Condoling the demise of Stan Swami, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan said: “It is unjustifiable that a man who fought all his life for our society’s most downtrodden had to die in custody. Such travesty of justice should have no place in our democracy.”

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said: “The Union Government must be answerable for absolute apathy and non-provision of timely medical services, leading to his death.  Following the arrest of Fr. Stan on October 8, 2020 from his home in Ranchi, Chief Minister Soren had said that the sole intention of the Union government in arresting Stan was to suppress every voice of dissent.

Even a very  casual examination  of the life and activities of Stan Swami and the actions of the Jharkhand police when  the BJP-led government ruled the state and  the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will reveal that they were hell bent on fixing Stan Swami by hook or crook.

Fr. Stan hailed from a village, Virahalur, Trichy in Tamlil Nadu. His working life was spent mainly at three places, Indian Social Institute, Bengaluru, JOHAR, the Jesuit Organisation for Human Rights Centre in Chaibasa, and Bagaicha, Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Fr. Stan became the Director of the Bengaluru Institute in 1975, till then the darkest period in the history of independent India. For 11 years Fr. Stan, as a trainer at the Institute, motivated thousands of people, especially youth, through the institute’s training programmes to understand and question the oppressive socio-economic conditions under which the Dalits and Adivasis lived in India.

In the late 1980s, Fr. Stan became the Director of Jharkhandi Organisation for Human Rights Centre, popularly known as JOHAR, a word of greeting among the Adivasis. In the 12 years he headed the organisation, Stan became part of the life and struggle of the Adivasis. In the 1990s, as India opened its economy, a number of multinational companies eyed the mineral rich Adivasi lands. In the name of development, Adivasi lands were illegally taken over displacing thousands of  adivasis.  Fr Stan not only supported their struggle but actively participated in their protest activities.

“Every mine that is dug not only destroys the green forests, fertile lands and water bodies but also displaces entire village habitations,“ Stan pointed out in support of the Adivasis. In 2000, Stan moved to Ranchi and in 2006 after the formation of  Jharkhad, Bagaicha, Ranchi was established primarily for training, research and advocacy focusing on identity, dignity, justice and empowerment of the Adivasis.

Panchayats (Extension in Scheduled Areas)  Act 1996 (PESA) empowers gramsabhas to take responsibility for development of villages. Fr. Stan criticised successive Jharkand governments about the non-implementation of the provisions of PESA, which adversely affected the lives of the adivasis.  Jal, Jungle and Jameen belonged to the adivasis, Stan staunchly believed.

Consequently Stan actively participated in the adivasis’ struggle against the Netrahat Field Firing Project and the Koel Karo dam project that were to displace thousands of adivasis. He wrote extensively against these projects in newspapers.

Now we come to the most grievous crime Stan committed. During 2014-15 the Jharkhand Government indiscriminately arrested thousands of adivasi and youths. Stan convened a meeting of people of goodwill to discuss the nature of the intervention required to rescue the youths from incarceration. There was very good response, especially from the legal community. Sudha  Bharadwaj, who has been arrested by the NIA and has been charged under various sections of the draconian Unlawful Activities Act, 1967 (UAPA ),also took part in the discussions.

The discussions led to the setting up of a forum named Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PPSC) to approach the courts on behalf of the Under Trial Prisoners (UTPs). Thereafter, based on the available data on the arrested Dalit and adivasi youths, Stan filed a petition under public interest litigation (PIL) in the Jharkhand High Court. The High Court on the basis of the evidence provided in the petition directed the government of Jharkhand to furnish complete information about under trial prisoners in Jharkhand. The state is yet to submit its report!

However, to teach Stan a lesson in good behavior the Jharkhand administration  registered a criminal case against him on the basis of a Facebook comment he made on the Pathalgadi movement. Pathals are stones erected at village entrances according to ages old Adivasi custom.  Adivasi villagers in the Khunti district inscribed on the pathals various advasi rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India and the PESA. The government labeled all those who supported the Pathalgadi movement as anti-nationals.

An FIR was registered against Stan and 19 others for supporting the Pathalgadi movement in 2018.  A year after the FIR was registered a Khunti court declared Stan a ‘proclaimed absconder” under section 82 of the Criminal Procedure Code and ordered attachment of his properties.  Stan was away in Bengaluru for medical treatment.  In October 2019 the police took away two tables, a steel shelf, three plastic chairs,  a mattress and a pillow from Stan’s room.

Stan challenged the allegations in the High Court where the prosecution described him as a “dreaded criminal.” The High Court on December 6, 2019 declared that proper procedures were not followed in the cases against Stan and absolved him of all charges. And at the end of December 2019 the new Jharkhand government headed by Hemant Soren decided to withdraw all cases related to the Pathalgadi movement.

