Dubai, Apr 11: An Indian expat in the UAE is facing police action for allegedly insulting Islam on social media in response to a Facebook post on the coronavirus, according to a media report.
Rakesh B Kitturmath, who worked as a team leader at Emrill Services, an integrated facilities management (FM) headquartered in Dubai, was sacked on Thursday after his post sparked outrage on social media, the Gulf News reported.
“Kitturmath’s employment stands terminated with immediate effect. He will be handed over to Dubai Police. We have a zero-tolerance policy towards such hate crimes,” said Stuart Harrison, CEO of Emrill Services.
"As an organisation, we have worked hard over the years to embrace diversity and create a culture of inclusion, where every nationality, religion and background is welcomed and celebrated. We have a strict social media policy for our employees to ensure they respect our values, both inside and outside of work," the newspaper quoted Harrison as saying.
Harrison said they are trying to find out if Kitturmath was still in the UAE, according to the report.
“We have over 8,500 employees so this may take a while. That said, we have fired him. If he’s still in the country, he will be handed over to Dubai Police,” he said.
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Originally from Ranebennuri, Karnataka, Kitturmath joins an ever-growing list of Indian ex-pats who have landed in trouble for alleged Islamophobic messages in recent days.
Earlier this week, Abu Dhabi resident Mitesh Udeshi was sacked for posting a cartoon mocking Islam on his Facebook page while a police complaint was filed against Sameer Bhandari of Future Vision Events & Weddings’ in Dubai after he asked a Muslim job seeker from India to go back to Pakistan.
The UAE outlaws all religious or racial discrimination under a legislation passed in 2015.
The anti-discrimination/anti-hatred law prohibits all acts “that stoke religious hatred and/or which insult religion through any form of expression, be it speech or the written word, books, pamphlets or via online media.”
Bengaluru, May 20: An Air India flight from Dammam in Saudi Arabia landed here with 161 passengers, including 85 for Karnataka and 76 to Hyderabad, an official said on Wednesday. Among Karnataka passengers there were both Bengalureans and Mangalureans.
"AIC-1910 (Airbus A321-211) landed at the city airport at 8.45 p.m. and 85 passengers, including 9 women and one infant alighted here, while 76 will fly to Hyderabad," the airline official said.
The flight was 45 minutes behind schedule to Bengaluru.
The airline staff and the state government officials received the returnees in the arrival terminal and gave them masks to wear and sanitizer to wash hands.
All the passengers would be screened with thermal device to read their body temperature though only asymptomatic were flown back.
After completing formalities, including immigration check and filling the self-declaration form, the returnees were taken in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city.
Passengers have to download the mandatory Quarantine app on their mobile phone before leaving the airport for contact tracing later.
Another evacuation flight from Kuala Lampur in Malaysia to Bengaluru has been cancelled due to Amphan cyclone over the Bay of Bengal that hit the Odisha and West Bengal on the east coast.
The service was the fourth to the southern state in the second phase of Vande Bharat Mission, the national carrier and its Express arm are operating to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas since the government suspended international flights on March 23 and enforced an extended lockdown on March 25 to combat Covid-19 spread.
The first flight in the second phase landed on Monday night at Mangaluru on the state's west coast, with 177 passengers from Dubai in the UAE.
The second flight to the southern state from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia landed here (Bengaluru) on Tuesday evening, with 94 passengers.
The third flight from Muscat in Oman landed here at 6.31 p.m. on Wednesday evening and at Mangaluru on the state's west coast at 8.01 p.m.
The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 13 days till June 3 from 12 more destinations the world over.
In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.
Mangaluru, July 29: Justifying the transfer of Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh, district in-charge minister Kota Shrinivas Poojari has accused Mangaluru MLA U T Khader of politicizing the issue.
The IAS officer was transferred by the Karnataka government on July 28, a day after a saffron activist issued a death threat against her on social media after she warned of legal action against the miscreants who attack cattle traders.
Condemning the development, Mr Khader had tweeted that the state government has punished the deputy commissioner instead of punishing the culprit, who issued death threat.
Responding to Mr Khader’s tweet, Mr Poojari said that the transfer of the officer was on administrative ground. “It is unfortunate that Khader politicized a transfer carried out by the government on administrative ground. This is not Khader’s time to protect any accused,” tweeted Mr Poojari.
It is worth mentioning here that Mr Khader was the district in-charge minister of Dakshina Kannada before Mr Poojari taking over the position.
Meanwhile, police has arrested a person in connection with the death threat against the IAS officer.
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