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New Delhi: Balesh Dhankhar, a prominent BJP activist, is facing trial after being charged with 13 counts of sexual assault, 17 of intimate recordings without consent, six of using intoxicating substances to commit offence and assault with act of indecency.

Dhankhar, who is the founder-president of the ‘Overseas Friends of BJP’ in Australia and a former associate of the Hindu Council of Australia, played a major role in organizing the reception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Sydney, during Modi’s Australia visit in 2014. According to Australian media reports, Dhankhar had boasted about his access to Modi and had posted his photos with Modi on his social media accounts.

The police said that the activist had filmed himself with a camera hidden in an alarm clock, sexually assaulting five women he had lured to Hotel Hilton, with fake job interview offers.

A local newspaper had quoted Dr. Yadu Singh, a community leader, saying that Dhankhar had also been involved in organizing community rallies for Modi in Sydney, in November 2014. Dr. Singh, who spoke in relation to the charges on Dhankhar, said that the persons concerned had not duly responded to the reports in a Sydney community newspaper on Dhankhar’s activities. “These allegations are obviously serious and the Australian judicial process will surely take them to the rightful conclusion in due course,” Dr. Singh added.

On Tuesday, Sydney Morning Herald reported that the prosecutor told the jury at the opening of the trial that Dhankhar was ‘interested’ in young Korean women. He had allegedly posted advertisements on ‘Gumtree’ on translation work for Korean-English speakers, and met them at the bar of the Hotel Hilton, which was near his apartment in Sydney.

The report said that Dhankhar had a “state of mind to satisfy his particular sexual interest” by posing as an interviewer and lying to them, “so he could commit sexual acts on them and make intimate recordings of them – and do so whilst they were under the influence of a substance.”

Sydney Morning Herald, in its report on the court room proceedings, said that a young lady recalled having ice cream and one glass of wine at Dhankhar’s house, but nothing after that, until a late-night call to her boyfriend. Rather, she remembered being naked and feeling dirty and dizzy, she remembered bright lights, a condom wrapper and experiencing pain.

The jury was told that Dhankhar had a tendency to record intimate images as well as videos of unconscious Asian and Korean women.

Rebecca Mitchell, who is Dhankhar’s lawyer, admitted that Dhankhar had a sexual interest in women, used fake ads to meet them, and was ‘deceptive’. She stated that Dhankhar did not dispute having a sexual relationship with the women.

The advocate, however, argued, “Dhankhar’s case is that each of the complainants consented to sexual acts they engaged in but the prosecution needed to prove Dhankhar’s guilt.”

The activist also disputed that the images were taken without consent of the women and that he drugged them, Mitchell said.

Officer in-charge of the case Sergeant Katrina Gyde told the court that a hard drive, containing 47 videos of the accused having sexual intercourse, was found in Dhankhar’s backpack.

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New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that four to five lakh “Miya voters” would be removed from the electoral rolls in the state once the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists is carried out. He also made a series of controversial remarks openly targeting the Miya community, a term commonly used in Assam in a derogatory sense to refer to Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an official programme in Digboi in Tinsukia district, Sarma said it was his responsibility to create difficulties for the Miya community and claimed that both he and the BJP were “directly against Miyas”.

“Four to five lakh Miya votes will have to be deleted in Assam when the SIR happens,” Sarma said, adding that such voters “should ideally not be allowed to vote in Assam, but in Bangladesh”. He asserted that the government was ensuring that they would not be able to vote in the state.

The chief minister was responding to questions about notices issued to thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims during the claims and objections phase of the ongoing Special Revision (SR) of electoral rolls in Assam. While the Election Commission is conducting SIR exercises in 12 states and Union Territories, Assam is currently undergoing an SR, which is usually meant for routine updates.

Calling the current SR “preliminary”, Sarma said that a full-fledged SIR in Assam would lead to large-scale deletion of Miya voters. He said he was unconcerned about criticism from opposition parties over the issue.

“Let the Congress abuse me as much as they want. My job is to make the Miya people suffer,” Sarma said. He claimed that complaints filed against members of the community were done on his instructions and that he had encouraged BJP workers to keep filing complaints.

“I have told people wherever possible they should fill Form 7 so that they have to run around a little and are troubled,” he said, adding that such actions were meant to send a message that “the Assamese people are still living”.

In remarks that drew further outrage, Sarma urged people to trouble members of the Miya community in everyday life, claiming that “only if they face troubles will they leave Assam”. He also accused the media of sympathising with the community and warned journalists against such coverage.

“So you all should also trouble, and you should not do news that sympathise with them. There will be love jihad in your own house.” He said.

The comments triggered reactions from opposition leaders. Raijor Dal president and MLA Akhil Gogoi said the people of Assam had not elected Sarma to keep one community under constant pressure. Congress leader Aman Wadud accused the chief minister of rendering the Constitution meaningless in the state, saying his remarks showed a complete disregard for constitutional values.

According to the draft electoral rolls published on December 27, Assam currently has 2.51 crore voters. Election officials said 4.78 lakh names were marked as deceased, 5.23 lakh as having shifted, and 53,619 duplicate entries were removed during the revision process. Authorities also claimed that verification had been completed for over 61 lakh households.

On January 25, six opposition parties the Congress, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(M-L) submitted a memorandum to the state’s chief electoral officer. They alleged widespread legal violations, political interference and selective targeting of genuine voters during the SR exercise, describing it as arbitrary, unlawful and unconstitutional.

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