Key: Google, images, PM, Modi, 10 ,criminals
Meta: Someone on the internet typed "Top 10 Criminals" into Google's Image Search and was confronted with an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Google images show PM Modi in top 10 criminals
California, US (BBN)-Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image featured in top 10 criminals of the world in Google search engine on Wednesday.
Though the internet giant issued a statement, apologising for 'any confusion or misunderstanding', but the image continued to appear in the search till late in the night, reports the Hindustan Times.
These results trouble us and are not reflective of the opinions of Google.
Sometimes, the way images are described on the internet can yield surprising results to specific queries.
We apologise for any confusion or misunderstanding this has caused.
We're continually working to improve our algorithms to prevent unexpected results like this," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
Google said that results to the query "top 10 criminals in india" was due to a British daily which had an image of Modi and erroneous metadata.
It said that in this case, the image search results were drawn from multiple news articles with images of Modi, covering the prime minister's statements with regard to politicians with criminal backgrounds, but added that the news articles do not link Modi to criminal activity, and the words just appeared in close proximity to each other.
PM Modi's image appeared along with those of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, Hafiz Sayeed, and Ayman al-Zawahiri among others.
JAMAAT-E-ISLAMI CHIEF ANNOUNCES RS 1BN FOR ANYONE WHO 'ARRESTS' MODI
The chief of the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami party on Monday denounced attempts by Pakistani politicians to forge friendly ties with India and announced a reward of Rs 1 billion to anyone who “arrests” Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaking at a gathering at Rawalakot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Siraj-ul-Haq said India had not been able to arrest jihadi leaders like Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin even after offering a reward for him.
I want to say to Modi that you and your agents cannot arrest Salahuddin… And you say whoever will arrest Salahuddin, we will give him Rs 50 crore.
I too say that whoever arrests Modi, we will give him Rs 1 arab (Rs 1 billion),” he said.
Haq contended Kashmir is a part of Pakistan and any Pakistani politician who favoured friendly ties with India is a traitor to the country and to the Kashmiris.
As long as the issue of Kashmir is not settled, whoever talks of friendship with Hindustan, he is a traitor to Pakistan and the Kashmiris,” he said.
If you want the friendship of Hindustan, then go to Hindustan, to Delhi and to Mumbai, there is no place for you in Islamabad.”
Jamaat-e-Islami chief says, "Will give Rs 1 billion to whoever arrests Narendra Modi" In an apparent reference to the effort by Pakistan to give “Most Favoured Nation” status to improve trade ties, Haq said politicians who spoke of such matters “should be ashamed”.
Haq claimed Modi was responsible for killing “hundreds of civilians” in Jammu and Kashmir and Gujarat.
He said Pakistani leaders were turning a blind eye to alleged Indian atrocities in Jammu and Kashmir.
Our relations with India are conditional to Kashmir’s freedom,” he said.
The Jamaat-e-Islami has only four parliamentarians in Pakistan’s 342-member National Assembly but wields considerable political influence in several pockets across the country. It has traditionally opposed better ties with India.
BARACK OBAMA PENS PM MODI'S PROFILE FOR TIME MAGAZINE
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been extended an unusual honour by “friend Barack” Obama the US president penned the profile of Modi in Time magazine’s most recent issue on the world’s 100 most influential people. Modi was quick to respond with a thank you on Twitter.
Obama’s three paragraph sketch praises Modi in the language of a liberal-left president.
He opens by noting Modi’s rise from the son of a tea-seller to the head of the world’s largest democracy and how this “reflects the dynamism and potential of India’s rise.”
Obama then picks out the bits of Modi’s agenda that an Afro-American Democratic Party leader would most appreciate: helping the poor, empowering women and “confronting climate change.
There is a mention of yoga and Digital India but nothing of Make in India or the Indian prime minister’s hard face towards Pakistan.
The issue of religious minorities is touched upon in the last paragraph.
Obama notes how, when the two had been at the Martin Luther King jr memorial, “Narendra and I” reflected on King and Mahatma Gandhi and “how the diversity of backgrounds and faiths in our countries is a strength we have to protect.
