'Several senior police personnel are privately feeling saddened at the failure of the Delhi Police to stop the communal violence that took place between 23 and 26 February in northeast Delhi and the beating the force's image has taken as a consequence. The Quint spoke to a few such officers to get the insider’s knowledge of why the police acted the way they did during the violence-hit days... “If the SHO, ACP or DCP did not have enough manpower, why didn’t they ask for extra force? It would have hardly taken any time for additional force to reach the violence-hit area.
'...On the night of February 25, the mob that attacked her family had not only come armed with sticks and rods but also with acid that left her 52-year-old husband, Mohammad Wakeel, with severe burns on the face and body. “We were on the terrace as stones were being pelted from the streets. Our house was also set on fire. There was so much smoke that we could not see when acid was thrown at us,” said Mumtaz...'
'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.
'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...'
'A dowry harassment case has been filed against Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal by his wife Priya in Bengaluru’s Koramangala police station. Four persons have been named in the FIR registered - Sachin Bansal, his father Satprakash Aggarwal, mother Kiran Bansal and brother Nitin Bansal... Priya, a dentist by profession, alleges that Sachin physically assaulted her and demanded money. In October last year, Sachin allegedly physically assaulted her after demanding that the properties they owned jointly must be signed over to him.
