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Mob kills IT Engineer for fake WhatsApp rumour in Karnataka

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Mob kills IT Engineer for fake WhatsApp rumour in Karnataka

In gruesome mob frenzy a 32-year-old software engineer was beaten to death and three others, one of them a Qatari national, were seriously injured over WhatsApp-driven rumours of child kidnapping in Karnataka’s Bidar town on Friday.

According to police the mob frenzy started after the man from Qatar was seen distributing chocolates to the local children leaving their school. The police have arrested 32 people.

The IT engineer, Mohammad Azam, had gone for a drive on Friday with three others when they were stopped at the roadside. Mr Azam’s friend Mohammad Salam, who was from Qatar, was seen handing chocolates to children.

Due to rumours of child lifting in the area and seeing the chocolates being handed out to the school children, residents of a nearby village, Murki, sent messages on a WhatsApp group. Panicked after seeing a large crowd while someone taking their video, the men got into their car and drove away. Some of the villagers chased them on motorcycles. During the course speeding car hit one of the motorcycles and fell into a culvert.

Read More: WhatsApp tries to fight India’s Fake News problem, takes out full page newspaper ads

The crowd dragged the men out of the car and brutally beaten up, said eye witnesses. There are reports of crowd throwing stones on the occupants of the car. Nearby villagers also joined the unruly crowd. None came to their rescue. By the time the police arrived, Mohammad Azam had died. The others were taken to the hospital in Hyderabad.

Mob kills IT Engineer for fake WhatsApp rumour in KarnatakaAkram, the brother of the victim Mohammad Azam said, “They had gone out for a drive. My brother gave chocolates to children. We don’t know what their parents thought but several villagers gathered and beat them. How can they think they were kidnappers?” He also appealed the government to stop mob killings saying, “My brother was a software engineer, father of a 2-year-old. He was just a regular guy”.

The incident occurred when the group, while on their visit to a local lake, halted for lunch in Adhikera on the outskirts of Bidar. One of them Ismail, who returned from Qatar recently, offered chocolates to school girls. But the locals questioned and mistook them for child lifters.

Read More: With spate of lynchings provoked by rumours, Govt asks WhatsApp to act

The accompanying three persons, the cousins and friends of Mr Azam, were badly injured. Basheer has reportedly been fighting for his survival at a local hospital.

Reports say that among the 32 arrested for the killing, one is the administrator of the particular WhatsApp group involved in spreading rumour. There arrestees also include women.

Read More: Jharkhand: 19 arrested for lynchings; WhatsApp bigger culprit, say police

More than 20 people have been killed across India over fake WhatsApp rumours. The last such incident took place in Maharashtra’s Dhule, where five people were killed. The WhatsApp videos that had triggered the attack were fake – one of them was a five-year-old video from Syria that had photographs of children who died in a nerve gas attack.

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Manipur: Congress hits back at BJP chief Nadda’s letter to Kharge

Ramesh emphasised that Nadda’s letter is replete with inaccuracies and reiterated that the people of Manipur long for normalcy, peace, and harmony.

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The Congress on Friday lashed out at BJP president JP Nadda’s accusations that the Opposition party was promoting a politically motivated narrative concerning the situation in Manipur.

The grand old party described Nadda’s letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge as a 4D exercise, which means denial, distortion, distraction, and defamation.

Nadda, responding to Kharge’s call for President Droupadi Murmu’s intervention and his claims of the Centre’s total failure in managing the crisis, claimed that the consequences of Congress’s “abject failure” in handling local issues in Manipur during its governance are still being felt today.

Responding to Nadda, Congress General Secretary for Communications Jairam Ramesh stated, “Congress President Kharge ji wrote to the President of India on Manipur. Apparently, to counter that letter, the BJP President has now written to the Congress President.”

Ramesh emphasised that Nadda’s letter is replete with inaccuracies and reiterated that the people of Manipur long for normalcy, peace, and harmony.

He noted that they are posed with four critical questions: When will the Prime Minister visit the state? How much longer will the Chief Minister remain in office despite lacking majority support? When will a full-time Governor be appointed? And when will the Union Home Minister be held accountable for his failures in Manipur?

Nadda expressed astonishment at the Congress’s ongoing efforts to sensationalize the situation in Manipur, pointing out that Kharge appeared to overlook the fact that his party’s past government had legitimized the illegal migration of foreign militants to India, during which former Home Minister P Chidambaram had signed relevant treaties.

