Indian police arrested a firebrand politician yesterday for inciting violence against migrant workers in India’s financial capital, sparking a violent rampage through the city by his followers.
Police arrested Raj Thackeray, the founder of the hardline Maharashtra Reconstruction Party, as he met with party activists on the outskirts of the city, Mumbai police chief Hassan Gafoor said.
Thackeray has repeatedly advocated violence against migrant workers, whom he accuses of taking jobs that should be given to locals.
Gafoor said Thackeray would be charged later yesterday with rioting and inciting violence.
On Sunday dozens of his supporters attacked students from northern India who had traveled to Mumbai on the west coast of India to apply for jobs on the railways.
After Thackeray’s arrest, party activists smashed at least 35 taxis and set ablaze a government toll booth in Mumbai. The also torched four buses in the nearby city of Pune. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Some 200 activists were detained, police officer Bala Samant said. There was a heavy police presence across the city.
Thackeray has made his name as a xenophobic, rabble-rousing politician championing the Marathi language and the rights of locals in Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital. Some 37 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people are migrants drawn to the city’s bright lights seeking jobs.
Yesterday’s arrest was Thackeray’s second in eight months for violence against migrants. Critics say Thackeray does not have popular backing, but hopes to drum up support ahead of state elections next year.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS