The Delhi Lt Governor's office on Tuesday night sent back the file on Afzal Guru's mercy petition, seeking more clarification from the Delhi government, sources said.
The wife of Jaish-e-Mohammed militant Mohammed Afzal, who is set to be hanged on October 20 for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament, will appeal to President A P J Abdul Kalam to pardon him.
Mukhtar Ansari was subjected to slow poisoning in jail, Umar Ansari, the son of the gangster-turned-politician who died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda, alleged early Friday.
A group of people in Siddharthanagar allegedly rubbed chilli in two boys' anus, gave them petrol injections, and forced them to drink urine, over suspicion of stealing Rs 2,000, police said on Sunday.
Ahsan Ullah Khan, the additional district and session judge of the MP-MLA court in Sonbhadra, also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Gond which would be used in the rape survivor's rehabilitation.
The government on Tuesday said incidents of terrorist attacks on armed forces have increased in Jammu and Kashmir in the aftermath of the hanging of Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru.
Reacting to the renewed demand to give effect to the death sentence awarded to Afzal Guru, former Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil today said that the demand was "politically motivated."
With the decision on his mercy petition prolonging, Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru has moved an application in Supreme Court seeking early disposal of his case, saying solitary confinement was worse than death.
According to top government sources, in a Union Cabinet meeting recently, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said ministers like him should be "told what to say" when people ask them about Afzal Guru. Bluntly targetting senior Congress representatives in the Cabinet, Pawar also asked how long the government was going to sit on the case of Afzal's clemency.
Rejecting Pakistan Parliament's resolution on execution of Afzal Guru, Lok Sabha on Friday termed it as interference in India's internal affairs and told it to desist from such acts of support for extremist and terrorist elements.
"They are saying that the president disposed of Afzal's mercy petition five days ago, on February 3. But even the petitioners didn't know that his mercy plea had been rejected," says Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal in an interview
Curfew continued in Kashmir for the second day on Sunday following hanging of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru in Delhi's Tihar jail.
She was speaking at the launch of a book on the Parliament attack.
Afzal Guru's family is well within its right to seek his body, but the model prison manual prescribes clauses that need to be taken into account before the request is considered, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
On the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the attack on Parliament, the government and the opposition were on Monday locked in a war of words on the hanging of terrorist Afzal Guru. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj raised the pitch by stating that the country wants to know why Guru has not been hanged despite the Supreme Court confirming his punishment, but Home Minister P Chidambaram countered it by saying he had explained the exact status of the case.
As soon as the House met on Tuesday morning, opposition Peoples Democratic Party members and the independent MLA Engineer Abdul Rashid raised the issue of the return of the mortal remains of Guru to his family. However, the BJP and the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party members were on their toes countering the PDP members.
Activists of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Kashmiri groups organised protests against the execution of Afzal Guru in several Pakistani cities while the administration of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir announced three days of mourning.
The chief patron of opposition National Conference told reporters here that as per media reports, Afzal appeared to be\ninnocent and he had not been given a chance to defend himself.
Kashmir Valley was rocked by violent protests after a Delhi Court on September 26 sentenced Afzal to death in Tihar Jail in Delhi.
Kashmir on Thursday started limping back to normalcy; five days after the hanging of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru, even as curfew remained in force in 10 towns of the Valley as a precautionary measure.
In its 271-page judgment delivered on August four, 2005, a division bench of Justice P V Reddi and Justice P P Naolekar had said there was clinching evidence against Guru regarding his nexus with the terrorists who carried out the "terrorist act of most diabolical nature".
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Tabasum Guru, wife of Afzal Guru, set to be hanged on October 20 for his involvement in Parliament attack in 2001, on Tuesday filed a mercy petition with President A P J Abdul Kalam.
In a show of strength in the Pakistani capital, several banned anti-India militant groups, including the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, on Wednesday vowed to take "revenge" for the execution of Afzal Guru and step up their "Jihad" in Jammu and Kashmir.
12 people, including five Delhi police personnel, were killed in the attack.
A London-based group campaigning to save Afzal Guru, sentenced to death for the attack on Indian Parliament, plans to seek the intervention of the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get a reprieve for him.
The members of ABVP on Friday took out a protest march at India Gate in New Delhi against an event in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru at JNU.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
The government on Wednesday said mercy petitions of 20 death row convicts, including Afzal Guru, are under various stages of consideration and that the Constitution does not specify any time limit within which a decision should be taken.
"All those who are supporting the demand for clemency for Afzal Guru are traitors. [Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister] Ghulam Nabi Azad is a traitor."
Afzal case: Mir detained, Fatah under house arrest
They have even threatened to return their medals of honour.
The Home Ministry is awaiting a report from the government of Delhi, where the crime had taken place, on the issue.