-Express News Service   A special riots court awarded life sentences to 31 people, mostly landed Patels of Sardarpura village in this district, for killing 33 Muslims who were employed as their farm labourers and were their neighbours, to avenge the Godhra train burning of February 27, 2002. Of the dead, 17 were women and 11 children. Principal District Judge S C Srivastava convicted them for murder, rioting and promoting enmity between different...

An RTI activist, who stumbled over words used in his own affidavit, was refused permission to cross-examine witnesses in the Adarsh scam case. Hearing an application filed by Adarsh society members objecting to Santosh Daundkar's plea to grill witnesses, the judicial commission of Justice (retired) J A Patil and member P Subhramanyam however dismissed the plea to throw out the affidavit and Evidence submitted by the activist. The Adarsh panel had...

-The Economic Times   CBI carried out searches at 10 places in and around Lucknow over the weekend as part of its probe into alleged irregularities in the National Rural Health Mission programme in Uttar Pradesh. Searches were carried out in offices of NGOs which had been tasked with running NRHM programmes.  Officers of the investigating agency were busy assessing details of seizures made during the searches. This was the second round of...

-The Hindu   The Supreme Court has expressed serious concern over fake encounters by the police and said “tolerance of police atrocities would amount to acceptance of systemic subversion and erosion of the rule of law”. Upholding the life sentence awarded to four Punjab Police officers who were responsible for kidnap and killing of a human rights activist, a Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan said: “Police atrocities are always violative...

-Express News Service Nadeem Saiyed, a key witness to the Naroda Patiya massacre during the 2002 Gujarat riots, was brutally killed on the main street of Juhapura on Saturday. He was stabbed 25 times, just steps away from the anti-terrorism group headquarters. Two Juhapura residents, Firdos Mullah and Mushir Ahmed, have been booked for murder and conspiracy. Saiyed’s father named them along with several others, accusing them of ordering his killing. A police informer...