Hasin Jahan, estranged wife of cricketer Shami, joins Congress

New Delhi, Mar 20: Bodies of the four Nirbhaya convicts who were hanged on Friday morning at Tihar Jail have been sent to hospital for a post-mortem, following which it will be handed over to the families, according to an official.

After the hanging at 5:30 am today, the bodies were taken from Tihar Jail to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital for post mortem at around 8:20 am.

Tihar jail Director-General Sandeep Goel said that the bodies will be handed over to the families after the post mortem.

The families, however, will have to give a written undertaking that they will not make a public demonstration of the cremation or burial of the executed person.

The superintendent will also consult the District Magistrate and the Deputy Commissioner of Police for arrangements for the disposal of the body.

The post mortem comes in line with the Supreme Court's order in Shatrughan Chauhan's case in January 2014, which had mandated the same observing that there is a dearth of experienced hangman in the country.

"By making the performance of post mortem obligatory, the cause of the death of the convict can be found out, which will reveal whether the person died as a result of the dislocation of the cervical vertebrate or by strangulation which results on account of too long a drop," the apex court had said in its order.

"Our constitution permits the execution of death sentence only through the procedure established by law and this procedure must be just, fair and reasonable," the order added.

All four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case -- Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Mukesh Singh -- were hanged till death at 5:30 am this morning.

The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the adults accused had allegedly committed suicide in the prison during the trial, while the juvenile was released from a correction home after a period of three years.

Washington, Feb 6: The US has expressed concern over the current situation of religious freedom in India and raised the issue with Indian officials, a senior State Department official has said.

The remarks came in the wake of widespread protests held across India against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The senior State Department official, on condition of anonymity, said that he has met with officials in India about what is taking place in the nation and expressed concern.

"We are concerned about what's taking place in India. I have met with the Indian foreign minister. I've met with the Indian ambassador (to express my concern)," the official, who was recently in India, told reporters on Wednesday.

The US has also "expressed desire first to try to help and work through some of these issues", the official said as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a 27-nation International Religious Freedom Alliance.

"To me, the initial step we try to do in most places is say what can we do to be of help you work through an issue to where there's not religious persecution. That's the first step, is just saying can we work with you on this," the official said.

India maintains that the Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens, including its minority communities.

It is widely acknowledged that India is a vibrant democracy where the Constitution provides protection of religious freedom, and where democratic governance and rule of law further promote and protect fundamental rights, a senior official of the Ministry of External Affairs has said.

According to the CAA, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 following religious persecution there will get Indian citizenship.

The Indian government has been emphasising that the new law will not deny any citizenship rights, but has been brought to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries and give them citizenship.

Defending the CAA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month said that the law is not about taking away citizenship, it is about giving citizenship.

"We must all know that any person of any religion from any country of the world who believes in India and its Constitution can apply for Indian citizenship through due process. There's no problem in that," he said.

Dubai/Washington, Jan 6: Tens of thousands of Iranians thronged the streets of Tehran on Monday for the funeral of Quds Force commander Qassim Suleimani who was killed in a US air strike last week and his daughter said his death would bring a "dark day" for the United States.

"Crazy Trump, don't think that everything is over with my father's martyrdom," Zeinab Suleimani said in her address broadcast on state television after US President Donald Trump ordered Friday's strike that killed the top Iranian general.

Iran has promised to avenge the killing of Qassim Suleimani, the architect of Iran's drive to extend its influence across the region and a national hero among many Iranians, even many of those who did not consider themselves devoted supporters of the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers.

The scale of the crowds in Tehran shown on television mirrored the masses that gathered in 1989 for the funeral of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In response to Iran's warnings, Trump has threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites, including cultural targets, if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets, deepening a crisis that has heightened fears of a major Middle East conflagration.

The coffins of the Iranian general and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was also killed in Friday's attack on Baghdad airport, were passed across the heads of mourners massed in central Tehran, many of them chanting "Death to America".

One of the Islamic Republic's major regional goals, namely to drive US forces out of neighbouring Iraq, came a step closer on Sunday when the Iraqi parliament backed a recommendation by the prime minister for all foreign troops to be ordered out.

"Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically," said Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who resigned in November amid anti-government protests.

Iraq's rival Shi'ite leaders, including ones opposed to Iranian influence, have united since Friday's attack in calling for the expulsion of US troops.

Esmail Qaani, the new head of the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards' unit in charge of activities abroad, said Iran would continue Suleimani's path and said "the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region."

ALLIES AT FUNERAL

Prayers at Suleimani's funeral in Tehran, which will later move to his southern home city of Kerman, were led by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Suleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran behind Khamenei.

The funeral was attended by some of Iran's allies in the region, including Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Palestinian group Hamas who said: "I declare that the martyred commander Suleimani is a martyr of Jerusalem."

Adding to tensions, Iran said it was taking another step back from commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, a pact from which the United States withdrew in 2018.

Washington has since imposed tough sanctions on Iran, describing its policy as "maximum pressure" and saying it wanted to drive down Iranian oil exports - the main source of government revenues - to zero.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Washington from Florida on Sunday, Trump stood by his remarks to include cultural sites on his list of potential targets, despite drawing criticism from US politicians.

"They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way," Trump said.

Democratic critics of the Republican president have said Trump was reckless in authorizing the strike, and some said his comments about targeting cultural sites amounted to threats to commit war crimes. Many asked why Soleimani, long seen as a threat by US authorities, had to be killed now.

Republicans in the US Congress have generally backed Trump's move.

Trump also threatened sanctions against Iraq and said that if US troops were required to leave the country, Iraq's government would have to pay Washington for the cost of a "very extraordinarily expensive" air base there.

He said if Iraq asked US forces to leave on an unfriendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."