Syed Firdaus Ashraf explains how two cases separated by ideological motives were curiously similar on one account.
India pacer Shantakumaran Sreesanth and his Rajasthan Royals team mate Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila were on Sunday cleared of charges by a Delhi court in the spot-fixing and betting scandal in the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League in 2013. A flashback of the events that unfolded in the episode.
All 12 convicts found guilty in the case relating to the July 11, 2006 serial train blasts, which claimed 188 lives in local trains in Mumbai, have pleaded leniency in the court on the point of sentence citing humanitarian grounds.
Rohini Salian has claimed that the NIA had told her not to appear in the case and that she was facing pressure to go easy on the accused.
Special NIA Judge V S Padalkar last month directed all the accused, including Thakur, to appear before the court at least once a week.
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.
'He has terror charges against him. And for an army officer, it's just terrible.'
'At that time the Delhi police was reeling under various controversies. This case was more of an attention diversion.'
'Counter terrorism does not appear to be good guys fighting the bad ones; it is about people being picked up, detained and charged with crimes they did not commit.'
'The moment you increase the possibility of making a team winning or losing a game that's where match-fixing happens. And whenever match-fixing happens, it can only happen at the players' level. If a player is not fixed to perform a particular task then how can one generate money?'
'My husband will never forget the torture nor forgive those responsible for it.'
'If a Delhi University professor's rights can be violated so easily, then think about what the rest of the population, with even lesser means, has to suffer under the State.'
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"A Meryl Streep or Jimmy Kimmel can speak their mind, and stay assured that they won't be harmed. That does not happen in India," say Manavi Kapur & Ranjita Ganesan.
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