'A witness in a rape case against spiritual guru Asaram Bapu was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar on Sunday. Police said Akhil Gupta, 35, was shot by unknown persons on his way home. He is the second witness to be killed in the case after Amrut Prajapati, a former Asaram aide who was shot dead in June last year in Gujarat. Mr Gupta was a cook and personal aide of Asaram Bapu, who has been in jail since August, 2013, for allegedly sexually assaulting a schoolgirl. Since then, he has been booked, along with his son, for the alleged rape of two sisters in Surat in Gujarat.
"Sakshi Maharaj, the self-proclaimed godman and Bharatiya Janata Party politician, has been grabbing the headlines ever since he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao constituency. In the eight months since the election, he has claimed that madrasas teach students terrorism and "love jihad", called Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse a patriot, asked Hindu women to protect their religion by producing at least four children and declared that cow slaughter and conversion to Islam and Christianity would soon be punishable by death.
"A day after Dr Jitender Phogat (38), an eye surgeon at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) here, was assaulted by activists of radical organisations after he objected to their venomous speech against the Muslim community, the police failed to lodge first-information report (FIR) in the case on Friday. Phogat, who had gone to Power House Chowk on Thursday when Bajrang Dal and other right wing organisations were staging a public protest against the screening of the Aamir Khan-starrer 'PK', had submitted a written complaint at the PGIMS police station.
"The protest against Aamir Khan-starrer PK reached the national capital on Tuesday with members of the Bajrang Dal and Hindu Sena vandalising a theatre screening the Rajkumar Hirani flick in central Delhi. On Monday, the right-wing groups intensified their protest against PK in Ahmedabad and Bhopal, demanding a ban on the film which has generated controversy for its portrayal of godmen and their misuse of religion for personal gain. In Ahmedabad, Bajrang Dal activists protested against the film outside a theatre where it was being screened.
"In an escalation of protests against Aamir Khan blockbuster PK, Bajrang Dal activists on Monday vandalised theatres in the western Indian state Gujarat exhibiting the film for making "fun" of Hindu Gods and godmen and warned that its screening be stopped. Besides Gujarat, the right wing activists also staged protests in Agra and Mau in Uttar Pradesh and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and tore posters of the film. There were reports that one theatre in south Mumbai's Parel had stopped screening of the film.
"On camera, a group of activists carrying BJP flags are seen rushing into a popular coffee shop in Kerala's Kozhikode and smashing its windows and furniture. The police have registered a case against the attackers, who claim to be members of the BJP's youth wing. The shop has been badly damaged in the attack on Thursday evening. The police say it is a case of moral policing; the shop, Downtown, used to stay open till late and was a popular haunt for young men and women, especially students from the Indian Institute of Management and the National Institute of Technology.
'A 31-year-old employee of a digital media company was abused and assaulted on Friday because his girlfriend, a South African, did not rise to her feet when the national anthem was piped from speakers at PVR Phoenix in Lower Parel. The young man, Mahek Vyas, and his partner, Nicole Sobotker, were at the theatre to watch the 10.50 pm show of Michael Cuesta's Kill the Messenger when the incident occurred...
"In a suspected case of hate crime, Bengaluru police arrested three men on Wednesday who reportedly assaulted a Manipuri student with rocks for not speaking the local language. T Michael Lamjathang Haokip was attacked a little after midnight in a part of the city mostly inhabited by migrants, particularly students from the northeast states and Africa. The 26-year-old received wounds to his head and back but doctors said he was out of danger.
"At his maiden UN General Assembly address in New York on September 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi loftily referred to the Indian ideal of “vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world is one family)”. Yet in New Delhi, the very next day, three African students were mercilessly attacked at a metro station. Video clips of the deplorable incident reveal the ugly, racist face of Delhi, and by extension, an attitude that prevails in most of India. This is not the first time that residents of African origin have been targeted.
"...Then the pushing and shoving begins. A barrage of abuses follow. Why? Probably because of Rajdeep's tweet about an influential person staying in the same hotel as Narendra Modi's. The mob called him by names and hurled the choicest of words towards him. When I tried to shield the fellow journalist, I realised, that I became a target as well. This went on for good 10-15 minutes. The NYPD was right there, but won't blame them for not knowing what was going on in the middle of that crowd of 50 odd people.
