Sikh American documentary filmmaker from Vice News deported while on a personal visit
Angad Singh, a United States citizen and journalist, was deported soon after he landed in New Delhi on 24 August. He arrived after an 18-hour-long journey and was sent back on the first flight out to New York, his mother claimed in a Facebook post.
Singh’s family members told The Indian Express he was visiting for a family reunion. They alleged he was deported because of his work.
The officials “didn’t give a reason. But we know it is his award-winning journalism that scares them,” Singh’s mother Gurmeet Kaur, wrote on Facebook. “It is the stories he did and the stories he is capable of. It is the love for his Motherland that they can’t stand.”
Angad Singh is a documentary producer with Vice News, a US-based news and entertainment company. His recent works include a documentary on the Shaheen Bagh protest and another on the deadly second wave of COVID-19 in India, which also received an Emmy nomination.
One of Singh’s family members said, “His request for a visa as a journalist to make a documentary on Dalits in India was rejected recently.”
The airport officials have not issued any statement yet.
Supreme Court asks Gujarat government to respond to Teesta’s bail plea
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Gujarat government gave more time to file its response on a bail application from globally renowned human rights defender Teesta Setalvad who was arrested in June after the court virtually condemned her to incarceration after baselessly accusing her of forging documents against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his involvement in the anti-Muslim violence in 2002.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Gujarat government, submitted that the government’s response was ready but it needed modification.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who earlier this month publicly said that the Supreme Court was corrupt and biased and represents Setalvad, opposed her continued incarceration.
BJP Telangana legislator re-arrested for speaking foul of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
A legislator of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana state, T. Raja Singh, was on Thursday arrested again, this time under a harsher law, after he secured bail upon first arrest earlier this. Singh had released a public video speaking ill of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which is a criminal act under Indian law.
He was arrested under the Preventive Detention Act that is invoked by the police against habitual and notorious offenders and allows for one-year detentions.
“The detenu T. Raja Singh Lodh has been habitually delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches and driving a wedge between communities leading to public disorder. The proposed detenu Raja Singh posted online an offensive video on 22nd August 2022 on “Shree Ram Channel, Telangana” with the title “Faruqui K Aaka Itihaas Suniye” on YouTube against the Prophet Mohammed, who is venerated by the Muslim community with an intention to provoke all sections of people and thereby cause a breach of peace and public tranquillity. The proposed detenu commented very blasphemously against Prophet Mohammed and his lifestyle,” the police said in its press note.
“Any venomous hate speech has the potential of provoking individuals to commit acts of riot, indiscriminate violence, terrorism, etc. Offensive speech has real and devastating effects on people’s lives and risks their health and safety and severely affects fraternity, the dignity of individuals, unity, and national integration, and also offends the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India,” they further said.
Before his rearrest, Singh put out a video on Twitter saying, “Just got the information that now or in the evening I will be arrested by the police. The chief minister has ordered the police to jail me by any means, even by digging out all the old cases. They want me to be banished or be arrested by the PD act. I want to tell him that I am neither scared of bullets, hanging nor jail and I will keep fighting for the sake of Dharma. If somebody insults my God, I cannot accept it. Crores of Hindus will respond in the manner that they understand,” he said.”
India’s most prominent Muslim-run political party, the AIMIM, on Wednesday appealed to Telangana legislative assembly speaker to expel Singh for violating his oath.
Dalit Girl assaulted while passing by a temple in Madhya Pradesh, cases registered
A 15-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly beaten while walking close to a temple in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa district on Friday, 19 August, the eve of Krishna Janmashtami. She was admitted to a hospital after sustaining injuries to the ribs.
Narrating the alleged incident, the girl said, “Some of the Mali [caste] people shouted at me, saying that I am from a lower caste and asked me why I was passing through that road?”
The girl further said that when she asked them not to shout and use casteist slurs, the accused, including some women, started beating her up.
