Malappuram, Feb 11: The under 50-women duo, who entered Sabarimala on January 2- Kanakadurga and Bindu on Monday accused BJP of instigating their kith and kin to revolt against them.
Speaking to media here, they said that attempts are being made to isolate Kanakadurga from her family. There was no issue in the family till she entered the shrine.
BJP is behind mending Kanakadurgas' brother to speak against her in public, they alleged.
New Delhi, Mar 2: As communal violence spiked in north-east Delhi earlier this week, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh residents of a colony came together and stood guard against frenzied mobs which ran riot in nearby areas vandalising homes, shops and torching cars.
They have not let their guard down even as the situation is limping back to normalcy following four days of violence that has claimed at least 42 lives and left over 200 injured.
The B-Block colony in Yamuna Vihar has a Hindu-dominated Bahjanpura on one side and Muslim populated Ghonda on the other.
People from all faiths in the locality sit outside their homes at night and deal with any suspected outsider, Arib, a dentist in his 30s, said.
"It is the sloganeering by mobs that causes panic in the dead of night. Such slogans are from both sides and we hear groups of people moving forward towards our area.
"This is where we let the Muslim locals deal with Muslim groups and Hindu residents deal with Hindu groups coming from outside," he said.
Businessmen, doctors and people working at government offices stuck together as violence reached its crest on Monday and Tuesday, and have been guarding the locality round the clock.
Earlier, the locals had claimed inadequate police deployment in the area, but were satisfied as patrolling by security personnel increased in the last two days.
Charanjeet Singh, a Sikh who owns a transport firm, said residents have ensured that not too many people gather to guard the colony at night. It has been decided not use sticks or rods, an idea which seems to have worked in maintaining peace, he said.
"I was 10 years old when we came to this locality from Uttar Pradesh's Meerut in 1982. There were riots in 1984 and tension in 2002, but even then our area remained peaceful. We have always been united and that is the way we have helped each other," Singh, who is now in his 50s, told PTI.
Faisal, a businessman in his 30s, said after two days of major violence, there was palpable tension in the area. "Nobody could sleep in the neighbourhood even on Wednesday and Thursday when the situation was brought under control," he said.
Faisal said around 4 am on Wednesday, three to four miscreants had torched a car, but were chased away by vigilant residents. They raised an alarm and others gathered, saving other vehicles parked nearby from being damaged, he added.
On the idea of not keeping sticks while guarding B-Block, Singh said, "Violence begets violence, crowd begets crowd. We thought if somebody would see sticks or rods in our hands from a distance and large crowds standing guard, it is likely they would want to come prepared. This could fuel violence."
"Now, if there is some young man returning late in the night, we identify if he belongs to our area. If not, we normally inform him about the situation and guide him to his destination, if required," he added.
Seventy-year-old V K Sharma said people in his colony never had any trouble with each other, as he blamed "outside elements" for the violence in north-east Delhi.
"Some people have some problem with symbols. If they find a particular religion's symbol on a shop, home or a car, they vandalise it.
"This is on both sides, Hindus as well as Muslims. But not all people in all religion are like that. There are good people who outnumber these handful people involved in violence," he said.
The violence happened for two days but it would take months for fear to subside, Sharma said, as he took out his two granddaughters, aged nine and two, out for ice cream.
"I cannot reduce the tension outside my home, but at least I can make these kids feel good by reducing their craving for ice cream,” he added.
Colony resident Shiv Kumar, a property consultant, and Wasim, a government official, said they too were members of this voluntary guards' team of the colony which stays up at night to fend off miscreants.
Mumbai, Apr 4: As many as six Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel stationed at Mumbai airport in Maharashtra have tested positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of positive cases among the central force to 11. The first case of a CISF jawan being diagnosed with the viral disease was reported on March 28.
After the first case, the armed police force reported four more cases of COVID-19 among the personnel stationed at the airport on Thursday. On the same day, the CISF collected samples of 146 staff and sent them to Kasturba hospital for testing. The results, which arrived on Friday, recorded six more COVID-19 cases among, reported news agency.
The personnel were posted at Kharghar adjoining Mumbai, a senior official told news agency.
As of now, there are 14 COVID-19 cases in Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) area in Mumbai. Kharghar comes under the civic body's jurisdiction.
All the 146 CISF personnel were shifted to a quarantine centre at a facility at Kamothe reported the Times of India.
Maharashtra reported 67 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally to 490. A total of 26 deaths have been reported in the state.
In the meantime, the Centre on Friday said there is no shortage of medical supplies across the country to fight COVID-19 outbreak.
"The government of India is making sure that all the essential medical supplies are in place to fight COVID-19. Sixty-two lifeline Udan flights transported over 15.4 tons of essential medical supplies in the last five days," Union Minister for Chemical and Fertilisers DV Sadanada Gowda said in a tweet.
The government is also paying full attention to the manufacturing activities of essential items like pharmaceuticals and hospital devices. For this, over 200 units in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are operational, he added.
"A Central Control Room has also been set up for close monitoring of the distribution of essential medical items and to address logistic related issues," Gowda said.
New Delhi, Apr 24: The Central government said on Wednesday that the number of COVID-19 cases in the country is now doubling in every 10 days, adding that had the lockdown not been imposed on time, the number of cases would have sky-rocketed to over one lakh by now.
"Had we not taken the decision to impose nationwide lockdown, we would have had around one lakh COVID-19 cases by now. This is a reasonable estimate," said Niti Aayog member V.K. Paul.
Paul, who is also the Chairman of the government's Empowered Committee- 1, said the "cases are now doubling in every 10 days."
"As on March 21, our doubling time of cases was three days. Results started showing on March 23, due to travel restrictions imposed earlier. On April 6, further slowing of doubling rate became visible, thanks to the nationwide lockdown," he added.
He further added that the decision to impose the lockdown was timely and asserted that the curve has begun to flatten.
"Nationwide lockdown helped take us away from the exponential growth curve and thereby contain the growth of COVID-19 cases," he said.
Paul further added that surveillance has been a great strength in containing the spread of the virus.
"Besides containing the spread, augmenting testing and improving preparedness, the nation has brought about a massive behavioural change through a ‘Jan Andolan' (mass movement)," he said.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases in the country has crossed the 23,000-mark, with 718 deaths. Globally, the number of cases has crossed 2.7 million while the death toll has mounted to 1.9 lakh.
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