Remove protected monument tag from Aurangzeb's tomb to prevent riots, defuse tension: Sena (UBT)
Mumbai, Mar 19 (PTI): Opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) on Wednesday said the Centre should remove the protected monument tag of Aurangzeb's tomb, located in Maharashtra's Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, to prevent riots and to cool down the heads of fanatics in the state.
Violence erupted in Nagpur on Monday after stones were hurled at police amid rumours that the holy book of a community was burnt during an agitation by a right-wing body for the removal of Aurangzeb's tomb.
In an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana', the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said that since the release of "Chhaava" movie, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the "neo-Hindutvavadis" of the BJP have been raising the heat over Aurangzeb's tomb and disturbing the atmosphere in the state.
The Vicky Kaushal-starrer movie "Chhaava" is based on the life of Sambhaji Maharaj, the second Chhatrapati of the Maratha empire who was brutally killed by Aurangzeb. The film was released on February 14.
"There is no need to create a scene over Aurangzeb's tomb. He (Aurangzeb) is in his grave and he is not going to come out of it," the editorial said.
It further said the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) is currently giving protection to Aurangzeb's tomb in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly known as Aurangabad) since it is an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected monument.
"The Centre should withdraw the protection and also the tag of a protected monument site given to the tomb so that the land will be freed and there will be no scope of further escalation of tension," it said.
"This will prevent riots and cool down the heads of fanatics," it added.
The editorial came a day after party chief Uddhav Thackeray slammed the BJP for raking up a "400-year-old issue" and said the government should raze the tomb.
Raze Aurangzeb's tomb immediately, but do call Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Chandrababu Naidu when that happens, Thackeray said on Tuesday.
"It is now evident that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis gives more importance to Aurangzeb than to Shivaji Maharaj because the latter's policy was to take everyone along. But this policy was never acceptable to the BJP in the past and not even now," the 'Saamana' editorial alleged.
While ministers' resort to spreading hate, CM Fadnavis, who is also the home minister, is keeping mum, it said.
The BJP or the RSS did not consider Chhatrapati Shivaji or Chhatrapati Sambhaji as the ideological symbols, the Sena (UBT) said, claiming that the BJP wants to reduce the importance of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Chhatrapati Sambhaji.
The BJP's aim is to first finish Aurangzeb because once the "villain" is over, then it is easy to finish heroes like Chhatrapati Shivaji and Chhatrapati Sambhaji, it added.
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Israeli strikes across Gaza hit multiple homes, killing at least 85 Palestinians
Deir al-Balah, Mar 20 (AP): Israeli strikes killed at least 85 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to local health officials. Hours later, Hamas fired three rockets at Israel without causing casualties, in the first such attack since Israel ended their ceasefire with a surprise bombardment of Gaza on Tuesday.
The Israeli military ordered people to evacuate an area in central Gaza near Khan Younis, saying it would operate there in response to rocket fire from Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military restored a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City, that it had maintained for most of the war. It warned residents against using the main highway to enter or leave the north and said only passage to the south would be allowed on the coastal road.
It also announced an additional ground operation in northern Gaza near the already largely destroyed town of Beit Lahiya, where strikes have killed dozens over the past 24 hours.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to what remains of their homes in the north after a ceasefire took hold in January. Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages.
Israel blamed the renewed fighting on Hamas because the fighter group rejected a new proposal that departed from their signed agreement. The Trump administration, which took credit for helping to broker the ceasefire, has voiced full support for Israel.
More than 400 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday alone, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
The military said three rockets were fired out of Gaza on Thursday, with one intercepted and two falling in open areas. Hamas claimed the attack and said it had targeted Tel Aviv.
Air raid sirens have sounded in central Jerusalem and other parts of Israel after a missile launch from Yemen, the Israeli army announced.
The launch came hours after Israel said it intercepted another missile launched by Yemen's Houthi rebel group.
The Iranian-backed Houthis resumed attacks on Israel this week following the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The military said it intercepted two missiles launched several hours apart by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Both were intercepted before reaching Israeli airspace, the military said.
Air raid sirens rang out overnight and exploding interceptors were heard in Jerusalem. No injuries were reported. It was the third such attack since the United States began a new campaign of airstrikes against the rebels earlier this week.
One of the strikes on Gaza early Thursday hit the Abu Daqa family's home in Abasan al-Kabira, a village just outside of Khan Younis near the border with Israel. It was inside an area the Israeli military ordered evacuated earlier this week, encompassing most of eastern Gaza.
The strike killed at least 16 people, mostly women and children, according to the nearby European Hospital, which received the dead. Those killed included a father and his seven children, as well as the parents and brother of a month-old baby who survived along with her grandparents.
“Another tough night,” said Hani Awad, who was helping rescuers search for more survivors in the rubble. “The house collapsed over the people's heads.”
Israel's military said Thursday that it killed the head of Hamas' internal security apparatus in an airstrike in Gaza, where Israel says it has struck dozens of fighter group targets.
Israeli ground troops advance
On Wednesday, Israeli ground troops advanced in Gaza for the first time since the ceasefire took hold in January, seizing part of a corridor separating the northern third of the territory from the south. The announcement about passage to the south indicated troops will soon retake full control over what is known as the Netzarim corridor, stretching from the border to the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel, which has also cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza's roughly 2 million Palestinians, has vowed to intensify its operations until Hamas releases the 59 hostages it holds — 35 of whom are believed dead — and gives up control of the territory.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the ceasefire agreement they reached in January after more than a year of mediation by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
Hamas, which does not accept Israel's existence, says it is willing to hand over power to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority or a committee of political independents but will not lay down its arms until Israel ends its decades-long occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state.
A bloody night' for hard-hit northern town
Gaza's Health Ministry said the overnight strikes killed at least 85 people, mostly women and children. Zaher al-Waheidi, the official in charge of records for the ministry, said a total of 592 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Tuesday.
The Indonesian Hospital said it received 19 bodies after strikes in Beit Lahiya, near the border.
“It was a bloody night for the people of Beit Lahiya,” said Fares Awad, head of the Health Ministry's emergency service in northern Gaza, adding that rescuers were still searching the rubble from homes that were hit. “The situation is catastrophic.”
Beit Lahiya was heavily destroyed and largely depopulated during the first phase of the war before January's ceasefire. On Wednesday, an Israeli strike on a gathering of mourners killed 17 people there, according to health officials.
No end in sight to the 17-month war
US President Donald Trump's administration reiterated its support for Israel on Thursday.
“The president made it very clear to Hamas that if they did not release all of the hostages there would be all hell to pay,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Hundreds of Israelis gathered outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on Thursday to protest his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the country's head of internal security. Police used a water canon to disperse the crowd after protesters tried to break through police barricades.
A mass march and demonstration Wednesday outside the Israeli parliament continued into the late evening hours and ended with several arrests.
The war began when Hamas-led group stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.
Israel's retaliatory offensive, among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history, has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 Hamas members, without providing evidence.
The war at its height displaced around 90 per cent of Gaza's population and has caused vast destruction across the territory.
