'Delhi not safe; am returning to Kolkata', says Mamata after attack by Left activists

April 10, 2013
New Delhi, Apr 10: "Delhi is not a safe place," West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday, as she abruptly cut short her three-day visit here cancelling her appointments with the Prime Minister and the finance minister.

delhi"Today, I was supposed to have a meeting with the finance minister... but I am returning to Kolkata. I was unwell since last evening and had to be administered oxygen. I will come back, but Delhi is not a safe place. I am sorry," she told reporters here before leaving for Kolkata.

She said soon after she cancelled her meeting with the Prime Minister last night, Manmohan Singh called her up and apologised for the incident outside the Planning Commission where she and state finance minister Amit Mitra faced the wrath of Left activists protesting the death of SFI leader Sudipto Gupta in Kolkata.

Asked about the details of her conversation with Singh and West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan, Banerjee said, "I had an appointment with the PM, which I could not do it. I apologise for that. He also told me that Mamataji, what happened ... I also apologise to you...which should not (have) happen(ed) and I think that in Delhi ... this is the first time, it is happening".

She also dismissed the reports about violence against the Left parties in West Bengal even after her appeal for calm in the state and blamed the CPI(M) for it.

"No violence. Whatever violence ... CPI(M) cadre is doing. Our cadres are totally peaceful. They are very emotional. They listen to me. Let me tell that 55,000 people have been killed by CPI(M)," she said.

Banerjee claimed that political clashes during Left rule in the state were "hundred times more" than during her rule so far. "In the last one year, it is only 10 political clashes and in that too six TMC workers have been killed."

The chief minister also criticised the Delhi Police for not being able to prevent the incident at the Planning Commission building yesterday.

Banerjee dismissed reports that she was asked by the police to enter through another gate, instead of the one where the demonstration was being held.

Police had yesterday reportedly said that she was advised to use the VIP gate of the Planning Commission instead of the main gate where SFI activists had assembled.

When asked about these reports, she said, "Not at all. Do you think I am a beggar? I never bow down my head. I consider myself as an LIP (Less Important Person) than a VIP."

She also ridiculed the CPI(M) for condemning the incident, dubbing them "hypocrites and have double standards."

"(On) one side they are killing the people and then they are condemning it. It is their double standard game always and they are hypocrites," she said.

Earlier
Mamata cancels meeting with Chidambaram
New Delhi, Apr 10: An upset West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today cancelled her scheduled meeting with Finance Minister P Chidambaram and left for Kolkata, a day after she was gheraoed and her minister Amit Mitra manhandled by Left protesters here.

mamataHours after facing the ire of the Left activists at the Planning Commission, Banerjee had also cancelled her appointment last evening with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who expressed regret over the incident.

As Mitra was hospitalised at the AIIMS last evening and kept under observation, Singh spoke to Banerjee after her office called up the PMO to cancel the meeting scheduled with him saying she was unwell and her blood pressure had dipped.

The Prime Minister also enquired about her well-being, sources close to the chief minister said.

They said the meeting with Chidambaram and a press conference she was to address in the evening have been cancelled.

Banerjee and Mitra were the target of the wrath of CPI-M and its students' wing SFI's activists who were protesting the death of their comrade Sudipta Gupta in police custody in Kolkata last week.

Some Trinamool Congress workers, led by party leader Mukul Roy, also staged a protest gathering at Jantar Mantar here.

Giving a new twist to the incident, Trinamool MP Sukhendu Shekar Roy claimed it was a "murderous attack" on Banerjee.

"It was a murderous attempt on the life of Mamata and three other Cabinet ministers, especially Amit Mitra," Roy told reporters here, adding that it was "a pre-planned attack on the eve of Panchayat Elections to create a situation so that the demand for central forces can be justified."

At the same time, he sidestepped questions on the attack by Trinamool Congress activists on CPI(M) offices and workers across West Bengal.

"That is a wild allegation against us. Nowhere in this country during the 34 year misrule of Left Front more than 60,000 innocent people were butchered. Don't compare this incident with that genocide," he said to questions on the attacks by Trinamool Congress activists in Bengal.

