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 slammed the Maharashtra state government yesterday 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 on 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.
Mr Katju demanded that the state government suspend the police officers who had ordered the arrests and prosecute them.
The women withdrew the comment and apologised, but angry Thackeray supporters ransacked an orthopaedic clinic run by the uncle of one of the women.
A lawyer representing the women, Sudheer Gupta, said police arrested them on Sunday, the day of the funeral, on charges of creating enmity and hatred. They were released on bail on Monday.
Shaheen Dhada, 21, 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, Ms Dhada told NDTV television she would never again make comments on a social networking site. Both women said they have deactivated their Facebook accounts.
Ms Dhada described her arrest as "unfair".
"It was not a crime," Renu Srinivas, Ms Dhada's friend who also was arrested, told NDTV.
Kapil Sibal, India's information technology minister, 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," Mr Sibal said. 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," Mr Sibal said.
Shops and offices were closed on Sunday as more than 1.5 million people attended Thackeray's funeral.
He was never elected to office but was seen for decades as Mumbai's most powerful man. He created an army of supporters by weaving Hindu fundamentalism with ardent defence of Marathis, Mumbai's dominant ethnic group.
Thackeray founded his political party, the Shiv Sena - which means Shiva's Army - with the sole aim of keeping people who are not from Maharashtra out of the state and stemming the spread of Islam and western values.
Spurred by Thackeray's rabble-rousing speeches, his supporters routinely resorted to violence against Muslims and migrant workers who had come to Mumbai in search of work. He is among those blamed for a wave of religious violence in 1992 that left nearly 1,000 people dead in Mumbai alone.
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 on Sunday. A day later, a relieved Mumbai police chief, Satyapal Singh, praised the "unexpectedly orderly behaviour" of Thackeray's supporters.
But the thuggish behaviour was in evidence on Monday when a mob of Thackeray's supporters stormed the orthopaedic 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. This year, a university professor was arrested in the state of West Bengal for forwarding an email cartoon that caricatured the chief minister there.
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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The fake news generation
288,000 – the number of posts reported as hate speech that were deleted by Facebook globally each month in May and June this year
11% – the number of Americans who said they trusted the news they read on Snapchat as of June 2017, according to Statista. Over a quarter stated that they ‘rarely trusted’ the news they read on social media in general
31% - the number of young people in the US aged between 10 and 18 who said they had shared a news story online in the last six months that they later found out was wrong or inaccurate
63% - percentage of Arab nationals who said they get their news from social media every single day.
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- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
BIOSAFETY LABS SECURITY LEVELS
Biosafety Level 1
The lowest safety level. These labs work with viruses that are minimal risk to humans.
Hand washing is required on entry and exit and potentially infectious material decontaminated with bleach before thrown away.
Must have a lock. Access limited. Lab does not need to be isolated from other buildings.
Used as teaching spaces.
Study microorganisms such as Staphylococcus which causes food poisoning.
Biosafety Level 2
These labs deal with pathogens that can be harmful to people and the environment such as Hepatitis, HIV and salmonella.
Working in Level 2 requires special training in handling pathogenic agents.
Extra safety and security precautions are taken in addition to those at Level 1
Biosafety Level 3
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Significant extra precautions are taken with staff given specific immunisations when dealing with certain diseases.
Infectious material is examined in a biological safety cabinet.
Personnel must wear protective gowns that must be discarded or decontaminated after use.
Strict safety and handling procedures are in place. There must be double entrances to the building and they must contain self-closing doors to reduce risk of pathogen aerosols escaping.
Windows must be sealed. Air from must be filtered before it can be recirculated.
Biosafety Level 4
The highest level for biosafety precautions. Scientist work with highly dangerous diseases that have no vaccine or cure.
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Entrance must be via airlocks.
