Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

In Kabul, two men clinging to an airplane fell on this man’s roof

On Monday afternoon, Wali Salek was resting in his two-storey home in District 11 in Khair Khana, a neighbourhood in north west of Kabul. His daughters were cooking and his two sons were asleep. Suddenly, a loud thud from above jolted the family awake.

“It sounded like a bomb blast,” Salek told Scroll.in over a video call on Tuesday afternoon. The 47-year-old works as a security guard in the main city nearly 9 kms away from his home.

Plaster began to crumble down from the walls and ceiling. He

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

Three workers at Central Vista contract Covid-19. Many complain of cramped living space, late wages

It was the last week of April, when a coronavirus surge was devastating Delhi, with overwhelmed hospitals running out of oxygen, and crematoriums running out of space. India’s capital was under a strict lockdown. Most economic activity had come to a halt.

But every morning, a 50-year-old construction supervisor travelled over 20 km from his home in West Delhi to the heart of the city to supervise a small part of the Narendra Modi government’s ambitious project to redevelop the Central Vista.

A

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

As Covid-19 devastates Delhi, Central Vista project declared an essential service, work continues

On Sunday afternoon, the wide avenues of central Delhi were deserted. But there was a hub of activity near the majestic India Gate.

A small contingent of workers was busy digging a trench next to a tree-lined pond. A young man lifted soil in a wide bowl on this head, which he carried to the side, where two others helped him unload.

“The work here will not stop,” remarked the young worker, a 28-year-old from Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh, sweat dripping down his masked-up face.

For ten day

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

India is running out of oxygen, Covid-19 patients are dying – because the government wasted time

Vinay Srivastava’s oxygen saturation level was dangerously low when he tweeted around 8 pm on April 16 to say that no hospital in Lucknow was responding to his phone calls.

Oxygen saturation in the blood below the level of 94 is considered a matter of concern for people suffering from Covid-19. Srivastava said his level was 52.

As the 65-year-old freelance journalist’s complaint went viral on Twitter, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s media advisor responded to him next afternoon, asking for

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

Labelled ‘jihadi’, Sai Baba’s idol demolished in Delhi. Hindu hardliner exults. Devotees despair

First, he instructs a worker to uproot the idol with a crowbar, then he takes a hammer to it five times. “He is no god, he died in 1918,” the middle-aged man declares, looking into the camera. “He was Muslim.”

“Mullah hai,” says another voice in the background, using a pejorative term for Muslims.

A series of videos showing the demolition of an idol of Sai Baba, a spiritual leader revered by Hindus, surfaced on social media last week. In the videos recorded inside a temple, a middle-aged man d

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

Special report: A silent crackdown sweeps through Delhi in the guise of probing riots conspiracy

When policemen showed up at his door in a crowded Delhi locality in June, the young man was bathing the body of a dead neighbour. “It’s a ritual,” he said. “You wash the body before burying it.”

But the policemen were impatient. They were carrying a notice – they wanted him to appear before the Special Cell within two hours.

At the Lodhi Road police station, the police wasted no time on niceties. “They put my phone records in front of me,” recalled the young man who is preparing for the civil

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

Special report: Modi government’s highway project in Himalayas is built on lies and legal violations

At 3,500 metres above sea level, Himalayan glaciers melt to create Ganga and Yamuna, rivers that support over 600 million Indians. This ecologically sensitive region in the state of Uttarakhand is now the site of a massive 900-km highway-building project called the Char Dham Pariyojana.

The project seeks to improve road connectivity to four Hindu pilgrimage sites, Gangotri and Yamunotri, near the source of the rivers, and the temple towns of Badrinath and Kedarnath. In 2013, a cloudburst above

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

Delhi Police claims February riots were a conspiracy by CAA protestors – but where is the evidence?

The worst-ever communal violence in India’s capital in four decades was an outcome of a conspiracy to defame the Narendra Modi government, Delhi Police has claimed in multiple chargesheets filed in court in June. The conspirators, it alleged, were those who had organised protests against the controversial Citizenship Act amendments.

This week, it went a step further, alleging the conspirators had secessionist motives and were using “the façade of civil disobedience” to destabilise the Indian go

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

From planning murder to praising Modi: WhatsApp chats offer a window into the minds of Delhi rioters

On February 25, 11.21 pm, a person who identified himself Lokesh Solanki allegedly typed out a message on a WhatsApp group: “The whole of last night, I roamed around Bhagirathi Vihar, Ganga Vihar, Gokul Puri, Johripur. And smashed open the heads of 23 mullahs.”

The areas listed were epicentres of the communal violence that engulfed North East Delhi between February 24 and 26. The message appears in transcripts submitted by Delhi Police as part of a chargesheet filed in court on June 4.

The pol

Scroll.in • 25th November 2021

In Delhi violence investigation, a disturbing pattern: Victims end up being prosecuted by police

On February 24, communal violence engulfed North East Delhi, leaving at least 53 people dead over the next three days, most of whom were Muslim. Exactly a month later, India went under a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. Normal life came to a halt – but not Delhi Police’s investigation into the violence.

By April 13, the police had made more than 800 arrests, the Indian Express reported. An unidentified official was quoted in the report saying that the Union Ho