Gurgaon Police have arrested head priest Ajit Singh (57) and his two associates Premjeet Balhara (32) and Sonu (27). The two associates are criminals out on bail, reported The Indian Express. Balhara and Sonu worked at a Gaushala (cowshed).

On April 19, Dinesh, who was hired to clean the temple and fix some tiles in the temples, accidentally broke two fingers of the idol. The accused saw this and tied Dinesh to a banyan tree and thrashed him with sticks, rods and even an axe, as per Preet Pal , Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) – Crime when he spoke to IE. The body was dumped outside the Bani Wala temple. By the time he could be taken to a hospital, he had succumbed.

The ACP further said that Balhara was held in a rape case and Sonu was booked for attempt to murder, both out on bail.

This is just one case but we are seeing an increase in intolerance and violence across the country. All these ‘awakening’ calls for Hindu saying ‘Wake up Hindus’ or calling for the need to keep weapons at home are merely creating criminals and egging on existing criminals to commit more crimes.

Related:

Haryana: More cow vigilantism incidents were reported in April, state district-level special committees fail to act

Gujarat: Four people detained for beating up Dalit youth in Vadodara

Two Men stripped on camera, paraded & whipped for allegedly selling beef

The post Man lynched for accidentally breaking two fingers of idol in Hindu temple appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Divisive food politics are as dangerous as sartorial politics. Adding an official stamp on what was once a choice, the  Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has announced that all meat shops in the city will remain closed on Tuesdays. According to the news reports this No-Meat-Tuesday decision was taken with a view to respect religious sentiments, mostly of Hindus, some of who do not consume meat that day.

According to the provisions of the Haryana Municipal Corporation bylaws, 2008, any municipal corporation across the state has the power to close meat shops on a single day of a week, with immediate effect. Gurugram, which was once known as Gurgaon, has 129 licensed meat shops. There are more that operate without a license, these number around 150 said MCG officials cited in news reports. All of them will now have to shut down shutters on Tuesday.

Ashish Singla, MCG’s chief medical officer, who oversees the issuance of licences, fines and closure orders for meat shops in the city was quoted by Hindustan Times, announcing this:  “As per the provisions of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Byelaws, 2008, any municipal corporation can close meat shops on a single day during the week. Hence, such a decision can be implemented with immediate effect.”

A proposal was also tabled before the House on restarting the issuance of licences to meat shop owners and doubling the license fee from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000 reported the Hindustan Times. Councillors Ashwani Sharma and Dharambir Singh, of wards 23 and 21, respectively, added that the civic body should raise the licensing fee to ₹50,000 and also sought that these shops be closed on Tuesdays, due to “religious sentiments.”

Meanwhile, MCG Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh was quoted by the Indian Express saying food was an “individual choice. I eat, my wife doesn’t eat, it is independent. I cannot force her and she cannot force me. When we cannot decide on this at home itself, the House should think before making any decision regarding the entire city.” 

It has already gotten the first political reaction from Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi who called meat a “food for millions of Indians” adding that “it can’t be treated as something impure.”

How can beliefs get hurt by what other people are doing in their private lives? People are buying, selling or eating meat, they’re not forcing you to partake

By this logic, close alcohol shops on Friday?

Meat is food for millions of Indians. Cannot treat it as something impure https://t.co/oY0eh0ZknT

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) March 19, 2021

Apart from disregarding personal choices, the decision will also have a financial impact as there will be no sale on Tuesday. According to news reports those in the meat trade have said this closure will result in revenue losses. The HT quoted Pritam Singh, the president of Jacobpura meat shops association as saying, “If the MCG has passed this resolution, there is little else the association or the shopkeepers can do. The MCG should have taken into account that even if a few members of one community do not consume meat on Tuesday, other communities consume it. We were open seven days a week but now, will be forced to close on Tuesdays and lose revenue.”

Meat shops have often been shut down citing ‘religious reasons’ in the past few years. Most such shutdowns are often ‘enforced’ during the Hindu festival seasons of Navratri, and during the Kanwar yatra as well in many cities across the national capital region. A few months ago Nandkishore Gurjar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing Loni, Ghaziabad, on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border had declared that, “No meat shop will be tolerated in Loni during Navratri.” He had also claimed that the area was under a fly path and ‘bones’ etc were dangerous as they could lure birds to circle and threaten bird hits and a potential aircraft crash. Many meat shops had shut in the area fearing unrest and right wing goons. However, it was not a rule till this one in Gurgaon. It may once again inspire others to demand closure of meat shops on a particular day. 

