CM Siddaramaiah defends son's controversial statement against Amit Shah
Mysuru, Apr 1: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday defended his son Yathindra's statement targeting Amit Shah, which the BJP has termed as reprehensible and a personal attack on the Union Home Minister and lodged a complaint with the Election Commission.
Siddaramaiah said his son never intended to insult Shah and his statement was based on CBI's submission in the court.
Addressing a party meeting in Hanur town of Chamarajanagar district last Thursday, Yathindra, a former MLA, allegedly said: "Home Minister Amit Shah is a goonda, rowdy, there was a murder charge against him in Gujarat and he was exiled, and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi did politics keeping such people next to him....".
A day later, the Karnataka unit of the BJP filed a complaint with the poll body describing the statement as a personal attack on the party leader and alleged that Yathindra had used "abusive and inflammatory language" against Shah. It said the statement violated provisions of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
ALSO READ: BJP complains to poll officials on political activities in offices of K'taka Ministers, MLAs
Speaking to reporters here, Siddaramaiah said: “Yathindra has given a statement based on the CBI report in the court. Is the CBI report to the court right or wrong? Based on the CBI’s submission to the court he has said it. He has no intention to insult Amit Shah."
The BJP also alleged Yathindra’s statement reflected his upbringing. Responding to this, Siddaramaiah said it is the BJP which does not know "Samskara" (culture).
On BJP’s claim of winning 400 seats across the country in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Chief Minister said: “You know why (BJP is saying this), because they will get less than 200 seats. They have done a survey. Their tally is less than 200, so they are strategically saying ‘400’ (seats).”
Asked how many seats that the Congress will win nationally, Siddaramaiah said he has no information about his party’s target, but he is confident that the outfit would bag up to 20 seats out of the total 28 in the State.
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Israel says rabbi who went missing in UAE was killed
Tel Aviv, Nov 24: Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE's state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan's disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan's disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action." He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai's busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan's wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
