'The Modi government on Friday banned two Malayalam news channels – Asianet News and Media One – for 48 hours starting 7.30 pm today for their coverage on the violence in North East Delhi. An order issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the coverage of Asianet News was done in a manner which “highlighted the attack on places of worship and siding towards a particular community”.
'Calling suspended AAP councillor, Tahir Hussain a "terrorist", BJP MLA Sangeet Som has said that people like Hussain "should be shot dead publicly". "Aise log (Tahir Hussain) aatankwadi hai, aise logon ko chaurahe par khada karke goli maar deni chahiye (Tahir Hussain is a terrorist. He should be made to stand on a crossing and shot dead)," Som told reporters on Thursday...'
'About 20 kilometers east from Delhi’s border with Uttar Pradesh lies Dasna, a small town in Ghaziabad. Muslims are a majority in Dasna but it is also home to one of the shrillest voices in the Hindutva ecosystem - Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati. The chief priest of Devi Mandir at Dasna, Narsinghanand is also the leader of a Hindutva organisation called Hindu Swabhiman and president of the Akhil Bharatiya Sant Parishad... On number of occasions, his name has come up in connection with raising the communal tensions in western Uttar Pradesh, including the areas adjoining Delhi.
'A tweet by Tulsi Gabbard, the only woman remaining in the US presidential race, about experiencing “Hinduphobia” in the US has added fuel to escalating communal tensions in India. “Unfortunately, Hinduphobia is very real,” Gabbard wrote, “I've experienced it directly in each of my campaigns for Congress & in this presidential race."...'
'On February 27, Hindu nationalist blog OpIndia published a “ground report” on the riots in North East Delhi, claiming that a temple was “forcibly occupied” and “attacked” by “frenzied Islamist fundamentalists”. The article was shared by BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya, and retweeted by the Twitter handle of BJP Assam. R Jagannathan, the editorial director of Swarajya, also retweeted the piece. Newslaundry hit the ground to verify the claims made in the report, and they turned out to be false...'
'On the afternoon of February 24, as communal violence roiled North East Delhi, three men stepped out of their homes. One wanted to look for his child. The others, his long-time neighbours, decided to accompany him in the search.
'Seven Congress MPs have been suspended from the rest of the budget session for the ruckus created in parliament for the last three days over a discussion on last week's violence in Delhi. The Speaker has also accepted the government's call to form a committee and examine their conduct for possible disqualification, sources said... Calling it "revenge politics", Congress's leader of the house Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the party will "not let up". "This is a government decision, not decision by Speaker. What kind of dictatorship is this?" said Mr Chowdhury.
'The Uttar Pradesh police on Thursday arrested two persons for thrashing two youths and spreading a 'false' story of cow slaughter in Bulandhshar. The arrests followed the wide circulation of a video showing the two youths being hit with sticks by a group of at least six persons in Sikandrabad area on March 2. The two had claimed that while assaulting them, the assaulters accused them of cow slaughter and hurled communal abuses at them while referring to the Delhi violence...'
'Justice S Muralidhar, whose transfer to the Punjab and Haryana High Court triggered criticism of the government last month, was on Thursday given a grand farewell by the Delhi High Court Bar Association. The judge was described as the “Kohinoor” of the Delhi High Court, reported Bar and Bench. He had been at the Delhi High Court since 2006. On February 12, the Supreme Court collegium had recommended the transfer of Muralidhar to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Muralidhar was the third senior most judge in the Delhi High Court.
'The smile never went off Nishant Kumar’s face. Only his voice quivered with excitement as he spoke, animatedly with hand gestures, about murdering three Muslim men on February 25. It was an act of “retaliation”, he insisted. The previous afternoon – Kumar is certain it was exactly 1 pm – he claimed to have witnessed a “Mohammadan” mob burn down vehicles in the Yamuna Vihar service lane that runs parallel to the Wazirabad-Loni road in North East Delhi. He was at the Bhajanpura petrol pump, fuelling up one of his lorries. He owns two of them...