Related

Ghaziabad: BJP MLA forcibly closes meat shops
UP BJP MLA asks people not to buy vegetables from Muslim vendors
‘Say Modi Zindabad’, order criminals as they thrash old Muslim man 
‘Check Aadhaar card to keep out Non-Hindus’: Bajrang Dal to Garba organisers

The post Gurgaon’s no-meat Tuesdays are political, not sentimental appeared first on SabrangIndia.

picture courtesy midday

The mob barged into their house and with extreme aggression started beating up each and every one inside. A short glimpse of the attack was captured on camera by few of the family members, mostly women who were stranded on the terrace. It is the same video of the incident that later went viral on social media. Some of the attackers realized that they were being video graphed and first tried to break down the terrace door with spears and rods. They were unable to break it down. Sensing trouble as their deeds were being recorded on video, they eventually left. But the attack was much more serious than what that video was able to capture.

The mob surrounded the whole house and continuously threw rocks and stones to break the glass panes. They kept hurling communal abuses. They had beaten up all the members of the family who were downstairs and first floor, including children. They dragged the terrified children out of cupboards and from below the beds where they were hiding and beat them to pulp. As they opened the cupboards, the goons also stole jewellery and cash that they found. Mohd Sajid, Mohd Irshad, Mohd Shadab, Mrs Shakreen, Abid, Shahrukh, Sameena, Dilshad, Nargis, Afifa and Aamir were most badly beaten. In fact the attackers thought they were dead.

The terrified family of Md. Sajid tried to call the police by dialling 100. But they could not get through. Finally, they took the injured people to AIIMS in a private car, while one person left for the police station to call the police.

A team of United Against Hate (UAH) first visited the injured people admitted in Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital on the 25th March 2019. A couple of days later, when they had been, we went to meet them in their house. The house looked like a hospital in a war zone. There were broken glass panes shattered everywhere and there were also marks of rods and spears on the walls. Windows and doors were broken through which the goons forced their entry. There was an injured person or two in each and every room, in each and every bed of the house.

The ones walking around seemed to be in immense trauma and stress. The fear was palpable on each and every family members house. “The kids cry every day since then. ‘Woh rangwale log phirse aa jayenge abbu. Bhaag chalte hai yaha se”. The attackers who had played holi in the morning and came with sticks and spears in the evening to kill them all, are perpetually etched in the minds of the children. They had broken down every door, except one. They could not break the terrace door, which few women and girls and a young boy held from within, while Danista, another young girl took the video. The marks of forced entry, dent by spears on the terrace door were clear. Still, the goons could not break it. “Allah, stood with us, holding the door. Otherwise it was just few girls on one side and armed goons on a rampage on the other”, Nargis, the young daughter-in-law of Sajid proclaimed.

The role of the police:
The police has NOT included in the FIR name of the people who were part of the mob that beat up Sajid and his family, though they can be very easily identified from the video that is available on the internet.

Few people were taken into custody as per claims of the police, but even after so many days, no identification parade of the accused has taken place.

Everyone in the police station was very tight lipped and were not willing to talk anything about the case. They said that the commissioner Mr Akeel has given directions that only the police PRO Mr Boken should talk to anybody from outside the department.

A counter case and refusal to give FIR:
A counter case has been filed on the family. After seven days, the accused showcased a boy who according to them was hit on the head by the victim family and got several stiches. Curiously this boy was not mentioned by the accused when media widely covered the attack. The counter FIR is clearly an attempt to balance and intimidate the victims to not pursue the matter legally and settle the case. The copy of this counter FIR has not been provided to the family, despite their demands and also the fact that it is their right. Members of UAH tried to get a copy with the help of some media persons, but even the journalists were NOT able to get a copy of that FIR.

The family held a press conference on the 1st April and talked about intimidation that they were facing and even talked about committing mass suicide.

Gujjar Panchayats have been held in the mean time where strategies to intimidate the family to settle the matter and not pursue it legally.
On our second visit we saw Local MLA, Tejpal Tawar also happened to visit the family.

