CWC to meet tomorrow on Telangana issue

New Delhi, Feb 1: Activist Sharjeel Imam's mobile phone and laptop along with some anti-CAA posters have been seized from his house in Bihar's Jehanabad and rented flat in Vasant Kunj, police said on Friday.

Imam was arrested by the Delhi Police's Crime Branch from Jehanabad in a sedition case and he is being questioned by police for his alleged inflammatory speeches in Aligarh and at the Jamia Millia Islamia University here.

During investigation, a laptop and a desktop belonging to Imam were recovered from his rented flat at Vasant Kunj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rajesh Deo said.

His mobile phone was recovered from his house at his native place in Jehanabad's Kako area on the instance of his brother, he said.

Imam had prepared anti-CAA and anti-NRC pamphlets with "misleading and intimidating facts" and then distributed them in various mosques, the copy of which have been recovered, police said.

The shop from where he made photocopies of the pamphlets has also been identified, they added.

Imam was arrested on Tuesday. He was brought to Delhi on Wednesday and produced at the residence of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushottam Pathak in the evening amid tight security after which police were granted his five-day custody.

The PhD scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for Historical Studies has been booked for sedition and other charges in several states after videos of his alleged inflammatory speeches, made during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), were circulated on the social media.

An FIR was registered against Imam by the Delhi Police on January 25 under IPC sections 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting or attempting to promote disharmony or feelings of enmity on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever) among others.

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 31: Kerala reported its second COVID-19 death after a 68-year-old man being treated for the virus, died at the Government Medical College Hospital here in the early hours on Tuesday.

The victim, Abdul Aziz, a retired ASI hailing from Pothencode here, was admitted to the isolation ward on March 23 with the symptoms of the Corona infection. He was also suffering from lung and kidney diseases.

Though his first test result for COVID-19 turned negative, the second test result confirmed positive, official sources said.

However, it was not known from where he caught the virus infection. leaving chances for a secondary contract of a COVID-19 patient.

His funeral will take place as per the protocol, the sources added.

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.