NCP leader demands suspension of woman IAS officer after her anti-Gandhi tweet sparks row
New Delhi: A Mumbai woman IAS officer's tweet virtually making a call to erase Mahatma Gandhiji from everywhere in the world, including Indian currency notes, sparked a controversy, forcing her to backtrack, on Saturday.
Nidhi Choudhari, currently Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Special) in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, had made the tweets on May 17.
"What an exceptional celebration of 150th birth anniversary year is going on... High time, we removed his face from our currency, his statues from across the world, rename institutions/roads named after him! That would be a real tribute to all of us! ThankU #Godse for 30.01.1948."
Terming the IAS officer's tweets as "derogatory to Mahatma Gandhi," Nationalist Congress Party legislator Jitendra Awhad demanded that Choudhari should be immediately suspended for glorifying Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Bapu.
"We seek immediate suspension of the IAS officer for her derogatory tweets against Mahatma Gandhi. She has also glorified Godse. This is shocking and such things should not be tolerated," Awhad told mediapersons today.
Under fire from various quarters, Choudhari said on Friday she had deleted her controversial tweet.
"I have deleted my tweet of 17.05.2019 w.r.t. Gandhiji because some people misunderstood it. If only they had followed my timeline since 2011, they would've understood that I would NEVER even dream of insulting Gandhiji. I bow before him with deepest regard and will do so till last breath," she tweeted.
Awhad pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has categorically said that he would not tolerate any kind of insults to Gandhiji or any attempts to glorify his assassin.
On Friday, Choudhari posted a tweet on new Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, but without directly taking her name: "A proud moment. Women are best at managing budgets... hope Indian economy achieves greater heights under her leadership."
Adding in a lighter vein, Choudhari also demanded that Goods and Services Tax (GST) on sanitary napkins, garments and beauty services would be reduced and said: "I would want it to be zero."
I have deleted my tweet of 17.05.2019 w.r.t. GandhiJi because some people misunderstood it
— Nidhi Choudhari?☪️✝️☸️ (@nidhichoudhari) May 31, 2019
If only they had followed my timeline since 2011 they would've understood that I would NEVER even dream of insulting GandhiJi
I bow before him with deepest regard & will do till last breath pic.twitter.com/CSjaKHF9BJ
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Death toll from Afghan quake rises, including 8 members of refugee family returned from Iran
Ittefaq (Afghanistan) (AP): For several minutes after the earthquake struck, he could hear their screams. Then there was silence.
Mohibullah Niazi, a neighbour who helped in the rescue efforts, said Saturday that the eight people killed on the outskirts of Kabul after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan the previous night were a refugee family recently returned from neighbouring Iran.
There was only one survivor: a boy of around 3 years old, who was injured and has been hospitalised in Kabul.
Afghanistan's deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat on Saturday increased the overall death toll from the quake to 12, with another four people injured.
Fitrat said five homes were destroyed and another 33 significantly damaged, affecting 40 families in the provinces of Kabul, Panjshir, Logar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan.
The Afghanistan Disaster Management Authority put the overall death toll at nine. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
The family near Kabul was among the millions of Afghan refugees who have recently returned from Iran and Pakistan, after both countries launched crackdowns in 2023 on foreigners — particularly Afghans — living in their countries.
They had arrived 15 days ago and were living in a tent on land next to Niazi's home. The family head, Najibullah, who was about 50 years old, “had no other shelter", Niazi said. “He was a very poor person.”
We tried our best
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The family had set their tent up next to a wall separating the plot of land from Niazi's home, which stood on higher ground, in the village of Ittefaq on the eastern outskirts of the Afghan capital.
Heavy rains over the past several days, which have led to deadly floods in many parts of Afghanistan, had left the ground sodden and soft. When the earthquake struck, the wall collapsed on the family.
“My daughter shouted to me that a wall had fallen on them. The whole family ran, but there were so many big rocks,” Niazi recounted Saturday as he stood at the scene. “We tried our best.”
On Saturday morning, piles of bricks and mud were all that were left, along with blankets, cooking utensils and other personal belongings salvaged from the rubble and set into a pile.
“For about three minutes, I could hear the voices of these people,” Niazi said. “But we couldn't do anything. There were two or three of us, but this was not the work of three people.”
Neighbours soon rushed to help, digging through the mud and rubble with spades and their hands. They alerted the local Taliban police checkpoint, which sent rescuers and ambulances.
The young boy, Aarash, was pulled out alive but injured, and rushed to the hospital. Health Ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman, who visited the boy Saturday, said he was being treated for a severe head injury.
For the rest of the family — the father and mother, four daughters aged between 12 and 23, and two sons — it was too late. The rescuers could only recover their bodies.
Niazi said he had hosted the family in his own home one night. On Friday, just half an hour before the earthquake struck, he had renewed the offer, telling the family they could spend the night in his own guest room to shelter from the cold and rain. “But they did not come with me,” he said.
A string of deadly quakes
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Friday night's quake had an epicenter in the Hindu Kush mountain range, about 150 kilometres east of the northern city of Kunduz, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre and the US Geological Survey. The area is roughly 290 kilometres northeast of Kabul.
Afghanistan lies in a highly seismically active part of the world, and quakes have caused thousands of deaths in recent years.
Last August, a 6.0 earthquake that struck a remote, mountainous part of eastern Afghanistan killed more than 2,200 people. Most casualties were in Kunar province, where people typically live in wood and mud-brick houses along steep valleys.
In November, a 6.3 earthquake struck Samangan province in northern Afghanistan, killing at last 27 people and injuring more than 950. It also damaged historical sites, including Afghanistan's famed Blue Mosque in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, and the Bagh-e-Jahan Nama Palace in Khulm.
On October 7, 2023, a 6.3 quake followed by strong aftershocks in western Afghanistan killed thousands of people.
