Post claims missing university student from Kashmir joined militants

Agencies
November 3, 2018

Noida, Nov 3: Days after a Kashmiri youth went missing from a private university in Uttar Pradesh, social media posts carrying purported pictures of him claimed that he had joined militant ranks in the Valley.

Ahtesham Bilal Sofi (17), a resident of downtown Srinagar, was a first-year graduate student at Greater Noida's Sharda University.

He went missing on October 28 after he left the varsity with official permission to go to Delhi, days after he was mistakenly roughed up during a scuffle between Indian and Afghan students in the campus.

A missing complaint was registered in the case at the Knowledge Park police station in Greater Noida as well as at Khanyar police station in Srinagar, officials said.

The pictures on social media showed Sofi dressed in a black outfit and claimed he had joined militant group ISJK, an outfit influenced by ISIS ideology.

The UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) said it has been tracking the case since October 28 and has taken cognisance of the photos.

"We are in touch with Jammu and Kashmir police. We are tracking the footprints of the boy from Greater Noida to Kashmir," Inspector General, ATS, Asim Arun told PTI.

The Jammu and Kashmir police said they were "ascertaining" Sofi's presence in the Valley.

The Gautam Buddh Nagar police, who had traced the last location of Sofi's mobile phone to militancy-hit Pulwama district in South Kashmir, is also probing the matter.

"A missing complaint was registered and police teams are working on the case," a senior official told PTI.

According to the police here, Sofi had left for Srinagar from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport in the afternoon of October 28 and reached Pulwama a few hours later.

They said his mobile phone details showed that he last spoke to his father, who lives in Srinagar, at 4.30 pm, when his location was traced to Pulwama.

However, he had told his father that he was in Delhi and was returning to the university by metro, the police said.

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News Network
June 18,2020

New Delhi, Jun 18: Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday removed Sanjay Jha as a party spokesperson, days after he wrote a newspaper article criticising the party. She also approved the appointment of Abhishek Dutt and Sadhna Bharti as national media panelists for the Congress.

"Congress president has also approved that Sanjay Jha be dropped as AICC spokesperson with immediate effect," the party said in an official statement.

In the article published a few days ago, Mr Jha had said, "The Congress has demonstrated extraordinary lassitude, and its lackadaisical attitude towards its own political obsolescence is baffling..."

"I would like to call a spade a spade here and a shovel: there has been no serious effort to get the party up and running with any sense of urgency," he had said in the article in a national newspaper.

"There are many in the party who cannot comprehend this perceptible listlessness. For someone like me, for instance, permanently wedded to Gandhian philosophy and Nehruvian outlook that defines the Congress, it is dismaying to see its painful disintegration," he had said.

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News Network
April 9,2020

New Delhi, Apr 9: With an increase of 540 positive COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, India's tally of coronavirus cases has risen to 5,734, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday.

Out of the 5,734 cases; 5,095 are active COVID-19 cases and 472 cases have been recovered/discharged and one case migrated.
The death toll has also risen to 166 after 17 new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra is the worst-hit state 1,135 positive cases so far and while Tamil Nadu is second with 738 positive cases. Delhi's tally has risen to 669 cases. 

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News Network
February 28,2020

Feb 28: For 30-year-old Shabana Parveen, it was nothing sort of a miracle — giving birth to a healthy baby boy after surviving a brutal attack by a mob who kicked and assaulted her and her husband in northeast Delhi's Karawal Nagar.

Their home set afire by the mob, Ms Parveen's family is now pinning their hopes on the newborn who they called a "miracle baby".

Ms Parveen, her husband, two kids and mother-in-law were sleeping inside the house on Monday night when a mob barged into their house.

Narrating their ordeal, Ms Parveen's mother-in-law Nashima told PTI, "They hurled religious slurs, beat up my son. Some of them even kicked my daughter-in-law in the abdomen...as I went to protect her they came charging at me... We thought we would not survive that night. But with God's grace we somehow managed to escape from the clutches of the rioters."

"We rushed Parveen to a nearby hospital but doctors there asked us to go to Al-hind Hospital where she delivered a baby boy on Wednesday," she added.

Despite having lost their home for over two decades and all belongings, her family has overcome the initial shock and are now overjoyed with the birth of the "miracle baby".

Ms Nashima said she had no clue where the family would go after Ms Parveen was discharged from the hospital.

"It's all gone there. Nothing left. Maybe, we will go to some relative's place and see how we can re-build our life," she said.

Ali, 6, who held his one-day-old brother, caressing his forehead, said, "I will take care of him forever and save him from every ill."

The violence over the amended citizenship law in northeast Delhi has claimed 38 lives so far and left over 200 people injured. Frenzied mobs torched houses, shops, vehicles, a petrol pump and pelted stones at locals and police personnel.

Jaffrabad, Maujpur, Babarpur, Yamuna Vihar, Bhajanpura, Chand Bagh and Shiv Vihar are among the areas mainly affected by the clashes.

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