India rejects Pakistan's plea for hosting Saarc Summit
New Delhi, Sep 20 : Asserting that terror and talks cannot go together, India on Thursday rejected new Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's proposal for holding a Saarc Summit in Islamabad. India, however, accepted Islamabad's request for a meeting of the foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session later this month.
Responding to a question during a media briefing here, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said India's stand the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) "has been very clear and consistent".
"Time and again we have said that the atmosphere in the region is not conducive for this Summit," Kumar said.
"This is not only India which has felt in this manner," he stated.
"There are a number of other countries in the region that have accordingly felt that under the shadow of terrorism and cross-border terrorism, it is difficult to hold the Saarc Summit which is to be hosted by Pakistan."
Earlier, in his briefing, Kumar announced that Sushma Swaraj and Qureshi will meet at the UN, the first foreign minister-level meeting between the two South Asian nuclear neighbours in nearly three years.
India will also participate in an informal meeting of Saarc foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UNGA session.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that was received on September 17, Imran Khan sought to hold the 20th Saarc Summit in Islamabad.
"The Summit will offer an opportunity for you to visit Pakistan and for us to re-start the stalled dialogue process," he wrote.
Following a cross-border terror attack from Pakistan at an army base in Jammu and Kashmir in September 2016 that killed 17 Indian soldiers, the Saarc Summit that was to be held in Islamabad later that year had to be cancelled as other member states of the bloc joined India in boycotting it.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
