Hardik, Alpesh, Jignesh booked for alleged 'fake raid'

Agencies
July 7, 2018

Ahmedabad, Jul 7: Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel and Gujarat MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani were booked by police on trespass and other charges after allegedly leading a "raid" at a house where they claimed that liquor was illegally stored, an official said today.

Thakor, a Congress MLA, along with independent legislator Mevani and Patel, on Thursday "raided" the house of a woman, identified Kanchanben Makwana, with over a dozen supporters claiming they wanted to expose the alleged "liquor den" operating there.

The house is located near the office of Gandhinagar Superintendent of Police. Makwana filed a complaint at the Gandhinagar Sector 21 police station.

The complainant said the trio and their supporters entered her house when no male member was present there. "They even planted two pouches of country-made liquor there to prove her house was a liquor den," Makwana was quoted as saying by inspector V N Yadav.

"Makwana, in her complaint, said she does not sell liquor and the two pouches recovered from her house were planted by the people who entered her home," Yadav said.

He said an FIR was lodged against Thakor, Mevani and Patel besides over a dozen others under various section of the Indian Penal Code including for house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint (452), intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace (504), and intentionally giving false evidence (193 ).

Yadav said no arrest has been made so far in the case.

Gujarat has a law in force since 1960 that bans the manufacture, storage, sale and consumption of alcohol.

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Patel alleged that the "liquor mafia" can do anything in Gandhi's Gujarat, with the police and the ruling BJP giving them support.

The three leaders "raided" Makwana's house at Adivada village after meeting four people who were hospitalised after allegedly consuming spurious liquor in Ahmedabad.

Thakor, who has led anti-liquor agitations in the past, said the aim of the "raid" was to expose the police and the government's "inaction" to curb alcohol menace in the state.

The leaders also took to Twitter and presented a counter-narrative, claiming that they were arrested for exposing the sale of alcohol within a distance of 100 metre of District Superintendent's office at Gandhinagar.

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News Network
February 18,2020

New Delhi, Feb 18: Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot is the richest minister in the AAP government, according to a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on Monday.

In a statement, the NGO said, Delhi Election Watch and ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of all the seven-party leaders including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

According to the statement, the minister with the lowest declared total assets is Gopal Rai with assets worth Rs 90.01 lakh.

"The minister with the highest declared total assets is Kailash Gahlot from Najafgarh constituency with assets worth Rs 46.07 crore," it stated.

The report by ADR comes on the day Kejriwal and his six ministers took charge after the formation of the new AAP government.

Chief Minister Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues took charge of their respective offices on Monday and asserted that they would work to fulfil the promises made in the "guarantee card", released during the poll campaign, including reduction in pollution and expansion of metro network.

Members of his Cabinet are -- Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Imran Hussain, Gopal Rai and Kailash Gahlot.

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News Network
March 2,2020

New Delhi, Mar 2: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday hit out at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his comments that no one from the minority community will be affected by amended Citizenship Act and asked why then was the community excluded from the law in the first place.

Addressing a rally in Kolkata, Shah assured people of the minority community that not a single person will lose citizenship due to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

"The Home Minister says that no minority will be affected by CAA. If this is correct, they should tell the country who would be affected by CAA. If no one would be affected by CAA, as it currently is, why did the government pass the law?

"If the CAA aims to benefit all minorities (no one will be affected, says HM), then why are Muslims excluded from the list of minorities mentioned in the Act?," the former finance minister asked in a post on Twitter.

At his first public rally in Kolkata after the 2019 general elections, Shah said, "The opposition is terrorising the minorities. I assure every person from the minority community that the CAA only provides citizenship, does not take it away. It won't affect your citizenship."

"The opposition parties are spreading canards that refugees will have to show papers but this is absolutely false. You don't have to show any paper. We will not stop until all refugees are granted citizenship," Shah told the public.

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News Network
May 19,2020

New Delhi, May 19: In a fresh blow to saffronite journalist Arnab Goswami, the Supreme Court of India today rejected his plea seeking transfer of the investigation of a case, filed against him for defaming Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, to the CBI. The court also refused to quash the FIRs filed against him.

Goswami, editor-in-chief of Republic TV, has been booked in connection with a TV show on the gathering of migrants outside Bandra railway station on April 14. This apart, multiple FIRs have been filed against him for his show on Palghar lynching. In that show, he had posed certain questions on the incident to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, following which Congress workers lodged complaints against him in various states.

Extending Goswami’s interim protection from arrest by three weeks, the Supreme Court said, “Right of a journalist under 19 1 (a) higher…Free citizens can’t exist if news media can’t speak.”

During the earlier hearing, Senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Goswami, had urged the court to transfer the probe to an agency like CBI. He said the “nature of the” second FIR against Goswami over a show on the migrant gathering outside Bandra station on April 14 “shows that it’s arm-twisting tactic”. 

“They are trying to stifle an unpleasant voice. This is a political party targeting a journalist. All complainants are members of one political party. They have a problem with the government. They want to teach this journalist a lesson,” he added.

Objecting to Salve’s plea to transfer the case to the CBI, Maharashtra government counsel, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, had said, “CBI investigation will go into your hands”. 

Sibal denied that Goswami was being harassed and said he was only asked relevant questions. He said Goswami should “stop this communal violence and communal mongering”.

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