What’s being ‘fortunate’ or ‘unfortunate’?
Usually words such as loss, tragic or unfortunate are used to express feelings when accidents or mishaps or natural disasters occur. May be even to describe when hundreds of people die in a train or bus accidents or something. But if the leaders of the nation use such words, it indicates things that happened were due to evil forces or something similar. Can a leader escape his responsibility by using that word?
Finally, and thankfully so, the PM has broken his silence on incidents of lynch mobs having claimed lives of 12 people in the country. All he has said is ‘it’s unfortunate’. Whose bad fortune was that? Of the PM, or the nation or that of the dead ones? He hasn’t made that clear in his speech.
Instead of speaking strongly against those people in lynch mobs who incited the hatred and caused the deaths, he has spoken against political parties that have been criticizing such incidents and blaming the government for it. He has called the political parties vested interests for wanting action against lynch mobs. And there is a reason and a pattern to his response. Instead of issuing a stern warning to attackers, he has ridiculed the parties that have spoken against this.
One does not understand whether mob violence increases owing to fortune or misfortune. But when the law implementation is done effectively, and the agencies work with due diligence, instances of crime and violence comes down.
When the whole system is weak, the unruly mobs go on a rampage. The police department works according to the stance government adopts against particular issues. Because, after all, the police department is part of the government itself!
Ever since Modi govt came to power, the rate of crime has increased in the country. UP government would soon be issuing lynch mobs an Id card and circumvent the democratic ideals the governments should work on. When this happens, how does one assume the incidents are merely ‘unfortunate’?
One can understand the govt pandering to these mobs, when you see how many members of the mobs have been arrested or being acted against. And this will explain why the incidents are on a rise in India. Who are they who get violent in groups? Are they common people who turn into flash mobs and get violent at the spur of the moment?
The PM surely knows they are not commoners. One clearly knows the party that brings pressure to let off the violent group member when they are arrested by cops. Cops killed a cow trader in Udupi and threw his body in a tribal settlement. Then they pretended to trace the body and said he had died of heart attack. After there was a widespread demand to investigate the death, the accused people and cops were held. The local goons who belong to Sangh Parivar were main accused in the case. Immediately after they were held, BJP MP and leader Shobha Karandlaje took to streets demanding for the release of these Sangh Parivar members. Does this not indicate that the mobs and party politics are hand in glove?
On one hand Modi says these lynch mobs are unfortunate. On the other, their own party members are defending these crimes. Who should be trusted? Another incident occurred in Jharkhand some time ago. People beat up a cow trader and cops arrested them. Eventually the culprits were released on bail and Union minister Jayant Sinha accorded them honour by garlanding them. One cannot dismiss this as ‘unfortunate’ and maintain silence. This is an encouragement to those who lynch. The minister should have been criticized or at least told some words of advice to not engage with such elements.
The word ‘unfortunate’ should have been used against incidents such as this one. But the PM chose not to speak at that time. Many instances are such that even cops are hand in glove with the culprits. The government has sponsored such acts by being party to it in some sense. Since BJP is the beneficiary of this violence, the country is indeed going through an unfortunate time.
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US SC rejects 26/11 attack accused Tahawwur Rana’s plea seeking stay on his extradition to India
New York, Apr 7 (PTI): The US Supreme Court has rejected 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Rana's appeal seeking a stay on his extradition to India, moving him closer to being handed over to Indian authorities to face justice.
Rana, 64, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention centre in Los Angeles.
He is known to be associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks. Headley conducted a recce of Mumbai before the attacks by posing as an employee of Rana’s immigration consultancy.
Rana had submitted an ‘Emergency Application For Stay Pending Litigation of Petition For Writ of Habeas Corpus' on February 27, 2025, with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit Elena Kagan.
Kagan had denied the application earlier last month.
Rana had then renewed his ‘Emergency Application for Stay Pending Litigation of Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus previously addressed to Justice Kagan’, and requested that the renewed application be directed to US Chief Justice John Roberts.
An order on the Supreme Court website noted that Rana's renewed application had been “distributed for Conference” on April 4 and the “application” has been “referred to the Court.”
A notice on the Supreme Court website Monday said that “Application denied by the Court.”
Rana was convicted in the US of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist plot in Denmark and one count of providing material support to Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Taiba which was responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
New York-based Indian-American attorney Ravi Batra had told PTI that Rana had made his application to the Supreme Court to prevent extradition, which Justice Kagan denied on March 6. The application was then submitted before Roberts, “who has shared it with the Court to conference so as to harness the entire Court’s view.”
The Supreme Court justices are Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his emergency application, Rana had sought a stay of his extradition and surrender to India pending litigation (including exhaustion of all appeals) on the merits of his February 13.
In that petition, Rana argued that his extradition to India violates US law and the UN Convention Against Torture "because there are substantial grounds for believing that, if extradited to India, the petitioner will be in danger of being subjected to torture."
"The likelihood of torture in this case is even higher though as petitioner faces acute risk as a Muslim of Pakistani origin charged in the Mumbai attacks,” the application said.
The application also said that his “severe medical conditions” render extradition to Indian detention facilities a “de facto" death sentence in this case.
The US Supreme Court denied Rana's petition for a writ of certiorari relating to his original habeas petition on January 21. The application notes that on that same day, newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington on February 12 to meet with Trump, Rana’s counsel received a letter from the Department of State, stating that “on February 11, 2025, the Secretary of State decided to authorise” Rana’s "surrender to India,” pursuant to the “Extradition Treaty between the United States and India”.
Rana’s Counsel requested from the State Department the complete administrative record on which Secretary Rubio based his decision to authorize Rana’s surrender to India.
The Counsel also requested immediate information of any commitment the United States has obtained from India with respect to Rana’s treatment. “The government declined to provide any information in response to these requests,” the application said.
It added that given Rana’s underlying health conditions and the State Department’s findings regarding the treatment of prisoners, it is very likely “Rana will not survive long enough to be tried in India".
During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Modi in the White House in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration has approved the extradition of "very evil" Rana, wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, "to face justice in India”.
A total of 166 people, including six Americans, were killed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 10 Pakistani terrorists laid a more than 60-hour siege, attacking and killing people at iconic and vital locations in Mumbai.
