Malegaon blast: Decide bail pleas in a month, SC to trial court

April 15, 2015

New Delhi, April 15: The Supreme Court today asked the trial court in Maharashtra to decide on the bail pleas of accused persons, including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, within a month in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.pragya

A bench of Justices F M I Kalifulla and Shiva Kirti Singh also said the provisions of stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) would not be considered while dealing with the bail applications of accused persons, barring one Rakesh D Dhawde on the grounds that he had been involved in other similar offences prior to the Malegaon blast.

The accused persons had approached the apex court challenging the denial of their bail by the Bombay High Court.

They had also sought direction against the High Court order restoring the charges under the stringent anti-organised crime law MCOCA.

The High Court had ordered that Pragya and ten other accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case would face trial under MCOCA and quashed the decision of a Special Court which had dropped the charges under the special law.

Among the other high-profile accused in the case is Lt Col S P Purohit.

Seven people were killed in a bomb blast on September 29, 2008, at Malegaon, a communally-sensitive textile town in Nasik district of North Maharashtra. The probe into the blast has brought into focus the activities of some right-wing Hindu groups.

A Special MCOCA court had earlier ruled that Anti Terrorist Squad had wrongly applied MCOCA in the case against Pragya, Purohit and nine others.

The 4,000-page chargesheet had alleged that Malegaon was selected as the blast target because of a sizeable Muslim population there. It named Pragya Thakur, Purohit and another accused, Swami Dayanand Pandey, as the key conspirators.

The chargesheet had further alleged it was Pandey who had instructed Purohit to arrange RDX, while Pragya owned the motorcycle which was used in the blast.

Ajay Rahirkar, another accused, allegedly organised funds for the terror act, while conspiracy meetings were held at Bhonsala Military School in Nasik.

Rakesh Dhawde, Ramesh Upadhyay, Shyamlal Sahu, Shivnarain Kalsangra, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Jagdish Mhatre and Sameer Kulkarni were the other accused.

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News Network
March 24,2020

Ahmedabad, Mar 24: The Gujarat police has detained 426 people in the last 24 hours for violating lockdown rules in force in the state to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak, a senior official said on Tuesday.

They include those who came out despite being advised home quarantine, state Director General of Police Shivanand Jha said.

"The lockdown met with around 90 per cent success. We are taking strict measures to implement the lockdown in the remaining 10-15 per cent areas. We have lodged 238 cases related to the violation of police notification and 127 cases related to quarantine rule violation. In all, we have detained 426 persons across the state," Jha told reporters in Gandhinagar.

"For better implementation of the lockdown and to address issues concerning people, we have set up a dedicated 24-hour control room and appointed two additional DGP rank officers to supervise operations. Three teams under them would work to resolve issues across the state," said Jha.

He said police commissioners and districts SPs have been asked to enforce the lockdown in an effective manner.

Essential services like vegetable and milk shops are allowed to remain open, he said, and asked people not to flock in large numbers to such shops.

The state has so far reported 33 COVID-19 cases, and one person has died of the infection.

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News Network
March 13,2020

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.

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News Network
May 10,2020

May 10: Delhi recorded five more deaths due to coronavirus, while 381 fresh cases of the virus were reported, the city government said on Sunday.

With the fresh cases, the virus tally in the national capital has climbed to 6,923.

Between midnight of May 8 and midnight of May 9, five fresh fatalities due to the virus were reported, taking the death toll to 73, the government said in its health bulletin.

While there are 4,781 active cases of the virus in the city, 2069 patients have so far recovered from COVID-19.

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