“Did you see his big beard? He looked like a terrorist”: The horror story of Bidar mob lynching

Agencies
July 30, 2018

Bidar, Jul 30: In the tiny hamlet of Murki in Karnataka’s Bidar district, inspector VB Yadwad surveyed a pile of bricks and stones in a ditch where he and other police officers had been attacked earlier this month while trying to save a group of five men on a road trip from a violent mob.

"We tried hard to stop them," said Mr Yadwad, pointing to injuries on his back. "They wouldn't listen to anyone."

Mr Yadwad was one of eight policemen who rushed to the village on July 13 to try to control a mob of more than 200 that attacked the five friends, wrongly assuming they were child kidnappers.

The vicious assault left one of the five men, Mohammed Azam, a UK-educated IT worker from Hyderabad, dead, and at least two of the others badly beaten. All eight officers were injured, two seriously.

Mr Azam, who was 32 and worked for global consulting services firm Accenture, is one of the latest victims of a wave of lynchings in India, as outnumbered police struggle to contain mob violence triggered by false messages about child kidnappings spread via platforms like WhatsApp messaging service, which is very popular in India.

The site where Mohammed Azam was lynched by a mob in Murki village, Karnataka

The government says it is not tracking data for lynchings, but data portal IndiaSpend has tallied more than 30 deaths from nearly 70 such incidents since January 2017.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, which has been facing criticism from opposition parties and the public for failing to do enough to stop the lynchings, has blamed WhatsApp, warning the messaging service of legal action if it did not curb the spread of fake news.

On July 20, WhatsApp said it was limiting the number of people someone can forward messages to simultaneously, and said it was considering more changes to curb the spread of fake messages in its largest market. But it is unclear how much this will restrain mob violence.

Police probing the lynchings of Mr Azam and others say they are often triggered by deep-rooted prejudices. Mr Azam's own job at Accenture, according to his younger brother Akram, included reviewing the propriety of video content before it was uploaded to Alphabet Inc's YouTube.

"India is already vulnerable due to religious and caste fault lines," said Rema Rajeshwari, a superintendent of police in Telangana, where some recent lynchings took place. "When you add WhatsApp to the mix, things can easily spiral out of control."

Mohammed Aslam, brother of Mohammed Azam, who was lynched by a mob, looks out of his house as people gather to give their condolences to the family in Hyderabad

In Murki, messages circulating in a local WhatsApp group, late in the day Mr Azam was killed, simply said: "Child kidnappers found in Murki." Videos and photos of Mr Azam and his four friends, taken just before, were attached.

The five, who were in a new cherry red SUV, had set out from Hyderabad that day for a drive into the countryside. While passing through a hamlet where they planned to picnic, they tossed chocolates towards a group of children, according to three of the survivors.

What the men thought was a kind gesture in a poor village cost Mr Azam his life, as a mob of angry villagers savagely attacked him and his friends.

The assault began when the group stopped to take selfies amid lush green fields beside a pond, just after driving by the kids, according to interviews with the survivors, police, villagers and other eye witnesses.

Three villagers first walked up and started deflating their tyres. "We asked them why are you removing the air? They yelled: you men are child kidnappers," said retail worker Mohammed Afroz, one of the four survivors.

A policeman cleans his vehicle as its parked at the site where Mohammed Azam was killed in a mob lynching attack in Mukri village in Bidar

While the five tried to plead their innocence, dozens of villagers gathered. Some carried pick-axes and sticks. Photos and videos of the five men were posted on a 180-member WhatsApp group named 'Mother Murki', according to police.

That video, seen by Reuters, shows the five trying to calm the crowd. It did not work. Salham Al Kubassi, a Qatari national, who was friends with Mr Azam, was among the first to be hit. While two of the friends tried to reason with the mob, Mr Kubassi, who is a policeman in Qatar, jumped into the SUV with Mr Azam and their friend Mohammed Salman, who works at a Hyderabad car repair shop, and sped away, according to police and the survivors.

But a makeshift roadblock was set up at a nearby junction. The SUV careened off the road after it hit a tree trunk the villagers had put in the road and ended in a small, dry riverbed, police said.

