“He looked like a terrorist!” How a drive in rural India ended in a mob attack and a lynching

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Senior Police officers receive roses from members of the Chhara community, who are originally listed under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, at Kubernagar Police Chowky on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Gujarat on July 29, 2018, following a dispute with policemen on July 27 that turned violent. (AFP)
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Mohammed Salman, who survived a mob lynching attack which killed his friend Mohammed Azam, displays injuries in a hospital in Hyderabad, India, July 18, 2018. (REUTERS)
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Mohammed Salman, who survived a mob lynching attack which killed his friend Mohammed Azam, reacts as he is assisted by his mother in a hospital in Hyderabad, India, July 18, 2018. (REUTERS)
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Mohammed Akram, brother of Mohammed Azam, who was killed in a mob lynching attack, poses with the identity card of his deceased brother inside their house in Hyderabad, India, July 18, 2018. Picture taken July 18, 2018. (REUTERS)
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Noor Mohammed, who survived a mob lynching attack which killed his friend Mohammed Azam, poses for a portrait in Hyderabad, India, July 18, 2018. (REUTERS)
Updated 30 July 2018
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“He looked like a terrorist!” How a drive in rural India ended in a mob attack and a lynching

  • Modi’s administration, which has been facing criticism from opposition parties and the public for failing to do enough to stop the lynchings
  • Police probing the lynchings of Azam and others say they are often triggered by deep-rooted prejudices against minorities in India

MURKI/MUMBAI, India: In the tiny hamlet of Murki in the hinterlands of south India, Inspector V.B. Yadwad surveyed a pile of bricks and stones in a ditch where he and other police officers had been attacked earlier this month while trying to save a group of five men on a road trip from a violent mob.
“We tried hard to stop them,” said Yadwad, pointing to injuries on his back. “They wouldn’t listen to anyone.”
Yadwad was one of eight policemen who rushed to the village on July 13 to try to control a mob of more than 200 that attacked the five friends, wrongly assuming they were child kidnappers.
The vicious assault left one of the five men, Mohammed Azam, a UK-educated IT worker from India’s tech hub in Hyderabad, dead, and at lest two of the others badly beaten. All eight officers were injured, two seriously.
Azam, who was 32 and worked for global consulting services firm Accenture, is one of the latest victims of a wave of lynchings in India, as ill-equipped and outnumbered police struggle to contain mob violence triggered by false messages about child kidnappings spread via platforms like Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service, which is very popular in India.
The Indian government says it is not tracking data for lynchings, but data portal IndiaSpend has tallied more than 30 deaths from nearly 70 such incidents since January 2017.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration, which has been facing criticism from opposition parties and the public for failing to do enough to stop the lynchings, has blamed WhatsApp, warning the messaging service of legal action if it did not curb the spread of fake news.
On July 20, WhatsApp said it was limiting the number of people someone can forward messages to simultaneously, and said it was considering more changes to curb the spread of fake messages in its largest market. But it is unclear how much this will restrain mob violence.
Police probing the lynchings of Azam and others say they are often triggered by deep-rooted prejudices against minorities in India. Azam’s own job at Accenture, according to his younger brother Akram, included reviewing the propriety of video content before it was uploaded to Alphabet Inc’s YouTube.
“India is already vulnerable due to religious and caste fault lines,” said Rema Rajeshwari, a superintendent of police in the southern Telangana state, where some recent lynchings took place. “When you add WhatsApp to the mix, things can easily spiral out of control.”