Modi, the US president writes, “recognizes” that a billion “Indians living and succeeding together can be an inspiring model for the world.”
Obama’s gentle reminders to Modi that as a prime minister he needs to sustain the pluralism and secularity of India has been a subtext of the recent revival of Indo-US relations.
This was notably lacking in Obama’s statements when Manmohan Singh was in power, though the US president lost patience with Singh’s inability to fulfil any of his policy promises.
A member of Obama’s National Security Council, in the run up to the Republic Day summit, explained that while Indians “find it hard to believe” but “Obama genuinely sees India as the obvious candidate to be a future partner of the US.
The same liberal-left themes that colour Obama’s policies make him look naturally to democratic India.
The Time magazine sketch underlines that while India has focused on Modi’s putting aside the US visa ban, the other story is how Obama has concluded that Modi is not the narrow-minded rightwinger and religious nationalist that many US academicians had claimed he was.
Just in case, however, the US president makes it a point to remind Modi what it means to head a democratic leader.
As a boy, Narendra Modi helped his father sell tea to support their family. Today, he’s the leader of the world’s largest democracy, and his life story from poverty to Prime Minister reflects the dynamism and potential of India’s rise.
Determined to help more Indians follow in his path, he’s laid out an ambitious vision to reduce extreme poverty, improve education, empower women and girls and unleash India’s true economic potential while confronting climate change. Like India, he transcends the ancient and the modern a devotee of yoga who connects with Indian citizens on Twitter and imagines a “digital India.”
When he came to Washington, Narendra and I visited the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We reflected on the teachings of King and Gandhi and how the diversity of backgrounds and faiths in our countries is a strength we have to protect. Prime Minister Modi recognizes that more than 1 billion Indians living and succeeding together can be an inspiring model for the world.
WILL SUPPORT PAK ARMY FOR JIHAD AGAINST INDIA IN KASHMIR: HAFIZ SAEED
Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed has said his organisation supports the efforts of the Pakistan government and army to “help the people of Kashmir”, calling it ‘jihad’.
Jihad is the duty of an Islamic government... there is a government in Pakistan and it has always taken the stand that it is the right of Kashmiris to attain freedom.
I say what our army will do to secure the right of Kashmiris is jihad... we extend help to Kashmiris alongside the Pakistani government... we call this jihad,” the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder said in an interview to a news channel in Lahore on Friday.
He also brought up the arrest of separatist Masarat Alam, who faces sedition charges for waving a Pakistan flag at a protest rally.
The waving of Pakistani flags in Srinagar has shown the whole world that Kashmiris don’t want to live with India. India has to give Kashmiris their rights.”
Is it justified to arrest Masarat Alam the way he was yesterday? He hoisted a Pakistan flag in Kashmir, not in Delhi. Kashmir is a disputed area, so nothing is wrong,” he said.
Saeed said if India was not prepared to give Kashmiris their rights, “we believe now that if they fire bullets, then the only answer is jihad”.
The BJP, which heads the government at the Centre and is part of the ruling alliance in the state, said Saeed’s statement reinforced the contention that Pakistan supports terrorists against India.
I don’t consider the statement of Hafiz Sayeed a serious thing, rather I consider it ridiculous. The serious thing is pointing towards Pakistan, which has made so many voices and slogans for its commitment to fight terrorism,” said spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi.
Echoing Trivedi, Union minister of state in the PMO Jitendra Singh said, “What is important for us is not what Pakistan is doing but what we have in the mind and the clarity with which we will deal with a situation like this (Kashmir violence).”
A home ministry official added, “The home ministry’s stand is very clear and consistent. During the UPA regime and now when the NDA is in power, we have been saying that Pakistan has done nothing to bring the accused of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks to justice.
Hafiz Saeed’s trusted aide and the main conspirator in the Mumbai attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, was released on bail. Now Hafiz Saeed, a known asset of the Pakistani army, is being allowed to carry on his anti-India propaganda. Pakistan has totally failed to live up to its promise to rein in terror outfits working from its soil.”
