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Need to reach out to every home, unite Hindus: RSS chief Bhagwat
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief, who arrived here on Saturday on a two-day visit, made the remarks while speaking to volunteers at the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya School in Nawabganj.
"We should have contact with every family in the 'shakha' area.
"Work has to be done to unite all Hindus. There should be 'sanskar' (values) in every household and harmony in families so that the Sanatan tradition can be re-established in every home," he said.
On Sunday, Bhagwat held four meetings with Sangh officials where the functioning of 'shakhas' and service work conducted among students were discussed along with other issues.
Bhagwat said that the RSS "works for personality development.
Personal development means realising one's responsibility towards the family as well as society, nation and the entire human race, i.e. the world".
"We say that the world is a family. As the Sangh grew, it expanded its scope and expanded its work in various areas of social life through its workers," he said.
"Today we are in the centenary year of the Sangh. On the basis of Panch Parivartan, an effort is being made to move towards a big change in the entire society -- a society that is aware of its responsibility towards the nation, a society that builds its lifestyle in accordance with the environment; "A society that is free from the inequality of casteism, where the entire society has equal rights on temples, water reservoirs, crematoriums," he said.
Swayamsevaks are being trained in Kanpur from May 21, and the camp will conclude on June 10, RSS office bearers in Kanpur said.
Dattatreya Hosabale, the general secretary of the RSS, has been in Kanpur for the past two days and is providing training to volunteers on building a "society that transcends caste barriers", they said.
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India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
UN, Rights Group Slam Pakistan For Ongoing Persecution Of Religious Minorities
Shocked at reports of increasing violence against vulnerable communities on grounds of their religion or belief in Pakistan, a panel of United Nations (UN) human rights experts has called for immediate investigations, prosecutions, and reforms to protect the country's religious minorities. Only last week, the UN human rights experts issued an unusually sharp rebuke to Pakistan, expressing that they were "shocked at reports of increasing violence against vulnerable communities on grounds of their religion or belief". Their statement, published on July 24, carried the weight of decades of frustration, a 'One World Outlook' report cited. "Pakistan must break the pattern of impunity that has allowed perpetrators to act without restraint," the UN panel urged, calling for immediate investigations, prosecutions, and reforms to protect the country's religious minorities. The minorities in Pakistan - including Ahmadiyya Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Shia Muslims - continue to be neglected and increasingly subjected to targetted state-backed persecution. The latest reports from Amnesty International and New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch have also highlighted the "systemic repression" and called the violence stemming from blasphemy allegations in 2025 "intensified terror against communities who have nowhere to turn". According to the report, the ongoing violence against minorities is deliberate rather than "sporadic or random". The recent UN report held Pakistan responsible for "tacit official complicity", arguing that law enforcement's failure to act has emboldened extremists. Raising concern, the UN experts stated, "The cycle of fear prevents both people and institutions from upholding the rights and dignity of these minorities". Pakistan's Ahmadiyya community, the report highlighted, continues to face severe persecution, having been constitutionally declared non-Muslim in 1974. They are prohibited by law from identifying themselves as Muslims, practicing their faith publicly, or referring to their places of worship as mosques. Human Rights Watch documented multiple incidents of violence against Ahmadiyya in 2024, involving desecration of their mosques, vandalism of their cemeteries, and burning of their religious texts. "Even in death, they are denied dignity as graveyards are routinely vandalised," the report stated. Pakistani authorities place Ahmadiyya voters on separate electoral rolls, their religious sites are frequently sealed by police, and they are often charged with "fabricated" blasphemy cases leading to detentions, disappearances, and escalating extrajudicial killings. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also described the blasphemy laws as "a mechanism of ethnic cleansing", and has repeatedly suggested designating Pakistan a "country of particular concern". According to the 2025 report of the Commission, "religious minority communities — particularly Christians, Hindus, and Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims — continued to bear the brunt of prosecutions under Pakistan's strict blasphemy law". Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have recorded several cases of sexual violence against women who were detained under fabricated blasphemy charges by Pakistani authorities. On the other hand, forced conversions and marriages remain a persistent crisis with Hindu, Christian, and Sikh girls — some as young as 12 — being abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to their abductors. Earlier this year, during a UK Parliamentary debate, lawmakers criticised these practices as a "serious abuse of human rights that robs women and girls of the right to choose their own future". The UN, in its July 2025 statement, also called on Pakistan to abolish blasphemy laws, hold perpetrators accountable, and ensure the protection of religious sites.
