJP on one hand talks about nationalism, but it is hobnobbing with the PDP to form government in Jammu and Kashmir...the same PDP, which considers Afzal Guru a martyr and not a terrorist.

"This reflects the dual standards of the BJP on nationalism," he said.

Pro-Afzal Guru slogans raised in Jadavpur University rally

Kolkata, Feb 16, 2016, (PTI)

Slogans in favour of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru were raised in a rally brought out by Jadavpur University students here today to express solidarity with their JNU counterparts agitating against the arrest of their leader Kanhaiya Kumar for alleged sedition.
During the torch rally brought from JU campus to Gol Park in South Kolkata by students of all faculties of the university, slogans like "Afzal bole azadi, Geelani bole azadi" and "Chhinke lenge azadi" were raised.

Other slogans like "Freedom from RSS, freedom from Modi government", "Jab Kashmir ne maangi azadi, Manipur bhi boli azadi" were also raised.

When contacted, SFI local committee secretary Samanya Raha, who took part in the rally, said it was a "mass gathering" to protest against the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on the charge of sedition.  

Pro-Afzal Guru slogans raised in Jadavpur University rally

Kolkata, Feb 16, 2016, (PTI)

Slogans in favour of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru were raised in a rally brought out by Jadavpur University students here today to express solidarity with their JNU counterparts agitating against the arrest of their leader Kanhaiya Kumar for alleged sedition.
During the torch rally brought from JU campus to Gol Park in South Kolkata by students of all faculties of the university, slogans like "Afzal bole azadi, Geelani bole azadi" and "Chhinke lenge azadi" were raised.

Other slogans like "Freedom from RSS, freedom from Modi government", "Jab Kashmir ne maangi azadi, Manipur bhi boli azadi" were also raised.

When contacted, SFI local committee secretary Samanya Raha, who took part in the rally, said it was a "mass gathering" to protest against the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on the charge of sedition.  

Kejriwal posts cartoon, sets social media afire

New Delhi, Feb 16, 2016, (PTI)

A section of the twitterati today attacked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for posting a cartoon which shows a Hanuman-esque figure assuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi that public attention has been diverted towards JNU from other pressing issues.
Kejriwal posted the cartoon, published in a leading national daily, on his Twitter account. Within minutes, #Kejriwalinsultshanuman started trending.

A person lodged a police complaint against the Delhi CM in Hyderabad seeking "appropriate action" against him for "hurting religious sentiments".

The point of contention appeared to be a character sporting a tail which can be seen flying towards Modi while assuring him, "Done Sir, all attention is on JNU". The PM is shown standing amid raging fires over several socio-economic and security issues.

#KejriwalInsultsHanuman. Delhi CM @ArvindKejriwal must apologies unconditionally for mocking India & insulting Hanumanji," one Arvind Gupta tweeted.

Amit Malviya, in-charge of BJP's national IT department, tweeted, "If Kejriwal is benchmarked to the logic seculars applied after the Charlie Hebedo act, he should be at least in jail. #KejriwalInsultsHanuman".

Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay condemned Kejriwal for "hurting the sentiments of crores of Hindus" by portraying their revered Hanumanji in "bad taste".

"We feel that this bad portrayal has been intentionally done to please the Leftist section which is responsible for anti-national propaganda at Jawaharlal Nehru University," he alleged.

"Kejriwal must immediately apologize to the nation, especially to Hindus, for hurting the religious sentiments," he said.  

SP, Cong suffer blows in UP, Karnataka; BJP wrests M'nagar

New Delhi, Feb 16, 2016, (PTI):

The BJP and its allies today made gains in the Assembly bye-elections winning seven of the 12 seats in eight states when the party inflicted blows on ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and Congress in Karnataka.
BJP won the communally sensitive and politically significant Muzaffarnagar seat in UP where SP lost two of the three seats, one of which to Congress in Deoband. The Congress was jolted in Karnataka where it lost two of the three seats on offer. The BJP bagged two.

The party also snatched the Maihar seat in Madhya Pradesh from Congress, months after suffering a defeat at its hands in the Ratlam-Jhabua Lok Sabha bypoll.

In the other four states, ruling parties--BJP and its allies Shiv Sena and Akali Dal as also TRS and CPI (M)--won in the by-elections for a lone seat in Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana and Tripura respectively.

Uttar Pradesh, which is headed for Assembly elections next year, handed out a drubbing for the Akhilesh Yadav government when SP lost in Muzaffarnagar and Deoband. The party, however, retained the Bikapur seat.

Muzaffarnagar, where BJP's Kapil Dev Agarwal defeated SP's Gaurav Swarup by margin of 7,352 votes, is considered a test case for the saffron party which had mounted a strident campaign on Hindutva issues ever since the communal riots of 2013 there.

Western UP, of which Muzaffarnagar is a part, has seen the saffron party and its affiliates playing the Hindutva card to the hilt and attacking the Akhilesh Yadav government over its vote bank politics aimed allegedly at appeasing Muslims.

In Deoband, the seat of Islamic religious school, Darul Uloom, Congress worsted SP when its candidate Mavia Ali defeated Meena Rana. SP managed to retain Bikapur (Faizabad) seat when its candidate Anand Sen Yadav defeated RLD candidate Munna Singh Chauhan.

Opposition BJP in Karnataka, where Assembly elections are due in 2018, got the better of the ruling Congress in a virtual direct fight when it retained Hebbal seat in Bangalore. But the two parties snatched each other's seat in Devadurga and Bidar.

The results in Karnataka are seen as a blow to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah considering the fact that the Congress had invested heavily in the contest to wrest seats from BJP.

The Congress casualty in Karnataka included C K Abdul Rahman Sharief, grand son of former Railway Minister C K Jaffer Sharief, who lost to BJP's Y A Narayanaswamy by margin of 19,149 votes in Hebbal.

Sharief was given the ticket at the last minute against the wishes of Siddaramaiah who had plumped for his favourite Byrathi Suresh, an MLC, as the candidate.

In Bidar, Congress' Rahim Khan triumphed by a margin of 22,721 votes, defeating his closest opponent Prakash Khandre of BJP.

K Shivana Gouda Nayak of BJP defeated A Rajashekhra Nayak of Congress by a margin of 16,871 votes in Devadurga.

Plea in HC for NIA probe in JNUSU President's sedition case

New Delhi, Feb 15, 2016, (PTI)

A plea was today filed in the Delhi High Court seeking NIA probe in the sedition case in which JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar has been arrested, adding to the row over the issue.
The plea, which was mentioned before a bench of Justices B D Ahmed and R K Gauba, also sought a judicial inquiry in the entire case, soon after a group of men in lawyers' robes thrashed students and mediapersons in the nearby Patiala House court complex.

The petition, filed by one Ranjana Agnihotri, alleged that Delhi Police was not investigating the case properly and the matter should be transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The bench, however, posted the matter for hearing tomorrow observing that the Delhi Police was already conducting a probe and would take the case to its logical conclusion.

"The police is probing it. What is the urgency? List it for tomorrow," the bench said.
The petitioner's counsel, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, told the bench that media houses should be directed to place on record the video footage of the programme held in JNU on February 9 in which anti-India slogans were allegedly raised.

Kanhaiya was arrested on February 12 in connection with a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy over an event at the prestigious university against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

The same day, he was remanded to three-day police custody by a court here after the police said his and five other absconding accused's alleged links with terrorist groups were being probed.

A case was registered under Sections of 124 A (sedition) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC against unknown persons at Vasant Kunj (North) Police station following complaints by BJP MP Maheish Girri and the ABVP.

The event was held despite the varsity administration having cancelled the permission following a complaint by ABVP members, who had termed the activity as "anti-national".

2 youths killed in firing on stone-pelters; 1 militant slain in encounter

Srinagar, Feb 14, 2016, PTI:

Two youths, including a girl, were killed today in firing allegedly by security forces on a crowd that was holding a protest over an encounter in Pulwama district of south Kashmir in which an unidentified militant was gunned down.

Three persons were also injured in the firing, police said. The two youths killed were identified as Danish and Shahista, a police official said, adding that a crowd of protesters started pelting stones at security forces at Lillhar in the Kakapora area near the encounter site.

Earlier, one militant was killed in the encounter in Pulwama. "An encounter broke out in Kakapora after a cordon and search operation was launched in the area," an army official said.

An unidentified militant was killed in the exchange of fire between the two sides, the official said, adding that further details are awaited.