Rana Banerji, a former special secretary of the external intelligence agency R&AW, said, “Though Lashkar has remained a most disciplined non-state asset of the Pakistani army, ultimately they will have to take a call on how to deal with it, as the day is not far when Hafiz Saeed, who already enjoys a great amount of sympathy in the radicalised sections of Pakistani society, will head towards capturing the state power there as well.”
Pakistan’s foreign office, too, released a statement condemning the “brutal use of force” in J&K. “Pakistan has consistently extended diplomatic, moral and political support to Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination. Pakistan deplores the brutal use of force by Indian security forces against peaceful and unarmed Kashmiris,” it said.
HAFIZ SAEED AIMS VENOM AT INDIA AGAIN
An Intelligence Bureau (IB) warning of a Lashkar-e-Taiba strike on Delhi ahead of Independence Day had the security establishment put the city on high alert Friday as the outfit's founder Hafiz Saeed resumed his now familiar rant against India at a massive Eid gathering in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
The alert, received by the Delhi Police on Thursday, reportedly reads, "Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan's Karachi has said it is important to spread 'jihad' to all corners of India. A Red Fort-type attack needs to be carried out again."
SAEED HAFIZ LEADS EID PRAYERS IN PAKISTAN
The alert quotes a paragraph from a speech by Saeed last month in Karachi, where he openly threatened that his terrorists would carry out an attack in Delhi," a senior police officer said.
In December 2000, Lashkar men had sneaked into the 17th-century Red Fort and fired at guards, killing three persons, including a civilian.
Saeed heads the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawah, said to be a Lashkar front, and has been named by India as the mastermind of 26/11.
Even with a $10-million American bounty on his head, he moves freely in Pakistan and addresses anti-India rallies.
On Friday too, hours before he led thousands in prayers at Lahore's Gaddafi stadium, Saeed tweeted, "Time is near when those oppressed in Kashmir, Palestine and Burma will celebrate Eid in the air of freedom."
ALLAH will not waste your sacrifices, Ummah (community) will be glorified, Islam will be strengthened, that time is very near he tweeted from his account
In response to the IB alert, the Delhi Police have upped security in markets, railway and Metro stations, malls, government offices and important installations such as the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and Akshardham Temple.
Police stations are under orders to keep an eye on ammonium nitrate suppliers and informers have been deployed to check any movement of anti-national elements. The number of checkpoints on roads has gone up and there is added security at border points.
The special cell is also preparing sketches of 100-odd wanted mean suspected to be operatives of the Lashkar, Indian Mujahideen and other terror outfits.
Posters will be put up across the city so the public can identify them and help us nab them," the officer added.
New Delhi has repeatedly asked Islamabad to bring Saeed to justice for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that left 166 people dead but the latter claims it has no proof against him.
Since the 26/11 terrorists had taken the sea route to India, the coast guard said it had stepped up vigil along the country's west coast in the wake of the IB alert.
INDIA SEEKS UN INTERVENTION IN 26/11 MASTERMIND LAKHVI RELEASE ROW
India has sought UN's intervention in the release of Mumbai terror attack mastermind and LeT commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, saying it was in violation of the norms of the global body and it should raise the matter with Pakistan.
In a letter to the current chair of the UN Sanctions Committee Jim McLay, India's permanent representative to the UN Asoke Mukherjee said Lakhvi's release by a Pakistani court was in violation of the 1267 UN resolution dealing with designated entities and individuals.
The sanctions measures apply to designated individuals and entities associated with terror groups including al-Qaeda and LeT, wherever located.
In the letter by the Indian envoy, it was also mentioned that even the bail amount provided was against the sanctions' committee rule which calls for freezing the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals and entities.
The sanctions' committee has five permanent and 10 non-permanent UN member-states in it. The release of Lakhvi had also raised concerns in the US, UK, Russia, France and Germany with Washington calling for him to be rearrested.
Lakhvi and six others – Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum – have been charged with planning and executing the Mumbai attack in November, 2008 that left 166 people dead.
Lakhvi, 55, a close relative of LeT founder and Jamaat-Ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, was arrested in December 2008 and was indicted along with the six others on November 25, 2009 in connection with the 26/11 attack case.
The trial has been underway since 2009. A Pakistani court had on April 9 set free Lakhvi, a development which India said "eroded" the value of assurances repeatedly conveyed to it by Pakistan on cross-border terrorism.
