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From courts to politicians, bulldozer under attack in Assam, Tripura

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Besides other parts of the country, the BJP’s bulldozer politics has also drawn severe criticism both from the political spectrum and the courts in the northeastern states specially in Assam and Tripura.

During his recent three-day (May 8-10) visit to Assam, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that 10,700 bighas encroached upon by infiltrators have been freed.

The Assam government has also cleared over 3,800 hectares of forest land of encroachments during the past few years.

Before Assam’s BJP led government’s eviction drive, the saffron party led Tripura government after coming to power in March 2018 bulldozed a large number of opposition party offices across Tripura.

The Assam government had last year undertaken eviction drives in different districts to free government land encroached by hundreds of people for years. Various opposition parties including the Congress had criticised the BJP government for evicting the people without making alternate settlements.

In one of the violent eviction drive, two persons, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed while 20 others were injured after a mob clashed with the police in Darrang district on September 23 last year.

A video of the clashes, which went viral, also showed a photographer engaged by the Darrang district administration stomping on the body of a man shot by the police.

The eviction drive was launched by the police and the district administration to vacate 4,500 bighas (602.40 hectares) of government land, allegedly encroached upon by several hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslim families in Darrang district.

Hearing a public interest litigation filed by Debabrata Saikia, Leader of Opposition in the Assam Assembly, the division bench of the Gauhati High Court headed by the then Chief Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia (who was recently elevated to the Supreme Court) had termed the Darrang district incident as “a big tragedy and very unfortunate” and directed the state government to file a detailed affidavit in the matter.

“This was a big tragedy, very unfortunate. Those who are guilty, if at all, must be punished, no doubt about that. Khoon zameen par gir gaya (blood has been spilt),” the Chief Justice had remarked.

The court wanted to know whether the National Rehabilitation Policy is applicable in Assam, and directed the state government to file a detailed affidavit in the entire matter within three weeks.

The Assam government had ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident.

Assam government officials said that around 800 families of Bengali-speaking Muslims were unlawfully occupying about 4,500 bighas (602.40 hectares) of government land for many years and the government recently decided to use the land for agricultural purposes by removing the settlers.

Besides various opposition parties including the Congress and the Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), the All Minority Organisations Coordination Committee, which includes the All Assam Minority Students Union and the Jamiat-e-Ulema, among others, had organised a series of agitations against the eviction drive.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier claimed that the Popular Front of India (PFI) was involved in the Darrang violence.

Besides Sarma, other BJP leaders accused the migrant Muslims of encroaching upon a huge area in Assam.

Muslims comprise 34.22 per cent of the 3.12 crore population of Assam, of which 4 per cent are indigenous Assamese Muslims and the remaining are mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Muslim votes are the determining factor in at least 30 to 35 seats out of Assam’s total 126 Assembly seats.

Of Assam’s 34 districts, 19 districts have 12 per cent or more Muslim population, and in six districts (out of these 19 districts), the Muslim population constitutes 50 per cent or more.

In Tripura, after the BJP government wrested power from the Left parties defeating the CPI-M led Left Front, it bulldozed 185 CPI-M party and Left trade union offices across the state alleging that all these party offices were set up on government land.

The BJP government had also demolished eight Congress party offices in different districts.

CPI-M central committee member Jitendra Chaudhury said that BJP governments across the country tried to enforce one party rule.

“The BJP not only bulldozed the physical structures of the opposition parties, they also bulldozing the society, mindset of the people, communal harmony and the democratic structures of the country. They are not maintaining the demarcation between the party and the government,” Chaudhury told IANS.

Supporting the BJP government’s stand and action, the party’s Rajya Sabha member Manik Saha said that the government has been doing its work as per the law.

“If any party or individual occupying the government lands and properties, these should be vacated by the law enforcing agencies. A few of our party offices were also removed in Tripura,” Saha, who is also the president of the BJP Tripura unit, told IANS.

After coming to power in the politically important Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC), the civic body led by Dipak Majumder evicted many hawkers from shops in the capital city.

Almost all opposition parties and civil society activists criticized the AMC’s action.

They argued that without making alternate arrangements and rehabilitation of the hawkers, the authority should not do this unilaterally.

Crime

Mumbai: Four year old child kidnapped and killed, identified as kidnapped

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Mumbai: Mumbai Police has claimed to have arrested 25-year-old Akshay Ashok Garud for the kidnapping and murder of a four-year-old child in Mumbai. An acquaintance named Garud first kidnapped a 4-year-old child under the limits of Kandivali police station in Mumbai and then killed the kidnapped child.

