#mumbai congress

[mhlivenews]

मुंबई काँग्रेसला दुहेरी धक्का; आणखी दोन माजी नगरसेवकांचा राजीनामा, स्थानिक नेतृत्वाबाबत नाराजी

मुंबई : काँग्रेसचे ज्येष्ठ नेते अशोक चव्हाण यांच्या राजीनाम्याने धक्का बसलेल्या काँग्रेसला सोमवारी काही छोट्या धक्क्यांनाही सामोरे जावे लागले. मुंबई काँग्रेसच्या जगदीश आमीन आणि राजेंद्र नरवणकर माजी नगरसेवकांनी पक्षाला सोडचिठ्ठी देत भाजपमध्ये प्रवेश केला. यावेळी त्यांनी स्थानिक पक्षनेतृत्वाबाबत उघडपणे नाराजी केल्याने पक्षांतर्गत वाद पुन्हा चव्हाट्यावर आला आहे. आमीन आणि नरवणकर यांनी उपमुख्यमंत्री…

[indianfasttrack]

महराष्ट्र में कांग्रेस का जलवा, 50 फीसदी बढ़ेंगी सीटें

Election Survey: महाराष्ट्र विधानसभा चुनाव 2024 पर इलेक्टोरल एज का प्री पोल सर्वे की रिपोर्ट सामने आई है। इसमें कांग्रेस महाराष्ट्र की सबसे बड़ी पार्टी बनकर उभर रही है। सर्वे में महाविकास अघाडी गठबंधन को बढ़त मिलता दिख रहा है। (Congress shines in Maharashtra seats will increase by 50 percent) न्यूज़ डेस्कमुंबई- महाराष्ट्र में विधानसभा चुनाव 2024 के लिए महाविकास अघाड़ी (MVA) और महायुति की गठबंधन…

[creativemedianews]

Baba Siddique: Bollywood-connected Indian politician shot dead in Mumbai

Baba Siddique: Bollywood-connected Indian politician shot dead in Mumbai #AjitPawar #BabaSiddique #Bollywoodties

[smhoaxslayer]

Amit Shah’s Doctored Video on Reservation Goes Viral Amid Lok Sabha Elections

The ongoing Lok Sabha elections has instigated a constant and intense broil between the political parties in the nation, with accusations and claims on several issues coming to light in political discussions. Amidst such viral issues under discussion, a video of Amit Shah, the Minister of Home Affairs of India has gained massive attention recently. As per the video's claims, it is being shown that Shah allegedly called SC/ST and OBC reservation 'unconstitutional' and promised an end to it if the party wins. 🚨ब्रेकिंग अमित शाह का चुनावी भाषण तेजी से हुआ वायरल जिसमें, बोल रहे है कि अगर बीजेपी की सरकार अगर पुनः बनी तो OBC और SC/St आरक्षण खत्म कर ��िया जाएगा l pic.twitter.com/5NzajLCgLd — Jharkhand Congress (@INCJharkhand) April 28, 2024  

archive The post is being shared across social media platforms by various accounts.

Truth

It has been found that the viral video has been originally taken from a clip dated 23 April, 2023 in which Shah is addressing a gathering at the Vijay Sankalp Sabha at Chevella, Telangana. In the original video, Shah criticized the religion-based reservations, targeting the Muslim reservations in Telangana. Furthermore, he also promised to do away with this practice and to ensure the rightful benefit of reservations to SC/ST and OBC groups. The logo of Telugu news channel V6 News Telugu present in the viral video has led to the original event news clip. https://youtu.be/nWFdUNVI9yU?si=ld4vP43jthDbW62N As seen in the edited video, Amit Shah's speech directly cuts from "gairsamvaidhanik... (unconstitutional)" to "SC, ST  aur OBC...".  However, after verifying the original words of the Home Minister from the news clip, it has been found that 8 seconds of the speech have been cut from the viral video. The original news clipping has been used from video duration 2:38 to 2:44, after which the part where Shah mentions Muslim reservation (from 2:44 to 2:52) has been deleted from the widely circulated video. Fake news is being spreaded by this handle.. FIR should be laudge against this handle.. Here is the real one👇 pic.twitter.com/KKDdoRt7Fu — Rahul Gupta (𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐢'𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲) (@rahulguptaglg) April 28, 2024

