IM operative Himayat Baig gets death sentence in Pune German bakery blast case

Indian Mujahideen operative Himayat Baig was awarded the death sentence by a Pune court on Thursday for murder, criminal conspiracy and other serious charges in the 2010 German Bakery terror attack.

Bystanders look at a destroyed bakery in Pune. The blast took place at a famous bakery in the city.

Baig was the only accused arrested for his role in the terror blast which killed 17, including five foreigners, in what was the worst extremist strike after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
The verdict draws the curtains on the Valentine's Day-eve tragedy of Feb 13, 2010 which shook the state's academic and cultural capital.
Pune Sessions Court Special Judge NP Dhote delivered the verdict in a packed courtroom.
During the arguments on the quantum of sentence in the afternoon, Baig broke down claiming innocence and pleaded for mercy. He was held guilty by the court April 15.
According to the prosecution, Baig planted the bomb under one of the tables in the German Bakery.
His lawyer A Rahman opposed the prosecution's claim that there was a link between the Indian Mujahideen, banned since 2004, and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group and that the two terror groups jointly carried out the blast.
He further contended that Baig was framed by the investigators and they had neither arrested nor presented the six other accused in the case.
"Vodafone provided evidence based on phone records that at the time of the blast, Baig was in Aurangabad. The accused had never been to Pune before the blast and six witnesses also gave evidence to this effect. The prosecution could not prove the conspiracy theory nor did it produce the other accused before the court," Rahman said soon after the verdict.
The prosecution had named Baig and six other accused in the chargesheet, including absconders Yasin Bhatkal, Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Mohsin Choudhary and Fazzay Kagti.
Another accused, Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, is currently undergoing trial in other terror cases in the country.
Rahman said though he respected the court verdict Thursday, he would appeal against it in the Bombay high court.
A resident of Beed district, Baig was nabbed from Udgir town in neighbouring Latur district by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in September 2010, nearly seven months after the terror attack.
Among other offence, Baig has been convicted under Indian Penal Code Sections 302, 307 (murder and attempt to murder), 435, 474 (mischief by fire and explosive and forgery) and 120(b) (criminal conspiracy), besides other charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Explosives Act.
The court upheld the prosecution contention that the blast was "a carefully planned and executed attack" calculated to terrorise the general public, causing extensive damage to life and property.
The prosecution said the primary objective of the terror attack was to undermine and reduce faith of the common people in the elected government and destabilise the system of law.
The special judge upheld the prosecution argument that the terror attack caused deaths of foreign nationals, earning the country a bad name. Five foreigners were among the 17 victims of the Feb 13, 2010 blast.
After his arrest, the ATS charged Baig with hatching a conspiracy along with his six associates for the terror blast at German Bakery, situated in the up-market Koregaon Park area of Pune.
The investigators said the conspiracy for the terror blast was hatched in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in March 2008 in the presence of Baig, Jundal and Kagti. Baig's lawyer Rahman denied this charge.
After Baig returned from Colombo, he settled in Udgir where he operated a cyber cafe and remained in touch with the other accused using 25 different email identities, the prosecution said.
Baig surveyed the area near the German Bakery Jan 31, 2010 and under the orders of Yasin Bhatkal planted the bomb, the prosecutions said.
During the three-and-half-year-long trial, the prosecution examined 103 witnesses even as Baig rejected the charges claiming he was in Aurangabad on the day of the terror blast and was framed in the case.

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Delhi: Class X girl gangraped in car, say police

A Class X student was allegedly kidnapped and gangraped by three men, including her father's cousin, in South Delhi's Sarojini Nagar area on Wednesday morning.
Police said the men kidnapped the girl from New Ashok Nagar, East Delhi, when she was on her way to school around 6.30 am.
A senior police officer said: "The trio drove to a secluded spot in South Delhi where the girl was raped inside the car. While one man stood guard outside the vehicle, the other two took turns to rape her on the rear seat. The girl said that she tried to resist, but the men overpowered her."
Her medical examination confirmed rape, police said.
"She said after raping her, the men took her towards Mayur Vihar Phase-3. She said they stopped the car there for a while and it was then that she escaped. She went home and told her mother about the assault," the officer said.
A case of kidnapping, gangrape, illegal-confinement, threatening and under Sections of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act has been registered at New Ashok Nagar police station.
Students molest teacher, arrested
A school student and his friend, both said to be above the age of 18, were arrested and sent to judicial custody on Wednesday for allegedly molesting a teacher in a moving bus.
The incident took place in Rohini, Outer Delhi, on Monday evening when the 27-year old teacher was travelling in a DTC bus, police said.
"The woman was returning from Prashant Vihar when the boys started molesting her inside the bus. They also passed lewd comments at her," a police officer said.

