200 madrasa students detained at rail station for 8 hrs as officials believe WhatsApp rumour

News Network
July 12, 2017

Bengaluru, Jul 12: In a bizarre incident, around 200 madrasa students between the age of 8 and 14, along with a few adults accompanying them, were detained for eight hours at Cantonment railway station on Tuesday after they got off an inbound train on Tuesday.

The railway police showed the unusual zeal on the basis of a dubious WhatsApp audio message that claimed the boys had been trafficked for religious conversion. The poor boys were travelling in S6, S7 and S8 compartments of Guwahati-Bengaluru Cantonment Express, and were accompanied by 17 instructors, including six women.

The WhatsApp message in Kannada claimed that “100 boys from Bangladesh were being taken to Kerala for religious conversion”.

The man in the audio said he received the information from “a friend travelling in that train” and asked for widely sharing the message so that it reached the police, the child helpline and the media. He didn’t stipulate why “Muslim children from Bangladesh” would be taken to Kerala for religious conversion.

But railway police and CWC officials did not take any chances, and their teams lay waiting for the boys at KR Puram and Bengaluru Cantonment railway stations. When the train arrived, the boys and their instructors were stopped for questioning. Senior police officers were seen asking the children where were they from and where were they going.

The instructors told the police that the boys belonged to poor families from Assam, Bihar and West Bengal, and were headed to madrasas in Electronics City, RT Nagar, Bommanahalli and Siddapura in Bengaluru, besides Shivamogga, Tumakuru and Madikeri.

But police didn’t believe them and asked for the boys’ IDs. By noon, the boys were taken to the waiting room where the police and CWC officials got busy verifying their antecedents and checking their IDs. A few boys told the police they had boarded the train at Kishanganj, Bihar.

While the police quickly ruled out the possibility of the children having been trafficked, doubts arose when 35 children of the same batch, who had got off at KR Puram, were brought to the Cantonment railway station for verification, and one of them said he had been hit.

Railway police officials also grew suspicious when 23 children were unable to show their IDs. To ensure that all the cases were genuine, CWC officials requested the police to send the children to the state-run home for boys. The police agreed initially but changed their mind later and decided to let the children proceed to the madrasas.

Sadiq Sharief, a guardian from Kishanganj who was taking the children to a madrasa in Madikeri, said the police asked all the details. “They asked me where I was from, my parents’ name, where I studied, my ID. Ditto with the children. We were questioned at Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, too, but were not detained,” he said. “It was only in Bengaluru that things took so long.”

Fairoz Pasha, a teacher at Madrasa-e-Arabia Misbahul Uloom in Jayanagar 1st Block, said the children had gone for Ramzan vacation that lasted from May 28 to July 7. Madrasas usually have their annual vacation during Ramzan.

MLA, MLC intervene

As the news about the children spread, their instructors informed local Muslim leaders who rushed to the railway station and explained to the CWC and police that it was not a case of child trafficking. But CWC and police officers were in no mood to relent until they checked the IDs of all the children and their instructors.

Muslim organisations protested outside the Cantonment railway station, accusing the police of harassing the boys just because they were Muslims. Chamarajpet MLA, B Z Zameer Ahmed, and Congress MLC Rizwan Arshad arrived at the spot and convinced the police and CWC officials that it was not a case of child trafficking. They also pacified the children. The boys were released only around 7.30 pm.

N Chaitra, Superintendent of Police, Railways, said: “We detained around 200 children and 17 instructors at KR Puram and Cantonment railway stations as we received a tip-off about possible child trafficking. We checked all of them and later released all of them.”

A senior railway police officer denied that the boys were detained because they were Muslims. “We are just doing our job by checking the children’s details. Only we spoke to them and no one else,” the officer said.

Comments

Abdul
 - 
Friday, 14 Jul 2017

Madam stop investing to UP, gujrat, Rajasthan, Jarkand and other Bjp ruled stated, ther are more violence than Karnataka and remember centre is not your inheritance property.

muhammed rafique
 - 
Friday, 14 Jul 2017

So what if he was indeed carrying beef? who has given authority to beat him?

Cow and the politics
 - 
Friday, 14 Jul 2017

If police doesn't act now, public Will be forced to act. Arrest that gandu rashtra terrorist bhat

Cow and the politics
 - 
Friday, 14 Jul 2017

these RSS HJV HIV all are viruses for peace loving states.

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News Network
February 19,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 19: Playing down the simmering discontent among the disgruntled legislators who missed a cabinet berth again, Karnataka BJP on Tuesday denied any revolt brewing against Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa.

"An unsigned letter in Kannada circulating in the social media is bogus, as it was fabricated in the name of Santosh, a private secretary to Yediyurappa. No revolt is brewing against the Chief Minister," party spokesman G. Madhusudhana told news agency here.

