‘Army killed this 12-year-old girl when she was giving water to an injured relative’

News Network
July 10, 2018

Srinagar, Jul 10: The people of Kashmir and the family members of the 12-year-old Andleeb Ali, who was shot dead mercilessly by the army in Kashmir’s Hawoora village on July 7, are questioning the Indian government what was the crime of victim?

"She was neither a militant nor a stone pelter, why was she killed?” wonders the father of Andleeb Ali. The class VII student and two other boys from the same locality were killed when soldiers opened fire during a protest.

Recounting the tragic day, her father Ali Mohammad Aliee said: “We were working in the lawn when suddenly firing began. Andleeb and my elder daughter asked me to run as they feared the army may harm me.”

“Outside our home, the army had shot at several boys and one of them was 19-year-old Shakir Khanday, our relative. As soon as my daughters came to know, they rushed towards the road with a glass of water and tried to help Shakir. But the army men didn’t tolerate this and they directly fired at my daughters,” Aliee said as mourners continued to visit the family.

While Aliee’s elder daughter escaped unhurt, the younger one was hit on the thighs. “While Shakir died a few minutes later, Andleeb was profusely bleeding. The army didn’t allow the ambulances to move in the area and some of the neighbours took my daughter on a stretcher to a hospital, 3 km from our home. By the time they reached the hospital, she was dead,” he said and burst into tears.

Aliee called it a "targeted killing" and questioned the army's tactics. “Is helping an injured person a crime for which he or she should be killed? And the army didn’t stop after killing my daughter. They ransacked our house. Everywhere in the world army is meant for fighting the enemy on the border. But in Kashmir, they treat 12-year-old kids as the enemy and show their might over them. If the Indian Army is so strong, let them fight with the enemy on the border and not against unarmed kids.”

Andleeb was a brilliant student, her teachers said. She always topped the class and was also a unanimous choice for the class prefect. She had aspired to become a teacher.

“I don’t know how I would be able to sit in the classroom without her by my side. She was very friendly and would help us with studies,” said Ruvaida Amin, Andleeb's friend and classmate.

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Well Wisher
 - 
Wednesday, 11 Jul 2018

Many innocents are dying, being killed without reason. For sure, there is a day of resurrection. All the dead people will be resurrected on that day & every one will be questioned for their deeds in this world. Allah will decide who has to go to hell & heaven. No criminals will be escaped on that day.

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News Network
January 11,2020

New Delhi, Jan 11: Islamic preacher Zakir Naik has revealed that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government offered to drop false money-laundering charges against him and provide with a "safe passage to India" in return for his support to the government's move to revoke Article 370 of the Constitution.

In a statement issued by Naik's PR team on Saturday, the Islamic preacher said that he was approached by a representative of the Indian government in September, who offered him the said deal on Kashmir, which he refused.

"Three and a half months before, the Indian officials approached me for a private meeting with a representative of the Indian government. When he came to Putrajaya (a Malaysian city), in the fourth week of September 2019, to meet me, he said that he is coming after personally meeting and under the direct instructions of the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and the Home Minister of India Amit Shah," Naik said in a video statement released by his Mumbai-based PR team.

Naik, who has been living in Malaysia for the last three years, is facing charges of inciting communal disharmony and committing unlawful activities in India.

"(The representative) said that he wanted to remove the misconceptions and miscommunications between myself (Naik) and the Indian government, and wants to provide me a safe passage to India," he added. "He (the representative) said that he would like to use my connections to better the relationship between India and the other Muslim countries."

"The meeting lasted for several hours. He told me that he wanted me to support the BJP government when they revoked Article 370 in Kashmir. And I flatly refused," he added.

Naik said that after he refused the offer, he was further asked to not make public statements against the BJP or Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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News Network
January 10,2020

New Delhi, Jan 10: One woman reported a rape every 15 minutes on average in India in 2018, according to government data released on Thursday, underlining its dismal reputation as one of the worst places in the world to be female.

The highly publicised gang rape and murder of a woman in a bus in New Delhi in 2012 brought tens of thousands onto the streets across India and spurred demands for action from film stars and politicians, leading to harsher punishments and new fast-track courts. But the violence has continued unabated.

Women reported almost 34,000 rapes in 2018, barely changed from the year before. Just over 85% led to charges, and 27% to convictions, according to the annual crime report released by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Women's rights groups say crimes against women are often taken less seriously, and investigated by police lacking insensitivity.

"The country is still run by men, one (female prime minister) Indira Gandhi is not going to change things. Most judges are still men," said Lalitha Kumaramangalam, former chief of the National Commission for Women.

"There are very few forensic labs in the country, and fast-track courts have very few judges," said Kumaramangalam, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The rape of a teenager in 2017 by former BJP state legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar gained national attention when the accuser tried to kill herself the following year, accusing the police of inaction.

Five months before Sengar was convicted last December, the accuser's family had to be provided with security after a truck crashed into the car she was in, injuring her and killing two of her relatives.

A 2015 study by the Centre for Law & Policy Research in Bengaluru found that fast-track courts were indeed quicker, but did not handle a high volume of cases.

And a study in 2016 by Partners for Law in Development in New Delhi found that they still took an average of 8.5 months per case - more than four times the recommended period.

The government statistics understate the number of rapes as it is still considered a taboo to report rape in some parts of India and because rapes that end in the murder are counted purely as murders.

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News Network
June 10,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 10: Congress' Rajya Sabha candidate from Karnataka and senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge and his son received threat calls on Sunday, with the latter filing a complaint with the state police chief. Kharge, a former Union Minister, received the call in the wee hours of Sunday on his landline while his son Priyank later got a call from a private number on his mobile phone.

Priyank lodged a complaint with the Director-General of Police Praveen Sood and former MLC Ramesh Babu shared the copy of the complaint on Twitter on Tuesday. In his complaint, Priyank Kharge stated that at about 1.30 am on Sunday, his father received a call on the landline where the caller spoke in Hindi and English and used invective against the Congress veteran.

The caller, according to the complaint, spoke about the Rajya Sabha election and threatened Kharge. Police are looking into the matter. Kharge is the Congress' pick for the June 19 Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka. JD(S) supremo and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and two BJP candidates have also filed nominations for the election to the upper House.

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