Dressed in pink, her hands flying about in eloquent gestures, excitement on her face, Indrani made quite a picture. There was pin-drop silence as she made strong points about why nothing in the hearings had uncovered anything against her. She spoke about there being "Not a shred of evidence... No scientific evidence because it didn't happen!"
Accused No 1 announced that there had been a change in the circumstances of her health condition. She produced a thick 19-page document, written in her neat, very feminine handwriting, detailing her condition, its symptoms and the consequences it could have on her health and well-being.
Pronouncing the verdict, the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court judge Yatin Shinde sentenced to death Faisal Sheikh, Asif Khan, Kamal Ansari, Ehtesham Sidduqui and Naveed Khan who planted the bombs in various trains.
Ever since Indrani's bail plea was denied by the judge her security has been stepped up. The message was clear. If she felt that unsafe she could get all the security she needed. But in jail she stayed.
In a first, a special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai sentenced six accused in a 2009 fake currency case to life imprisonment, terming the possession and circulation of Indian counterfeit notes as an "act of terrorism".
'With folded hands, on humanitarian grounds, if she can get temporary bail on medical grounds so she can get treatment.' 'If she dies, the whole trial gets derailed.'
Salman Khan in defence of Yakub Memon said the wrong man is being punished for the crimes.
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again. Four or five months later she met her death. Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.
In a blow to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa, the Karnataka high court on Tuesday rejected her bail plea in the disproportionate assets case, saying there was no ground to grant her the relief.
Each time they held the leafy bedsheet over the window for a few seconds, a clearer but very grey visage of Indrani came into view. In the barely discernible image, Indrani seemed to look tired and downbeat. But then the bedsheet would be taken away and Indrani would disappear into the darkness once more.
Invoking Mahatma Gandhi, two of the convicts on death row for the brutal torture and gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student on December 16 contested the trial court's sentence on Monday, telling the Delhi high court even the father of the nation was against capital punishment.
In the witness box, on bald embarrassing display, was not just Sub-Inspector Ganesh Dalvi, but the entire system of police investigation too.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa was acquitted on Monday by the Karnataka high court in the 19-year-old disproportionate assets case, a verdict that is sure to put her back in the Tamil Nadu chief minister's seat.
The prosecution in the December 16 gang rape case on Saturday told a court in Mumbai that the brutal assault meted out to the victim and her male friend by the alleged rapists was with a motive to "eliminate" them so that neither was left alive to narrate the horrific ordeal.
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
Pasbola wound up his cross examination, tabling a new narrative in the murder case. That Sheena Bora had been murdered not by her mother. But by her brother.
The question being silently telegraphed around the court room was: When did this happen? Wasn't this trial about Indrani murdering her daughter to prevent her from marrying Rahul Mukerjea, her husband Peter Mukerjea's son from his first marriage?
Ganesh Dhene said there had only been two or three mango trees in the grove, from where he found the skeleton, which he specified had no flesh on it.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday dismissed Aam Aadmi Party MLA and former law minister Somnath Bharti's anticipatory bail plea.
'After Indrani's arrest did you go to the police and say I did this kind of forgery?'
A case that J Jayalalitha 'does not want' is back and in the Supreme Court. N Sathiya Moorthy reports on the possible repercussions of the disproportionate assets case on Tamil Nadu politics.
And then came the chief moment of Friday. If the courtroom had a soundtrack, Beethoven's 9th would be playing, providing a triumphant, dramatic prologue to the production of this last clip. A woman reporter was asking Mekhail about Sanjeev Khanna. He says clearly, without mincing words, emphatically: 'Never seen him. First time I am hearing his name.'
Rana knew about my association with LeT. I informed him about the training imparted by me to LeT operatives. I disclosed to Rana that I was spying for LeT. This was four to five months before the 26/11 attacks," said Headley.
Her elfin face could be seen and once more after many days the victim of this murder had a face and a presence.
'Communal killings take place routinely in our country and yet we don't ever convict the offenders.' 'The riots of 1993 and 2002 would not have happened if justice was given to the 1984 Delhi riot victims.'
'Quite the raconteur, much to the dismay of Courtroom 51's CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale, Christopher 'Doglis' Marquis, a Bandra dog-breeder who was Prosecution Witness No 57 and a panch or witness, seemed to move into the witness box with glee, embellishing every answer that he gave to the lawyers' questions with a variety of additional details.' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
Mekhail delivered the most deliberate heart-tugging line of the day: "If a son asks his mother for money is wrong, then tell me." At the back Indrani gave one of her most beaming smiles that was meant to convey the exact opposite. This was no mother happy that her son had said he turned to her when he needed money because she was his mother.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
Dramatic minutes like the sentencing by a judge or a round of artful cross examination hog all the attention in a courtroom. But more noteworthy and infinitely more memorable are the human moments -- Like when a brother and sister hug before a judge. Or the steady support between a husband and a wife in court.
A Mumbai court on Thursday pardoned Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Headley, who had surveyed targets for the 26/11 attacks, and made him an approver in the case, a move that may unravel the conspiracy behind the brazen terror assault.
Former telecom minister A Raja, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi and 17 others were on Friday chargesheeted by the Enforcement Directorate in a special court in connection with a money-laundering case relating to the 2G spectrum allocation scam in which the party-run Kalaignar TV was allegedly paid Rs 200 crore by the promoters of Swan Telecom.
Uber cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav will spend the rest of his life behind the bars, with a Delhi court on Tuesday sentencing him for the "remainder of his life" for raping a woman executive in his taxi 11 months ago
Of the 24 convicted, 11 have been convicted for murder and 13 for other charges.
The prosecution on Wednesday rejected Bollywood star Salman Khan's defence that it was his driver Ashok Singh who was driving his vehicle at the time of the 2002 mishap, saying it appears to be a "brought up" witness whose contention was belated and introduced at the fag end of the trial.
Memon, 53, was found guilty of conspiracy in 2007 for the serial blasts that killed over 250 people.
In a huge relief to the pontiffs of Kanchi Sankara Mutt, Jayendra Saraswathi and Vijayendra Saraswathi, a local court on Wednesday acquitted them in the murder case of a temple official in Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu.
'He can say justice has not been done in accordance with the free will of the MLAs without a secret ballot and also by the issuing of a whip.' 'He can ask for a fresh show of strength.'
Even as an enthused AIADMK cadre celebrate their Amma's return, if the Supreme Court stays the Karnataka high court judgment in the disproportionate assets case, Jayalalithaa may once again lose her chief ministership. R Ramasubramanian reports from Chennai.
Rejecting a plea for 20 years jail term, the court said "it was for convicts to respect the lady especially when she was a tourist" and by their act, they have put "a stigma" on the country's reputation.
Devulkar had a certain abnormal vagueness about him that was unreal and defied belief. That came across in both his slightly too easy-going, extra-cooperative manner and the ragged nature of his testimony.
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