Sacked LJP leader accuses party president Chirag Paswan of Maoist links
Patna, Dec 7: Keshav Singh, a former general secretary of the Bihar unit of the LJP, has lodged a police complaint against party president Chirag Paswan accusing him of having links with underground Maoist outfits.
Keshav Singh was expelled from the party last week after he issued a number of statements in the media criticising Paswan for pulling out of the NDA and going solo in the recently held assembly election.
Singh lodged a complaint at the Shastri Nagar police station here on Sunday, alleging that he had received a threatening telephone call from Amar Azad, a close aide to Paswan, after he criticised the LJP leadership and flagged lack of internal democracy.
In the FIR, Singh also alleged that Paswan, who represents Jamui in the Lok Sabha, has maintained "close links" with Maoists.
He also claimed that in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the son of LJP founder and former union minister late Ram Vilas Paswan, made his electoral debut, the help of Maoists was taken to ensure his victory.
The LJP had fought the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019 as an NDA ally.
Police said the allegations made against Chirag Paswan are "under investigation".
Meanwhile, reacting to the complaint lodged by the expelled leader, Azad admitted that he had called up Singh "as a party colleague, in an attempt to make him see reason, but gave up when he appeared adamant".
"Nonetheless, he has tried to tarnish my reputation as well as that of our national president. Both of us are Dalits.
I will sue him for defamation and also under the SC/ST Act. I am seeking legal opinion," Azad told reporters.
The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was enacted to prevent commission of atrocities against the members of SCs and STs. A person held guilty under the law is liable to be imprisoned for six months which may be extended up to a year.
Azad had unsuccessfully contested from Bochaha constituency in the assembly elections.
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Trump sues BBC for USD 10 billion, alleges defamation over edited Jan 6 speech
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking USD 10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 US presidential election.
It accused the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump's speech on January 6, 2021” in order to ”intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks USD 5 billion in damages for defamation and USD 5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The broadcaster apologised last month to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.
BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC's top executive and its head of news.
The speech took place before some of Trump's supporters stormed the US Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the hourlong documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 US presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Trump said earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC “for putting words in my mouth.”
“They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn't say, and they're beautiful words that I said, right?" the president said unprompted during an appearance in the Oval Office. "They're beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said. They didn't say that, but they used terrible words.”
The president's lawsuit was filed in Florida. Deadlines to bring the case in British courts expired more than a year ago.
Legal experts have brought up potential challenges to a case in the US, given that the documentary was not shown in the country.
The lawsuit alleges that people in the US can watch the BBC's original content, including the “Panorama” series, which includes the documentary, by using the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.
The 103-year-old BBC is a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds (USD 230) paid by every household that watches live TV or BBC content. Bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial, it typically faces especially intense scrutiny and criticism from both conservatives and liberals.