Mr Tawar said: “dono logon ko sath baitha kar milwa denge”. The tone of people who accompanied him was more of striking a compromise rather than talking about getting the culprits punished. This incident in Gurugram in short reveals once again the manner in which hate and bigotry against Muslims is inciting such incidents of horrifying violence; it also shows the absolute impunity that these communal goons enjoy and the abject surrender of law enforcing agencies in front of such dominant hooligans. If Mohammad Sajid’s family is intimidated into silence or is forced to leave their house, if these goons are not punished despite glaring evidences against them then our democracy and Constitution will register yet another massive jolt to its claimed democratic and secular character.

Fact Finding Team Members:
This Report is by the team members of United Against Hate Comprising Saurabh Misra , Banojyotsna Lahiri, Farrah Shakeb ,Syed Farman Ahmed, Nikita Chaturvedi, Tamanna Pankaj and Shahid Chaudhry who visited the family on 27th March 2019.

Courtesy: Two Circle

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This week PTI released a story that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued warnings to some community radio stations over content which a high level panel thought was “objectionable and denigrating” towards women. The “warning” is a culmination of a process of issuing show cause notices, the stations replying, then being summoned before an Inter Ministerial Committee to give their replies verbally, and finally receiving the warning letter as a closure to the proceedings. Gurgaon Ki Awaaz received a show cause notice early this year. We have replied to the said notice and dealt with it officially.
 
This statement is a clarification for the wider CR community necessitated by the PTI report.
 
Committed to the principles of community media, Gurgaon Ki Awaaz has been set up and is run as an open, accessible media space for our community members, comprising over 500,000 local villagers and migrant workers living and working in Gurgaon. In the true spirit of a community radio station, we believe our community must have access to the station, not just to listen, but also to speak, to be content producers, even with little or no training. We are equally committed to following the policy guidelines for community radio.
 
Because we want our community members to do well, we take the precaution of explaining the CR policy to them and see to it that the program recorded by them is edited by a staff reporter. Despite these precautions, and perhaps because our community members are not trained professionals, an offending word slipped through, not once but twice, in a program of jokes recorded by a listener who had simply walked into the studio from the nearby village of Mullahera.
 
That it was said in the passing, and not as a part of the main narrative, indicates the level of misogyny that has entered our day to day language across the country. The reporter on duty (also from a nearby village and hence equally entrenched in the same language) too did not notice or cull out the word.
 
Meanwhile, we have taken additional steps, beyond our existing processes of screening content, to ensure compliance with the CR Policy Guidelines. The community radio policy guidelines have been translated into Hindi and broadcast on air by volunteer-listeners. Old time listeners have been trooping in to help screen content, especially folk songs which are often carriers of aspects of patriarchy, misogyny, casteism, racism, and more. Team members have been asked to be more rigorous in screening content.
 
This incident throws up the peculiar challenge of running a community radio station. Do we down the gates like commercial FM and public radio station, where a series of “passes” and “entry slips” control access to studios and thus ensure that only full time staffers and carefully screened “volunteers” produce and broadcast programs?
 
We reiterate our commitment to the principles of community media, and to the rules laid down governing community radio broadcast in India. We also stay committed to our promise of a community-led, and community-facing radio station. We believe that a community radio station HAS to have an open door policy; that it HAS to encourage community members to walk in and go on air.
 
We issue this statement in the hope that in future no action of ours is a step back in our effort to strengthen community voices. We would like our wider CR community to know and understand and accept that this breach of broadcasting code is completely unintended, and has happened in good faith, in the spirit of the CR Policy that encourages community radio stations to be open spaces for community members to come forward and participate in program making.
 
If you have any ideas on this issue, on how we can better our processes, on our approach to community participation and community broadcasting, we would like to listen to you. Please do send us your feedback at arti@trfindia.org
 
Thank you for your support.
 
Arti Jaiman
Station Director – Gurgaon Ki Awaaz Samudayik Radio Station 107.8 MHz
 
Gurgaon Ki Awaaz is the only civil society community radio station in the National Capital Region of India, broadcasting continuously 22 hours a day since 2009. The station is a platform for the diverse voices and communities of Gurgaon, with a special emphasis on voices left out of the mainstream media narrative. 
 
Reference Articles:
http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/community-media/cover-your-ears-community-radio-is-polluting-us-9721
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/iandampb-min-warnings-to-2-community-radio-stations-over-content/1/820050.html
 

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