Scroll.in
an hour ago
- Scroll.in
Pahalgam's aftermath in Assam: Terror charges, jail for social media posts by Muslim men
Four years ago, a friend helped 23-year-old Sahadat Ali, a mechanic in Assam's Dhubri district, open a Facebook account. Ali, who works in a garage in Tamarhat market, told Scroll that besides watching videos on the social media website, he does not do much else. 'My phone is mostly used by my friends at the garage, who make calls and play games,' he said. On May 13, six days after India launched military strikes on alleged terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan as part of Operation Sindoor, the police arrived at Ali's garage. The officials from Tamarhat police station showed him an allegedly objectionable post made from his phone. 'I told them that I did not share it and I'm not aware of it. But they took me away,' Ali told Scroll. In the first information report against Ali, sub-inspector Pradipt Daimary said he had received information that Ali had allegedly 'shared a post' that was derogatory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his Facebook account. It asked: 'Why is he asking for forgiveness now?' When Scroll asked Ali about the post, he said he did not know about it. Ali was booked for terrorism under Section 113 (3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, as well as Section 152, which replaced the charge of sedition in the Indian Penal Code. '[His] action not only endangers the peace and security of the nation, but also [the] sentiments of the citizens and promotes hostility,' the complaint said. The police told the court that Ali 'is anti-Indian and found speaking against Hindus and promoting hatred against the Hindu community'. They also accused him of supporting Pakistan-sponsored terrorist activists against India in Jammu and Kashmir. Ali ended up spending two months in prison for a post he claims he did not write. He was released on bail on July 16. Ali was among the 97 people arrested in Assam in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack for statements made on social media. This was part of a crackdown against 'anti-national and anti-Hindu culprits', the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on June 23. Two leaders from Assam's Opposition parties were among those arrested for alleging a conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre in the Pahalgam attack. One of them has been held under the National Security Act. An analysis of the names of those arrested, posted on social media by Sarma, reveals that over 90% were Muslims. It is not clear how many of the 97 are still in prison. Scroll tracked down nine of those cases in which Assam residents were arrested for 'anti-national' posts or statements. Of the nine first information reports we analysed, among the common sections was Section 152 that is invoked in cases involving 'acts exciting secession, armed rebellion and endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India'. In four of the cases, including Ali's, the Assam police invoked sections involving terrorism. Strikingly, in all cases but one, it was the Assam police that took suo motu action against the accused. In some cases, the accused were arrested for sharing a post, or even questioning whether the attackers in Pahalgam had actually singled out their victims by religion. In one instance, a PhD student was arrested for a post that criticised what he thought was misreporting on the attacks, even though he went on to condemn the killings of tourists in Kashmir. Scroll sent the Assam Police, with detailed queries about the number of people still in jail for such posts and allegations from the accused's families that their relatives were being framed. The article will be updated if they respond. Legal experts have questioned the police action, citing past orders that refused to consider saying 'Pakistan Zindabad' an offence. As recently as July 11, an Allahabad High Court dismissed a case of sedition against a resident of Uttar Pradesh, saying that 'merely showing support to Pakistan without referring to any incident or mentioning the name of India, will not prima facie attract the offence under Section 152 BNS'. Gauhati High Court advocate Dipesh Agarwala agreed. 'Merely posting on social media without any incitement for violence does not attract the ingredients of sedition,' he said. 'However, it becomes difficult to argue bail in these cases because most often it's not the law which decides the outcome but nationalistic sentiments.' Congress leader and senior advocate HRA Choudhury pointed out that it is not the first time that the Assam police has arrested people for mere Facebook posts. In August 2021, the police had arrested 16 people under the stringent anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 for Facebook posts allegedly 'supporting' the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Within two months, 14 of the 16 had been granted bail by lower courts due to lack of evidence. 