26/11 mastermind set free by Pak, India protests 'insult to victims'
Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, walked out of a Pakistani jail on Friday after a court ordered his release, a move that drew swift condemnation from India.
India reacted angrily to the development, saying the release of the operations chief of the banned terror group was an “insult” to victims of the Mumbai carnage.
Lakhvi was freed from the high-security Adiala Jail in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where he had been held since his arrest during an army raid on a LeT camp in Muzaffarabad about a week after the attacks on India’s financial hub that killed 166 and injured hundreds.
The Lahore High Court had ordered Lakhvi’s release on Thursday as the government was unable to convince it of the evidence linking him to the attacks.
There was jubilation in Jamaat-ud-Dawah circles over the release of Lakhvi. In a Friday prayer sermon, JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed told supporters that the “government's hypocrisy had been exposed”. He promised a hero's welcome for Lakhvi, who is expected to reach the JuD headquarters outside Lahore over the weekend.
After an anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of seven men charged with involvement in the Mumbai attacks granted bail to 55-year-old Lakhvi in December, Pakistani authorities detained him four times under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law.
But the orders to detain Lakhvi under the MPO were suspended by the Islamabad High Court and the Lahore High Court, making it virtually impossible for Pakistani authorities to hold him in prison any longer.
On Thursday, the Lahore High Court suspended Lakhvi’s detention and ordered his release on the payment of a Rs 2 million rupee ($20,000) bond. The court rejected the contention of authorities that Lakhvi was detained on the basis of secret information provided by intelligence agencies.
JuD supporters were present outside the jail to receive Lakhvi. About four to five vehicles reached Adiala Jail at around 1 pm and Lakhvi got into a car and left for his Islamabad residence.
We have released Lakhvi after a member of his legal team presented the Lahore High Court order. There has been no direction from the government to either detain or release him," a jail official told PTI.
Lakhvi was free and “in a secure place", a senior JuD representative told AFP. "We can't say exactly where is he at the moment for security reasons," the representative claimed.
India had repeatedly expressed its concerns over the orders issued by Pakistani courts to free Lakhvi. Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit was even summoned to the external affairs ministry to convey these concerns, but Islamabad claimed the government could not interfere in the actions of the independent judiciary.
After the Lahore High Court issued the fresh order on Thursday to release Lakhvi, external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said the move would erode assurances made by Pakistan about tackling terrorism directed against India.
Our concerns on this issue have been made known to the Government of Pakistan in the past. These shall be reiterated. The fact is that known terrorists not being effectively prosecuted constitutes a real security threat for India and the world. This also erodes the value of assurances repeatedly conveyed to us with regard to cross border terrorism," Akbaruddin said.
Union home minister Rajnath Singh described Lakhvi’s release as a disappointing development. He told reporters: “India wants talks with Pakistan but the present development is unfortunate and disappointing.”
A spokesman for India's home ministry, who asked not to be named, criticised Lakhvi's release. “This is a very disappointing announcement. An insult to the victims of the 26/11 Mumbai attack. The global community should take serious note of Pakistan's double-speak on terrorism," he said.
Lakhvi and six others were charged with planning, financing and executing the Mumbai attacks. He was initially granted bail by the anti-terrorism court on December 18 last year, two days after a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar killed 132 children.
The attack triggered protests round the world, including in India, and the fact that Lakhvi was granted bail so soon after the atrocity forced the Pakistan government to detain the LeT commander under the MPO law.
Sambit Patra, a spokesman for the ruling BJP, noted that Pakistan did not appear to be prepared to deliver on its solemn pledges to tackle terrorism after the Peshawar school attack.
Every Indian is disappointed with the decision to release Lakhvi and so is every sane mind in Pakistan…The Indian government will take a befitting step,” Patra said.
According to several reports, Lakhvi continued to guide the LeT’s operations even while he was in jail. He received up to 100 visitors a day in the rooms he shared with the other suspects in Adiala Jail and had unfettered access to mobile phones and the internet. In 2010, he fathered a child following conjugal visits to the prison by his youngest wife.
