Karnataka High Court directs Yediyurappa government to reconsider move to scrap Tipu Jayanti
Bengaluru, Nov 6: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed the state government to reconsider its decision to cancel the birth anniversary celebrations of Tipu Sultan, the controversial 18th century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore Kingdom, but declined to stay the order.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S R Krishna Kumar, issued the order while hearing a PIL challenging the government's decision to cancel the November 10 Tipu Jayanti celebrations as a state event.
It directed the government to reconsider its decision in two months.
"It should not look like the decision was taken arbitrarily," the bench observed, adding that it felt that the state took the decision without considering the reasons mentioned in the previous decisions to celebrate Tipu Jayanti.
The state government told the court that it had not banned private celebrations.
Noting this, the court directed the government to provide protection to such celebrations and ensure peace.
Soon after coming to power in Karnataka, the BJP government had in July scrapped the celebration of Tipu Sultan's birth anniversary.
The party had been opposing the annual event since it was started by the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in 2015.
Recently, a BJP MLA from Kodagu had demanded removal of a lesson on Tipu Sultan from school textbooks, following which the government formed a committee to look into it and submit a report.
BJP and right-wing organisations have been strongly opposing Tipu Sultan, calling the erstwhile Mysore king a "religious bigot".
Tipu Sultan was considered an implacable enemy of the British East India Company.
He was killed in May 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatna against the British forces.
Tipu Sultan, however, is a controversial figure in Kodagu district as the Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.
He was also accused of execution of Mandyam Iyengars in the temple town of Melukote in Mandya district on the day of Diwali as they supported the then Maharaja of Mysuru.
However, the scale of such suppression is disputed by several historians, who see Tipu Sultan as a secular and modern ruler who took on the might of the British.
A few Kannada outfits also call Tipu Sultan "anti-Kannada", alleging that he had promoted Persian at the cost of the local language.
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Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say
Melbourne (AP): A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney's Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, Australian police documents released on Monday allege.
The men recorded a video about their justification for the meticulously planned attack, according to a police statement of facts that was made public following Naveed Akram's video court appearance Monday from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury.
Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
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The New South Wales state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred on Monday from a hospital to a prison. Neither facility was identified by authorities.
The statement alleges the 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode.
Police described the devices as three aluminium pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, black powder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia's worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram's phone shows him with his father "reciting their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”
The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to the Islamic State,” police said.
Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.