'These are politically motivated [arrests] done for polarisation, to show Hindus that many Muslims are being arrested,' Choudhury said. 'He [Himanta] also knows these people will be freed. They are just victims of Hindutva politics.' 'Pakistan is a normal country' Among those slapped with a terror charge for an allegedly 'anti-national' Facebook post is Dhubri resident Arif Rahman. The 19-year-old was arrested on May 9 after a suo motu complaint was made by a police officer. Rahman was booked under a section invoked in cases of terrorism because he had posted an Instagram reel with a tagline, 'Pakistan is just a normal country', according to the first information report. Legal experts cautioned against such excessive police action without a proper inquiry. Agarwala, the High Court advocate, pointed out that the Supreme Court has laid out guidelines to 'prevent misuse of criminal law to stifle free expression' in cases involving speech, writing or expression. 'According to its order in the Imran Pratapgarhi vs State of Gujarat case, the court said the police must conduct a preliminary enquiry before registering an FIR,' he said. 'Also, the police cannot mechanically add offences. It must see if the act attracts the ingredients of the offences.' On June 6, Dhubri additional Sessions Judge SB Rahman granted Rahman bail after noting that 'no other incriminating material was recovered to establish the link with any terrorist organisation'. As the chargesheet in the case was already filed, he said no further investigation is required. However, the judge directed Rahman to appear before the investigation officer in the case and chant 'Jai Hind' three times in the morning for 21 days. 'The accused is also directed to make a video of the same and upload the said video on his personal Facebook account or any other social platform daily," the order said. A similar condition was imposed on another Dhubri resident, Abu Bin Miraz Uddin Sheikh, who was named in the same FIR as Rahman. Sheikh had allegedly celebrated the shooting down of 'five Indian jets' by Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. He was also booked under Section 113 (3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with terrorist acts. Terror charge for sharing a post On May 9, Gautam Chakrabarty, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, tagged the Assam police in a tweet. He was flagging the fact that a Facebook handle, 'Jobbur Islam', had shared 'posts in favour of Pakistan'. A day later, the police filed a suo motu complaint and registered a case against Mohammad Jabbur Islam, a resident of Biswanath district. The sub-inspector of Biswanath Charali police station alleged in the complaint that 'Islam had shared posts on social media like Facebook that are seditious, misleading, and potentially detrimental to the unity and Integrity of our nation'. Besides sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita dealing with sedition, the police had also booked Islam under a terror charge. The post for which Islam, a teacher, is in jail on a terror charge was originally posted by a handle called 'Bangladesh Jamiate Islami'. The handle had shared an image of a fallen aircraft with the text: 'They will come. If they do, there will be trouble. Pakistan Zindabad.' Islam had allegedly shared the post from his account. Lutfar, a relative of Islam, said he was not guilty. 'He did not write anything...a post from Bangladesh was shared from his account without his knowledge,' he said. The post is no longer visible on Islam's account, he said. Lutfar added: 'When I met him in jail, he told me he did not share it. He did not have any anti-national intentions or ill intention. Whenever I go to meet him, he only cries.' On June 16, Islam approached the Gauhati High Court for bail saying he had already spent 39 days in custody. Advocate TN Srinivasan, who represented him in court, said the period of detention undergone by Islam in custody should be taken as a ground to release the petitioner on bail. The High Court rejected the bail application stating that Islam was 'indulging in anti-India activities'. It added: 'Therefore, such persons do not deserve to be released on bail.' Two Facebook accounts, same name. A set-up? On May 17, almost a month after the Pahalgam terror attack, a 29-year-old man working with an architecture firm in Guwahati was picked up from his home by the Assam police. Two days earlier, Azad Imran Hussain had allegedly made a Facebook post that said 'Pakistan Zindabad'. Hussain was arrested for 'posting anti-national statements through his Facebook account which are in support of Pakistan', according to the case filed by the police before a local court. He was booked for sedition and promoting enmity between groups, among others. If convicted for sedition, Hussain could be imprisoned for life, or be sentenced to seven years in jail plus a fine. But his family insists that Hussain is being framed. 