Ensure Karnataka has SCST chief minister in 2023, pontiff tells SCST community people
Belagavi: Leaders of the SCST communities decided in a meeting to follow the instructions of their pontiff while casting vote in the upcoming Assembly elections in Karnataka, to ensure that a candidate from an SCST community becomes chief minister this time.
The SCST community pontiff on Monday chaired the meeting in Belagavi, where the decision was taken, sources said.
The leaders pointed out during the meeting, “Members of the SCST communities number more than two crore in population. There are 101 sub-castes among scheduled castes and 50 sub-tribes in scheduled tribes. Yet, we have not had a single chief minister belonging to an SCST community in Karnataka, so far.”
They asked the people of all the 151 scheduled castes and scheduled tribes to unite and ensure that the 2023 elections give an opportunity for a person from one of the SCST communities to lead the state government.
“Our people should sideline any personal or even party-related differences during the upcoming elections. We should all vote for the candidates decided by our pontiff,” the leaders said at the meeting.
The SCST community pontiff is said to have met MLC Lakhan Jarkiholi and MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi at their residence after the meeting.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
