Gujarat govt responsible for 2002 riots; I am not scared of Modi: Rahul Gandhi

January 28, 2014

Rahul_GandhiNew Delhi, Jan 28: Taking on Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said Gujarat government was involved in 2002 riots.

Speaking to an English news channel on Monday, Rahul defended the Congress government for 1984 riots and said, "Gujarat government was involved in 2002 riots while Congress government tried to stop 1984 riots."

At the same time, he said that, "Some Congress men were probably involved in 1984 riots, legal process is on."

To questions whether he would apologise for the 1984 riots and whether he felt that there was no need for it, Gandhi said, "First of all, I wasn't involved in the riots at all. It wasn't that I was a part of it."

While on the topic of taking reins of the Congress party in the upcoming General Elections, Rahul said, "I am the vice president of the party and will take full responsibility if we (Congress) lose the elections."

When asked about the criticism heaped on him by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, Rahul said, "He (Swamy) has been attacking my family for 40 years. Let him take the legal process and solve it."

While on personal criticism the Congress leader said, " I respond by understanding why I am being attacked. Beat me to death, but I will keep asking questions that are relevant to the system."

"It does not matter. Keep throwing stones at us. I am being attacked because I am doing things dangerous to the system," he added.

Further while answering to a question that if not 'Gandhi' had he joined politics, Rahul said, "Unfairness makes my blood boil. That's at the heart of my politics."

To questions about dynasty politics, Gandhi said that he is "absolutely against the concept of dynasty. But it happens in BJP, SP, DMK and Congress everywhere."

"I am absolutely against the concept of dynasty. Anybody who knows me knows that and understands that. But you are not going to wish away dynasty in a closed system. You have to open the system," Rahul added.

When asked if he agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's view that Modi presided over the "mass massacre" of innocents on the streets of Ahmedabad, Gandhi said, "what the Prime Minister is saying is the fact. Gujarat happened and people died."

Asked if he was avoiding a direct face-off with Modi by not becoming the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Congress, the Congress Vice President said, "to understand that question, you have to understand a little bit, who Rahul Gandhi is and you get an answer to the question to what Rahul Gandhi is scared of and not scared of."

To a question as to what was his view of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, he said, "I think, we will defeat the BJP in the next elections....I will win the election. I am reasonably confident."

He added that Congress was "battle ready" and "going to win". Asked if he would take responsibility if Congress doesn't win the election, he said, "if we don't win, I am the Vice President of the party. I will take responsibility."

On naming Modi as PM candidate, he said, "BJP believes in concentration of power in one person. I fundamentally disagree with that. I believe in democracy. I believe in opening of the system.... We have fundamentally different philosophies."

The questioner said Rahul Gandhi has avoided the whole question about whether he was open to PM's post and avoiding a difficult contest.

In reply, Gandhi referred to his speech at the AICC meet here and said announcing a PM candidate before an election is "announcing your PM without asking your MPs. It is not actually written in the Constitution."

He avoided direct reply to questions on whether political parties should be brought under the purview of RTI, saying Parliament should decide on it if political parties are unanimous on this. "My position is that the more openness, the better."

Asked why Congress protected former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan despite a judicial commission's indictment, Gandhi said the party had taken action wherever corruption was involved.

He said he made his position clear on Chavan after the Maharashtra Cabinet had rejected the judicial commission's findings.

On corruption charges against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, he said, "there is a legal process. Follow it and conclude it."

With regard to performance by Aam Aadmi Party, he said, "There are things how they have reached out to people. Don't take that away from them."

Rahul Gandhi further said law should take its course regardless of individual personalities if AAP government in Delhi takes any action against the CWG scam.

Asked whether Congress would continue to support AAP government if it goes against Dikshit in the CWG scam, Gandhi said,"I have already said that regardless of who the person is, if there is an issue of corruption, the law should take its own course. That's my position."

To questions about AAP's ways of functioning, Gandhi said that what he liked about that party was that people were coming into their system.

"What I liked about what I saw in the Aam Aadmi Party was people coming into their system. I liked that. But what's different between us and them is that we have structure. We develop processes. That I didn't see much of (there)," he said.

He recalled that he made a comment about AAP, where he said that there is something that Congress can learn from them.

"What I felt that we could learn from them is that they reached out to people in a particular way that was good. There are things that I don't think we should take away from them."

At the same time, he emphasized that the real power of the Congress is the depth of the Organization and "you can't make changes by destroying things."