'My son's last post on Facebook was a video on interior design on July 24 last year,' his mother Rehena Aktar said. 'He has not put up a single post since then.' She alleged that the Facebook profile from which the objectionable post was made is impersonating Hussain and does not belong to him. 'The account from which 'Pakistan Zindabad' was posted is a fake account and it is not run by my son,' Aktar told Scroll. For the last two months, Aktar, who is in her 50s, has been going from police stations to courts, in order to secure her son's release from the Barpeta district jail. A district-level badminton player from Assam's Barpeta district, Hussain's Facebook account, which goes by the name of 'Azad Imran Hussain (Rupam)', identifies the user as a reel creator and has over 5,000 followers. However, the post for which he has been booked – 'Pakistan Zindabad' – is not on his Facebook profile. Scroll has confirmed that the last visible post on his profile was a video on interior design, as his mother has asserted. The post for which Hussain has been in prison for two months was made by another Facebook profile, with the name 'Azad Imran Hussain', his brother Rahul Azad alleged. 'The police could not differentiate between a fake and real Facebook account,' Azad alleged. 'This fake post has only 11 followers.' Hussain's family allege that his troubles are a fallout of a relationship that did not end well. Three years ago 'Hussain had married a girl but they got separated after staying together for a year', his mother Akter said. 'The marriage was not registered but had social sanction as both the families had accepted. But it did not work out.' Akter said the young woman's family had even filed a case against Hussain, in which he was acquitted. Hussain's relatives suspect that the woman's current boyfriend, Rashid Sheikh, also a Barpeta resident, created a fake account to frame him. Hussain has named Sheikh in a statement to the police, Akter said. 'Based on the statement, Sheikh was arrested,' Akter said. Sanidul, Sheikh's younger brother, confirmed to Scroll that he was arrested on May 22. 'The police said that he was arrested for some Facebook post made from his phone,' Sanidul said. He denied that his brother was involved in framing Hussain. In a complaint filed with the Assam cyber crime portal, Azad claimed that the fake Facebook account was created on May 15. Azad claimed that the account's settings were changed from public to private on May 17. 'On May 20, the account was all of a sudden deactivated,' Azad said in the complaint. 'My brother was in judicial custody [at the time] and his phone was seized. How come he could use that account when he was in judicial custody?' The Barpeta police have claimed that the cyber cell had identified the phone number linked to the Facebook account from which the posts were made to Hussain's. But Hussain's mother alleged that the police are yet to produce a forensic report on the post even two months later. 'That report will establish the device from which the post was created,' she said. A lawyer, who has represented many cyber crime cases, told Scroll that the report will establish the Facebook account from which the post was created, the URL of the post and the account and the phone number linked to the Facebook account. 'Anyone can be framed like this,' Azad told Scroll. 'Suppose a fake id is created in a police official's name and anti-national comments are made from the account. Does it prove that the official made those posts? Will you arrest the official?' Pranab Das, the inspector at Sorbhog police station in Barpeta district, who is the investigating officer in the case, told Scroll on July 15 that the case is under investigation and refused to share more information. 'We have not filed the chargesheet yet,' he said. 'This is what Muslims do' Soon after the Pahalgam attack on April 22, a post-graduate student from Barak Valley found his friends making scathing comments on Muslims on social media. 'They kept saying, 'This is what Muslims do,' the student told Scroll. 'It made me angry. It was a terrorist attack but it was being given a communal colour.' In a fit of rage, he took to Facebook to counter what he believed at the time was misinformation. 