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Jindal case: India's charge of Pak institutions involved in 26/11 rubbished

The Pakistan Government on Wednesday dismissed India’s charge of Pakistani state institutions being involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
Addressing media in Islamabad, the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor in the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, termed New Delhi’s charges as “baseless”, and added that Islamabad would not investigate the Mumbai terror attack on the basis of evidences provided by New Delhi, as they were “not reliable”.
Defending Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Malik rubbished 26/11 Mumbai terror attack plotter Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jindal's claims of the ISI being involved in the 26/11 attacks.
He said the ISI protects Pakistan and is not involved in carrying out terror strikes.
Malik squarely blamed Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram of "unnecessarily targeting the ISI", and claimed that all the allegations against Pakistan have been proven to be false till now.
He pointed out that Jindal was an Indian citizen (a resident of Beed in Maharashtra), and therefore, could not be said to be working on behalf of state or non-state actors from Pakistan.
"On previous occasions, when India accused the ISI of being behind the attacks, they were later proved to be wrong. Blaming someone is very easy, but proving is very, very difficult," claimed Malik.
Chidambaram had on Wednesday said that India had been on Jindal’s case for over a year, and the latter had admitted during interrogation by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police to the involvement of Pakistani state agencies in the 26/11 attacks.
Reacting to Malik's note on Tuesday, Chidambaram said that India was willing to share information about Jindal with Pakistan
Jindal was arrested at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on June 21 after being brought from Saudi Arabia, and is now in the custody of Delhi Police till July 5.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) has now produced a production warrant in Delhi's Tis Hazari court for Jindal's interrogation.
The ATS wants to question him regarding the Aurangabad arms haul case of May 2006 and the German Bakery blast case of February 2010.
The ATS also wants to question him regarding the sleeper cells active in Maharashtra and about his alleged connections with the Indian Mujahideen.
The Indian Mujahideen was allegedly behind the 13/7 serial blasts in Mumbai in 2011 and the ATS had filed a charge sheet in the case last month.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Intelligence Bureau are also interrogating Jindal. He has reportedly given inputs about the Lashkar-e-Toiba's sleeper cells in the country to the police, based on which, police teams will be carrying out raids across Maharashtra.
Police say Jindal used different names in each incident that he was involved in over the past six to seven years.

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Ajmal Kasab, aides planned to return to Karachi, SC told

The Supreme Court was on Thursday told that the 2008 Mumbai terror attack convict and Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and his nine associates had planned to return to Karachi by the sea route after the carnage.
Senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for the Maharashtra government, told the apex court bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice C.K. Prasad that the ‘GPS (global positioning system) was an important device for 26/11 terrorists to reach Mumbai and there was record of their return journey from Mumbai to Karachi’ also.
The court was hearing Kasab's plea challenging the upholding of his conviction and award of death penalty.
Kasab was convicted and awarded death sentence by a Mumbai trial court May 6, 2010. Besides other charges, he was convicted for waging war against India. The Bombay High Court upheld the verdict Feb 21, 2011.

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Delhi: 12-year-old boy dies imitating TV suicide scene

New Delhi: A 12-year-old boy died in New Delhi when he reportedly tried to imitate a suicide scene he had seen in a movie, police said on Thursday.
The Class 5 student of a Sarvodaya school, Suhail, was found hanging from a ceiling fan at his Jafrabad home in east Delhi on Tuesday. His mother made the shocking discovery.
The incident took place when the boy's parents Mohammad Salim and Isha had gone to express condolences over a family friend's death.

The boy was rushed to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital where he was declared dead. He was the only child of his parents.
"A few days ago Suhail had watched a suicide scene in a movie on TV. Curious, he had asked his mother questions about the act and reasons for committing suicide. However, she scolded him," said a police officer.
"After the scolding by his mother, Suhail had started remaining quiet and appeared to be upset. In my wildest dreams, I cannot imagine that he would commit suicide," said a police official quoting Salim.
"She scolded him. It is possible that while imitating the act of suicide, he accidentally hung himself," said a police officer quoting the distraught mother Isha.

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India ministers in Karnataka quit amid pornography row

Two ministers in the Indian state of Karnataka have resigned after they were accused of watching pornography in the state assembly.