But the Union government, for well-known reasons, wanted to fix Stan and other civil and human right champions in the country and implicated them in the Bhima-Koregaon conspiracy case. The, police, the courts, the media, all have become collaborators in the great design to develop the nation by depriving the adivasis and the dalits of their Jal, Jungle and Jameen.

The post We killed Father Stan Swamy! appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

The total coronavirus cases mounted to 41,13,811, while the death toll climbed to 70,626 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 1,065 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the coronavirus infection has further declined to 1.72 per cent. There are 8,62,320 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 20.96 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and it went past 40 lakh on September 5.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 4,88,31,145 samples have been tested up to September 5 with 10,92,654 samples being tested on Saturday.

Of the 1,065 fresh deaths, 312 are from Maharashtra, 128 from Karnataka, 81 from Uttar Pradesh, 71 from Andhra Pradesh, 69 from Punjab, 61 from Tamil Nadu, 58 from West Bengal, 34 from Bihar, 30 from Madhya Pradesh, 25 from Delhi, 22 from Haryana, 19 from Chhattisgarh, 18 each from Puducherry and Uttarakhand, 15 each from Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand.

Fourteen fatalities have been reported from Rajasthan, 11 from Kerala, nine each from Goa and Telangana, eight from Tripura, seven each from Assam and Odisha, four from Himachal Pradesh while Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Manipur and Meghalaya have registered one fatality each.

Of the total 70,626 deaths, Maharashtra has reported the maximum at 26,276 followed by 7,748 in Tamil Nadu, 6,298 in Karnataka, 4,538 in Delhi, 4,347 in Andhra Pradesh, 3,843 in Uttar Pradesh, 3,510 in West Bengal, 3,091 in Gujarat and 1,808 in Punjab.

So far, 1,543 people have died of COVID-19 in Madhya Pradesh, 1,122 in Rajasthan, 886 in Telangana, 781 in Haryana, 770 in Jammu and Kashmir, 735 in Bihar, 538 in Odisha, 462 in Jharkhand, 356 in Chhattisgarh, 352 in Assam, 337 in Kerala and 330 in Uttarakhand.

Puducherry has registered 298 fatalities, Goa 229, Tripura 144, Chandigarh 69, Himachal Pradesh 54, Andaman and Nicobar Islands 50, Manipur 36, Ladakh 35, Meghalaya 15, Nagaland 10, Arunachal Pradesh eight, Sikkim five and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu two.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that State-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

The post 90,632 COVID-19 cases recorded in India in single day appeared first on The Gulf Indians.

This sleepy little district in northeastern Jharkhand has emerged as an unlikely hub of cybercrime in India. It is an obscure town populated by poor farmers, and the homes get barely five hours of electricity a day. Yet, it has gained notoriety as cybercrime hub, even inspiring a popular web series.

Once again, Jamtara comes to the scene as the police in Haryana’s Faridabad have pieced together about a new phishing racket that they suspect has been used to access over 300 nationalised bank and private accounts across five states- Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Police are yet to ascertain the amount of money involved. But they have made five arrests- among the first in a racket involving e-Sim frauds. Four of those five are from Jharkhand’s Jamatra.

According the police, this recent case is unique as the perpetrators use e-SIMs as the main conduit. Through the investigation and from the confessions of perpetrators, police realised that the culprits gain control of bank accounts after obtaining the e-SIMs of victims.

Two years back, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, who himself is a 1982 batch IAS officer from Jharkhand , revealed that Jamatra is identified as new cyber crime hub. According to him, more than half of India’s crimes committed by fraudsters posing as bank managers were traced back to this town.

Thousands of calls are recorded daily at the cellphone towers near these villages. Calls are made to random numbers in search of gullible victims, who will share their debit or credit card details with the “bank official” and end up shockingly witnessing money vanishing from their accounts.

As Jamtara is back, this time in a new e-Sim phishing racket, this is what the police have pieced together the procedures of the scam:

Step 1: Acquire a series of mobile numbers, use all of them to try and log in to a bank account. If a number prompts an OTP, it’s time for the next step.

Step 2: Call the number’s owner and pretend to be customer care executives of the mobile operator offering to upgrade SIM cards or Know Your Customer (KYC) details. Gain trust, obtain the victim’s email ID.

Step 3: Send an email to the victim containing text to be sent to the official customer care number. It’s a ruse to register your email ID with the victim’s number, so that you can put in an official request to convert the SIM into an e-SIM. Once done, the victim’s phone number and everything else it’s linked to, including the bank account, is under your control.

The post This town in Jharkhand is the cyber crime capital of India appeared first on The Gulf Indians.