Alleged terror module: Disbelief writ large as kin meet 5 of the 10 arrested by NIA

News Network
December 28, 2018

New Delhi, Dec 28: A day after the National Investigation Agency arrested 10 persons after claiming to have busted a an Islamic State-inspired terror module, a Patiala House court here on Thursday allowed the family members and relatives of six of the accused to meet them inside the courtroom on Thursday.

However, the father of one was denied permission later as he did not possess the original identity proof.

The accused were arrested by the NIA in a joint operation with the Delhi police’s Special Cell from various locations in Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh. Parents of Anas Younus, Saqib Iftekar, Mohammad Azam, Zaid Malik and Zubair Malik met their children, while Rashid Zafar’s father could not meet him.

“The NIA took away all the documents from our house, including our identity proofs during the raid. I am just left with a photocopy of the ID proof and the court refused to accept it. I pray that my child gets back home at the earliest,” said Rashid’s father Iqbal Ahmad.

Mohammad Younus, father of Anas, said he was allowed to meet his son for just five minutes inside the court in the presence of policemen. “I asked him if he had any problem, but he refused to interact and just gestured to me that he was fine. I never imagined that one day I will see my son stand inside the court as a terror suspect with a masked face,” he said, adding that he believed his son was innocent and would be out soon.

Arguments in court

Counsel for the accused, M.S. Khan, said the NIA, during arguments in court, was unable to explain the “foreign-based handler” who masterminded the module as also the “instruments” recovered from the house that were intended to carry out “fidayeen attacks”.

“They are students. What the NIA has recovered includes a tractor’s power nozzle, which they planted and called a rocket launcher. What they [NIA] are calling explosives are actually ‘sutli bombs’ that are used during Diwali. There is a lot of fabrication,” Mr. Khan argued in court.

The court remanded the accused in 12-day police custody.

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Agencies
February 20,2020

Tirupur, Feb 20: Nineteen people died in a collision between a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus and a truck near Avinashi town of Tirupur district on Thursday morning here.

The bus was on its way to Ernakulam in Kerala from Bengaluru in Karnataka when the mishap occurred.

Deputy Tehsildar of Avinashi Town informed, "19 people that include 14 men and 5 women, died in the collision between the bus and the truck near Avinashi town."

The bodies have been taken to Tirupur government hospital.
Further details are awaited.

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April 16,2020

New Delhi, Apr 16: South Delhi District Magistrate Brij Mohan Mishra on Thursday said that the administration is investigating how the pizza delivery boy contracted the coronavirus.

"In the last 15 days, we discovered houses he had delivered food. We contacted people living in 72 houses and they have been asked to stay in-home quarantine. No symptoms have been seen in people related to him. 

Testing of his roommate has been done and his reports are awaited. The rest of the people don't have any symptoms, they have been placed under institutional quarantine. Those in-home quarantines are also asymptomatic," Mishra said.

"Unless a positive case comes, we feel that transmission has not taken place. The boy told us that he was continuously wearing a mask while delivering the food. We are also finding out how he got infected. We are getting the information about the places he visited for delivery. He was tested on the basis of the doctor's advice. Later, he tested positive," he said.

72 families have to stay in home quarantine in the Malviya Nagar area after the delivery boy tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said that 17 other delivery boys linked with the infected person have also been placed under institutional quarantine.

"A pizza delivery boy has been detected with COVID-19 here. 17 other delivery boys linked with him have been placed under institutional quarantine and 72 people have been placed under home quarantine," Jain said.

Food delivery app Zomato said that the staff of the infected person's restaurant has delivered some orders which were placed on its platform.

"We've been made aware today that a restaurant's employee, who has been recently tested positive for COVID-19, had delivered food in the past to a few customers in the Malviya Nagar area in Delhi. All these customers have already been contacted by the govt authorities... We are not sure whether the rider was infected at the time of delivery," the company said in a statement.

Zomato also claimed that colleagues of the delivery boy have tested negative for COVID-19.
"This restaurant had instructed their riders to wear masks and follow strict hygiene to keep customers safe from any unintended mishap.

All co-workers of the said rider have been tested negative. And as a precaution, the restaurant where this rider worked has suspended operations," read the statement.

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News Network
May 7,2020

May 7: Accusing the BJP government in Karnataka of "medieval barbarism" and treating migrants as worse than "bonded labourers", CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday hit out at the state's decision to stop workers from returning to their homes in different parts of the country citing requirements of the construction sector.

The Karnataka government has withdrawn its request to the railways to run special trains to ferry migrant labourers to their home states, hours after builders met Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa to apprise him of the problems the construction sector will face in case they left.

"This is worse than treating them as bonded labour. Does the Indian constitution exist? Are there any laws in the country? This BJP state government is throwing us back to medieval barbarism. This will be stoutly resisted,” Yechury said in a tweet.

The railways is running Shramik Special trains to ferry to their home towns migrants who were stranded at their places of work during the lockdown.

So far, it has run more than 115 such trains.

The Principal Secretary in the Revenue Department N Manjunatha Prasad, who is the nodal officer for migrants, had requested the South Western Railways on Tuesday to run two train services a day for five days except Wednesday, while the state government wanted services thrice a day to Danapur in Bihar. However, later, Prasad wrote another letter within a few hours that the special trains were not required. Several migrants in the city were desperate to return home as they were out of jobs and money.

Yechury also lashed out at the central government over reports that it owed states and industry Rs 3 trillion and accused the centre of shifting the burden of fighting the pandemic to the state governments.

“While shifting the entire burden of fighting the pandemic on to the State governments, Modi government is not even paying their legitimate dues. After November 2019, Centre has not paid the GST compensation dues for the rest of the financial year, i.e., March 2020.

“Modi government has the right to loot while crores of people & States are left with nothing but the right to starve?,” he tweeted.

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