On Tuesday, Kharge had written to President Murmu regarding the worsening conditions in Manipur, requesting her immediate intervention to ensure that the citizens of the state can live peacefully and with dignity.

In his two-page letter, Kharge accused both the Union and Manipur state governments of “completely failing” to restore peace and normalcy over the past 18 months, resulting in a loss of public confidence in their leadership.

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Rahul Gandhi is right, Gautam Adani should be arrested: RJD president Lalu Yadav

“Rahul Gandhi is right. Adani should be arrested,” said Prasad, who is an old ally of the Congress and a staunch opponent of the BJP, to which Adani is said to be close.

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RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Friday spoke in support of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s demand for immediate arrest of Gautam Adani, after the Industrialist was charged in the US for alleged bribery and fraud.

Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said on Thursday that Gautam Adani should be arrested immediately, and his protector Madhabi Puri Buch should be investigated

The former Congress chief claimed that the recent developments vindicate his long-standing allegations against Gautam Adani. He took a sharp dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and alleged that Modi is protecting Adani, and is also involved in corruption. 

Yadav, the former chief minister of Bihar, was responding to queries from journalists here about Gandhi’s statement on the previous day, in the backdrop of charges of bribery and fraud against the Adani group in the US.

“Rahul Gandhi is right. Adani should be arrested,” said Prasad, who is an old ally of the Congress and a staunch opponent of the BJP, to which Adani is said to be close.

The RJD supremo, who incidentally has been convicted in several fodder scam cases and is on bail, was also asked about prospects of the INDIA bloc, of which his party is a part, in Jharkhand, where the counting of votes for assembly polls is scheduled on Saturday.

Speaking to PTI, the ailing septuagenarian replied, “I would like to remain focused on my statement that Adani must be arrested. I am not worried much about a new government (in Jharkhand) where we are already in power.” Jharkhand witnessed a straight battle between the INDIA bloc and the BJP-led NDA, which included the JD(U) headed by Nitish Kumar, Prasad’s arch-rival and the current Chief Minister of Bihar.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Gandhi further said that Chief Ministers have been jailed for scams of Rs 10-15 crore, but Adani, who has committed a scam of Rs 2000 crore is walking free.

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Cash for votes row: BJP leader Vinod Tawde sends legal notice to Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, asks them to apologise or face defamation

The BJP leader said the allegations against him were false, baseless and made with malafide intentions.

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Cash for votes row: BJP leader Vinod Tawde sends legal notice to Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, asks them to apologise or face defamation

BJP leader Vinod Tawde, accused of distributing cash to influence voters, has sent a legal notice to Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Supriya Shrinate and Rahul Gandhi over the controversy. The BJP leader has demanded their apologies or face a Rs 100-crore defamation case.

Vinod Tawde’s legal notice came after regional party Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) leader Hitendra Thakur on Tuesday accused him of distributing Rs 5 crore at a hotel in Virar in Palghar district, 60 km from Mumbai, to woo voters.

In the legal notice, the BJP leader said the allegations against him were false, baseless and made with malafide intentions. He claimed that he demanded an apology from the three Congress leaders for their remarks against him in the cash-for-votes row or he would be forced to initiate criminal proceedings against them.

Just a few hours before the Assembly Elections, a video went viral on Tuesday showing BVA workers storming into the hotel in Palghar during a meeting between Vinod Tawde and Rajan Naik, the BJP candidate from the Nalasopara seat. The BVA workers alleged that Tawde was caught red-handed with Rs 5 crore cash.

In the viral video, the BVA workers were seen taking out bundles of cash from a bag, while Tawde was sitting at a distance. The BVA workers also took pictures and videos of him on their phones. Amid these allegations, BVA leaders said that Rs 5 crore cash was distributed, an election official on Tuesday said Rs 9.93 lakh cash was recovered from the hotel rooms.

However, Vinod Tawde denied the allegation, saying he was only providing guidance to party workers on poll procedures and said he was not stupid enough to distribute money at his opponent’s hotel. Speaking to the media, he said that the Vivanta Hotel is owned by the Thakurs, and he is not stupid to go to their hotel and distribute money there.

The Police registered two FIRs against Tawde, BJP candidate Naik and others in connection with the controversy. Additionally, the Election Commission filed three FIRs against Tawde.

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