Muslim resignation spree continues in JD(S); CM Ibrahim remains silent

New Delhi, Nov 29: The National Investigation Agency on Wednesday said that it has filed a charge sheet against two accused -- Mohamed Shariq, who prepared the pressure cooker IED and Syed Shariq who provided material for the explosive -- in connection with the pressure cooker blast that took place in Karnataka's Mangaluru in November last year.

A NIA official here said that the agency filed the charge sheet against the two before a court on Wednesday.

The official said that Shariq and Syed, along with an online handler, had planned the explosion as part of a conspiracy to establish a Caliphate.

"In pursuance of the conspiracy, Mohamed Shariq had prepared the pressure cooker IED and Syed Yasin had provided material support for the explosive," the official said.

Mohamed Shariq was carrying the pressure cooker IED in an auto-rickshaw when it exploded on November 19 last year. The official said that he had planned to plant the IED at Kadri Manjunatha Temple in Mangaluru, with the aim to spread terror among the Hindu community but the low intensify bomb accidentally exploded on the way.

The case was filed by the NIA on November 23 last year under several sections of the IPC and the Explosive Substances Act.

Shariq was arrested by the NIA in July 2023, along with his co-accused Syed Shariq.

The official pointing out the role of Shariq in other cases said that he had first come on the radar of the security forces in November 2020 when he was arrested by the state police for pro-terror graffiti in Mangaluru city.

"He and his associates had put up the graffiti in support of the global terror outfit, the IS," the official said.

"Subsequently, Shariq was also named in the Shivamogga IS Conspiracy Case of 2022, in which so far 10 accused have been arrested," the official stated.

Of the 10 arrested, nine, including Shariq and Syed Yasin, were charge sheeted on June 30 this year for radicalising and recruiting gullible Muslim youth, raising funds, and conducting a trial blast to further the anti-India activities of the IS. 

At least nine Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after the Israeli regime carried out airstrikes on two refugee camps in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the victims, including children, were killed as a result of Israeli occupation air raids on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza early on Wednesday.

Sources also told Wafa that several people lost their lives in another Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northeastern Gaza.

Israelis kill five Palestinians in West Bank

The Israeli military also killed five Palestinians in a drone missile attack on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm.

The occupation forces stormed the Tulkarm refugee camp and bombed a house and a gathering of Palestinian residents in the area with a drone, leaving at least three Palestinians inured, according to WAFA.

The Israeli regime forces also imposed a siege on Thabet Hospital in the city of Tulkarm and surrounded the entrances to the hospital with their vehicles, which hindered the arrival of the injured at the medical facility to receive treatment.

“The occupation army chased the ambulances that were traveling in the city of Tulkarm, obstructed their work and prevented them from moving freely,” WAFA cite eyewitnesses as saying.

Palestine’s Shehab news agency said the occupation forces also arrested one of the wounded after storming the emergency department at Thabet Hospital.

The latest casualties came hot on the heels of an agreed-upon ceasefire deal that would bring about a halt in a 47-day-long Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Israel waged the bloody war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm in the occupied territories in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s incessant crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed 14,128 Palestinians, including 5,840 children and 3,920 women, and injured at least 33,000 others.

The illegal entity has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

As many as 59 Palestinian journalists have been killed and dozens injured during the Israeli regime's ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, says an independent human rights advocacy group.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor provided the information in a press statement released through Palestinian media on Sunday.

According to the statement, the fatalities equaled "the highest-ever number of journalists killed in wars and conflicts in modern history."

The group attributed the regime's brutality towards journalists to its efforts to impose "a real and comprehensive media blackout" during the war.

The Israeli regime started the war on Gaza after the territory's Palestinian resistance groups carried out the surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the occupied territories on October 7 in response to the regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 13,000 Palestinians, including more than 5,000 children, have so far been killed, and about 30,000 people have been injured.

The killing spree targeting journalists, Euro-Med Monitor said, came amid unfounded allegations by some Israeli officials that Palestinian press crews had prior knowledge of the October 7 operation.

According to the group, "Israel purposefully [has] left no safe haven for journalists in the Gaza Strip. Journalists were targeted even when they were wearing press jackets in the field, in press tents erected for media coverage next to hospitals, or even in their family homes."

The latest of the fatalities were caused on Saturday, when the regime's forces killed two journalists in an airstrike targeting Gaza's Bureij refugee camp.

The victims were identified as Sari Mansour and his colleague Hassouna Salim. They lost their lives after Mansour’s home came under an Israeli bombardment inside the camp, which is located in the central Gaza Strip.

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli war has led to complete or partial destruction of at least 117 press offices.

The regime has also restricted satellite channels operating in the Palestinian territories during the war, including Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network, and has threatened to restrict Qatar's Al Jazeera network.

The advocacy body added that it has "received identical testimonies from [Palestinian] journalists expressing their fear that the media equipment they received from international organizations via Israel may include location-tracking and eavesdropping devices, which may have facilitated their targeting during the war."

Euro-Med Monitor asserted that targeting journalists is considered a war crime under international humanitarian law.