Alleged terror module: Disbelief writ large as kin meet 5 of the 10 arrested by NIA

News Network
December 28, 2018

New Delhi, Dec 28: A day after the National Investigation Agency arrested 10 persons after claiming to have busted a an Islamic State-inspired terror module, a Patiala House court here on Thursday allowed the family members and relatives of six of the accused to meet them inside the courtroom on Thursday.

However, the father of one was denied permission later as he did not possess the original identity proof.

The accused were arrested by the NIA in a joint operation with the Delhi police’s Special Cell from various locations in Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh. Parents of Anas Younus, Saqib Iftekar, Mohammad Azam, Zaid Malik and Zubair Malik met their children, while Rashid Zafar’s father could not meet him.

“The NIA took away all the documents from our house, including our identity proofs during the raid. I am just left with a photocopy of the ID proof and the court refused to accept it. I pray that my child gets back home at the earliest,” said Rashid’s father Iqbal Ahmad.

Mohammad Younus, father of Anas, said he was allowed to meet his son for just five minutes inside the court in the presence of policemen. “I asked him if he had any problem, but he refused to interact and just gestured to me that he was fine. I never imagined that one day I will see my son stand inside the court as a terror suspect with a masked face,” he said, adding that he believed his son was innocent and would be out soon.

Arguments in court

Counsel for the accused, M.S. Khan, said the NIA, during arguments in court, was unable to explain the “foreign-based handler” who masterminded the module as also the “instruments” recovered from the house that were intended to carry out “fidayeen attacks”.

“They are students. What the NIA has recovered includes a tractor’s power nozzle, which they planted and called a rocket launcher. What they [NIA] are calling explosives are actually ‘sutli bombs’ that are used during Diwali. There is a lot of fabrication,” Mr. Khan argued in court.

The court remanded the accused in 12-day police custody.

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News Network
April 13,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 13: Three more people in Kerala tested positive for novel coronavirus disease on Monday, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

"With 3 new COVID-19 cases, the total number of cases in the state has reached 378," said Vijayan at a press conference.

Giving a break-up of the three confirmed COVID-19 cases, he said, "Of the 3 cases, 2 are from Kannur and 1 is from Palakkad."

He further said, "Till date, 15,683 samples tested, out of which 14,829 tested negative."

However, the total number of positive cases is decreasing, the Chief Minister added.

According to a recent update by the Ministery of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of cases in the country has reached 9352.

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News Network
March 18,2020

New Delhi, Mar 18: As many as 276 Indians have been infected with coronavirus abroad, including 255 in Iran, 12 in UAE and five in Italy, the government informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said the total number of Indians infected by coronavirus is 276 — 255 in Iran, 12 in UAE, five in Italy, and one each in Hong Kong, Kuwait, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.

A fourth batch of 53 Indians returned to India from Iran on Monday, taking the total number of people evacuated from the coronavirus-hit country to 389.

Iran is one of the worst-affected countries by the coronavirus outbreak and the government has been working to bring back Indians stranded there. Over 700 people have died from the disease in Iran and nearly 14,000 cases detected.

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Lucknow, Jan 12: The controversy over renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz's iconic poem 'Hum dekhenge' may have caused an upheaval in the literary world but it has also helped in resurrecting the famous poet for the young generations.

Students and young professionals are making a beeline for books on Faiz, his biography and his poems and book sellers are ordering supplies of Faiz books.

"Earlier, we sold hardly one book in a month or on Faiz but after the controversy, people are curious to know more about the poet and his poems. We have placed orders for the entire literary range on Faiz Ahmad Faiz," said a leading book seller in Hazratganj in Lucknow.

The bookseller said that the highest demand was for books written in Devnagri script.

"Not many in the young generation can read or write Urdu so they prefer Devnagri," the book seller said.

In Kanpur, most of the leading bookshops have already run out of stocks and book stalls in the ongoing Handloom Expo are drawing huge crowds for Faiz books.

Suchita Srivastava, B.Ed student in Kanpur said, "I have never been fond of Urdu poetry because I do not understand much of the language but after the controversy, I want to read poems of Faiz to understand what he wanted to say. I am taking help of Google to understand difficult words in Urdu."

Krishna Rao, another student at the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, said that since books on Faiz had been sold out, he had ordered a Kindle edition and was reading them.

"Reading his poems actually widens one's perspective of things and becomes even more precious if you take into account the time and context in which they were written," he said.

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