Acquitted man takes three dailies to court for calling him “terrorist”

[email protected] (The Hindu)
December 1, 2012

HAIDER_MAN_AL


Kanpur, December 1: Alleging that he was being labelled a “terrorist” in media reports despite having being acquitted after serving an eight-year jail sentence, a 40-year-old has filed writs against three Hindi dailies.

 

Kanpur-based Syed Wasif Haider, who was arrested in August 2001 on 12 charges, has filed writs against Dainik JagranHindustan Dainik and Amar Ujala, for “running his media trial even after his acquittal” and frequently referring him as an “atankhi.”

 

Mr. Haider was part of the recent delegation led by Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat that met President Pranab Mukherjee and handed over to him a memorandum outlining how Muslim youth were being targeted and persecuted in terrorism-related cases.

 

Mr. Haider was acquitted on August 12, 2009 after serving a sentence over charges of rioting, attacking a Provincial Armed Constabulary vehicle, murdering an additional district magistrate and involvement in the Swarup Nagar pressure-cooker explosion case.

 

According to Mr. Haider: “A December 9, 2010 report in Dainik Jagran [referred to me] as “atankhi Wasif,” in a story speculating the Kanpur connection of the 2010 Varanasi bomb attack. The report said the police were closely monitoring the normal lives of terrorists who had been released from jail, their phone records and sources of income. A similar report was published two days later.

 

“I was not booked under TADA or POTA, yet, even while I was under trial I was labelled an “atankhi.” Also, the special cell's charges of sedition were dismissed by the court even before they could be filed.

 

“So why is this media trial going on even when the court has acquitted me in all the cases?”

 

Mr. Haider's fight against the “irresponsible and prejudiced” media reporting during and after his trial has affected not only his economic standing but also his reputation. He and his family are now supported by his father and sister.

 

“After my release, I spent a good amount of time convincing people of my innocence. And, to some extent, people started trusting me again.

 

But with these reports, they have grown suspicious again and I have become a social outcaste. I have no job. Nobody wants to have any connection with me. My young daughter also gets taunted at school.”

 

Mr. Haider said the newspapers, to whom he sent legal notices in April regarding their reportage, were yet to respond. In September, he alleges, Amar Ujala published a story in which his father was referred to as a “Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist.”

 

“My father has won many awards in translating text. He is also a Sahitya Akademi award winner,” Mr. Haider said.

 

Mr. Haider's defamation case against Dainik Jagran is pending in the Allahabad High Court. The paper's Editor Sanjay Gupta said he was not aware of any such case or notice. The paper's legal advisor, B.K. Mishra, also said the management had received no such notice and it was the paper's prerogative whether or not to respond to any such notice.

 

The HR department of  Amar Ujala said it had received a notice from Mr. Haider but it could not confirm the content of the news reports as alleged by Mr. Haider.

 

On Tuesday, Mr. Haider filed a petition against Amar Ujala in the Supreme Court under Article 32.

 

Cases against Hindustan Dainik and Amar Ujala are pending with the Special Judicial Magistrate.

 

Hindustan Dainik was not available for comment.

 

Rihai Manch, a civil society group working for the release of innocent persons arrested in terror cases, said compensation and rehabilitation must be ensured to such innocent undertrials and proper enquiry called against police officers who wrongfully implicated such persons.

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Agencies
January 20,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 20: An American bride asked for money from her invitees so that they can be on the 'exclusive guest list'.

Weddings can be surely expensive. But is it feasible for one to charge the guests to make up for the expenses?

According to Fox News, that is exactly what happened in a recent American wedding. A 19-year-old shared on Reddit that her cousin was getting married on Sunday and announced that she would charge 50 dollars to those who wanted to attend her wedding.

"She said that they can Venmo her money so there won't be no [sic] problems and everyone who paid will be added onto the 'exclusive guest list' which basically means you won't have to wait in line while other guests pay," wrote the user named DaintySheep.

While she refused to pay for entry into her cousin's wedding the bride-to-be contacted the elders in the family which ended up in an embarrassing situation.

"She wanted to get the money she spent on her special day back. I told her I wouldn't be able to come because this was outrageous and that I wish her well on her special day. She contacted my aunt and my aunt called me cheap and rude. My parents offered to pay for my entry, but I refused," continued the disheartened girl.

While in almost every nook and cranny of the world gifting the bride-groom with money is a tradition, asking for money from friends and family to replenish the money spent on a wedding is can be said to be a rare scenario.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Cybersecurity researchers on Monday warned of a Trojan malware campaign which is targeting India's co-operative banks using COVID-19 as a bait.

Seqrite, the enterprise arm of IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies, detected the new wave of Adwind Java Remote Access Trojan (RAT) campaign.

Researchers at Seqrite warned that if attackers are successful, they can take over the victim's device to steal sensitive data like SWIFT logins and customer details and move laterally to launch large scale cyberattacks and financial frauds.

According to the researchers, the Java RAT campaign starts with a spear-phishing email which claims to have originated from either the Reserve Bank of India or a nationalised bank.

The content of the email refers to COVID-19 guidelines or a financial transaction, with detailed information in an attachment, which is a zip file containing a JAR based malware.

Upon further investigation, researchers at Seqrite found that the JAR based malware is a Remote Access Trojan that can run on any machine which has Java runtime enabled and hence it can impact a variety of endpoints, irrespective of their base operating system.

Once the RAT is installed, the attacker can take over the victim's device, send commands from a remote machine, and spread laterally in the network.

In addition, this malware can also log keystrokes, capture screenshots, download additional payloads, and extract sensitive user information, Seqrite said, adding that such attack campaigns can effectively jeopardise the privacy and security of sensitive data at the co-operative banks and result in large scale attacks and financial frauds.

To prevent such attacks, users need to exercise ample caution and avoid opening attachments and clicking on web links in unsolicited emails.

Banks should also keep their operating systems updated and have a full-fledged security solution installed on all the devices, Seqrite advised.

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Agencies
June 26,2020

Facebook will introduce a new notification screen on its platform that will warn users if the article they are about to share is over 90 days old, the company announced on Thursday.

“We’re starting to globally roll out a notification screen that will let people know when news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The social media platform had previously introduced a context button in 2018 that provides information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. Building upon that, the new feature will inform users about the timeliness of the article.

“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.

The social media giant stated that timeliness is important in understanding the context of an article and curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform.

“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labelling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.

Apart from this, the platform will also be testing a similar notification screen for information related to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The notification screen will provide information about the source of the link shared in a post if the link is related to information on Covid-19. It will also direct people to its previously introduced Covid-19 information centre for “authoritative” health information, it said.

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