Teargas, torched vehicles as Rajasthan MLA candidate arrested for slapping SDM
Jaipur (PTI): Independent MLA candidate Naresh Meena was arrested following high drama and violence on Thursday, a day after he slapped an SDM during polling in Rajasthan's Tonk district and set in motion differing protests from both his supporters and Rajasthan Administrative Service officials.
The tension that started Wednesday afternoon, when the Congress rebel contesting as an Independent in the bypolls caught SDM Malpura Amit Chaudhary by the collar and slapped him in full view of camera crews, continued through the night and well into Thursday.
Work across government offices in the state was hit in the morning with officials of the RAS Association and allied services going on a pen-down strike demanding that Meena be arrested. They said they would continue till a meeting with Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma.
Ranged against them were Meena's alleged supporters. About 60 two-wheelers and 18 four-wheelers, including police vehicles, were torched in the violence that erupted outside the polling booth in Samravta village in the Deoli-Uniara assembly constituency when police tried to prevent Meena and his supporters from sitting on dharna.
About 60 people were arrested in the early hours of Thursday following the violence that also saw crowds pelting stones at police personnel.
As the morning progressed, tension spiralled. “I will not surrender,” a defiant Meena told jostling camera crews in Samravta, about 100 km from the state capital Jaipur, after he was taken into custody.
As restless crowds could be seen roaming the village, police mounted vigil to ensure that nothing more goes wrong.
The arrest was planned with care.
Police administration, which included senior officers in full riot gear, were deployed in full strength and held a flag march. Tonk Superintendent of Police Vikas Sangwan gave the final direction to the police team to enter the village and take Meena in its custody.
Police fired teargas shells to disperse the agitated mob after Meena's arrest. Some also pelted stones at the police but no injuries were reported. Alleged supporters of Meena blocked the roads, which were removed.
"It could be anyone… the government is strict with those who commit crime. We are getting the entire incident investigated and asked for a report and soon action will be taken against those who are guilty," said Minister of State for Home Jawahar Singh Bedham.
According to Inspector General of Police (Ajmer) Om Prakash, four cases, including for disrupting public work and damaging public property, were registered against Meena.
It all started when Chaudhary, who was on election duty, was trying to get people to vote in the village, which had boycotted polling over a demand that Samravta be included in Uniara sub-division instead of Deoli. Meena was supporting the villagers.
Hundreds of people were present outside the polling station when it happened. Meena later sat on a dharna outside a polling booth and asked his supporters to gather with sticks.
After polling was over, police asked Meena and his supporters to disperse so the polling party could leave the station with EVM machines. However, police said, they turned violent and pelted stones at police.
Before his arrest, Meena blamed Tonk District Collector Saumya Jha and SP Sangwan for what had happened.
“All 60 people who have been arrested are innocent. If anyone should be punished, it should be me," he said, alleging that the SDM on election duty had been working on the directions of the BJP.
“He got 30 people to vote by threatening them to take action against them. I could not stop myself. I slapped him. It is correct. Seeing his nature, he should have been slapped more."
RAS Association General Secretary Neetu Rajeshwar told PTI that what had happened was intolerable.
"Such an incident is not tolerable. SDM Amit Chaudhary was slapped when he was doing his election duty fairly. The association is on a pen-down strike on Thursday. We will call off the strike after a representation with the chief minister on other demands. All our demands are constitutional. We don't want to let the public work suffer," Rajeshwar said.
Polling for bypolls on seven assembly seats, including Deoli-Uniara, was held yesterday from 7 am to 6 pm and counting will take place on November 23.
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2 Israeli airstrikes hit Syria's capital and suburb, killing 15 people, Syrian state media says
Damascus, Nov 14: Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on a western neighbourhood of Damascus and one of the capital's suburbs on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding another 16, Syria's state news agency said.
The airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya, northwest of the capital, struck two buildings, the SANA news agency said. An Associated Press journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said that a five-story building was damaged by a missile that hit the basement.
The Israeli military said it had hit infrastructure sites and command centres of the Islamic Jihad group in Syria, and had “inflicted significant damage to the organisation's command centre and to its operatives”.
The airstrikes in Damascus and the nearby suburb came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
The Israeli military said Islamic Jihad had participated alongside Hamas, the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, in the Oct 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and saw 250 others abducted into Gaza.
The military “will continue to operate against the Islamic Jihad organisation wherever necessary,” it said.
Israel's retaliation to the Oct 7 attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war has spilled into the wider region, affecting Lebanon, Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran. The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said that the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.
Syria's state news agency SANA said that the country's air defences were activated against a “hostile target” south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details.
Tehran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government since a 2011 uprising turned into a full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide of the conflict in his favor.
Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to Syria to fight on Assad's side. Tehran has also been an economic lifeline for Assad, sending fuel and credit lines worth billions of dollars.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighbouring Lebanon's Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the country's Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.
Lebanon's state media said an Israeli airstrike Thursday hit a building in Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five others.
The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was not clear.
Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre city and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.
Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.
The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centres.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on Oct 8, 2023 has reached 3,365 while those wounded are 14,344. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
Before the war intensified on Sept 23, Hezbollah said it had lost nearly 500 members but the group has stopped releasing statements about their killed fighters since.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said the UN remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah group.
UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back five km (three miles) from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.
Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip.
UNIFIL forces “continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said. ”...Had we vacated some of the positions, then that would have certainly jeopardised the capacity for UNIFIL to continue today, but probably even more importantly, that would have significantly undermined the capacity for UNIFIL to play a role, tomorrow, when the cessation of hostilities takes place - hopefully sooner than later.”
Lacroix said there is still a “large consensus that resolution 1701 remains the critical framework for settlement,” referring to the UN Security Council resolution that ended the brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, but which has never been fully implemented by either party.