Footage showed Laxman Savadi apparently watching a clip on a phone and sharing it with his colleague, CC Patil, the minister for women and children.
Another minister, Krishna Palemar, the phone's reported owner, also quit.
The pair denied watching porn but said they quit to prevent embarrassment to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
There was public outrage after news channels ran the story on Tuesday evening, and opposition parties demanded the resignation of the ministers.
"I have resigned to prevent any embarrassment to the party. All three of us will prove our innocence," Mr Savadi said.
An inquiry has been ordered.
'Rave party debate' The footage of the ministers was captured by news channels positioned in the media galleries during a debate in the state assembly.
It shows Mr Savadi, the minister for co-operation, watching a clip on a mobile phone and then showing it to Mr Patil.
The clip appeared to show a woman dancing, undressing and then having sex.

The incident generated protests in Bangalore against the politicians

"Why should I resign?" Mr Savadi asked on Tuesday. "The video I watched was of a woman being raped by four people. It was not porn."
He said he was watching the footage to "prepare for a discussion [in the assembly] on the ill-effects of a rave party" in the state recently.
Mr Patil told reporters: "We are not so uncivilised as to watch porn films."
Mr Palemar, the state minister for ports and environment, said his innocence would be proved by the inquiry.
Correspondents say the incident has come as a major embarrassment for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government.
The government has already been rocked by corruption scandals, leading to the resignation of former Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa last year.

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Bomb Blast in Delhi

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Assailants paid Rs 40,000 to throw acid on girl

Perpetrators, who had been contracted by a mother-son duo to disfigure a 22-year-old woman, arrested

Representative pic

With two more arrests, Crime Branch claims to have cracked the recent acid attack case in which a 22-year-old woman was injured at Goregaon station. Police had earlier nabbed Nasir Shaikh alias Pintu and his mother Manju Anwar Ali Shaikh, on whose orders the offence had been carried out. Yesterday, Unit X of Crime Branch apprehended the two accused identified as Firoz Memon alias Papa (23) and Firoz Zuber Sheikh alias Mannu (20). The mother-son duo had given the contract to Sheikh and Memon to disfigure the victim, Nallasopara resident Aarti Thakur.

According to the police, the mother-son duo had planned the crime because they had lent Rs 10 lakh to Aarti's father and the latter was not returning the money.

Manju had already paid Rs 40,000 to the attackers and would have paid more after the contract was fulfilled. Cops revealed that Pintu loved Aarti and wanted to marry her. But she was not interested. This also became a motive for the crime.

Try, try, try again
Aarti was first attacked in November last year when she was walking in Malwani area. The second attack happened in December. Both times, she was struck on her face with a small knife. No case was registered then. On the third occasion, she suffered 10-15 per cent burns from the acid attack. Her eyebrows, chin, chest and forearms were partially burnt.

According to the police, they had used several informers to crack the case as it had become a challenge for them. Cops say that since the first two hits failed to yield satisfactory results, Manju promised the perpetrators more money if Aarti was attacked with acid.

"We have arrested the accused and now the motive behind the attack is clear. The two miscreants arrested on Monday had played an active role in assaulting the victim," said Assistant Police Inspector Rauf Shaikh of Crime Branch Unit X. The mother-son duo has been booked under Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 120 (B) (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

Acid attack
Aarti, an HSC pass-out from SNDT College, has been working as a telephone operator in a private firm at Goregaon for the past one year.

During the last attack which took place at at Goregaon station, Aarti was walking to the ticket-punching machine when her assailants threw acid on her face.

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Man throws girl out of train after rape attempt

Police in Chhattisgarh's Korba district launched a search Monday for a man who threw out a minor girl from a running train after a failed rape attempt. "The accused has been identified as Ramdayal Kevat, aged 35 years. He knew the 13-year-old girl's family. Late Sunday, he took her to a train and tried to rape her. He pushed her out when he failed," officials at the police headquarters said.
The incident took place in a passenger train between Korba and Gevra railway stations.
The girl's father was reportedly known to the accused. The girl sustained serious injuries on her head and other parts of her body. Local people took her to a hospital where her condition was stated to be stable.

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Mumbai gunman appeal judgement to be handed down

Two Indian judges are to give their decision in the appeal of the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab Photo: AP/REUTERS

12:39AM GMT 21 Feb 2011

Prosecution and defence lawyers said the judgement in the case of Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was due to be handed down from 11am local time on Monday at the Bombay High Court.