'They were sharing posts that Hindus were singled out in the attack after they were asked to say Islamic prayers or being asked their religion. But this information did not come from verified government agencies,' the student said. In his long post on Facebook, which used mildly abusive language, the student questioned why there was silence when 'Muslims are killed for not saying 'Jai Shri Ram' or eating beef or when men, women and children in Palestine are killed by Jews'. But he also added: 'I condemn this [Pahalgam] terror attack as much as I condemn those attacks [against Muslims].' A complaint against the post was filed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the Bharatiya Janata Party's student wing, and he was arrested from his home. The student got bail within 24 hours from a Silchar court. He had deleted the post and apologised on social media even before the police arrested him. 'He did not post any anti-India or pro-Pakistan statements,' a person who knows the student told Scroll. 'He has been taking medicine for anxiety and to control his anger since 2021.' 'He does not know how to write' Three days ahead of the panchayat elections in Assam, 33-year-old Shahidul Islam, a daily wager in Barpeta's Mandia Pathar village, stepped out to attend the election campaign of a relative, leaving his phone at home, according to his relatives. That day, May 4, the officer in charge of Barpeta police station received information from the district's cyber cell that a Facebook account in Islam's name had left several 'anti-national comments supporting Pakistan'. The inflammatory comment was mostly in Assamese, except for one sentence in English – 'I love Pakistan.' It was posted 25 times on different social media posts. A first information report was filed by sub-inspector Mintu Saikia of Barpeta police station and Islam was arrested from a market in Govindpur, after the account was found linked to his mobile phone. Islam was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita relating to acts inciting secession, hatred or contempt against the government, promoting enmity and jeopardizing the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, among others. The police complaint also accused Islam of 'motivating the youth nearby him to enroll in social media terrorism'. However, Islam's family disputed the police version. They claimed that he could not have made the comments because he is illiterate. 'He cannot read or write. He did not even pass Class 4,' his father Abdul Sattar said. 'We don't believe that he has written such a statement.' Islam's sister Jesmina Begum said, 'He uses the phone to upload videos of jaatra gaan [a form of folk theatre music] on Facebook and watch the news. But a few other friends also have access to the account.' She added: 'He won't even be able to read these comments, forget writing them.' However, the FIR alleged that Islam had confessed to writing the comment, a claim his family denies. 'That's a lie,' Sattar, the father, who met him in the jail, told Scroll. Islam has filed for bail. 'He is the only breadwinner of the house and he has been languishing in jail for almost two months,' his father said.
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
Two nuns held in Chhattisgarh over 'conversion bid, trafficking'
RAIPUR: Three people, including two nuns, were arrested from Durg station in BJP-governed Chhattisgarh on charges of trafficking three tribal girls, all under 23, from Maoist-affected Narayanpur and attempting their religious conversion under the guise of giving them nursing jobs in Agra. The arrests on July 25 followed a complaint from a Bajrang Dal worker, sparking a political storm with Congress alleging that minorities were being targeted under the BJP-led administration. But CM Vishnu Deo Sai justified the action, claiming this was a case of "human trafficking under the guise of religious conversion". Those arrested were identified as Sister Preeti Mary (45) and Sister Vandana Francis (50), both from a Kerala denomination, and Sukaman Mandavi (19) from Narayanpur. A GRP official claimed the tribal women were brought to Durg station by Mandavi without intimation to gram panchayat officials in their Narayanpur village and written consent from their parents. The three accused were produced before a local court and sent to jail on judicial remand. The tribal women were sent to Sakhi Centre, a govt shelter. Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi alleged that arrests pointed to "BJP-RSS mob rule". "Two Catholic nuns jailed in Chhattisgarh after being targeted for their faith. This isn't justice. It reflects a dangerous pattern, systematic persecution of minorities. We demand their immediate release," he said on X.
