NEW DELHI: As India’s financial capital shut down for the weekend funeral of a powerful politician linked to waves of mob violence, a woman posted on Facebook that the closures in Mumbai were “due to fear, not due to respect.” A friend of hers hit the “like” button.
For that, both women were arrested.
Analysts and the media are slamming the Maharashtra state government for what they said was a flagrant misuse of the law and an attempt to curb freedom of expression. The arrests were seen as a move by police to prevent any outbreak of violence by supporters of Bal Thackeray, a powerful Hindu fundamentalist politician who died Saturday.
“We are living in a democracy, not a fascist dictatorship,” Markandey Katju, a former Supreme Court justice who now heads the Press Council of India, wrote in a protest letter to the chief minister of Maharashtra.
Katju demanded that the state government suspend the police officers who had ordered the arrests and prosecute them.
The women withdrew the comment and apologized, but angry Thackeray supporters ransacked an orthopedic clinic run by the uncle of one woman.
A lawyer representing the women, Sudheer Gupta, said police arrested them Sunday, the day of the funeral, on charges of creating enmity and hatred. They were released on bail Monday.
Shaheen Dhada, the 21-year-old who posted the comment appeared on television yesterday, her face covered by a scarf so that only her eyes were visible.
Clearly terrified by her arrest and the attack on her uncle’s clinic, Dhada told NDTV television she would never again make comments on a social networking site. Both women said they have deactivated their Facebook accounts.
Dhada described her arrest as “unfair.” “It was not a crime,” Renu Srinivas, Dhada’s friend who also was arrested, told NDTV.
India’s Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said he was “deeply saddened” by the arrests of the two women.
“Freedom of speech is a very important right, and we need to protect it,” Sibal told reporters. He said the government would re-examine the laws governing information technology to prevent its misuse by the police.
“We want to make sure that this law is not meant to prevent people from stating their point of view on any issue,” Sibal said yesterday.
Analysts say it was as sense of fear that kept millions of people off the streets of the bustling city on Sunday. Nearly 20,000 policemen patrolled the deserted streets, mainly because of the violent history of the Shiv Sena.
No violence occurred Sunday. A day later, a relieved Mumbai police chief, Satyapal Singh, praised the “unexpectedly orderly behavior” of Thackeray’s supporters.
But the thuggish behavior was in evidence Monday when a mob of Thackeray’s supporters stormed the orthopedic clinic, destroying its operating rooms and much of its equipment. Nurses and patients fled but no one was hurt.
Yesterday, police said they had detained nine men for their involvement in the attack of the clinic. It was not immediately clear if the men belonged to the Shiv Sena.
The Mumbai arrests came barely two months after the Maharashtra police arrested a political cartoonist on sedition charges for drawings that mocked corruption in the Indian government. The charges were dropped and the cartoonist is out on bail. Earlier this year, a university professor was arrested in the state of West Bengal for forwarding an e-mail cartoon that caricatured the chief minister there.
Outrage in India over arrests for FB post
Outrage in India over arrests for FB post
Pakistani fighter jet crashes in Jalalabad, pilot captured: Afghan military, police
- Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday
- Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar
JALALABAD: A Pakistani jet has crashed in Jalalabad city and the pilot captured alive, the Afghan military and police said Saturday, with residents telling AFP the man parachuted from the plane before being detained.
"A Pakistani fighter jet was shot down in the sixth district of Jalalabad city, and its pilot was captured alive," police spokesman Tayeb Hammad said.
Wahidullah Mohammadi, spokesman for the military in eastern Afghanistan, confirmed the Pakistani jet was downed by Afghan forces "and the pilot was captured alive".
The AFP journalist heard a jet overhead before blasts from the direction of the airport in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, which sits on the road between Kabul and the Pakistani border.
Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday, following overnight clashes as the international community expressed increasing concern about the conflict and called for urgent talks.
Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar, in one of the deepest Pakistani incursions into its western neighbor in years, officials said.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, who it claims are waging an insurgency inside Pakistan, a charge the Taliban denies.
Pakistan described its actions as a response to cross-border assaults, while Kabul denounced them as a breach of its sovereignty, saying it remained open to dialogue but warned any wider conflict would result in serious consequences.
The fighting has raised the risk of a protracted conflict along the rugged 2,600-kilometer frontier.
Diplomatic efforts gathered pace late on Friday as Afghanistan said its foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, spoke by telephone with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan about reducing tensions and keeping diplomatic channels open.
The European Union called for both sides to de-escalate and engage in dialogue, while the United Nations urged an immediate end to hostilities.
Russia urged both sides to halt the clashes and return to talks, while China said it was deeply concerned and ready to help ease tensions.
The United States supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks by the Taliban, a State Department spokesperson said.
Border fighting continues
Exchanges of fire continued along the border overnight.
Pakistani security sources said an operation dubbed “Ghazab Lil Haq” was ongoing and that Pakistani forces had destroyed multiple Taliban posts and camps in several sectors. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
Both sides have reported heavy losses with conflicting tolls that Reuters could not verify. Pakistan said 12 of its soldiers and 274 Taliban were killed while the Taliban said 13 of its fighters and 55 Pakistani soldiers died.
Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said 19 civilians were killed and 26 wounded in Khost and Paktika. Reuters could not verify the claim.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said “our cup of patience has overflowed” and described the fighting as “open war,” warning that Pakistan would respond to further attacks.
Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said in a speech in Khost province that the conflict “will be very costly,” and that Afghan forces had not deployed broadly beyond those already engaged.
He said the Taliban had defeated “the world, not through technology, but through unity and solidarity,” and through “great patience and perseverance,” rather than superior military power.
Pakistan’s military capabilities far exceed those of Afghanistan, with a standing army of hundreds of thousands and a modern air force.
In stark contrast, the Taliban lacks a conventional air force and relies largely on light weaponry and ground forces.
However, the Islamist group is battle-hardened after two decades of insurgency against US-led forces before returning to power in 2021.