archive A video of the same was also posted on the official YouTube channel of NDTV. https://youtu.be/Iu4rATS2ZUw As per the latest updates, three people, who have been found to be linked to the fake video of Amit Shah, have been arrested. From the three people under arrest, two of them were arrested by Ahmedabad Cyber Crime department and one from Assam. Reetam Singh, a Congress worker from Guwahati, Assam, was put behind the bars for alleged doctoring and sharing of the Home Minister's video. Ahmedabad Cyber Crime department also arrested Satish Vansola and RV Varia in the Amit Shah deepfake case. Satish Vansola is the personal assistant of Jignesh Mevani, a leader from Congress. Furthermore, notices from Delhi Police's Special Cell have been sent to five members of Telangana Congress, along with Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy, who further shared this video on their X handles. A case has also been registered by the Mumbai police against the social media handle of Maharashtra Youth Congress and 16 others for alleged spread of the fake video, as per PTI. Read the full article

[newswatchindia]

‘Thay-Thayy’ , politics out of control in Thane, Maharashtra!

Maharastra News: Mumbai BJP MLA Ganesh Gaikwad has been sent to police remand till 14th February by the court. On Friday night, he had opened fire on Shinde group leader Mahesh Gaikwad over a land dispute.

[tnsfrbc]

Salary INR 27, 450 | AIASL Recruitment | 2024 | Security Executive Posts Official Website : https://www.aiasl.in/

[dakshvats]

सतलोक आश्रम कुरुक्षेत्र में आये महामंत्री व विधायक के क्या विचार थे इस म...

विभिन्न राजनीतिक पार्टियों के मंत्री,विधायकों ने क्या कहा संत रामपाल जी महाराज के अवतरण दिवस और सतलोक आश्रम की व्यवस्था के बारे में आइये मिलकर जानें 🙏 👆

[todaysupdate]

अजित पवार 40 विधायकों संग BJP में जाने को तैयार?

एनसीपी के 54 एमएलए में से करीब 40 एमएलए अजीत पवार के साथ हैं.

[mhlivenews]

Congress: आज हजेरीपरेड, मुंबई काँग्रेसमध्ये हालचालींना वेग, बैठकीकडे साऱ्यांचं लक्ष

मुंबई: माजी मुख्यमंत्री अशोक चव्हाण यांनी भाजपमध्ये प्रवेश केल्यानंतर प्रदेश काँग्रेसमधील अंतर्गत हालचालींना वेग आला आहे. आगामी राज्यसभा निवडणुकीच्या पार्श्वभूमीवर, आता आमदार एकसंघ राहण्यासाठी पक्षातर्फे प्रयत्न केले जाणार आहेत. त्यासाठी आज, बुधवारी मुंबईत आमदारांची तातडीची बैठक बोलावण्यात आली असून या बैठकीत कोण कोण आमदार हजर राहतात, याकडे महाराष्ट्राचे लक्ष लागले आहे. दरम्यान, मंगळवारी दिवसभर…

[indianfasttrack]

ट्रैफिक पुलिस की मनमानी के खिलाफ राष्ट्रवादी कांग्रेस पार्टी का विरोध

मुंबई में ट्रैफिक पुलिस की मनमानी से परेशान आम नागरिकों के लिए राष्ट्रवादी कांग्रेस पार्टी शरद पवार गुट ने उठाया ठोस कदम। अवैध चालान के खिलाफ पुलिसकर्मी पर कार्यवाही की मांग करते हुए चालान निरस्थ करने की मांग की है। (Nationalist Congress Party protests against the arbitrariness of the traffic police) इस्माईल शेखमुंबई- ट्रैफिक पुलिस की मनमानी के खिलाफ विरोध करते हुए, राष्ट्रवादी कांग्रेस पार्टी…

[xnapchatt]

Best caption will win world tour with us😎🌍 . . #modi #narendramodi #india #bjp #congress #inc md kd#delhi #mumbai #rahulgandhi #politics #likesforlike #xnapchat_ https://www.instagram.com/p/CkZOr2ESTyF/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[dragoneyes618]

Considered the Father of the Indian Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948), aka Bapu (a Gujarati endearment for “father”), was a lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist whose use of nonviolent resistance led the successful campaign for Indian independence from British rule and inspired worldwide movements for civil rights and freedom.

Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability and, above all, achieving self-rule. He famously began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, he called for the British to quit India in 1942 and was imprisoned several times for many years in both South Africa and India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, leading to extensive religious violence throughout the country.

Gandhi visited Punjab and Bengal, the primary affected areas, attempting to alleviate misery and, in the months that followed, he famously undertook several hunger strikes to halt the religious violence, with his final fast beginning in Delhi at age 78 on January 12, 1948. He was murdered a few weeks later by a militant Hindu nationalist unhappy about Gandhi’s defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims.

Gandhi’s first job was with a Jewish law firm in Johannesburg and some of his closest friends and confidants, both in Johannesburg (1893 – 1914) and later in India, were Jews. He lauded the Jewish spirituality, high standards, and sense of community and, after visiting the synagogue in Johannesburg during Pesach, he expressed his culinary delight with “the Jews’ unleavened cakes” and wrote that “you can almost say that I was keeping Passover with my Jewish friends.”

He, in turn, was always held in high regard by the Jews. In 1931, he met with members of Bene Israel to discuss their participation in the nationalist movement, but he suggested that they join in support of the movement only after India won its independence from the British, urging them not to become involved in politics before then because they constitute such a small minority.

The Bene Israel, sometimes referred to as the “Native Jew” caste, are a community of Jews in India said to be the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes that settled in India many centuries ago. Starting in the second half of the 18th century after learning about normative Sephardic Judaism, they migrated to cities throughout British India, primarily to Mumbai, where they opened their first synagogue in 1796 and became prominent within the British colonial government.

Exhibited here is the editorial on the front page of the February 1948 issue of Schema that was dedicated to mourning Gandhi’s loss. After waxing enthusiastic about the greatness – indeed, the near deity status – of the late Indian leader, the editorial addresses Gandhi’s contribution to the Jewish community:

What does the passing of this great saint and believer in the universality of true religion mean to our small community in India? Our debt to him is no less unquestionable. Apart from the general principles of morality on which he based his every thought and action and which afforded all communities including ourselves the protection of the rock-like foundations of the true freedom and self-expression, he gave concrete expression to his sympathy for our cause and our sufferings on numerous occasions and in no uncertain manner. We are proud and grateful to place on record that he had the greatest respect and admiration for the Jewish people and all they symbolized – for he did not himself stand for what they had stood through centuries of persecution and suffering – the eternal principles of justice and morality against the savage hand of tyranny, the belief that the spirit shall triumph over the sword.

Indeed, Gandhi sympathized with Jews and saw their plight as similar to that of many Indians: 

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews… There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany… A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and colored races including Asiatics. There, too, the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha [nonviolent resistance] without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government…

During a massive review of millions of its archival documents in 2019, the National Library of Israel unearthed a letter handwritten by Gandhi on September 1, 1939 – the very day that World War II broke out in Europe – in which he sends Rosh Hashanah greetings to Avraham E. Shohet, a local Jewish Indian official:

You have my good wishes for your new year. How I wish the new year may mean an era of peace for your afflicted people.

Shohet was head of the Bombay Zionist Association (BZA), president of the Bombay branch of Keren Hayesod, the Bombay city office’s Zionist organization, and editor of The Jewish Advocate, the official publication of the BZA and the Jewish National Fund in India.

But did Gandhi deserve the veneration and affection of the world’s Jews? The answer to that question is far from black and white.

