Kashmiri student beaten, forced to wear Women's clothes in Rajasthan
Jaipur: A video from Rajasthan’s Alwar showing a student from Kashmir tied to a pole after having been made to wear women’s clothes, has been doing the rounds on social media.
The 23-year-old boy in the video, Mir Faid, is originally from Kashmir’s Baramullah and is currently in his final year of engineering studies at the School of Aeronautics in Neemrana.
Faid’s brother, Faizal, who works at Tata Consultancy Services in New Delhi and was informed about the incident on Wednesday night, said the miscreants were unknown to Faid.
“On Wednesday evening [September 4], Faid had gone out to withdraw some cash from the ATM where some men abducted him outside his college campus. They took him to an isolated place and took off his clothes. They made him wear women’s clothes and compelled him to walk into the market, saying that they would kill him otherwise. He walked a little and then to save himself, entered an ATM booth but soon after, about 20 unknown men pulled him out and thrashed him in the open market,” Faizal told The Wire.
Faizal has also alleged that police has tortured his brother with an “intense” round of interrogations.“My brother was severely injured but he was not medically examined until today [September 5]. He told me he could not even hear with his left ear when the police was questioning him. The police investigated his flat twice and even confiscated his mobile phone. We are not able to understand why we are being treated as culprits here.
Faizal reached Alwar on Wednesday night itself.
“The police let him go at around midnight and asked him to go back Thursday for ‘interrogation’. He did. It has been a whole day, they haven’t let me meet him once today,” he added. At the time of publishing the report, Faid had been released after interrogation.
However, the police said that an FIR into the matter was registered late on Wednesday night itself. “The boy had complained that about 20 unknown men had beaten him in the market. An FIR is being registered under sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntary causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement), 505 (public mischief) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code,” Laxman Singh, sub inspector at the Neemrana police station told The Wire.
New India. Deeply sad.https://t.co/7rZl04678o
— Shehla Rashid شہلا رشید (@Shehla_Rashid) September 5, 2019
Faizal said the college administration has not been supportive either. “The director told us that he cannot understand why Faid was dressed as a woman. We are completely on our own here,” said Faizal.
Faizal has further claimed that the police accessed his Facebook account, emails and other social media engagements to verify whether he’s an ‘anti-national’ or not. “It’s beyond our understanding as to why the police would verify the victim in the first place. This is such a bad situation. We will not let Faid continue his studies here. There is a risk of his life here and we cannot leave him on his own,” said Faizal.
The superintendent of police in the district has denied that the student’s Kashmiri identity was the trigger for the attack and seemed to allege that the women’s clothes the men had forced on him were to blame.
Speaking to The Wire, the Bhiwadi SP, Amandeep Singh Kapoor, said, “It wasn’t an identity based crime. The locals didn’t know he is a Kashmiri. Since he was dressed as a woman, it caught their attention.”
Meanwhile, the Station House Officer at the Neemrana police station has issued a statement after the interrogation that ‘nothing suspicious’ has been found in the case.
This is Faiz Mir, a Kashmiri, who was beaten up in Rajasthan's Alwar district on 4 Sept.
— Aishwarya S Iyer (@iyersaishwarya) September 5, 2019
In his complaint Faiz has said he was threatened by 3 men who took him to an isolated spot, forcibly made him change into a woman's clothes & told him to walk in the Neemrana mkt.@TheQuint pic.twitter.com/z9edBC8v3o
Courtesy: thewire.in
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
