Indian politician convicted in anti-Sikh riots case – Yeni Şafak English

A court in India on Monday convicted a politician in a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the country.

Sajjan Kumar, a leader of the opposition Congress party was sentenced to life imprisonment by the High Court in capital New Delhi, according to a copy of the verdict available with Anadolu Agency.

The riots in retaliation to the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards left nearly 3,000 people dead.

On Monday, a bench comprising Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel set aside an earlier court order that had acquitted Kumar in the case. The case was related to the killing of five people.

In 2013, the court had convicted five others in the case but acquitted Kumar. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), however, filed an appeal challenging the acquittal.


Seven dead as Indian police fire on Kashmir protesters


Seven civilians died and dozens were injured when Indian security forces opened fire at people protesting the killing of three militants in a gun battle in restive Kashmir on Saturday, police said.Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said an operation was launched in the morning in response to intelligence reports about the presence of militants in a village in Pulwama district, south of the state’s summer capital Srinagar.”During the operation militants fired upon troops, leading to a gun battle in which three militants were killed,” he said.A senior police officer, who was not authorised to speak to the media, said large numbers of local people then gathered at the site, leading to clashes between them and security forces in which seven people were killed and about 50 injured.An eyewitness, Mohammad Ayuob, told Reuters Indian troops fired at the locals when they tried to retrieve the body of a militant.Jammu and Kashmir is mainly Hindu India’s only Muslim-majority state. India and Pakistan both rule the region in part but claim in full. India accuses Pakistan of fomenting trouble in its part of Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies.The Himalayan state has been particularly tense over the past few months as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party pulled out of local government, leaving a power void.Widespread protests have broken out in Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir over the killings. Security has been tightened and troops rushed to potential hotspots. A curfew was imposed in Pulwama town and surrounding areas, according to media reports.The separatist group Hurriyat Conference called for a three-day strike and protests across Kashmir.”Bullets and pellets rain!” its Chairman Mirwaiz Omar tweeted, adding that their supporters would march towards an army cantonment on Monday so that the Indian government can “kill all of us at one time rather than killing us daily”.Authorities have suspended train services in the Kashmir Valley and shut down mobile internet services to try and prevent the unrest from spreading.Indian security forces say they have killed 242 militants this year. In addition, 101 civilians and 82 security officials have also died, according to officials. The total death toll in violence is the highest in more than a decade.


Eleven die, more than 90 fall sick after eating temple food in India


Eleven people including two children died and more than 90 were hospitalised after consuming a religious food offering at a temple in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, police said on Saturday, calling it a suspected case of mass food poisoning.Two people have been questioned in connection with the incident on Friday, after devotees fell ill when they ate tomato rice at a Hindu temple. Many people are still being treated for vomiting, diarrhoea and respiratory diseases.Media reports in India said the suspected food poisoning was the result of pesticide contamination but police said it was too early to draw conclusions about the cause.”We have sent the organs of the dead people and the poisoned food to the forensic laboratory,” Geetha MS, a senior police officer in the Chamarajanagara district where the temple is located, told Reuters. “Only after receiving the report can we say what went wrong.”Several crows and dogs were also found dead after eating the food, Geetha added.In 2013, 23 school children died in the eastern state of Bihar in one of the worst outbreaks of mass food poisoning in the country. Police had suspected that it was caused by cooking oil that had been kept in a container previously used to store pesticide.The Karnataka government would provide financial assistance of 500,000 rupees ($6,953.14) to the families of each of the dead, according to media reports.


Hunt on in India for leopard that killed meditating monk


Indian forest rangers have launched a hunt for a leopard that killed a monk meditating under a tree deep in a jungle.The monk, Rahul Walke Bodhi, had been meditating in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in the western state of Maharashtra for the last month, and was attacked while offering morning prayers on Tuesday, a forest official said.Two other monks who were on their way to give him food said they witnessed the attack but Walke was dead by the time they reached him, according to a second forest official.”I would like to tell everyone not to go into the forest,” Gajendra Narwane, deputy director of the reserve, told the BBC Marathi-language service.Forest rangers have set up two cages and a camera trap to try to capture the animal. It was not clear what they would do with it if they caught it.The forest, some 825 km (510 miles) east of the city of Mumbai, is in a reserve for big cats where four other fatal attacks have occurred in the last few weeks, according to media.Forest officials have cordoned off the area where the monk was killed and are restricting the timing of visitor access to a Buddhist temple there.


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