It is doubtful that most Jews would consider Gandhi a great friend, or even a moral person, when they learn that, notwithstanding his characterization of Hitler as the ultimate in evil and as a man with whom negotiation is impossible, his solution to the Holocaust was that Jews should happily accept their fate and proudly submit themselves to mass extermination . . . which he readily admits would be the inevitable result of the Jews wielding “peaceful resistance” against the Nazis.

In a seminal letter he wrote from Segaon (a village in the Khargone district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh where he established an ashram and settled) – which he published as The Jews in the November 26, 1938 issue of the Harijan newspaper – Gandhi argues that “the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history;” that “the tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone;” and that “he is doing it with religious zeal.” He writes that “If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.”

However, because he does not believe in war under any circumstances, he concludes that “there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews:”

Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living G-d need feel helpless or forlorn. Tetragrammaton of the Jews is a G-d more personal than the G-d of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to G-d and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Tetragrammaton had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the G-d fearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

Gandhi even went so far as to send two conciliatory letters to Hitler, the first on July 23, 1939 and the second on December 24, 1940, in which he addressed the Fuhrer as a “friend” and wrote that he did not believe the German dictator was the “monster” that his opponents described. He raised the issue with Hitler of the Germans’ treatment of Poland and the Czechs – with nary a mention of the Jews – and he asked his closest friend, the Jewish Zionist Hermann Kallenbach (more on him later), to pray for Hitler.

Even after World War II, Gandhi essentially remained silent on the Holocaust and, most inconceivably, he spoke out against the “wickedness” of the trials of Nazi war criminals. In a June 1947 interview with his biographer, Louis Fischer, he said:

Hitler killed five million Jews [the correct number, of course, is six million Jews, but what’s another million Jews more or less?]. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.

Gandhi defenders argue that, in urging Jews to accept martyrdom during the Shoah, he was only being consistent with his core values of pacifism and peaceful resistance and that this was not fatalism but, rather, an assertion of will so strong that it would deny the Nazis a sense of ethical and moral superiority over their victims. This position has not only been characterized as passivity bordering on cowardice but, I would argue, a naivete that is stunning, dangerous, and disgusting. Moreover, as I discuss in more detail below, Gandhi’s views of the Jews, the Holocaust, and Eretz Yisrael exhibit a sharp and indisputable double standard that is the very antithesis of “consistency”

Perhaps the Jerusalem Post said it best: in an article titled Repudiating Gandhian Pacifism in the Face of Mass Murder in 2016, the Post summarized Gandhi’s philosophy regarding the Shoah as “when some evil regime or group wants to attack and kill you, the worst thing you can do is try to run and hide to save your life.” No matter how much Gandhi may have sympathized with the Jewish condition, he was oblivious to Jewish survival.

Thus, in a 1939 response to Gandhi’s 1938 article, Martin Buber, the renowned Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher who had made aliyah from Germany only a short time earlier, wrote what should have been obvious to any rational person, let alone to a national leader and internationally-respected philosopher like Gandhi:

The five years I myself spent under the present [Nazi] regime, I observed many instances of genuine satyagraha [nonviolent resistance] among the Jews, instances showing a strength of spirit in which there was no question of bartering their rights or of being bowed down, and where neither force nor cunning was used to escape the consequences of their behavior. Such actions, however, exerted apparently not the slightest influence on their opponents. All honor indeed to those who displayed such strength of soul! But I cannot recognize herein a watchword for the general behavior of German Jews that might seem suited to exert an influence on the oppressed or on the world. An effective stand in the form of non-violence may be taken against unfeeling human beings in the hope of gradually bringing them to their senses; but a diabolic universal steamroller cannot thus be withstood.

Moreover, Gandhi extended his opposition to Jewish self-defense against Nazi genocide by resolutely opposing their right to go to Eretz Yisrael, whether to establish a Jewish State there or even to simply save themselves from death at the hand of the Third Reich. He argued that the mere Jewish agitation for a national home would provide justification to the Nazis to expel them – as if Hitler needed any additional excuses – and that the Jews should engage only in non-violence against the Arabs and “offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them.” In March 1921, he issued a statement supporting the proposition that Muslims must retain control over Eretz Yisrael.

