New Delhi: Former Congress leader and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal on Friday made veiled attack at the Centre, alleging people have been living in the fear of investigating agencies, the State and the police.

Talking about the “use of religion as a weapon”, the Rajya Sabha MP said that even though it was happening all over the world, “India is an excessive example of the use of religion”.

“It’s happening all over the world. It was complete intolerance what happened in Leicester yesterday. We all know what happened there. So it’s being exported now. The real problem is, in India today those who are part of the hate speech are the collaborators of a particular ideology, the police are not willing to do anything,” Sibal said.

The former Cabinet minister was speaking at the launch of his book, “Reflections: In Rhyme and Rhythm”, published by Rupa Publications.

He added that those who give hate speeches are not prosecuted and hence, are “emboldened to give another speech of the nature”.

“Whole populations are afraid and they get mentally ghettoised. What do they do? So they are afraid. We are living in constant fear. We fear the ED, we fear the CBI, we fear the State, we fear the policemen, we fear everybody. We don’t have any trust in anybody anymore,” the politician-turned-poet said.

The 74-year-old senior advocate also criticised the judiciary, alleging the poor man cannot come to the court as he has “no money to pay the lawyers”.

“It is the fight between two corporate world in the court every day. Amazon vs Reliance, this vs that. And the poor man, he cannot come to the court. He doesn’t have the money to pay for lawyers. A guy from Kerala, from the Northeast, West Bengal, in the south, how is he going to come to the Supreme Court. He just doesn’t have the means,” he rued.

He added that people’s confidence in the justice system is waning.

“Then there is the issue of fairness. What is fair? Fair is when you have great confidence that you will get justice. Lot of us believe that that confidence is waning and the general public, people of India think. People who interact with me on a daily basis, will we get justice? I cannot assure them… there is no way to help. Because the system doesn’t help them,” Sibal said.

The book launch was also attended by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor and Jammu & Kashmir National Conference president Farooq Abdullah.

It’s the criminal justice system which is the much worse than the other. The real people get away, and the poor people get involved.

Courtesy: https://www.siasat.com

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Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Tamil Nadu police to grant permission to the RSS to conduct a state-wide march and musical procession on October 2.

The single bench of the Madras High court represented by Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan orally directed the state police to grant permission to the RSS march by September 28.

A group of RSS functionaries had approached court stating that the Tamil Nadu police was prejudiced against their organisation and was sitting on their request for granting permission to the march.

The petitioners said that the RSS was planning to conduct marches accompanied by musical processions only in 50 spots across the state and that the RSS was a nationalist organisation.

They also informed the court that the march has to be held on October 2 as it is a Sunday closest to the foundation day of the organisation, September 27. They also claimed that the date was also chosen as it was Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday also and the RSS was conducting the programme nationally.

The petitioners said that the march was intended for promoting communal and social harmony.

The petitioners also stated that no participant will carry any arms and that no inconvenience would be caused to the general public due to the march.

The state government in its argument said that the organisation had not given the exact details of the spots where the programme would be organised and hence the police was yet to grant a decision.

The single bench of the Madras High Court orally directed the state police to grant permission before September 28 to the programme with reasonable restrictions.

The court also said that it would give a detailed order on the petitions later.

Courtesy: The Daily Siasat

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New Delhi: BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa has filed a police complaint against fact checker and co-founder of Alt News website Mohammed Zubair, accusing him of “spreading hate” against cricketer Arshdeep Singh and the Sikh community with his tweet.

The player became a victim of vicious trolling on social media after he dropped a catch during India’s five-wicket loss to arch-rival Pakistan in the Super four match of the Asia Cup in Dubai on Sunday.

In his complaint filed at the Parliament Street police station, Sirsa cited a tweet by Zubair where he had shared screenshots of tweets against Singh posted on various handles.

The BJP leader claimed that most of these tweets were from ”Pakistani accounts” and alleged that Zubair had acted at the behest of “anti-national elements”.

He demanded that an FIR be filed against him and an investigation launched to unearth the conspiracy.

“Mohammed Zubair acting in connivance with anti-national elements across the border has cleverly taken screenshots from Twitter of various Twitter handles after searching with the word- Khalistani and has then posted a tweet at 00:05 hours on September 5, 2022 combining all these tweets,” he alleged.

Sirsa alleged that Zubair was “trying to portray that such abusive and malicious tweets were posted by Indian Twitter handles, whereas the reality is that most of these Twitter accounts are Pakistani accounts”.

He claimed some were created just for the purpose of this tweet, “‘the sole intention behind which was to spread hate against a nationalist and national level player who has given his heart and soul playing for the country and also against the entire Sikh community.”

Zubair was arrested on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through a tweet against a Hindu deity in 2018. He was in custody for 24 days on allegations of hate speech and is now out on bail.

Multiple FIRs were lodged against Zubair in Uttar Pradesh — two in Hathras and one each in Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad and Chandauli.

He was released after the Supreme Court granted him interim bail, saying the “exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly”.

Courtesy: The Daily Siasat

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Bengaluru: Dalit and student organizations and others have given a statewide protest call against the ruling BJP and the Karnataka police on September 2, condemning the inaction against rape accused Lingayat seer Murugha Shivamurthy Sharanaru of Murugha mutt in Chitradurga of Karnataka.

Posters have been released by various groups on social media calling for the immediate arrest of Murugha who is facing a sexual assault case by minor girls. The protesters will gather near the Freedom Park in Bengaluru at 10.30 a.m.

The posters announced that the protest will be backed by women’s organizations, labour unions, farmer and daily wage workers’ unions, minority institutions, NGOs, advocates associations and sexual minority groups.

The rape accused seer is holding a meeting with close aides including 4th accused Paramashivaiah at the mutt on Wednesday. The District and Sessions court is taking up the bail petition of the accused seer on Thursday.

Sources in the mutt said that the meeting will decide on the future course of action in case the court rejects the bail plea of the accused seer.

The officials of the Child Welfare Committee have shifted most of the girl students from the Murugha mutt hostel following the development.

Former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy stated on Wednesday that it is wrong to accuse politicians of being silent on the POCSO case against the seer. “There is no chance that we chose to ignore the incident. The concerned authorities should be deciding on this and initiating action. Politics should not be mixed with this incident and care should be taken not to hurt religious feelings at the same time,” he added.

Posts slamming the political parties and prominent leaders over the issue have also gone viral. “Do not sympathize with rape accused seer. Siddaramaiah who claims himself as a socialist and progressive should have raised his voice for poor victim girls who are minors belonging to oppressed classes.”

The posts also chided former CM B S Yediyurappa, saying that morals should prevail over caste.

Courtesy: The Daily Siasat

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