BJP's Kerala unit chief Rajasekharan sworn in as Mizoram Governor

Feb 26: In a midnight hearing, the Delhi High Court directed police to ensure safe passage to government hospitals and emergency treatment for those injured in the communal violence erupted in northeast Delhi over the amended citizenship law.

The court held a special hearing, which started at 12:30 am, at the residence of Justice S Muralidhar after receiving a call from an advocate explaining the dire circumstances under which the victims were unable to be removed from a small hospital to the GTB Hospital.

A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Anup J Bhambhani directed the Delhi Police to ensure safe passage of the injured victims by deploying all resources at its command and on the strength of this order as well as to make sure they receive immediate emergency treatment if not at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital then at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) or Maulana Azad or any other hospital.

The bench also called for a status report of compliance, including information about the injured victims and the treatment offered to them, and the matter will be heard during the day at 2:15 pm.

It said the order be communicated to the medical superintendents of the GTB and the LNJP Hospitals.

The urgent hearing was conducted after advocate Suroor Mander called the judge and sought urgent orders for safe passage of ambulances for the injured.

The Delhi Police and the government were represented through additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose.

During the hearing, the bench spoke over phone to doctor Anwar of the Al-hind Hospital in New Mustafabad who told the court that there were two bodies and 22 injured persons there and he had been trying to seek police assistance since 4 pm on Tuesday without success.

The court then directed the senior officials to reach to the hospital forthwith, following which they started the process of evacuating the injured to the nearest hospitals.

It also said this order be brought to the knowledge of the Delhi Police Commissioner.

Communal violence over the amended citizenship law in northeast Delhi claimed at least 18 lives till Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the violence escalated in northeast Delhi as police struggled to check the rioters who ran amok on streets, burning and looting shops, pelting stones and thrashing people.

New Delhi, Mar 13: Delhi's Tis Hazari Court on Friday sentenced expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and six others to 10 years imprisonment for the death of Unnao rape survivor's father. Sengar is already serving life imprisonment for raping the minor.

While sentencing them, District Judge Dharmesh Sharma said, "There can be no denying that rule of law was broken. Sengar was a public functionary and had to maintain the rule of law. The way the crime has been committed, it does not call for leniency."

Sengar and his brother Atul has been directed to give 10 lakh compensation to family of the victim for loss of their father. "There are four minor children involved, three girls and one boy. They have also been uprooted from native place," the judge said.

Seven people, including Sengar, his brother and two police personnel, were held guilty for culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy, earlier this month.

The case pertains to the death of rape survivor's father in custody on April 9, 2018. It was alleged that he was assaulted following a quarrel with some of the accused in the case.

He was taken to the police station and then framed for allegedly possessing an illegal firearm. Pursuant to this, he was sent to custodial remand, during which he died.

The case was transferred to Delhi from a trial court in Uttar Pradesh on the Supreme Court's directions in August last year. Both the death and illegal firearm case was later clubbed by the court.

During the arguments on sentencing on March 12, Sengar had told the court that he should be "hanged and acid poured into his eyes if he has done anything wrong".

The former MLA had also raped the daughter of the deceased in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district and was sent to jail for "remainder of his natural biological life", last year.

New Delhi, Mar 14: India on Friday was mulling over the option of deporting The Wall Street Journal's South Asia deputy bureau chief for misreporting Delhi riots in which over 50 people were killed last month. However, the government denied that it had made any such decision.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that a complaint was registered against Eric Bellman, the WSJ South Asia deputy bureau chief based in New Delhi, by a private individual on the government's online grievance redressal platform.

"Referring the complaint to the related office is a routine matter as per standard procedure. No such decision on deportation has been taken by the Ministry of External Affairs," Kumar said.

However, government-funded Prasar Bharati News Services had earlier tweeted screenshots of the complaint which was filed by an undersecretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, Vinesh K Kalra, saying that the ministry has asked the Indian embassy in the US to "look into the request for immediate deportation of Bellman for his "anti-India behaviour".

The official had complained to the embassy about Bellman's controversial reportage on the killing of an Intelligence Bureau staffer named Ankit Sharma.

The WSJ had reported that Ankit Sharma's brother had said that he was killed by a mob belonging to a particular religious community. Ankit's brother later told Indian media that he never spoke to the WSJ reporter.

After the Prasar Bharati tweet got circulated widely on social media, the government backtracked and said that no such decision has been taken.