In the second cabinet expansion on February 6, only 10 newly-elected legislators, who defected from the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) in July, were inducted, leaving the party's many aspiring lawmakers miffed.

"The talk of about 20 loyal MLAs ganging up against Yediyurappa is a speculation as rumour mills are working overtime. No rebellion is brewing against the Chief Minister," asserted the official.

On the charge that Yediyurappa's younger son B.Y. Vijayandra was acting like a 'super or de facto CM' and medalling in the state administration, Madhusudhana said the latter was only assisting his father in party activities as he was also a party worker.

"As Yediyurappa is 76 years old and ageing, Vijayandra is helping his father in party affairs so that he (Chief Minister) could be free to attend to administration," Madhusudhana said.

Yediyurappa's elder son B.Y. Raghavendra is a three-time BJP Lok Sabha member from Shimoga in the state's Malnad area.

With six cabinet posts vacant in the 34-member ministry, many legislators, including eight-time MLA Umesh Katti, are upset that they have not been rewarded for their loyalty to the party even six months after the BJP returned to power again in the southern state.

On the purported meeting of about 20 BJP MLAs at the residence of state Industries Minister Jagadish Shettar here on Monday, Madhusudhana said it was a "get-together" as they were all in Bengaluru again to attend the budget session of the state legislature which began on Monday.

"There is no crisis in the party. Our government is stable and will complete the remaining three-year term in office till May 2023," he added.

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News Network
March 10,2020

Mangaluru, Mar 10: Four airports which are run by the Airport Authority of India (AAI), including Mangaluru International airport, have been adjudged among the best aerodromes in the world, winning 10 awards in four different categories at the 2019 ASQ awards.

ASQ is a globally established programme that measures passengers’ satisfaction while traveling through an airport. Airports Council International (ACI), which is an independent agency of airport operators, carries out international benchmarking of aerodromes.

“Four AAI airports — Chandigarh, Mangaluru, Trivandrum and Lucknow — have been adjudged the best in the world in recently announced 2019 ASQ awards. These airports won 10 awards in four categories,” Airports Authority of India (AAI) said in a release here on Tuesday.

The survey measures passengers’ satisfaction across 34 key performance indicators that include eight major categories such as access, check-in, security, airport facilities, food and beverage, retail, airport environment and arrival services.

The four categories in which these airports bagged the best airport awards were size and region, environment and ambiance, customer service and infrastructure and facilitation, as per the AAI.

The survey was carried out at across 356 airports across North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

The survey results are monitored by airport tariff regulator AERA, NITI Aayog, and civil aviation Ministry, the release added.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
July 25,2020

Bengaluru, July 25: A 105-year-old person from Bengaluru’s Basaveshwar Nagar, who was under treatment for covid-19 at a hospital for past five days, breathed his last today. He was a former government account who retired in 1973. He was the oldest known covid-19 patient in the state so far.

Many members of the patient's family are said to be infected and are hospitalised at various facilities. The funeral will be overseen by two uninfected family members.

The patient 74411 died on Saturday morning at around 9 a.m., said Dr Prasanna, Managing Director of Pristine Hospital And Research Centre where the former was admitted.

“The patient was initially doing well when he admitted on July 20. He did not have significant lung changes when he was admitted. However, after three days, his blood pressure started to drop so he was put on oxygen in the ICU. Yesterday morning, with continued deterioration, he was placed on non-invasive ventilator support,” Dr Prasanna said.

“Finally, by last night, his oxygen saturation levels began to plummet abruptly and we had to intubate him for ventilator support. His condition continued to deteriorate, however. The cause of death was respiratory failure and the onset of sepsis,” he added.

Although earmarked for supplies of Remdesivir by the government, the hospital did not receive the drugs. An appeal to Dr K Sudhakar, Minister of Medical Education by the hospital staff resulted in an assurance that the medication would arrive. “However, in the end, we had to source the medication ourselves on Friday,” medical staff said.

Dr Thrilok Chandra, Head, Critical Care Support Unit (CCSU), which oversees the care of critical or vulnerable-aged Covid-19 patients, had said that Patient 74411 had been diagnosed early. “He was identified when the disease was still in the early stages in his body. He only had symptoms of Influenza-Like Illness (ILI), so the symptoms were not severe,” Dr Chandra had said.

“It’s very sad. We were rooting for him to pull through. He had no comorbidities at all. He had been bed-ridden from last year, but he was healthy. His only potential comorbidity was his advanced age,” Dr Prasanna said.

According to government data, 34% of Covid-19 fatalities in India are aged between 60 and 74 years of age. Fourteen per cent are aged above 74.

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