All along, we were told SIR was an essential exercise carried out as part of the Election Commission's regular duties. But now that the ideological mentor of the ruling party has declared that SIR is a means of detecting infiltrators, one understands the unseemly haste with which it is being carried out, notes Jyoti Punwani.
'They are clueless about the man on the currency notes.' 'They have been fed with WhatsApp forwards, so either Gandhi is vilified or deified. There's nothing in between.'
The investigation for 7/11 blast in which 189 people died was under question mark from the very first month after the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad started arresting the accused from different parts of city. Within 10 days of blast by July 22, 2006, ATS arrested all the 13 terror accused in the case under the leadership of ATS chief, K P Raghuvanshi.
Yasmeen thanked slain defence lawyer Shahid Azmi and lauded efforts of current defence lawyer R B Mokashi. Mokashi told rediff.com that judge's order clearly indicated that Faheem was framed in this case and that the evidence produced in court was fabricated.
Connect with the director-actor duo, right here!
Shahid Azmi, the defence lawyer in the 11/7 blasts case, defends the accused while damning the police and the investigation.
Says the slain lawyer's brother Khalid, 'He lost his life fighting for those accused of terror charges. At least he should be remembered now when guilty have been booked and the innocent have been acquitted.'
The lawyer submitted that even though the TADA court had held that it was not bound by the assurances of the government, the top court has the power to decide the issue.
The government is bound by the assurance given by the then deputy prime minister L K Advani to the Portugal government that the maximum sentence handed out to gangster Abu Salem will not exceed 25 years, the Union home secretary has told the Supreme Court.
Hansal Mehta on the challenges he faced while making Shahid, and more.
Director Hansal Mehta tell us what prompted him to make a film on slain lawyer Shahid Azmi.
Hansal Mehta's film Shahid -- based on lawyer Shahid Azmi, who was gunned down in his Mumbai office in broad daylight in 2010 -- is scheduled for release in April.
Do actors really look like the real life people they portray on screen? It's time to have *your* say!
Gangster Abu Salem, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, was on Thursday attacked inside Taloja Central Jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai, the police said.
Fugitive gangster and drug smuggler Santosh Shetty has been arrested in Bangkok by the Thailand police. Mumbai crime branch officials took him into custody on Thursday.
Fugitive underworld gangster Bhagwant Singh alias Bharat Nepali has been bumped off allegedly by the henchmen of his former boss Chhota Rajan in Bangkok, a top Mumbai police officer said in Mumbai on Wednesday.
The sensational acquittal of 26/11 Mumbai terror accused Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed have raised many eyebrows. But for Fahim's family, the decision has simply reinforced their belief that he was innocent. Rediff.com's Krishnakumar P visits Fahim's house in Mumbai, and brings forth their reactions.
Criminal lawyers, defending accused with underworld connections, have themselves now come under the scanner of rival gangs.In the recent past, there has been a spurt in the number of lawyers being attacked, threatened and their offices being ransacked.
Lawyers representing seven Pakistani suspects currently being tried by an anti-terror court for alleged involvement in the Mumbai attacks have claimed that their lives are in danger and no security is being provided to them despite a court order in this regard.
Three persons have been arrested in connection with the sensational murder case of lawyer Shahid Azmi in Mumbai, the police said.
The police have prepared sketches of the two gunmen who shot dead criminal lawyer Shahid Azmi at his office on Thursday."We have prepared sketches of the two gunmen who had shot at Azmi, based on the description given by the peon in Azmi's office. The sketch of one person is very clear and our investigations are on the right track," said Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria.
Azmi was a hero in Malegaon where he took up the cases of several persons accused in the Malegaon blasts. He was a defence counsel for the Jamiat-Ulema and along with this organisation he had filed a case in the Supreme Court challenging the imposition of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against the Malegaon blasts accused. The case is still pending.
Azmi (31), a former member of Student Islamic Movement of India, spent six years in Tihar when he was in his teens. He hailed from a very lower middle class background and had often attributed his success in life to SIMI.
A scuffle broke out between at least 40 accused, allegedly involved in the 7/11 serial train bomb blasts, Malegaon blast and arms and ammunition seizure case of Aurangabad, and Arthur Road jail authorities while they were being transferred to prisons in Maharashtra. Defence advocate Shahid Azmi said the accused were being transferred to Nagpur, Ratnagiri and Kolhapur prisons last Saturday.
Shahid Azmi, the defence lawyer in the 11/7 blasts case, defends the accused while damning the police and the investigation.
Shahid Azmi, defence counsel for five of the 13 accused, says he is challenging the law under which his clients are being tried.
'If my clients are called insurgents, then we are going to claim POW status.'
"It was decided in a meeting inside Aurthur Road jail (where the blast convicts are lodged) on Monday that the outfit would be called Dalit and Muslim United Front," said Shahid Azmi, Dossa's lawyer.
The lawyer said soon after the call ended, he checked up his residence and found that someone had indeed visited his home asking for him.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said that attack on 1993 serial blasts accused Abu Salem in a Navi Mumbai jail last month could have a negative bearing on the extradition of wanted criminals from at least 50 countries.
The city police probing the assassination attempt on Abu Salem claimed on Thursday that arrested gunman Devendra Jagtap was ordered to kill the extradited gangster in the last week of April by Chhota Shakeel, a close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
Gangster Abu Salem, who survived bid on his life in a Navi Mumbai jail last month, will move the European Union seeking execution of the order canceling his extradition to India issued by the Portuguese constitutional court.
Security agencies got clues about his whereabouts following the arrest of one of his close associates in Mumbai recently, the source added.
Hansal Mehta's Shahid is a gutsy and thought-provoking film, feels Prasanna D Zore.
A day after gangster Abu Salem was shot at in Taloja jail, four security personnel were suspended on Friday pending a high-level probe even as his lawyer is planning to move Portuguese authorities for his repatriation. An attempt to murder case was also registered against his assailant Devendra Jagtap alias JD.
Hansal Mehta sniffs a political conspiracy; Information and Broadcasting official poohpoohs the charge.
In a year where we can find positives in wins for the great Gulabi Gang documentary and ace cinematographer Rajeev Ravi, the silver lining doesn't seem as wide if our priorities remain as skewed.
Abu Salem and two other accused were convicted in the 1995 murder case of city-based builder Pradeep Jain.
Saroj Kumar Rath, author of the newly-published book Fragile Frontiers: The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks, speaks to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa.
'Even the mafia has certain ethics and follow certain rules, but Abu Salem was so ruthless, so inhuman, there was no ethics at all. He had no basic humanity in him.' India's foremost crime writer S Hussain Zaidi on the dreaded gangster.
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