A complaint was lodged with the Kandivali police on March 22 in this case. To search for the child, the police had formed 6 teams under the supervision of DCP Anand Bhuite. They examined 150 to 200 CCTV footage of Kandivali, Borivali, Malad, Andheri, Santacruz, Virar and Surat city. In this, clues were found about the accused and the absconding accused was hiding in Surat. After this, the police team arrested him from Surat, Gujarat.

This action was taken on the instructions of Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, Additional Police Commissioner of North Zone Abhishek Trimukhe, ACP Neeta Padvi, Senior Inspector Ravinder Adane. The incident was carried out under the leadership of the police and the accused has been arrested. Mumbai Police has started further investigation into the matter.

The kidnapping and murder of a four-year-old child in Mumbai has created a sensation. The child was kidnapped at night when his parents were resting. In this case, the police have registered a case of murder and kidnapping and arrested the accused. He is being questioned as to why he killed the child after kidnapping him.

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Crime

RG Kar case: Psychologist’s statements likely to give CBI vital clues

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Kolkata, March 26: The statement of a renowed psychologist whom the R.G. Kar rape and murder victim tragedy contacted for counselling a couple of months before the ghastly tragedy in August last year can now turn crucial in the course of investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The said counsellor voluntarily came forward to contact the family and the victim’s close associates. He has narrated some details of what the victim woman doctor confided when she went for a counselling session a couple of months before her body was recovered from the seminar hall within the hospital premises on the morning of August 9 last year.

The counsellor had told these stakeholders that the victim came for counselling with complaints of psychological fatigue resulting from sleep deprivation because of “sustained and prolonged duty hours” allotted to her.

As claimed by the counsellor, the victim also confided to her that the “sustained and prolonged duty hours” were deliberately allotted to her since she started protesting against mismanagement and irregularities on the part of a section of her seniors.

The concerned counsellor has also promised the victim’s parents that, given any opportunity, he would narrate his findings during the counselling sessions with the victim at any court where the matter is pending.

Sources aware of the development said the statements of the counsellor, if recorded, will be an important tool for the investigating officials of CBI in carrying forward the next lines of investigation in the matter, which is basically about the angle of evidence tampering and alteration during the initial phase of investigation.

However, Calcutta High Court’s single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh, where a fresh hearing in the matter has started this week, had already directed the CBI to clarify to the court whether the tragedy was a case of “rape or “gang-rape”.

The next hearing in the matter at Justice Ghosh’s bench is scheduled for March 28. The CBI had also been directed by Justice Ghosh to submit the case diary in the matter to his court on that day.

The Calcutta High Court’s “rape or gang-rape” observation has encouraged different bodies of the medical fraternity in the state to start a fresh stir on this issue in the coming days.

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Crime

Disha Salian case: Fresh FIR names Aaditya Thackeray, Rhea Chakraborty, Dino Morea

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Mumbai, March 25: An FIR has been filed against Shiv Sena(UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, Rhea Chakraborty, Dino Morea, Suraj Pancholi and others in Disha Salian’s death case, her father’s advocate said on Tuesday.

Satish Salian’s advocate Nilesh Ojha filed a fresh FIR in her death case. Ojha said that a written complaint has been filed with the police commissioner. In the FIR, the names of Aaditya Thackeray, Dino Morea and Suraj Pancholi have been mentioned.

According to Ojha, a written complaint to the police commissioner’s office was accepted by the joint commissioner of police (crime). The complaint is incorporated in the FIR. He further stated, “Aaditya Thackeray, Dino Morea, Suraj Pancholi and his bodyguard, Parambir Singh, Sachin Vaze and Rhea Chakraborty are all accused in the FIR.”

He claimed that Parambir Singh was the main mastermind for the coverup in the case. Ojha said, “Parambir Singh held a press conference and fabricated lies to save Aaditya Thackeray. NCB’s probe proves that Aaditya Thackeray was involved in a drug business and it has been also mentioned in the FIR.”

Ojha said that former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and his associates hatched a conspiracy to suppress this serious crime. Some senior police officers were also involved in the conspiracy as they misused police and government machinery, created false police records, suppressed witnesses and tried to hide criminal evidence.

“It is my sincere request that all these acts should be immediately prosecuted under sections 376(D), 302, 409, 120(B), 107, 109, 166, 167 and other applicable sections of the IPC and strict action be taken against the accused,” said Ojha.

The move comes after Satish Salian recently filed a petition in the high court seeking a CBI probe into his daughter’s death. He had claimed that Disha was raped and murdered and he has named Aaditya Thackeray in the petition.

Disha Salian, who was a former manager of the late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, died on June 8, 2020, after allegedly falling from the 14th floor of a highrise building in Mumbai. At the time, the Mumbai Police registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR). Six days later, Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Bandra residence. While the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the actor’s death probe, an SIT (Special Investigation Team) was constituted by the Maharashtra government in 2023 to investigate Disha’s death.

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