 Hello everyone and welcome to News Clicks Daily Roundup. I am Prashant. I am Prabir Pulkastar and we are going to look at the top stories today. Our top story for the day is the court verdict in the Ishraj Jahan fake encounter case. Charges against former Gujarat police officers DG Vansara and NK Amin, the main accused in the case, have been dropped by a CBI court. The CBI had charged the former police officers with conspiracy, illegal confinement and the murder of Ishraj Jahan which happened in 2004. Vansara and Amin had filed discharge requests in the court after the Gujarat government refused to grant permission to the CBI to prosecute them. Ishraj Jahan who was 19 at the time of her death and three others were killed on June 15, 2004 near Ahmedabad. The police had accused her and the others of being Lashkar Etaibar terrorists who were planning to assassinate Narendra Modi, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat. Enquiries in the following years concluded that the encounter was fake. However, a lot of criticism has been raised against the National Investigation Agency and others for not following up the case against the police officers. Here is a look at some of the details of this controversial case. Probably to look at this case, the National Investigation Agency as I said is one of the agencies which has been in the dark for not properly taking the investigation forward and after all these years we have these officers being acquitted. So, how do you see this result? Well, it is important to register two elements over here. That was the unanimous decision of the Special Investigations Team set up by the Gujarat High Court which had said this was a fake encounter. They were kidnapped and they were executed. So, that was what the Gujarat High Court Special Investigation Team had come to a conclusion. So, I think that is one element we have to keep in mind. And this time what has happened is not that the case was not prosecuted but the Gujarat government did not give permission, did not give them sanction and under law the government needs to give permission if the officers have to be prosecuted. Two issues which Vrinda Grover, the lawyer for Shabim Kausar, Ishtar Jihad's mother had raised. That was that A, when it says government it should have been the settled government because these were essentially IPS officers. Therefore, Ministry of Home was the right body. But apart from that they have also raised the issue that permission is required if the officers are doing their duty and if a certain activity had resulted in whatever could be constituted as a crime. But in this case this was not something they were doing as a part of their duty. That therefore permission was not required. Well, the judge has not accepted this, discharged the officers concerned and we will have to see what legal measures now can be taken. Moving on to another institution which has faced criticism in recent times. The election commission on Wednesday gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his comments regarding the Patan Court and Balakot strikes. Speaking at Latour, Narendra Modi had asked first time voters to dedicate their votes to those who died in the Pulwama attack and those who took part in the Balakot strikes. These comments led to a huge outrage and political parties including the CPIM and the Congress approached the EC against these polarizing remarks. However, the EC ruled that these comments are not a violation of the model code of conduct. Similarly, the EC finally punished terror accused and BJP candidate for Bhopal, Sadvi Pragya Singh, but with only a three day ban on campaigning. Ever since being nominated, Pragya Singh has made a number of polarizing and inflammatory statements. The most offensive of these was the insinuation that former ATS Chief Hemant Karkare had died due to her curse. Karkare was killed in the line of duty during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Pragya Singh also said that she was proud of taking part in the demolition of the Babre Masjid in 1992. In an interview she said, we removed a blot from the country. I feel extremely proud that God gave me this opportunity and I could do that. Despite such comments, Pragya Singh Singh has been banned for merely three days. It is worth recalling that the same election commission barred former BSF Javan, Tej Bahadur Yadav from contesting the elections. Tej Bahadur was dismissed from the BSF after he released a video exposing the poor quality of food served to forces deployed in the mountainous regions. Our next story is about the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The project involves creating a path to help devotees reach the Kashi Vishwanath Temple easily. However, is there a dark side to this project? The process of levelling the region has thrown into sharper focus the Gyanwapi Mosque which the Hindu right wing has long had its eyes on. Are we seeing another Babre Masjid incident in the making? News Clips Antiriksh talks to people from the area to find out. This is our Masjid. This is your Masjid. This is Vishwanath Temple. This is your Masjid. And what is this place? This is the Kashi door. This is the house of Biazji. This is the house of Ganga. I don't know when or where this incident took place. The incident took place on the 2nd of the month. The Babre Masjid was emptied from the 4th floor. And this is what is happening here as well. This is how we are trying to create a dream. The area outside is a bit of a mess. I am scared. When the dream of the people was coming down here, they should not have said that they want to stay here with the temple and Masjid. The Masjid was the one who was building the Kashi door. The houses were being demolished and the boundary wall was also demolished. After that, it was demolished. When you see the people of Masjid in front of you, what was the need to demolish them? You can see the duty of the government. That is why there is no need to demolish the Masjid or the temple. What do you think? Who is demolishing it? Who is demolishing it? It is the one who has got the rights. Who? Who? All the rights of Modi are destroyed. All of them. What is the guarantee of the demolition of Babri Masjid that you will not do the same with the Masjid? The situation that happened after the demolition of Babri Masjid, it used to be a month of riots. It used to be two months of riots every year. The whole business was ruined here. You