BJP legislator in Telangana held after hate speech against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
A habitual Islamophobe and hate-monger, legislator Raja Singh was arrested in Telangana state on Tuesday after making a video with hate speech against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Singh belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Telangana is ruled by an opposition party.
Singh had posted his offensive and, under Indian law, criminal speech in a video that was later taken down by the social media platform where it was uploaded.
Muslims gathered publicly in Hyderabad, Telangana’s capital, to protest Singh’s hate speech. Shortly, the BJP announced it had suspended Singh from the party.
Singh is a serial offender, having threatened mass violence against Muslims and their places of worship for years. On Monday, he had released his video in which he criticized a Muslim stand-up comedian, Munawar Faruqui, who last week ran a show in the city.
Said Asaduddin Owaisi, India’s most prominent Muslim Parliamentarian and head of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), a Hyderabad-based Muslim-led political party: “This is the official policy of the BJP to ensure that Muslims are always tortured emotionally, mentally by allowing their party members to talk in such low language which we call it sadak chap language about Prophet Mohammed.”
In July, then BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma created international furore after making similar hateful remarks against the Prophet. India’s Supreme Court has protected her since by refusing to let the police arrest or even question her.
Supreme Court moved against the release of Bilkis Bano’s rapists
Supreme Court Chief Justice N. V. Ramana said on Tuesday he would consider listing the plea filed by Telangana legislator Kavitha Kalvakuntla against the release of 11 men who had been convicted for the rape of Muslim woman Bilkis Bano and the murder of many members of her family, including her toddler daughter and mother, 20 years ago.
Gujarat’s BJP-led Government gave “remission” to the accused who were serving life sentences, following which they were freed on India’s Independence Day, August 15. Their release was condemned nationally and globally. Bano said their release had “numbed” her and “shaken” her “faith in justice.”
Lawsuits against their release have also been filed by Member of Parliament Mohua Moitra, politician Subhashini Ali, journalist Revathi Laul and civil rights activist Roop Rekha Verma.
Bano was raped during a pogrom of Muslims carried out by Hindu terrorists in Gujarat in 2002, when Modi was the state’s chief minister. Over 2,000 people were killed in the violence, an overwhelming majority of them Muslims.
Jailed Muslim cabbie who brought Siddique Kappan to Uttar Pradesh gets bail
The Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday granted bail to Mohammed Alam, a cab driver who has been in prison for two years after being arrested with Prisoner of Conscience journalist Siddique Kappan in October 2020.
Alam, 30, was arrested with Kappan and two others when they were on their way to Hathras city to report on the brutal rape and murder of a Dalit woman.
The Uttar Pradesh government, led by Islamophobic Hindu extremist chief minister Yogi Adityanath, has slapped charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against the accused without any evidence.
Last year, a trial court had dropped some charges against the accused and said that the police had failed to complete the inquiry within the prescribed period of six months.
Lawsuit claims Adityanath wants to only appoint RSS men as government lawyers
A public lawsuit has been filed at the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh challenging the appointments of government lawyers alleging that they were appointed based on the recommendations of the Hindu militant group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The lawsuit said the appointments violated Supreme Court’s guidelines as the state government did not invite applications or set up a committee to run the process.
Many among the 220 officers appointed recently were relatives of politicians and judges. Some did not even regularly practice at the High Court. A few had not even completed five years of practice as was mandatory, the lawsuit said.