“HIT THESE BASTARDS“
In Murki, messages circulating in a local WhatsApp group, late in the day Azam was killed, simply said: “Child kidnappers found in Murki.” Videos and photos of Azam and his four friends, taken just before, were attached.
The five, who were in a new cherry red SUV, had set out from Hyderabad that day for a drive into the countryside. While passing through a hamlet where they planned to picnic, they tossed chocolates toward a group of children, according to three of the survivors.
What the men thought was a kind gesture in a poor village cost Azam his life, as a mob of angry villagers savagely attacked him and his friends.
The assault began when the group stopped to take selfies amid lush green fields beside a pond, just after driving by the kids, according to interviews with the survivors, police, villagers and other eye witnesses.
Three villagers first walked up and started deflating their tires. “We asked them why are you removing the air? They yelled: you men are child kidnappers,” said retail worker Mohammed Afroz, one of the four survivors.
While the five tried to plead their innocence, dozens of villagers gathered. Some carried pick-axes and sticks. Photos and videos of the five men were posted on a 180-member WhatsApp group named ‘Mother Murki’, according to police.
That video, seen by Reuters, shows the five, most wearing western attire, trying to calm the crowd.
It did not work.
Salham Al Kubassi, a Qatari national, who was friends with Azam, was among the first to be hit. While two of the friends tried to reason with the mob, Kubassi, who is a policeman in Qatar, jumped into the SUV with Azam and their friend Mohammed Salman, who works at a Hyderabad car repair shop, and sped away, according to police and the survivors.
But a makeshift roadblock was set up at a nearby junction. The SUV careened off the road after it hit a tree trunk the villagers had put in the road and ended in a small, dry riverbed, police said.
It was the attack here that claimed Azam’s life.
Many villagers, both men and women, threw bricks and rocks at the toppled SUV, shattering its windows. Some then tied ropes around Azam and Salman and dragged them out of the vehicle as at least 200 others gathered, hurling abuse at them, police said.
“They came here to steal kids. Let’s hit these bastards and kill them!” people in the mob shouted, according to a police report. “Don’t let them go!“

’HIGH ALERT, PLEASE SHARE’
While police say there were no child kidnappings recorded in or around Murki, child trafficking is a problem in India, and many children are sold into slavery, especially forced labor.
About 250,000 children were registered as missing on the government’s Track Child portal between January 2012 and March 2017.
Villagers in Murki said they had been hearing about child kidnapping gangs for months.
Photos and videos of the bodies of children being mutilated by alleged child abductors have been circulating via WhatsApp in many parts of India. Police showed Reuters some of the material they have gathered.
One video purports to show the bloodied body of a boy with his mouth gagged, as a man leans in and repeatedly stabs his heart. The messages exhort viewers to share them, “High Alert. Please Share As Much as Possible,” one said.
In all the areas where the recent lynching cases occurred, there were no such gangs, and the messages and reports were all false, police said.
The problem is that people “may not be able to read or write, but everyone understands photos and videos,” said Telangana Superintendent Rajeshwari.

“PEOPLE MADE A MISTAKE“
In many recent lynchings, police say minority groups such as those from lower castes, have been targets. Hindu vigilantes have also killed over two dozen Muslim people for transporting cows in the past year, accusing them of slaughtering the animals considered sacred in Hinduism.
India’s home ministry issued a notice to police nationwide on July 4, calling lynchings over child kidnapping rumors “a serious concern,” according to a copy reviewed by Reuters. The government also issued a statement on Wednesday urging action against “cow vigilantes.”
Azam’s killing has sent a chill through Murki, where many fear discussing the attack following the arrest of more than 30 men and women from the area in the police investigation. No one has yet been charged.
When asked why villagers attacked the men, Vijay Biradar, a village elder, said “people made a mistake.”
“Did you see the Qatari’s face? His big beard?” he said.
“He looked like a terrorist.”


North Korean foreign minister arrives in Moscow for talks

Updated 01 November 2024
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North Korean foreign minister arrives in Moscow for talks

  • The visit comes after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile this week
  • Washington says there are 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia

MOSCOW: North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has arrived in Moscow and will hold strategic consultations with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, in a post on her official Telegram channel, published photographs of Lavrov meeting Choe at a Moscow train station.
“Today, talks between the heads of Russia and the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will be held in Moscow. Sergei Lavrov greeted his counterpart with a bouquet of flowers,” said Zakharova.
“The meeting began at the Yaroslavsky railway station (in Moscow), where a memorial plaque was unveiled to mark the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s 1949 visit to the USSR,” she said, referring to the founder of the DPRK.
The visit, Choe’s second in six weeks, comes after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile this week and as Washington says there are 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, including as many as 8,000 deployed in Russia’s Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have dug in.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the United States expected the North Korean troops in Kursk region to enter the fight against Ukraine in the coming days.
Moscow has neither denied nor directly confirmed the presence of North Korean troops on its soil. President Vladimir Putin has said it is for Russia to decide how to implement a treaty he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June that includes a mutual defense clause.


Shootout in western France wounds five: minister

Updated 01 November 2024
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Shootout in western France wounds five: minister

  • 15-year-old boy is between life and death after the gunbattle erupted in front of a restaurant overnight

Paris: A drug trafficking-related shooting has left a teenager and four others seriously wounded in the western French city of Poitiers, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Friday.
The 15-year-old boy is between life and death after the gunbattle erupted in front of a restaurant overnight, Retailleau told BFMTV/RMC radio.