In his 1938 article, Gandhi – almost unbelievably – writes:

Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question… [After expressing sympathy for the Jewish plight:] But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. [But] why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

Not surprisingly, in the wake of its October 7th butchery, this quote has been resurrected by Hamas, and its supporters around the world who argue that Gandhi, the great statesman and man of peace, was clear that “Palestine” belongs to the Arabs and that the Jews are, at best, interlopers.

In his article, Gandhi concludes:

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same G-d rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them… Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth.

Thus, argued Gandhi, the “real Jerusalem” was the spiritual one and, as such, Zionism was unnecessary and Jews could practice their faith in their native countries – including, as we have seen, Nazi Germany.

In Buber’s 1939 correspondence to Gandhi cited above, he noted that Arabs had themselves come to possess Eretz Yisrael “surely by conquest and, in fact, a conquest by settlement,” and he appealed to Gandhi to recognize the responsibility for violence and unrest that was shared by Palestinian Arabs, but Gandhi would not yield. Similarly, Moshe Shertok, as head of the Jewish Agency (later to become Prime Minster of Israel as Moshe Sharett), also asked Gandhi to raise his authoritative voice in favor of a Jewish autonomous government in Eretz Yisrael, but he refused.

Statue of Gandhi and Kallenbach outside Rusne synagogue in Lithuania (2015).

Moreover, A. E. Shohet, the leader of the Indian-Jewish community and Gandhi’s good Jewish friend, reached out to Hermann Kallenbach, a wealthy Jewish Zionist architect and carpenter to whom Gandhi referred as his “soulmate,” to intervene with Gandhi on behalf of Zionism. In May 1910, Kallenbach had funded the establishment of Tolstoy Farm, the South African prototype for Gandhi’s ashram, where the two had lived together; Ghandi once wrote to him “Your portrait (the only one) stands on the mantelpiece in my room . . . even if I wanted to dismiss you from my thoughts, I could not do it.”

How to explain Gandhi’s outrageous views on the Holocaust and Israel? It certainly wasn’t due to antisemitism, since he loved all people and peoples – including, as we have seen, Nazis and terrorists – and he often spoke out in support of Jews. Some authorities suggest that he adopted his views on Jews because he understood Judaism only through the lens of Christianity and that he reduced Judaism to a religion without considering its nationalistic character and, as such, he excluded Zionism from the Jewish identity. Moreover, his closest Jewish friends, including Kallenbach and Sonya Schlesin, were all universalists largely ignorant of rabbinical philosophy and law and post-Biblical rituals and customs; thus, for example, Gandhi condemned the Bible’s “eye for an eye” rule for its inhumanity and violence, wholly unaware of the oral law teaching that the Biblically proscribed punishment was never meant to be interpreted literally but, rather, that the tortfeasor must compensate his victim through the payment of financial damages.

Another proffered explanation for Gandhi’s anti-Zionism was that, although he was well-informed about the special Jewish relationship with Eretz Yisrael from Kallenbach, Schlesin, and others, his pro-Arab bias and battle against British colonialism and imperialism trumped all other considerations so, unlike every other people, religion, and nationality, he chose to disregard Jewish singularity. Moreover, his desire to placate Hindus and Muslims and keep them united in India surely colored his attitude towards Zionism. In a manifestly undeniable double standard, he held Jews to the highest possible spiritual standard while judging the “proud Arabs” by the “accepted canons of right and wrong.”

Double standards seem to be the rule, rather than the exception, when it came Gandhi’s attitude to the Jews. As another example – in what can only be characterized as a truly monstrous double standard – he acknowledged that nonviolence was not possible for the Polish people in 1939 and praised their violent resistance to Hitler, at the same time he was telling the Jews to go peacefully and joyfully to death by their Nazi executioners. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize five times, but never won; yet, he continues to be admired by many Jewish leaders, including David Ben Gurion, who hung a photograph of only one person in his bedroom: Mahatma Gandhi.