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News Network
March 20,2020

New Delhi, Mar 20: Bodies of the four Nirbhaya convicts who were hanged on Friday morning at Tihar Jail have been sent to hospital for a post-mortem, following which it will be handed over to the families, according to an official.

After the hanging at 5:30 am today, the bodies were taken from Tihar Jail to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital for post mortem at around 8:20 am.

Tihar jail Director-General Sandeep Goel said that the bodies will be handed over to the families after the post mortem.

The families, however, will have to give a written undertaking that they will not make a public demonstration of the cremation or burial of the executed person.

The superintendent will also consult the District Magistrate and the Deputy Commissioner of Police for arrangements for the disposal of the body.

The post mortem comes in line with the Supreme Court's order in Shatrughan Chauhan's case in January 2014, which had mandated the same observing that there is a dearth of experienced hangman in the country.

"By making the performance of post mortem obligatory, the cause of the death of the convict can be found out, which will reveal whether the person died as a result of the dislocation of the cervical vertebrate or by strangulation which results on account of too long a drop," the apex court had said in its order.

"Our constitution permits the execution of death sentence only through the procedure established by law and this procedure must be just, fair and reasonable," the order added.

All four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case -- Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Mukesh Singh -- were hanged till death at 5:30 am this morning.

The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the adults accused had allegedly committed suicide in the prison during the trial, while the juvenile was released from a correction home after a period of three years.

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News Network
May 25,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, May 25: About 100 people, including a Magistrate and some police personnel, have been asked to go into quarantine after an accused, who was produced before a lower court here following his arrest, later testedpositive, officials said on Monday. The accused, who was arrested along with two others in connection with a case relating to illicit liquor transportation two days ago, had been shifted to thePoojapura central jail after he was remanded to judicial custody.

With his sample testing positive on Sunday, theman has been sent to a designated COVID-19 hospital. The Nedumangad court magistrate, before whom he was produced, 34 police personnel, including a circle inspector, who were on duty at the Venjaramoodu police station when the accused was broughtafter his arrest, some employees of a government hospital where his swab sample was taken and 12 officials of thePoojapura central jail have gone into quarantine, police sources said.

. Meanwhile, Malayalam film actor Suraj Venjaramoodu and Vamanapuram MLA D K Murali (CPI) are under self-imposed quarantineas they had attended a function in which the circle inspector had taken part.

Two days ago, a car in which illicit liqour was being transported had hit a policeman and sped away, but people managed to stop the vehicle and the three accused, who were in an inebriated state, were arrested, sources said.

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News Network
June 3,2020

New Delhi, Jun 3: Over 1 lakh scanned copies of Indians' national IDs, including Aadhaar, PAN card and passport, have been put on dark web for sale, cyber intelligence firm Cyble said on Wednesday.

The leaked data seems to have originated from a third party and not from the government system, according to a report by Cyble.

"We came across a non-reputed actor who is currently selling over 1 lakh Indian National IDs on the dark net. With such a low reputation, ideally, we would have skipped this; however, the samples shared by the actor intrigued our interest -- and also the volume. The actor is alleged to have access to over 1 lakh IDs from different places in India," Cyble said.

The personal data leaked by cyber criminals leads to various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage. Many criminals use the personal details in the IDs to win trust of the people over a phone call for fraudulent activities.

Cyber criminals leak personal data of 2.9 cr job-seeking Indians on dark web for free

The Cyble researchers acquired around 1,000 IDs from the seller and confirmed that the scanned IDs belong to Indians.

"Preliminary analysis suggests that the data originated from a third party, and no indication or artefact is indicating that it came from a government system. At this point, Cyble researchers are still investigating this further -- we are hoping to share an update soon," Cyble said.

The scanned ID documents indicate that the data may have been leaked from a company's data base in the segment where they have to comply with 'Know Your Customer' (KYC) norms.

"Cyble researchers have also learned about a surge in KYC and banking scams -- leaks such as this are often used by scammers to target individuals, especially elderlies," Cyble said.

The cyber intelligence firm has recommended people to refrain from sharing personal information especially financial information over phone, e-mail or SMS.

"Regularly monitor your financial transaction, if you notice any suspicious transaction, contact your bank immediately," the company said.

In May, Cyble showed two instances where personal data of 7.65 crore Indians have been put on sale in the dark web. In one instance, the seller claimed to have sourced data of 4.75 crore Indians from online directory Truecaller and in other, the seller claimed to have sourced from job websites.

Truecaller, however, had denied the claim of breach in its database.

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