'Our children are waiting to welcome him home. Their happiness was taken away. Can they forget their father? They are proud to say that Siddique Kappan, a journalist, is their father'
'What the UP administration wanted was political mileage, and they also had the silent approval from the central government.'
Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair was released from Tihar on Wednesday night, hours after being granted interim bail by the Supreme Court in all FIRs lodged in Uttar Pradesh against him for alleged hate speech, prison officials said.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the gruesome death of a Dalit teenager from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh.
"Unlike in UP, the governments of Punjab and Rajasthan are not denying that the girl was raped, threatening her family and blocking the course of justice. If they do, I will go there to fight for justice," he tweeted.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit directed Kappan to remain in Delhi for the next six weeks after the release from an Uttar Pradesh prison.
The mother of the two girls alleged that they were murdered and accused three youths from the neighbouring village in Nighasan police station limits of abducting and killing them.
People pelted stones at police personnel in Prayagraj and Saharanpur as people took to rowdiness during their protests after Friday prayers.
The Uttar Pradesh police had arrested Kappan along with three others, claiming they had links with the Popular Front of India and its affiliate in Mathura.
A 50-year-old man was allegedly shot dead in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district by an accused out on bail in a case of molestation lodged in 2018 against the victim's daughter, police said.
'Our senselessness on caste issue has gone so deep that we need to have a sensitivity test on why we as Indians have become so numb to such mindless violence.'
The persons nabbed have been identified as Perwez Ahmed, Mohd Ilias and Abdul Muqeet (arrested from Delhi) and Shafeeque Payeth who was taken into custody by the ED from Kerala.
In Kanpur, that witnessed stone pelting and violence on June 3, people from the Muslim community participated in the prayers in all major mosques while the police personnel remained on alert.
Kappan was arrested on October 5, 2020 while he was on his way to Hathras, home to the 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men on September 14.
Zubair through his counsel submitted that this is an age of social media where news travels faster than lightning and the job of someone who is debunking false information may draw the ire of others but "the law cannot be weaponisd against him.
Banerjee said she would stand by the Dalit community till the end as her caste is "humanity" and she does not believe in differentiation on the grounds of caste and religion.
Kerala-based journalist Siddique Kappan, who was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court, will continue to remain in a jail in Lucknow as a case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate against him is still pending, officials of the prison department said.
Nineteen people have been killed in rain-related incidents in Uttar Pradesh in the past 24 hours, the state relief commissioner's office said Monday evening.
The raids, as per official sources, began at 3:30 am and involved as many as 300 NIA officials from across its various offices.
Officials said PFI has been under the radar of security agencies for its alleged role in violent protests in different parts of the country.
According to a National Crime Records Bureau report, a total of 356 cases of sedition -- as defined under section 124A of the IPC -- were registered and 548 people arrested between 2015 and 2020, out of which only six were convicted.
The Uttar Pradesh government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that "shocking findings" have emerged in the investigation so far in the case in which Kerala-based scribe Sidhique Kappan was arrested on his way to Hathras, where a young Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped, in October.
'The advocate tells me not to worry as truth will prevail one day.' 'I don't know... I am losing all hope...'
UP accounted for 14.7 per cent of all registered crimes against women in 2019. The state also recorded the highest number of cases against Dalit women.
People pelted stones at police personnel in Prayagraj and Saharanpur and protests broke out after Friday prayers in at least four other cities in Uttar Pradesh over a non-suspended BJP leader's recent remarks on Prophet Muhammad.
'It is not the chief minister who would have rung up and told the local police station to botch up the case.' 'No chief minister or chief secretary or DGP would like a case like this happening in their state.'
A week after violence erupted in Uttar Pradesh over the remarks on Prophet Muhammad by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, no untoward incident took place following the Friday prayers, an official said in Lucknow.
'In the last five years of UP government, the UP police were given a fair environment and the rule of law always remained supreme.' 'In these five years, nobody within BJP dared tell a police officer to act against the rule of law.'
The post-mortem reports of the two Dalit minor sisters who were found hanging from a tree in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri district confirmed that they were raped and strangulated, the police said on Thursday.
'The arrest of Kappan, the charge sheet and the way he is being treated show that they view journalism as a criminal activity.'
The incident comes close on the heels of some slaughter houses being sealed in Uttar Pradesh after the Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Yogi Adityanath was sworn in.
'So why didn't the police make it very clear that this is the line of investigation, this is what we are doing.' 'Nobody knows what kind of report was done.' 'Was she checked for (sexual assault)?'
The Supreme Court on Friday said it will allow journalist Siddique Kappan, who was detained on October 5 while he was en route to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, to talk to his ailing mother via video conferencing.
Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking the quashing of six FIR lodged against him in several districts of Uttar Pradesh.
Suspended Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma, in the eye of a storm over her remarks against Prophet Muhammad, Monday sought time to appear before the Maharashtra police to record her statement, while more than 300 people have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh in a crackdown on protesters who indulged in violence after the Friday prayers on June 10.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Alt News Co-founder Mohammad Zubair in all first information reports (FIRs) lodged in Uttar Pradesh against him concerning his alleged derogatory tweets.
'How long can you keep a person in jail using false cases?'
A class 9 student was allegedly raped on April 4 in Hanskhali in West Bengal's Nadia district during a birthday party at the house of the prime accused, a local Trinamool Congress leader's son.
Noting that the young girl belonged to a Dalit migrant family from Bihar, Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman also took a swipe at Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, questioning if he had asked Rahul Gandhi about the issue while holding a joint poll campaign with him in the state.
'Just think of this innocent man who had to suffer so much.' 'Who will compensate for the physical and mental torture Kappan had to go through in the last two years though he has not done any crime?'
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