“Stance against BJP, RSS”: Insta handles of Malayalam daily Deshabhimani, portal 'No Cap' disabled
News portal The Wire was blocked for two hours on Monday
Kochi: Meta has reportedly disabled Instagram handles of Malayalam newspaper Deshabhimani, and online news portal ‘No Cap’.
According to a report by The News Minute, the platform also had blocked national news portal The Wire was blocked in India for nearly two hours on Monday, February 9.
“The Instagram account was disabled on February 1, coinciding with the day the Union Government presented its budget. In the ten days since, the organisation has repeatedly reached out to Meta seeking restoration of the account, but has received no response or resolution,” reported TNM quoting the Coordinating Editor, Sajan Evugen for the digital edition of Deshabhimani as saying.
Sajan also shared that they posted several news card on the budget day, however later that day Meta disabled their account without any proper explanation.
“We have submitted an appeal but have not received a response, we also haven’t received any notification on community standards violation,” he added.
Meanwhile, Deshabhimani, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in a report stated that the action came in the backdrop of the newspaper’s reporting and firm stance against
“Deshabhimani regularly shared posts highlighting what it described as the Union government’s neglect of Kerala and its anti-people policies,” the newspaper said, suggesting these could be possible reasons behind the ban.
In a Facebook post, No Cap stated that action against its Instagram handle was taken without any explanation or specified reason.
Quoting Ali Hyder, Executive Editor of No Cap, the TNM reported that they initially received a notice from Meta suspending the account for an alleged violation of community standards, without specifying any particular post or content.
“We submitted an appeal explaining our position, but the response we received was a permanent suspension, citing only ‘community violence’ without any clear explanation,” Hyder stated.
According to Hyder, in the days leading up to the suspension, the account had shared news posts critical of the RSS and reports mentioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name in connection with the Epstein files.
“We are not certain about the exact reason, but some of the content we posted recently was related to the Epstein files,” he said.
Deshabhimani in its report stated that the Instagram account had shared posts opposing Union government policies impacting ordinary citizens, criticising what it described as the neglect of Kerala, and condemning the BJP government’s alleged submission to the United States and propaganda against communal harmony.
“Meta’s action comes at a time when this content had reached a wide audience,” the Deshabhimani report read.
Following the ban, on Monday, February 9, Deshabhimani appealed for the account’s reinstatement, but has not received any favourable response from Meta so far. “We will continue our efforts to communicate with Meta, but for now, we have launched a new page,” Sajan said.
Alongside news portal accounts, several Instagram pages that had criticised the Union government were also disabled over the past week.
In a social media post, The Wire said it had informally learned that the ministry had requested Meta to block a 52-second satirical animation on Instagram. Although the account was later restored, the cartoon remained inaccessible.
Third largest newspaper in kerala blocked because they were critical of BJP's Union Government.
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Punjab: 16 private schools in Mohali receive bomb threat emails
Chandigarh (PTI): Sixteen private schools in Punjab's Mohali received bomb threat emails on Wednesday, triggering evacuation and prompting detailed anti-sabotage checks by police, an officer said.
No suspicious or explosive material was discovered at any of the locations after thorough inspections, the officer said.
School authorities sent messages to parents, declaring a holiday. Students on their way to school were sent back home, they said.
Manav Mangal School, Shivalik Public School, and Learning Paths School were among the schools which received the bomb threat emails.
The police said they swung into action after school authorities reported receiving the emails between 7.30 am and 8 am.
Security was mounted at the targeted schools, and intensive searches were carried out, they said.
"The police teams led by superintendents of police, deputy superintendents of police and other officials were rushed to the schools along with anti-sabotage teams and bomb disposal squads," Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Harmandeep Singh Hans told reporters.
Around 300 policemen were involved in the search operation, and all targeted schools were evacuated, he said.
The checking of all schools was completed within about two-and-a-half hours with the support of additional force and specialised teams from neighbouring districts of Fatehgarh Sahib, Rupnagar, and Chandigarh headquarters, Hans said.
"No explosive material was found at any of the locations," he added.
The search operations were supervised by SP City Dilpreet Singh, along with SPs Navneet Singh Mahal, Mohit Aggarwal, Sukhnaz Singh, Ramandeep Singh and Talwinder Singh Gill; DSP City-1 Prithvi Singh Chahal, DSP City-2 Harsimran Singh Bal and all station house officers.
Schools covered during the search included Amity School, Doon School, Learning Paths, Gurukul School, Vivek High School, Paragon School, YPS School, Lawrence School, and Gem Public School.
An FIR is being lodged, and the case has been referred to the Cyber Police Station, Phase-7, Mohali, to ascertain the origin of the threatening email and conduct an investigation, Hans said.
The latest scare comes close on the heels of similar threat incidents in Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, and schools in Haryana, all of which turned out to be hoaxes.