It was the attack here that claimed Mr Azam's life. Many villagers, both men and women, threw bricks and rocks at the toppled SUV, shattering its windows. Some then tied ropes around Mr Azam and Mr Salman and dragged them out of the vehicle as at least 200 others gathered, hurling abuse at them, police said. "They came here to steal kids. Let's hit these bastards and kill them!" people in the mob shouted, according to a police report. "Don't let them go!"

While police say there were no child kidnappings recorded in or around Murki, child trafficking is a problem in India, and many children are sold into slavery, especially forced labour. About 250,000 children were registered as missing on the government's Track Child portal between January 2012 and March 2017.

Villagers in Murki said they had been hearing about child kidnapping gangs for months. Photos and videos of the bodies of children being mutilated by alleged child abductors have been circulating via WhatsApp in many parts of India. Police showed Reuters some of the material they have gathered.

One video purports to show the bloodied body of a boy with his mouth gagged, as a man leans in and repeatedly stabs his heart. The messages exhort viewers to share them, "High Alert. Please Share As Much as Possible," one said.

In all the areas where the recent lynching cases occurred, there were no such gangs, and the messages and reports were all false, police said.

The problem is that people "may not be able to read or write, but everyone understands photos and videos," said Telangana Superintendent Rajeshwari.

The Home Ministry issued a notice to police nationwide on July 4, calling lynchings over child kidnapping rumours "a serious concern," according to a copy reviewed by Reuters. The government also issued a statement on Wednesday urging action against "cow vigilantes".

Mr Azam's killing has sent a chill through Murki, where many fear discussing the attack following the arrest of more than 30 men and women from the area in the police investigation. No one has yet been charged.

When asked why villagers attacked the men, Vijay Biradar, a village elder, said "people made a mistake."

"Did you see the Qatari's face? His big beard?" he said. "He looked like a terrorist."

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News Network
March 5,2020

Mangaluru, Mar 5: As many as 29 police officers and personnel were examined by Udupi Deputy Commissioner G Jagadeesha, head of the magisterial enquiry into the police firing in the city in December 2019 which killed two anti- Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protesters.

A total of 176 police personnel have been directed to present their evidence before the magistrate for the enquiry.

ACPs K U Belliappa and Kodandarama presented his evidence on Wednesday, while ACP (central sub division) M Jagdish and ACP (traffic) M Manjunatha Shetty submitted their evidencein writing.

The next hearing is slated to be held on March 9 when statements of 41 officers including DCP (law and order) Arunangshu Giri will be recorded.

City police commissioner P S Harsha has been asked to submit his evidence on March 12, Jagadeesha said.

The enquiry report is to be submitted to the government on March 23.

Jagadeesha said he will seek an extension in the case of any delay in the recording of evidences.

Two people - Nausheen and Jaleel - were killed in the firing on December 19, 2019 during the protests here against the CAA.

The Karnataka government had decided to hold a CID probe and a magisterial enquiry into the incident.

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News Network
March 1,2020

Udupi/Mangaluru, Mar 1: A total of twenty leaplings were born in the hospitals of the Udupi and Dakshina Kannada (DK) districts on Saturday, February 29, district health department said on Sunday.

According to the district health department, sixteen babies were born in DK district while Udupi district saw four births. More boys than girls were born in DK (12–4) and it was the inverse in Udupi district (3–1).

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coastaldigest.com news network
June 16,2020

Vijayapura, June 16: Even as a video of a man wearing a burqa who is being thrashed by locals is going viral on social media, netizens targeted Bharatiya Janata Party for their activist resorting to heinous acts. 

The man who was caught in burqa has been identified as Siddu Paragond, an activist of Snagh Parivar hailing from Sindgi town in Karnataka’s Vijayapura district. 

The bizarre incident took place in Sindgi on June 11 outside a bank.

“While people including women were standing in a queue outside the bank, the person in burqa was acting in a suspicious manner. The person was trying to get too close to women which was making them feel awkward,” local residents said.

“Getting suspicious, some locals tried to interact and their suspicion rose with the strange behaviour of the person. Suddenly some men took the person away from the bank and checked only to find that it was a man in burqa. The men thrashed him and handed him over to police,” the sources said.

Confirming this, Superintendent of Police Anupam Agrawal said that the Siddu Paragond has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody. He, however, made it clear that no suspicious objects were found on Siddu. “We are trying to find out the motive for his act,” the SP said.

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Kannadiga
 - 
Tuesday, 16 Jun 2020

Finally mentally not fit 

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