Political design behind Jamia, Shaheen Bagh protests to ruin nation's harmony: PM Modi

Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 27: BJP's Kerala state President K Surendran on Monday said it is 'highly irresponsible' of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to not attend PM's video conference with all chief ministers on prevailing COVID-19 situation earlier today.

"The Kerala Chief Minister not attending the important conference regarding a pandemic in the country is not good for the state," Surendran said.

The BJP state President believes Vijayan has sent a wrong message by not attending the conference.

"It is the irresponsible behavior of the Chief Minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that team India is fighting this pandemic together. By not attending the meeting, the Kerala CM has sent a wrong message, " he added.

Surendran said that the meeting was of high priority as PM was meeting the state CM's regarding the important decision of lockdown in the country.

"From the last meeting, many things have changed. Other chief ministers who did not get a chance to speak, participated in the meeting. But Kerala CM chose not to attend the meeting and BJP condemns it, " he said.

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan had not participated in the PM's video conference held earlier today and instead Kerala Chief Secretary Tom Jose represented the state in the meet.

According to sources, Kerala has given its suggestions in writing.

This was the fourth such interaction of the Prime Minister with the Chief Ministers, the earlier ones had been held on March 20, April 2, and April 11.

PM Modi in the meeting said the lockdown has yielded positive results as the country has managed to save thousands of lives in the past one and a half months.

Jan 31: Twenty-three children aged between six months and 15 years, who had been taken hostage by a murder accused after inviting them to his daughter's birthday party, were rescued late on Thursday night after police killed their captor in a village here.

The hostage drama began at Kasaria village in the afternoon and continued for about eight hours.

"The accused was killed and there were about 23 children who were rescued safely," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi told reporters at a hurriedly called press conference at 1.20 am.

"The accused had invited the children for the birthday party of his daughter and held them hostage. It started about 5.45 pm on January 30 and continued for about eight hours," Director General of Police (DGP) O P Singh said, adding that in the entire operation they had tried to "engage" the accused and were successful.

He said the accused, identified as Subhash Batham, had initially released a six-month-old girl by handing her over to his neighbour from a balcony.

Eyewitnesses said a restive crowd gathered outside the house where the children were kept with some women wailing and praying for their safe release.

The crowd broke open the door of the house to rescue the children, they said.

As the accused opened fire, the police retaliated killing him on the spot.

In the exchange of fire, the captor's wife was injured, but none of the children suffered any injury.

A man and two policemen also suffered bullet injuries.

The motive of the accused was not known immediately.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath monitored the situation in Farrukhabad, which is nearly 200 km from state capital Lucknow.

"The CM as soon as he got to know about the incident called a meeting of the crisis management group and personally monitored the situation and ensured children are rescued safely," Awasthi said.

Earlier, a team of NSG (National Security Guard) commandos had taken a special aircraft to reach Farukhabad, a senior security official in Delhi said.

Police said Batham, a murder accused, seemed to be mentally unstable.

Inspector-General of Police, Kanpur Range, Mohit Agarwal, said, "The man called the children for a birthday party and held them hostage in the basement of the house. He fired six shots from inside the building."

Batham initially wanted to talk to the local MLA, but refused to speak to the leader when he arrived, Agarwal said.

New Delhi, Feb 17: Two alleged criminals were killed in an exchange of fire with the Special Cell of Delhi Police at Pul Pehlad Pur area in New Delhi on Monday morning, officials said.

The encounter took place around 5 am, they said.

Raja Qureshi and Ramesh Bahadur, who were injured during the encounter, were rushed to a nearby hospital, where they were declared brought dead by doctors, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said.

According to police, the two men were involved in multiple cases of murder and robbery.