Kasab, now 23, was convicted and sentenced to death last May for his part in the wave of attacks on India's financial capital by 10 Islamist militants which killed 166 people and injured more than 300 others.

State prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said on Sunday that he was "very confident" that the death sentence would be upheld.

One of Kasab's lawyers, Farhana Shah, added: "Inshallah (God willing), we hope for the best but it's up to the discretion of the honourable court."

Kasab was found guilty of a string of offences including waging war against India, murder, attempted murder and terrorist acts after a high-profile trial at a maximum-security prison court in Mumbai.

The appeal, which began last October, saw Kasab's legal team ask for a retrial, arguing that his trial lawyer was not given sufficient time to wade through the 11,000-page charge sheet before the case began.
They also claimed that prosecution evidence and witnesses were manipulated.
Under Indian law, death sentence cases have to be referred to the local state high court. The judges can uphold the sentence, reduce it, order a retrial or overturn the conviction.
If a death sentence is upheld in the high court, there is a further right of appeal to the Supreme Court in New Delhi and as a last resort to India's president for clemency.
Kasab has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest in a shoot-out with police just hours after the attacks began. He has not attended the appeal for security reasons but has been able to follow proceedings via video link.
He was found to have been one of the two gunmen responsible for the bloodiest episode in the three-day attacks, when 52 people were killed at Mumbai's main railway station on November 26, 2008.

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Killer caught after 15 years on the run

A ''COLD-BLOODED assassin'' who has been on the run for 15 years has been caught in north Queensland.
Luke Andrew Hunter, 42, who in the late 1990s was No. 4 on Australia's most wanted list, was arrested yesterday at a home at Herberton in the Atherton Tablelands after a police operation.
Hunter escaped from the Borallon Correctional Centre, near Ipswich, in February 1996, by breaking through a fence with bolt cutters.

 

He was serving a 21-year jail term after the Newcastle Supreme Court found him guilty in 1990 of the jealousy-driven murder of his lover's husband, Brian Phillip Nagle, 36.

In sentencing Hunter, Justice Peter Newman said the murder was a ''cold-blooded assassination'' of his best mate, who was shot in the head with a rifle while on a shooting trip.
He then began living with Mr Nagle's wife until Mr Nagle's body was found almost a month after the murder in a grave in bushland at Yarrowitch, near Walcha.
Hunter is being held in custody in Cairns and is expected to be transferred into the care of Corrective Services in Brisbane today.
He could face one charge of unlawful escape from custody.

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Woman kills brother for cash, father helps her hide crime

NEW DELHI: A woman along with her paramour allegedly killed her brother and then roped in her father to hush up the murder.

The accused Rekha (28) and Anil (26) allegedly murdered 25-year-old Sanjit and then tried to pass it off as a natural death. Sanjit's 52-year-old father Sher Singh then connived with them to hush up the matter, police said. The trio would even have escaped had it not been for the timely intervention of a crematorium in charge, who noticed strangulation marks on Sanjit's neck and helped police in identifying foul play. This led to their arrest.

According to police, the chain of events centred around the deceased's sister, Rekha, who was part of a love triangle. Rekha fell in love with two men, including Anil, who had originally been hired by her husband to kill her, cops said.

DCP (south) HGS Dhaliwal said, "Rekha conspired with Anil to eliminate her brother Sanjit, who was a drunkard, as he was supposed to receive some amount after the sale of ancestral property. Rekha wanted all the money and decided to get rid of him." She also allegedly planned to kill her husband who had filed for divorce, cops said.

Sanjit's murder came to light after Deepak Sharma, in charge of Ambedkar Nagar crematorium, found strangulation marks on the neck when his body was brought to the facility on January 14.

When the body was kept on the pyre, Sharma noticed injury marks on the neck. Family members' insistence on the cremation made him suspicious and he decided to call the police," said a senior police officer.

ACP Hauz Khas Mehar Singh said, "In the postmortem cause of death was found to be asphyxia due to strangulation."

Sanjit had got some money after selling property, which caused a dispute in the family, cops said. He got the share of his ancestral land and was expecting about Rs 7.5 lakh. Investigation revealed that Rekha used to meet a few Faridabad-based youths with criminal background.

Rekha, who was married in 2002 and has three children, had a love affair with Vinod, Anil's younger brother. According to cops, Anil was hired by Samuandar to allegedly kill Rekha. But in a true theatrical twist, Anil reportedly fell in love with her and hatched a plan to kill Sanjit and Samuandar, police said.

