Postponement of State Waqf Board chairman election
Bengaluru: The election for the post of the State Waqf Board chairman, which was scheduled to be held today (Feb 17) at 12 PM, has been postponed.
It was reported that preparations were underway to re-elect former Waqf Board chairman K. Anwar Basha for another term. However, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) Vice President Muhammad Ubaidullah Sharif and Syed Ashraf, who had served as the political secretary to former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, recently held a press conference, releasing documents and demanding that Anwar Basha should not be re-elected due to allegations of encroachment on government graveyard land.
Additionally, concerns were raised regarding the government's nomination of members to the Waqf Board without consulting senior leaders. Minority Welfare and Waqf Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan was accused of making unilateral decisions in this regard.
Sharif and Ashraf had warned that if Anwar Basha was reappointed as chairman, they would systematically release documents related to land encroachments and land grabs involving him and other board members.
By postponing the election, the government appears to be attempting to address the dissatisfaction among senior community leaders.
Recently, the government nominated former chairman Khalid Ahmed, Maulana Syed Muhiyuddin Husaini Peer Zade, Maulana Mir Qasim Abbas, and IPS officer Sara Fatima as members of the Waqf Board.
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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.