Condemning the attack, Roy claimed that the police had remained silent onlookers when CPI-M and SFI activists "roughed up Mitra and no arrests has been made yet."

He claimed that the protests at Planning Commission yesterday was not a demonstration by students as "there were many hired goons above the age of 40."

In the incident, while the Chief Minister was shielded by policemen, it was left to Mitra's lot to face the anger of the activists who were protesting the death of SFI member Sudipta Gupta.

The 65-year-old Finance Minister was pushed and jostled around as he tried to enter the Yojna Bhawan building.

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News Network
February 12,2020

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Centre on Wednesday said the NRC data in Assam is safe even though some technical issues were visible and that will be resolved soon.

The Union Home Ministry clarification came in view of reports that data of the final list of the National Register of Citizens has been made offline from its official website.

"The NRC data is safe. Some technical issues are in visibility on cloud. These are being resolved soon," a home ministry spokesperson said.

The data was not available for a couple of days and it created panic in the public, mostly among the people excluded from the list as the rejection certificates were yet to be issued.

NRC State Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma accepted that the data has been made offline, but refuted the allegation of any "malafide" intent in it.

The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by IT firm Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the previous coordinator.

So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro, Sarma said.

He said the state coordination committee had decided to do necessary formalities in its meeting on January 30 and wrote to the Wipro during the first week of February.

"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for public. We hope people will be able to access it in the next 2-3 days," Sarma said.

The complete detail of exclusion and inclusion of bonafide Indian citizens in the NRC was uploaded on its official website http://www.nrcassam.nic.in after the final list was published on August 31, 2019.

The final NRC was published by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

After the earlier NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela relinquished the charge on November 11 following his transfer to home state Madhya Pradesh on a direction from the Supreme Court, Sarma was appointed in his place on November 9.

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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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Agencies
July 13,2020

Hyderabad, Jul 13: Family members of Telugu poet and writer Varavara Rao, who is currently lodged in Navi Mumbai's Taloja jail in the Bhima Koregaon case, on Sunday appealed to the government for his immediate release in view of his deteriorating health.

Rao's wife P. Hemalatha and their three daughters urged the government to save his life by shifting him to a hospital or allow them to provide him with immediate medical care.

We want to remind the government that it has no right to deny the right to life of any person, much less an undertrial prisoner," they said.

His family members said they were very much worried about his deteriorating health. They said his health condition had been scary for over six weeks, ever since he was shifted in an unconscious state to JJ Hospital on May 28.

"Even as he was discharged from the hospital and sent back to jail three days later, there has been no improvement in his health and he is still in need of emergency healthcare," Hemalatha said.

"The immediate cause of concern now is that we are very much perturbed at the routine phone call we received from him on Saturday evening. Though the earlier two calls on June 24 and July 2 were also worrying with his weak and muffled voice, incoherent speech and abruptly jumping into Hindi. But the latest call, on July 11 is much more worrisome as he did not answer straight questions on his health and went into a kind of delirious and hallucinated talk about the funeral of his father and mother, the events that happened seven decades and four decades ago respectively," Rao's wife said.

She said her husband's co-accused companion took the phone from him and informed her that he is not able to walk, go to the toilet and brush his teeth on his own.

"We were also told that he is always hallucinating that we, family members, were waiting at the jail gate to receive him as he was getting released. His co-prisoner also said he needs immediate medical care for not only physical but also neurological issues. The confusion, loss of memory and incoherence are the results of electrolyte imbalance and fall of Sodium and Potassium levels leading to brain damage. This electrolyte imbalance may be fatal also."

Stating that Taloja Jail Hospital is not well equipped to handle this kind of serious ailment, they demanded that he be shifted to a fully equipped super specialty hospital to save his life and prevent possible brain damage and risk to life due to electrolyte imbalance.

"At the present juncture we are leaving aside all the pertinent facts like, that the case against him is fabricated; he had to spend 22 months in jail as an undertrial with the process turned into punishment; his bail petitions got rejected at least five times now and even the bail petitions with his age, ill-health and COVID vulnerability as grounds were ignored. His life is the top most concern for us right now. Our present demand is to save his life," the family said.

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