On January 13, Rekha asked Anil to come to her house as her other brother Rakesh and father were not there. "Anil and Sanjit consumed alcohol. After Sanjit went to sleep, Anil and Rekha strangulated him," said DCP Dhaliwal.

Rekha's father, Sher Singh, found Sanjit dead the next morning. "Rekha had promised to give Anil Rs 2 lakh if everything went smoothly and the money got transferred in the name of her father," said DCP Dhaliwal. Singh aroused suspicion as he disappeared after being called for questioning.

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Gym teacher Stacy Schuler had sexual relations with high school football players

A gym teacher in Ohio who allegedly had sex with several high school football players now faces multiple counts of sexual battery.
Stacy Schuler, who has been on paid administrative leave since mid-January when the claims first surfaced, was indicted Friday on 16 counts of sexual battery and three misdemeanor counts of offenses involving underage persons, the Dayton Daily News reported.
The 32-year-old is accused of having sexual relations with students on five different occasions in 2010, officials with the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office told the newspaper.
Most of the incidents involved members of the Mason High School football team, authorities said.
Schuler turned herself in on Friday and bail was set at $50,000. She has been ordered to stay away from the victims, as well as any other students.
Mason principal Mindy McCarty-Stewart told The Associated Press that none of the alleged incidents occurred on school grounds.
An anonymous tip given to authorities in January triggered the investigation into Schuler.

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2G scam, black money cases in apex court this week

New Delhi: Cases related to the 2G spectrum allocation scam and black money stashed by Indian citizens in foreign banks in tax heavens are likely to be closely-followed in the Supreme Court in the week ahead.
The on-going hearing on a plea against appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas and a case related to Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh's tapes would also figure prominently.

On Thursday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will submit its first status report on its investigations into the 2G spectrum scam. The CBI investigation is being monitored by the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly.
Telecom officials tried to delay 2G spectrum probe: Ex-CVC

The court Dec 16, 2010 said that there was prima facie evidence pointing to acts of wrongdoing in the grant of second generation (2G) licences and grant of dual use technology prior to Oct 19, 2007 - much before the licences were officially allocated in 2008.

The court had asked the investigating agency to submit its first status report in the case Feb 10.

On Friday, the bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar is likely to hear the petition by eminent jurist Ram Jethamalani seeking direction to the Central government to take steps to bring back the black money stashed away by Indian nationals in foreign banks based in tax havens.

On Monday, the apex court would take forward the hearing on the petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) challenging Thomas' appointment.

An apex court bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar, during the last hearing, asked the central government whether Thomas could have been given a clean chit (by the then CVC) ignoring a pending chargesheet against him in Kerala's palm oil import case of the 1990s.

'Can the CVC say that let there be a high court judgment or observations, a pending charge sheet, sanction of prosecution (of Thomas) by the Kerala government, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and that of the committee on public undertakings (of the state assembly) (but) I am not agreeing and (will) give a clean chit,' the court asked.

'When Thomas is made an accused (in the palm oil import case), then there is an application of mind by the (trial) court and the CVC can't say that the application of mind (by the court) is of no consequence,' the court observed.

Earlier, the government told the court that there were 'no guidelines or rules' to prepare a panel of candidates before the selection of a CVC.

Senior counsel K.K. Venugopal appearing for Thomas will resume his arguments.

On Wednesday, the bench of Justice Singhvi and Justice Ganguly will hold further hearing on an application by the CPIL seeking a direction to make public the tapes of the intercepts of Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh's telephones.

It is alleged that Amar Singh's phones were illegally tapped.

The CPIL contended that everything that exposed the attempts to influence and manipulate the decision making process of the government should be made public.

In the last hearing, the court pulled up the government, Delhi Police, a telecom operator and the MP for filing 'very casual and vague' affidavits and asked them to file these afresh in the former Samajwadi Party leader's phone tapping case.
Black money: More officials to get involved in crackdown

The bench of Justice Singhvi and Justice Ganguly said: 'It is a very serious issue and all the affidavits have been filed in a very casual manner.'

The court asked Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium to file a status report on a case in trial court relating to criminal conspiracy in tapping Amar Singh's phone.

The court by its 2006 order stayed the publication of the Amar Singh's tapes.