Drone crashes on oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol region

Updated 01 November 2024
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Drone crashes on oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol region

  • There were no casualties in the incident at the Svetlograd oil depot, Vladimirov said on Telegram

MOSCOW: A drone fell on an oil depot in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, local governor Vladimir Vladimirov said on Friday.
It was the second suspected Ukrainian attack in consecutive days on Russian fuel and energy targets, following a lull of about seven weeks since a fuel facility in Tula was attacked on Sept. 10.
There were no casualties in the incident at the Svetlograd oil depot, Vladimirov said on Telegram.
Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russia’s security services, posted a CCTV video purportedly showing the attack on the oil depot. The video showed that at least one of several fuel tanks was swiftly engulfed by a fireball.
On Thursday, several fuel and energy facilities were targeted in a Ukrainian drone attack on the central Russian region of Bashkortostan, home to Bashneft, a major oil company controlled by Russia’s leading oil producer, Rosneft .
Bashneft operates several refineries in the region, playing a significant role in Russia’s energy infrastructure.
The attacks come days after the Financial Times reported early-stage talks between Ukraine and Russia about potentially halting airstrikes on each other’s energy facilities. The Kremlin dismissed the report.
Russia has called such attacks terrorism, while Ukraine, which stepped up the drone strikes on Russian energy facilities since the start of the year, has said it is striking back in retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defense committee, said in comments to Life media channel earlier this week, that there were no talks on halting the attacks.
“We are not going to spare anyone,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in September that Russia had knocked out the gigawatt equivalent of over half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The European Union aims to restore 2.5 GW of capacity, about 15 percent of the country’s needs, she said, referring to proposed EU-funded repairs.


Eight dead as huge fire engulfs cooking oil factory near Jakarta

Updated 01 November 2024
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Eight dead as huge fire engulfs cooking oil factory near Jakarta

  • The factory is operated by PT Primus Sanus Cooking Oil Industrial (Priscolin)

JAKARTA: Eight people died in a large fire at a cooking oil factory near the Indonesian capital Jakarta, local fire authorities said on Friday.
Around 20 firefighting trucks are at the site and have contained the blaze in most areas of the factory, authorities said.
Footage from Metro TV showed flames and billowing black smoke coming out of a building in the center of an industrial complex in Bekasi, a city on Jakarta’s eastern edge. The report said roads had been closed around the factory.
All of the bodies had been evacuated from the site, Suhartono, head of Bekasi’s fire department SAID, adding that three other people were injured.
But the number of casualties could still rise, he said.
Local authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.
The factory is operated by PT Primus Sanus Cooking Oil Industrial (Priscolin), said Suhartono.


Schoolgirls, policeman among five killed in roadside blast in Pakistan’s Balochistan

Updated 01 November 2024
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Schoolgirls, policeman among five killed in roadside blast in Pakistan’s Balochistan

QUETTA: At least five people, including three schoolgirls and a policeman, were killed in a roadside blast in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Friday morning, police said, in the latest incident of violence to hit the restive region.
The blast appeared to target a police van passing by a girls school in the Mastung district of the province, according to police and local administration officials.
Fateh Baloch, in-charge of the Mastung police station, said the police mobile van came under attack when it was on a routine patrol on Friday morning.
“Five people, including a police constable and three minor schoolgirls, were killed and 13 others injured in the blast,” Baloch told Arab News.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.
“We have cordoned-off the area and are shifting the injured to the hospital,” Baz Muhammad Marri, the Mastung deputy commissioner, told Arab News.
Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is home to major China-led projects such as a strategic port and a gold and copper mine, has been the site of a decades-long separatist insurgency by ethnic Baloch militants. The province has lately seen an increase in attacks by separatist militants.
On Tuesday, five people were killed in an attack by armed men on the construction site of a small dam in Balochistan’s Panjgur district. The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of several separatist groups, claimed responsibility for the attack along with killing of two other persons in Kech and Quetta districts.
This month, 21 miners working at privately run coal mines were killed in an attack by unidentified gunmen.
The separatists accuse the central government of exploiting Balochistan’s mineral and gas resources. The Pakistani state denies the allegation and says it is working to uplift the region through development initiatives.
Besides Baloch separatists, the restive region also has a presence of religiously motivated militant groups, who frequently target police and security forces.
Islamabad says militants mainly associated with the Pakistani Taliban frequently launch attacks from Afghanistan and has even blamed Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers for facilitating anti-Pakistan groups. Kabul denies the allegation.

- This article originally appeared on Arab News Pakistan