UP Police officials barge into Urdu journalist's home in Lucknow, call him terrorist
Issue apology later
Lucknow, August 18: In what appears to be the case of mistaken identity, the Lucknow police on the eve of India's 72nd Independence Day barged into the home of a senior Urdu journalist, Mohammad Sahid Khan, and called him and his entire family terrorists.
The police later apologised to the journalist and his family verbally after having probed his documents and other details. This was after the intervention of other accredited scribes of Lucknow who took this matter to the senior administrative officials of the state. However, the police have not given a written apology.
The police told Khan and his family that they had received a tip off about two suspects passing through their lane and hence, they acted on it.
“I don't even have any FIRs or a police complaint against me in my career span of 26 years. And all of a sudden, the Lucknow police has dubbed me as a terrorist. My whole family is traumatised because of this,” said Khan.
Khan added that if he would not have been a journalist, the police would have held a press briefing the very next day declaring they arrested a terrorist in Lucknow.
Khan, who works as an editor for Urdu language with the Doordarshan in Lucknow and Akashwani, said the police barged into his home at around 1 pm on 14 August.
“They came during the afternoon. There were many policemen in civil dress along with Cantonment station house officer, Ranjana Sachan, and a sub-inspector. They dubbed me as a terrorist in front of the entire locality,” said Sahid.
The senior Urdu scribe claimed that the following allegations were leveled against him by Sachan: “Tum atankwadi ho aur yaha atankwadi aate jaate hai. Tum to shakal se atankwadi lagte ho. Aaj subah yaha do atankwadi aaye the (You people are terrorists and this is where terrorists roam about. You even look like a terrorist. This morning, there were two terrorists who had come here).”
“After listening to this, I tried to tell the police that I am an accredited journalist and there has been some misunderstanding but the police was not ready to listen to us and the SHO Ranjana Sachan said that I do not believe in government accredited press cards,” said Khan, adding that the police later called his nephew from his workplace.
The police took a group photograph of his family members as they stood in front of the house just before leaving their home. The police also took photocopies of documents like Aadhaar card from the family.
After this incident, Mohammad Sahid reached out to fellow journalists and explained the incident to them. Later, accredited journalists from Lucknow state headquarters raised this matter with senior authorities like Principal Secretary, Information, Awanish Awasthi, Home Secretary Bhagwaan Swaroop, and Additional Director General (Police) Praveen Kumar.
Senior Urdu journalist Syed Husain Afsar demanded a high-level inquiry into this matter.
"This is very wrong policing. How can police dub anyone a 'terrorist' and that too, a journalist? Though the police have apologised for this, this is not done. An inquiry should be ordered against the policemen who entered his house on such a weak and misleading input," demanded Afsar.
The Lucknow Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Kalanidhi Naithani later told mediapersons that the action taken by the police was the result of a misunderstanding.
Siddharth Kalhans, a former colleague of Khan, called the series of events that unfolded "very unfortunate".
“He is such an honest and punctual scribe that we used to give his example to our colleagues. This act of police is not acceptable by the journalist fraternity in Lucknow and across the state. We condemn this and demand strict action by the senior government officials,” Kalhans said.
The author is a Lucknow-based freelance writer and a member of 101reporters.com
Courtesy: www.firstpost.com
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Rupee hits record intra-day low in early trade, falls 12 paise to 92.37 against US dollar
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee slumped 12 paise to its record low of 92.37 against the US dollar in early trade on Friday as global crude oil prices showed no signs of easing amid the ongoing West Asian conflict.
A stronger greenback, heavy FII selling and weak sentiments in the domestic equity markets further weighed on the rupee, according to forex traders.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the local unit opened at 92.33 and slipped further to hit its record intra-day low of 92.37 against the US dollar, down 12 paise from its previous close.
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The rupee touched a fresh intra-day low of 92.36 on Thursday and closed the session 24 paise down at its lowest level of 92.25 against the US dollar.
"Oil prices remained elevated after Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is closed permanently till the resolution of the crisis. The dollar index also rose, European and Asian currencies all fell against the dollar," Anil Kumar Bhansali, Head of Treasury and Executive Director, Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP, said.
The rupee has remained vulnerable and in the absence of the RBI could have reached 93.00 levels, he added.
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.04 per cent higher at 99.77.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading higher by 4.99 per cent at USD 96.57 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, the Sensex plunged 560.06 points, or 0.74 per cent, to 75,474.36, while the Nifty tanked 184.45 points, or 0.78 per cent, to 23,454.70.
Foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 7,049.87 crore on a net basis on Thursday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, retail inflation moved up to 3.21 per cent in February compared to 2.74 per cent in the preceding month, driven mainly by higher food prices, government data released on Thursday showed.