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2G scam: No loss to the country, says Sibal

The government on Friday rejected the estimates of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the losses of  Rs 1.76 lakh crore (Rs 1.76 trillion) on account of allocation of 2G spectrum to telecom operators saying it "had no basis and was utterly erroneous".
Asserting that there were actually no losses to the exchequer, Sibal said "CAG has done injustice to itself and the Opposition is doing injustice to aam aadmi."
"We are extremely pained at methodology adopted by CAG for arriving at 2G spectrum (allocation loss) figures that have no basis," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters in New Delhi.

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CBI or Closure Bureau of Investigation?

The closure of the Aarushi murder case has brought the investigative skills of the Central Bureau of Investigation into sharp focus.

Once known to be a premier investigative agency and India's version of the Scotland Yard of UK, the CBI has earned itself some snide comments as it willingly surrendered its backbone to the ruling dispensation or crawled when asked to bend.

Though an independent agency, the CBI is more seen as an agency of the ruling party to settle scores, keep opponents silent, force political parties to support or oppose issues. Little wonder that the BJP and the Opposition parties call the CBI the Congress Bureau of Investigation.

But to be fair, the CBI got a messy case when the UP police handed over the Aarushi file. The UP police had botched up the evidence, tampered with the scene of crime and created enough red herrings.

That be so, why did the CBI take over two years to declare that they had a hopeless case on hand? Why did the CBI use unscientific means to question the servants of Dr Rajesh Talwar?

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Netizens shocked as CBI lets Aarushi's murderer roam free

"Shame", "Yet another let down", "Is it a cover up?"-- these are some of the reactions of netizens to the CBI filing a closure report in the sensational Aarushi double murder case after a two-and-a-half- year probe marked by botched up investigations.
"Even 'cold cases', twenty years and older are solved in the US! What on earth is happening here, another cover up?" Sunaina Serna Ahluwalia wrote on social networking site Facebook.
Shreya Talwar, another user, wrote, "Yet another let down, but this is not where we stop. This is the time (when) we need to join hands and fight against the injustice happening to Aaru, instead of sitting back and taking everything as it comes."
However, the buzz which was visible when the 14-year-old was murdered in May 2008 along with the domestic help Hemraj is missing this time. Various communities and pages that were created in the name of the killed teenager and appealed for justice are slowly picking up.

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Maoists set fire to vehicles, mobile tower in Orissa

About 40 Maoists set ablaze some 14 vehicles of a private construction company and damaged a mobile communication tower in the Gajapati district of south Orissa on Monday night. The incident occurred at the Pindiki village.

Eyewitnesses said the Maoists targeted the makeshift camp of the ARSS which is involved in the construction of a major road.

None injured

No one was injured as vehicle drivers and the watchman fled fearing for their lives on seeing the extremists.

Seven tippers, two road-rollers, two mixers, a water tanker, a grader, and an excavator were damaged in the attack.

The Maoists then headed towards the mobile communication tower at the village and set it ablaze. Before escaping, they cut down trees to block the Paralakhemundi-Mohana road to stop the movement of security forces. Deputy Inspector-General, Southern Range, R.K. Sharma, said the security forces were rushed to the area to nab the Maoists. The ARSS has taken up the construction of 102.9-km stretch of road of the State Highway number 134.

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Court slams Maharashtra government on Adarsh

 

Mumbai:  The Bombay High Court has come down heavily on the Maharashtra government asking why no FIR was filed in the Adarsh scam and no action was taken against any government official?

The court said there was clear-cut manipulation by the Collectorate, Revenue Ministry and Urban Development Department and the state government went out of its way to please ex-Army chief, General Deepak Kapoor.

The officials were accused of manipulating the members' list and adding the names of politicians later.

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2G Spectrum scam: CBI sends notice to A Raja

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday issued the notice to the former Telecom Minister A Raja in connection with 2G Spectrum allotment scam.

Raja will be questioned by the CBI under section 160 of the CrPC for his alleged involvement in a multi crore scam.

Followed by Raja, former TRAI chairman Pradeep Baijal, Raja’s aides R K Chandolia and A K Srivastava, Raja’s brother Andimuthu Kaliaperumal, Associate Editor of ‘Nakeeran’ A Kamaraj, are likely to face the heat of CBI.

Earlier, CBI conducted raided 34 places in New Delhi and Tamil Nadu including residences of Raja and his aides.

According to CBI sources, some crucial documents have been recovered from these places that were raided in last 15 days. The documents are required to be verified after questioning several people.

In view of the report submission date coming closer, CBI has speeded up the inquiry. The report has to be submitted to the Supreme Court by February.

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