[beardedmrbean]

The murder of a politician in a bustling area in India's Mumbai city has sent shockwaves across the country.

Baba Ziauddin Siddique, 66, was shot on Saturday night near his carwhile he was leaving his son's office. He died later in hospital.

The killing of Siddique, an influential politician who was part of the coalition governing Maharashtra state - of which Mumbai is the capital - has set off a political blame-game.

The motive for the murder is not clear yet, but for many it has brought back memories of the 1990s, when politicians and film stars were frequently targeted by Mumbai's underworld.

Police have arrested three people so far and say investigations are continuing. Local media reports say the arrested men are part of a notorious gang whose leader is currently in jail.

Who was Baba Siddique?

Born in the eastern state of Bihar, Siddique migrated to Mumbai at the age of five with his father, a watchmaker.

He started his political career in the 1980s as a student leader with the Congress party, soon leading its youth wing in Mumbai. He then entered local council politics before being elected to the state’s legislature three times in a row and becoming a minister in 2004 for about four years.

In February, he left the Congress to join the Nationalist Congress Party which, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena, currently governs state.

Apart from his political activities, Siddique also made headlines for his glitzy iftar parties held during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which were attended by top Bollywood stars.

It was at his iftar party in 2013 that superstars Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan ended their much-discussed rift with a hug - that propelled "the annual Siddique affair into a must-watch event on the city’s social calendar", Midday newspaper wrote in 2016.

How was Siddique killed?

The politician was shot outside his son’s office as he was about to enter his car in the busy Bandra area.

Police said three shooters fired six-seven rounds, hitting Siddique's abdomen and chest, and fled the scene. A bystander was also injured as a stray bullet hit his leg.

Investigators said they had recovered two pistols and 28 live rounds of ammunition from the arrested men.

Siddique had three police guards - local media reported his security was upgraded days ago - but the suspects reportedly distracted them by setting off a "smoke firecracker".

What is the state of the investigation?

Police have been granted custody of the arrested men for a week. They say they are on the lookout for their accomplices.

“We have set up 15 teams and investigation is on to identify who provided logistical support to the shooters,” senior police official Datta Nalawade said.

While the police have not confirmed it, several reports citing sources have linked the arrested men with the notorious Bishnoi gang. The gang's leader Lawrence Bishnoi is an accused in several cases and is currently in a high-security prison in Gujarat state.

Within hours of the shooting, a man claiming to be a member of the gang posted on Facebook that they were behind Siddique’s killing. Police have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the post.

Though Bishnoi has been in jail since 2015, he frequently makes news. Many social media accounts claiming to belong to him or his associates have often posted his selfies from jail. He even gave interviews to a TV channel in 2022, prompting an investigation.

Many of the reports on Bishnoi are based on police sources and it’s not clear how he conducts the gang's operations while in prison.

The gang's name popped up in connection with the murder of Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moosewala in 2022.

In April, police arrested two gang members for allegedly firing shots outside the apartment of actor Salman Khan in Mumbai.

On Monday, the Canadian police also said it believed the Bishnoi group had connections to Indian government agents who were using the gang to target Sikh separatists on their soil. India has not officially responded to the police claims.

What else has happened?

Siddique’s killing is the first major assassination of a politician in Mumbai since the 1990s when high-profile killings of politicians, businessmen and Bollywood celebrities by criminal gangs of the Mumbai underworld were not uncommon.

Local media reports said he had received a death threat two weeks ago, which led to his security being upgraded.

His killing within days of that has put the state government on the backfoot, with Maharashtra set to hold assembly elections soon.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge called the murder “a complete failure of law and order in Maharashtra”, and Delhi's former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the incident had scared not only the people of Maharashtra “but the entire country”.

Chief Minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde has defended his government.

“[The culprits] will not be spared no matter who they are, be it the Bishnoi gang or any underworld gang… Those who are receiving threats, their safety is the state government’s responsibility and it will fulfil its responsibility,” he said.

[pallabbose-blog]

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