go to Ayodhya and see what is its effect on Ayodhya. We now moved to Cyclone Phoni, the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone to hit India in nearly 5 years. This cyclone is expected to make landfall in Odisha on Friday. Media reports indicate that at least 8 lakh people are in the process of being evacuated. Cyclone Phoni has become an extremely severe cyclonic storm and wind speeds are expected to touch 200 kilometres per hour on landfall. The Coast Guard and Navy have deployed ships and helicopters for relief and rescue operations. Army and Air Force units have also been put on standby in Odisha, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Some 900 cyclone shelters have been set up across the state of Odisha to house evacuees and a holiday has been declared for schools. Last year, over 60 people died when Cyclone Titli, which was less severe than Phoni, hit the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. We now move on to international news and we have with us Prabir. The first story we are looking at is about the jail term to Julian Assange. So, as we know Assange was sentenced yesterday to 50 weeks in jail for the very minor offensive jumping bail. So, how do you see this particular harsh sentencing in the context of the extradition hearing that is also coming up? Well, the first issue was that Julian Assange had from the beginning said that he was not jumping bail because he did not want to face the Swedish charges, which were of rape under Swedish law, a lot of controversy in the nature of the charges or the law. Leaving that aside, he said his main issue was that Sweden did not give an undertaking. They would not extradite him to United States and he knew or he anticipated that there was a grand jury indictment waiting to be heard. The minute he would come, he would be arrested. There would be extradition request moved with the grand jury indictment being immediately processed. Now, this is exactly what is happening. He has been arrested, the grand jury indictment has taken place and he has been charged with what could amount to activities which are equivalent to spying. And we have again earlier discussed in the news click how this whole attempt to convict him of spying, conspiracy, etc., etc. are extremely dangerous for the press. But he has proved that the extradition request was in the making if he was ever arrested and that was the real reason for his not acceding to the UK order for arrest. Now, in this case, we must also see that the UK court has been extremely harsh. They made a huge number of comments on him which are completely uncalled for. He didn't have any basis and then they have given him a sentence. The longest sentence for jumping bail is 52 weeks, one year. In this case, this is 50 weeks. Nearly the maximum they could keep him in. So even if the extradition request fails, he is going to be in for a year. But the question is how much the judicial process in the UK is going to be fair to Julian. It is self-in-open question given the fact what we have seen of the judiciary now and the way they have dealt with the bail petition. So I think we have a lot of issues which we have to really face up to vis-a-vis Julian Assange's extradition request. But it's also equally true that we have to look at how serious the judicial impartiality is going to be maintained in this particular case. And moving on to the question of Masood Assar who has been declared a global terrorist. Now in the Indian establishment is celebrating this is a major victory for India as all the countries of the world begin small have united on this. But is this actually as much of a victory as they are portraying and what is what probably has India to give up for this? Well, let's look at what is the nature of the victory and the fact that earlier with Hafiz Saeed and Dawud Ibrahim too equally big if not bigger names also designated as terrorists don't seem to have suffered too much on that count. Of course we know that Pakistan has sheltered terrorist organizations and has used terror networks as a part of its shall we say external policy. That's been something that they have always done. Let's also not look at the United States and UK and others being essentially extremely pure on that count. In fact, they are the ones who have also promoted Masood Assar and all this elements in their various political campaigns earlier in Afghanistan and later also in West Asia. So these are people that we know will have played ball with terrorists earlier. So the question is these are the same people we have gone to how these United States and so on to help with this with declaring him a terrorist but as we have said earlier how much does it help us is something that we have to see. You know ultimately terrorism on the ground particularly in Kashmir where the Fulwama blast took place has to be resolved by Indian security establishment and Indian political establishment squarely facing the problem of alienation of the people. And if the alienation of the people are continuous then of course it will spawn more and more terrorist groups. Condemning one or the other terrorist is not going to solve that problem as we are seeing now in Kashmir. The last point there is an irony in this particular case. The irony is the one who led the quiet diplomacy in the United Nations is Sayyed Akbaruddin our representative of the United Nations. And I am sure as Ambassador Bandra Kumar has said in his speech today news click that a lot of the people Adityanath, Amit Shah and Modi would not be happy that Masood Azhar had to be brought to book in this sense in the United Nations by Sayyed Akbaruddin. Also Pramir in exchange or in return for this declaration will India have to give up something as far as importing oil from Iran is concerned? Well Trump has already indicated that they are helping us with the Masood Azhar case and therefore he expects India to fall in line on the Iran issue and not import oil from Iran. Now that would as you have discussed with Al-Miz, Ambassador Al-Miz earlier means about 2500 to 3000 crore hit that India will take for what could be argued is a pyrrhic victory of getting Azhar declared as a terrorist. So hard cash for something which could or may not have much implications in real terms. Thank you Pramir. That's all we have time for today. To follow these stories in detail check our website newsclick.in and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.