Bidar: Mob kills Google techie Mohammad Azam, injures his 3 friends over WhatsApp rumours

coastaldigest.com web desk

July 15, 2018

Bidar, Jul 15: In yet another gruesome attack over the deadly social media rumours about child-lifters, a violent mob brutally attacked four Muslim men, killing one among them at Murki village in Aurad taluk of Bidar district in Karnataka.

The police have arrested 32 people including a WhatsApp group admin and a few women in connection with the Friday’s attack, third such incident in Karnataka.

The deceased has been identified as Mohammad Azam Usmansab (32), a software engineer, who was working with Google. The injured are his friends: Mohammad Salman Alinor, Talha Ismail Qureshi, and Noor Mohammad Sadique. They have been shifted to a hospital in Hyderabad.

The victims had come to the village following an invitation from their friend. Azam had gone for a drive with the friends when they were stopped at the roadside. One among them, who had brought plenty of chocolates from Qatar, started distributing them among local children.

Rumours of child lifting were doing the rounds in the area and seeing the chocolates being handed out, residents of a nearby village, Murki, sent messages on a WhatsApp group.

Soon, a large crowd gathered and started an argument and taking videos. Panicking, the men got into their car and drove away. Some of the villagers chased them on motorbikes, said the police. Some way off, the speeding car hit one of the motorcycles and fell into a culvert.

As the crowd caught up, the men were dragged out of the car and brutally beaten up, said eye witnesses. Hundreds of villagers gathered but none came to their rescue. By the time the police arrived, Mohammad Azam had died. The others were taken to the hospital in Hyderabad.

"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?" said Mohammad Azam's brother Akram.

Appealing to the government to stop mob killings, Akram said, "My brother was a software engineer, father of a 2-year-old. He was just a regular guy".

The other three friends were badly injured. One of them is fighting for his life at a local hospital.

Dozens of innocent 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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WhatsApp should be banned in India.

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Karnataka announces Rs 25 lakhs ex-gratia to kin of nodal officer who died during COVID-19 duty

News Network

August 9,2020

Bengaluru, Aug 9: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has expressed condolences over the death of nodal officer who died while being on COVID-19 duty and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 25 lakhs to the family of the deceased.

The deceased has been identified as H Gangadharaiah. As per reports, he died due to a heart attack while on COVID-19 duty.

A government job and Rs 25 lakhs will be provided to the officer's family, according to Karnataka Chief Minister's Office (CMO).

"Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa expressed his heartfelt condolences over the death of H Gangadharaiah, KAS, who was on COVID-19 duty as nodal officer at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC)," Karnataka CMO tweeted.

"CM announced Rs 25 lakhs ex-gratia from Chief Minister's Relief Fund, a government job for a family member and instructed the last rites of Gangadharaiah to be performed with full state honours," the CMO added.

In the last 24 hours, 7,178 new COVID-19 cases (including 2665 in Bengaluru Urban), 93 deaths and 5,006 discharged cases were reported in Karnataka.

The total number of cases rises to 1,72,102 in the state, including 79,765 active cases, 89,238 discharges and 3,091 deaths, as per the State's Health Department.

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Weddings in the time of Covid: 'Zawaj' offers complete solution for new challenges

Business Desk

June 2,2020

The covid-19 lockdown has thrown wedding plans in disarray in coastal Karnataka like all other activities involving a crowd of people. While many people chose to postpone the scheduled and about to be scheduled weddings, some are going ahead with scheduled plans and holding weddings with no more than 50 guests as per the guidelines issued by the government of Karnataka.

The government may relax the norms and allow participation of more guests in the future. However, holding wedding ceremonies will be a new challenge when people are returning to a ‘new normalcy.’ Compared to the traditional wedding ceremonies of the region, marriages in the time of Covid-19 are expected to be smaller as the organizers have to adhere to the safety protocol and safe distancing norms. Given this situation, to limit risks and ensure safety, families now will have to consider wedding planners to help them celebrate their weddings.

“The postponed weddings will take place in the coming days as the lockdown is being relaxed in a phased manner. However, it won’t be like our traditional weddings. There won’t be 3000 guests. Government directives will be have followed. We expect change in trend from big fat weddings to a small, close family, picture perfect weddings,” says Sartaj Beary, Managing Partner, Zawaj Weddings and Events.

“Our curetted packages will take care of wedding invitations, outdoor venue, premium catering, bridal make up, mehendi function, photography, videography, décor, thermal scanning systems, hand sanitizers and N 95 masks etc. We hope with our experiences we can offer stress free celebration to the families while we plan everything from scratch as per client requirement,” he assures.

“Ultimately, our society has to adopt an innovative way of marriage. At this point, we can say that any wedding in 2020 will look different as the novel coronavirus has disrupted the weddings everywhere. We know it is a big milestone for families and we at Zawaj are here to assure families that we can help a stress free wedding,” he adds.

New Normal Era Weddings

In the ‘new normal era’, weddings across the world will be totally different from what we used to see before the pandemic. People need to be cautious while attending mass gathering and it is important. Gone are the days of closed AC venues. Outdoor weddings will be the future, where seating are spread out and space between tables, stage, food counters will be maximum as per safe distancing protocols.

Wedding planners and caterers will have to ensure systematic safety protocol, safe and responsible operations, preparation of the food, event crew and vendors safe zone, sanitized kitchen, transportations. Even buffet settings will change to include smaller but multiple cuisines, self serving stations, markings on line to maintaining safe distance at the food counters.

More importantly, venue has to be prepared as per the government instructions. Things like disinfection and sanitization, hygiene, ample toilet facilities, hand wash, thermometer scans, masks, sanitizing stations should be taken care of. People from all walks of life will embrace this form of marriage. The services of wedding planners will be most opted in future.

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