ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
August 1, 2016
Family of Indian man killed by a
mob is accused of cow slaughter
By Biswajeet Banerjee
The Associated press
UCKNOW, India — Nearly a
year after a mob in northern
India killed a Muslim man
over rumors that he had slaughtered
a cow, his family faces prosecution for
alleged cow slaughter following a
neighbor’s complaint, according to
police.
Police registered a case of cow
slaughter
against
Mohammad
Akhlaq’s family following a court
order, said police officer Daljeet
Singh.
The court acted on a forensic report
that said the meat found in a dustbin
outside the family’s home was beef or
the meat of “a cow or its progeny.”
Hindus consider cows to be sacred,
and for many, eating beef is taboo.
The eating of beef is not a crime in
Uttar Pradesh state, but slaughter-
ing a cow carries a punishment of up
to seven years in jail.
No arrests have been made so far.
Yusuf Saifi, the family’s attorney,
said he would challenge the court’s
order.
The court is hearing a petition filed
by the neighbor and backed by those
accused of Akhlaq’s murder alleging
that his family had killed a calf and
that his brother Jaan Mohammad
was seen slitting the throat of the
animal. It names seven members of
the family, including Akhlaq’s wife
and mother.
L
PROBLEM SOLVERS. India’s Bezwada Wilson, who is among the
six recipients of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award, is seen at the Safai
Karmachari Andolan (SKA) office in New Delhi, India. Wilson, who was the
first in his Dalit family to pursue higher education, is being honored for his
32-year crusade. He recruited volunteers and worked with Dalit activists
to organize the SKA people’s movement that has filed cases and liberated
about half of an estimated 600,000 people from manually removing
human excrement from dry latrines. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Two Indians, Filipino
among 2016 Ramon
Magsaysay awardees
MANILA, The Philippines (AP) — An Indian who led a
grassroots movement on behalf of the low-caste Dalit
community and the Philippines’ chief anti-corruption
fighter are among the six recipients of this year’s Ramon
Magsaysay Award, which honors leadership in solving
society’s most intractable problems.
The other recipients named are an emergency aid
provider in Laos, an Indonesian Muslim philanthropy
group, an Indian musician, and a Japanese volunteer
group. The awards, named for a former Philippine
president, are regarded as Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel
Prize. The foundation will formally confer the awards on
August 31 in Manila.
Bezwada Wilson, who was the first in his Dalit family to
pursue higher education, is being honored for his 32-year
crusade. He recruited volunteers and worked with Dalit
activists to organize a people’s movement called Safai
Karmachari Andolan (SKA), which has filed cases and
liberated about half of an estimated 600,000 people from
manually removing human excrement from dry latrines.
Conchita Carpio-Morales, the Philippines’ ombudsman,
or public prosecutor, is also being honored “for her moral
courage and commitment to justice” in tackling head on
corruption, one of the most intractable problems of the
Philippines. The former Supreme Court justice has filed
cases against a former president and other high-ranking
officials and raised her office’s conviction rate from 33.3
percent in 2011 to 74.5 percent in 2015. The foundation
praised her “example of incorruptibility, diligence, vision,
and leadership of the highest ethical standards in public
service.”
Indian artist Thodur Madabusi Krishna has been
chosen to receive the emergent leadership award for “his
forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power
to heal India’s deep social divisions.” Born to a privileged
Bhramin family in Chennai in 1976, he was trained in
aristocratic Karnatic music that has become almost
exclusive to the elite. But he has worked since the 1990s to
bring Karnatic music to youth and public schools, identify
gifted rural youth to be trained in Chennai under
well-known artists, and to bring together students from
diverse social backgrounds to interact with renowned
artists and learn about different art forms.
The Indonesian organization Dompet Dhuafa has
redefined the landscape for zakat — the tax on an
adult’s wealth that is a cornerstone of the Islamic faith.
The group has become the largest philanthropic
organization in Indonesia today, in terms of donations
received totalling $20.2 million, reaching 13 million
beneficiaries as of 2015, with at least 20 percent of them
moved out of poverty.
The Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers group,
founded 51 years ago, sends young adults abroad to
volunteer in other communities. The foundation praised
its volunteers “for their idealism and spirit of service in
advancing the lives of communities other than their own”
and laying “the true foundation for peace and
international understanding.”
Vientiane Rescue of Laos is being awarded for its
“heroic work in saving Laotian lives in a time and place of
great need, under the most deprived circumstances.” The
group was formed in 2007 by volunteers aghast at how
victims of road accidents in the capital of Laos are left to
die because of lack of emergency assistance, operates a
free ambulance service, despite a lack of equipment,
sponsors, and formal training.
FORBIDDEN FEAST? A bruised Asgari Begum, mother of 52-year-old Muslim farmer
Mohammad Akhlaq who was killed over rumors he slaughtered a cow, stands by the entrance of
her home in Bisara, a village about 25 miles southeast of the Indian capital of New Delhi, in this
September 30, 2015 file photo. Ten months after a mob in northern India killed Akhlaq, his family
faces prosecution for alleged cow slaughter following a neighbor’s complaint, according to police.
The court acted on a forensic report that said the meat found in a dustbin outside the family’s home
was beef or the meat of “a cow or its progeny.” Hindus consider cows to be sacred, and for many,
eating beef is taboo. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)
The killing of Mohammed Akhlaq of Hindu culture. Many Indian states
last September sparked furious banned cow slaughter long ago, and
debate about religious tolerance in hardliners want a national ban.
Violent protests have erupted at
India.
Akhlaq’s family left the village several places in recent months over
after the attack and is living in New rumors of cow slaughtering by
Muslims. Near the Himalayan town
Delhi.
Hindus make up more than 80 of Shimla, a mob beat a man to death
percent of India’s population of 1.25 and injured four other people in
billion, and many have revelled in October over rumors they were
Prime Minister Modi’s championing smuggling cows.
Flight info screens at
Vietnam’s two major
airports hacked
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) —
Screens displaying flight
information and the public
address system at Viet-
nam’s two major airports
were hacked with deroga-
tory messages against Vi-
etnam and the Philippines
in their territorial row
against China in the South
China Sea.
After
the
hacking,
authorities switched off the
screens and the sound
systems at Hanoi’s Noi Bai
airport and the Tan Son
Nhat airport in southern
Ho Chi Minh City, the
online VnExpress said.
The website of the
national carrier, Vietnam
Airlines, was also briefly
hacked, it said.
The site quoted vice min-
ister of transport Nguyen
Nhat as saying the inci-
dents did not affect the
security or air traffic
control at the airports.
The
messages
and
screenshots with deroga-
tory remarks suggested
they were purportedly left
by Chinese hackers.
In July, an international
tribunal issued a ruling in
favor of the Philippines
that invalidated China’s
sweeping claims in the
South China Sea. Vietnam
also has overlapping claims
to parts of the sea, which is
rich in natural resources,
and together with the
Philippines has been a
vocal critic of China.
Continued on page 13
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