ON August 8, 2020, ten Muslim women from Subhash Mohalla in Delhi went to the Bhajanpura police station to make the police register a first information report on their complaint that some men had tried to foment communal tension in their locality on August 5.
Two of the women and a 16-year-old girl, who went inside the police station, later alleged that the officers had manhandled and molested them. The officers denied the allegations.
Two journalists, Shahid Tantray of Caravan magazine and freelancer Prabhjit Singh, who visited the police station, said something had happened to the girl. “She was in shock,” said Tantray. “In the morning we spoke to her and filed a story about the molestation and assault.”
Killings, attacks and intimidation: Journalism under fire across borders
Illustration: Noor Us Safa Anik
For the first time, media organisations in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal are coming together to report about the killings, attacks, harassment, and intimidation of journalists in these South Asian countries. It is the first such collaboration by media outlets in the region.
By Nirmal Jovial
On the evening of August 8, 2020, ten women from Subhash Mohalla in North East Delhi proceeded to the Bhajanpura police station to make the police register a first information report on a complaint they had made two days before. The complaint was that some men had tried to foment communal tension in their locality. The complainants said the men had abused Muslims, tied saffron flags near a mosque and burst crackers in celebration of a ceremony for the construction of a temple at faraway Ayodhya on August 5.
Representative image
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has ruled that an undertrial prisoner’s right to life does not diminish even a wee bit when in jail as an accused for an offence and said such a person’s health concerns have to be taken care of by the state and, if not done so, by the judiciary.
This ruling was handed down by a bench of CJI N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and A S Bopanna directing the Uttar Pradesh government to shift arrested journalist Siddique Kappan to a government hospital in Delhi. The UP government had opposed the move tooth and nail saying admitting Kappan to any of Delhi’s hospitals, all of which are overflowing with Covid patients, would result in denying facilities to a critical Covid patient.
: Saturday, May 1, 2021, 4:53 PM IST
India cuts a sorry figure in the run-up to the World Press Freedom Day on May 3, writes Anil Singh
Among those booked in recent years under the draconian UAPA and left to rot in jail include civil rights activists, lawyers and academicians in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, students arrested in the anti-CAA protests, human rights defenders, RTI activists and even an 83-year-old Jesuit priest, Stan Swamy.
India has been famously described as a land where many centuries co-exist but now, it is also one where many versions of the truth co-exist; somewhat like the six blind men discovering an elephant.
AGRA: Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan was on Friday taken to AIIMS, Delhi from UP’s Mathura jail, two days after the Supreme Court directed the Uttar Pradesh government to transfer him to a better health facility in the national capital.
Senior superintendent of Mathura jail, Shailendra Maitrey, said, “Kappan was taken to AIIMS in an ambulance on Friday morning. A jail doctor and deputy jailor were also with him.”
On Wednesday, the apex court had directed the state government to shift Kappan to Delhi for treatment after his medical reports revealed that he had multiple health issues like diabetes, heart ailment, blood pressure, and bodily injury.