Trial and farce: How Pak ensured 26/11 mastermind Lakhvi walks free
For anyone who has tracked Pakistan's trial of the seven men charged with involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the release on bail of Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi wouldn't have come as a surprise. It is probably a surprise that he didn't walk out of jail any sooner.
Lakhvi, 55, was captured about a week after the brazen attacks on India's financial hub when Pakistani soldiers raided a LeT camp on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. A few months later, he and six others were charged with planning, financing and executing the assault that left 166 dead and hundreds injured.
After the UN Security Council declared the Jamaat-ud-Dawah a front for the LeT in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistan government moved to seal JuD offices across the country and placed several leaders, including Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, under house arrest. Several ministers, including then Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, claimed the JuD had been banned.
But when Saeed challenged his detention a few months later in the Lahore High Court, the truth emerged in the open - the JuD hadn't even been banned and was merely on the Interior Minister's "watch list". Saeed was then released from house arrest.
Similarly, the trial of the seven suspects in the Mumbai attacks case has been shrouded in confusion and proceeded at a snail's pace.
Since the trial began in early 2009, the hearings have been conducted in-camera or behind closed doors for reasons of security, making it virtually impossible for the media to get a true picture of the proceedings.
In the six years since the trial began, the judge has been changed eight times, with each change necessitating delays as the new judge acquainted himself with the details of the case. In at least one case, a judge asked to be taken off the case because of threats to his life from extremist elements.
Lakhvi and the other suspects, including LeT members who handled funds that were used for buying boats, engines and VoIP accounts, were defended by some of the most expensive lawyers. At one point of time, the suspects were being defended by a former advocate general of Punjab province who was also the counsel for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's family in a string of graft cases.
These lawyers made effective use of Pakistani laws to stymie the use of evidence provided by India and the US against the suspects, particularly intercepts of the attackers in Mumbai allegedly being guided by handlers based in Karachi, including Lakhvi. Pakistani laws do not allow authorities to obtain voice samples without the permission of suspects and this has been used by Lakhvi's counsel to deny the use of a crucial piece of evidence.
Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving attacker, identified Lakhvi during his interrogation by Indian security officials as "Zakki chacha", the man who indoctrinated the ten terrorists sent to assault Mumbai. But Kasab's confession and statements too could not be used in the Pakistani court after the defence lawyers claimed they hadn't been given access to him to cross-examine him.
Lakhvi, who became the operations commander of the LeT in the late 1990s, was born in Okara district of Punjab province, also the home district of Kasab. In 1990, he joined Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith and later became part of the LeT. He is believed to be a close relative of Saeed, the founder of the LeT.
During the 1990s, Lakhvi worked at the LeT's main 'markaz' or centre near Muridke on the outskirts of Lahore. He was also involved in fighting and planning militant activities in Jammu and Kashmir at this time.
And while the trial dragged on, Lakhvi never lost his grip on the operations of the LeT. According to Pakistani media reports, Lakhvi and the other suspects lived in luxury in several rooms next to the jailer's office at the sprawling Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, receiving up to 100 visitors a day without any supervision by prison officials.
Lakhvi had unfettered access to mobile phones and the internet, allowing him to direct the day-to-day activities of the LeT. Lakhvi's youngest wife was also allowed to stay with him in jail and he fathered a child sometime in 2010 as a result of these conjugal visits, according to Abu Jundal alias Zabiuddin Ansari, the Indian LeT operative who was deported from Saudi Arabia in 2012
The Mumbai attacks trial suffered a huge setback when Chaudhry Zulfiqar, the fearless prosecutor hired by the Federal Investigation Agency to handle the case, was assassinated in Islamabad in May 2013.
Though most media reports suggested his killing was linked to his role as prosecutor in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case, it would be hard to ignore the fact that it came weeks after key prosecution witnesses identified the suspects who had bought the boats and engine used by the terrorists in the Mumbai attacks.
Given that Pakistan's anti-terror courts have been unable to prosecute most of the men arrested for brazen and audacious attacks in fact, most of them have been set free for lack of evidence - it would be highly unlikely to expect a verdict against Lakhvi or the other suspects any time soon.
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