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Delhi gang-rape case: Court orders in-camera trial
NEW DELHI: NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday ordered in-camera proceedings in the December 16 gang-rape case following the "unprecedented situation" in the courtroom with crowds of reporters, lawyers, security personnel and onlookers. The court also restrained the media from reporting any news related to the case without its permission.
Metropolitan Magistrate Namrita Aggarwal said: "An unprecedented situation arises when members of bar and public persons not connected with the case also have started converging the courtroom No. 207 where the present matter is going on since 12 noon."
"The courtroom has become jampacked with lots of disturbance created from different nooks and corners," observed the court.
"It has become impossible to proceed in the case. I am passing order for in-camera proceeding. It shall not be lawful to print and publish any article in media without court permission."
Five of the six men accused in the gang-rape of a 23-year-old had arrived in the Saket district court premises here but could not be presented before the metropolitan magistrate as the courtroom was too crowded. The sixth accused, who is 17 years and six months old according to his school certificates, will be presented before a juvenile justice board.
The court then said it would not hear the case unless the crowd dispersed. The metropolitan magistrate said that there was no space in the courtroom to present the five accused and left for her chamber.
Around 40 security personnel also were deployed inside the courtroom for security.
Controversy has also arisen over who will defend the five accused - the sixth is a juvenile - alleged to have gang-raped and tortured the young physiotherapy intern in a moving bus on December 16. She died of her injuries in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
Some lawyers on Monday said they were willing to represent the accused but others expressed their anguish.
One advocate told the court that he was approached by the family of the accused, asking him to defend them.
"I was approached by the family of accused, I should be allowed to meet them here to sign the 'vakalatnama' (contract with the lawyer)," said the advocate.
To this, the judge said he would not be allowed to meet the accused and could go to Tihar Jail to sign the papers.
The incident has caused widespread rage and protests all over the nation, with protests being staged in several major cities, mainly in Delhi. — IANS
Gang-rape victim as guilty as her
rapists: Asaram Bapu
NEW DELHI: Spiritual guru Asaram Bapu has landed himself in a controversy over his remark that the December 16 Delhi gang-rape victim is as guilty as those responsible for the barbaric sexual assault on her.
"Only five-six people are not the culprits. The victim is as guilty as her rapists... She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop... This could have saved her dignity and life. Can one hand clap? I don't think so,"
media reports quoted Asaram Bapu as saying.
According to the media reports, the self-proclaimed godman further said that he is against harsher punishments for the accused as the law could be
misutilised.
"We have often seen such laws are made to be misutilised... Dowry harassment law is the biggest example," he said.
The spiritual guru's remark comes at a time when the entire nation is mourning the death of the 23-year-old brave heart who died in a Singapore hospital 13 days later after the heinous crime.
The five accused of the brutal gang rape were produced before Saket district court today.
A fast-track court had on Saturday taken cognizance of the chargesheet filed against the five accused by the Delhi Police. The court had asked the Delhi Police to produce all the five accused, Ram Singh,
Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur on January 7.
The Delhi Police had earlier on Thursday filed its chargesheet in the Saket metropolitan magistrate court against five men arrested in the case, slapping on them murder, rape, kidnapping and other charges.
The five accused have been chargesheeted for the offences of murder, gang rape, attempt to murder, kidnapping, unnatural offences,
dacoity, hurting in committing robbery, destruction of evidence, criminal conspiracy and common intention under the Indian Penal Code.
The sixth accused is a juvenile and proceedings against him will be conducted by the Juvenile Justice Board.
The victim's father has demanded that the juvenile should be hanged like the other five accused.
The victim, a physiotherapy student, was brutally raped and assaulted in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. She died of her injuries on December 29, 2012 in the multi-specialty Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
Her male friend, who was accompanying her that day, was also assaulted by the accused and both of them were thrown out of the bus. — ANI
Hate speech: Owaisi seeks four days exemption,
docs to examine him
HYDERABAD: Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, booked for hate speech against a particular community will reportedly be examined by doctors at a government hospital after he sought four days time to appear before Andhra Pradesh Police.
Owaisi, who was supposed to appear before Nirmal
police on Monday , requested that he be granted four days to appear before them. The police has said it will base its decision on the advice of government doctors.
However, police are yet to take a call on his request, a senior police officer said, adding the decision on whether to grant him the permission will be taken at a senior level.
Earlier, MIM workers turned up in large number at Shamshabad airport here where Owaisi landed early this morning. The MLA was reportedly in London for his treatment.
As part of further probe into two cases, notices were issued to Owaisi on January 4 and he was directed to appear before investigation officers of Nirmal (Rural) police in Adilabad district today (January 7) and before the Nizambad II Town police on January 8. Another notice was served on Owaisi by the Osmania University Police directing him to appear before them on January 10.
Two FIRs were registered suo moto at Adilabad and Nizamabad districts while a third case was filed against the MLA by Osmania University Police following a court directive after the Floor Leader in Andhra Pradesh Assembly had allegedly used inflammatory and derogatory language against a particular community during his public speeches last month.
Akbaruddin has been booked under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language etc. and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs).
He has also been booked under IPC section 121 (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the Government of India). — PTI
Crude oil price falls as uncertainty hits energy markets
BANGKOK: Oil prices fell on Monday following uncertainty about future action from the U.S. Federal Reserve and data showing the U.S. unemployment rate unchanged.
Benchmark crude for February delivery fell 43 cents to $92.66 per barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract closed up 17 cents at $93.09 a barrel on the Nymex on Friday after the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration reported a much bigger drop in the nation’s crude supplies than analysts expected.
Separately, crude stocks fell by about 12 million barrels for the week ending December 28, according to the American Petroleum Institute.
Monday’s decline in oil prices follows the release of a transcript of the Federal Reserve’s December meeting showing that policymakers disagreed over how long to keep a bond-purchase program in place.
Traders inferred the Federal might shorten the program, which could send U.S. interest rates, and therefore the dollar, higher. That in turn would hurt the price of oil. Oil, which is priced in dollars, tends to fall as the dollar strengthens and makes crude more expensive for investors holding foreign currencies.
“Crude oil prices have struggled to react with conviction one way or the other,” said Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets in an email commentary.
Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, fell 22 cents to $111.09 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. In other energy futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange-Wholesale gasoline fell 0.7 cents to $2.7576 a gallon. Heating oil rose 0.4 cents to $3.0216 a gallon. Natural gas rose 3.8 cents to $3.325 per 1,000 cubic feet. — AP
Cold wave continues to sweep
North India
NEW DELHI: Delhi continued to reel under bitter cold with 2.4 degrees Celcius on Monday morning. The visibility, however, remained normal with no fog on season's coldest day. Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir experienced the coldest day in 35 years with mercury dipping well below the minus and
water freezing at various places in the district.
The capital woke up to another chilly morning on Monday with the minimum temperature settling five notches below average at 2.4 degrees Celsius.
It was, however, marginally higher than the minimum recorded early on Sunday, which was lowest in five years at 1.9 degrees Celsius.
Fog enveloped the city early morning with visibility dropping to around 500 meters at 8:30 am, while humidity remained high at 97%.
"Temperature during the day is likely to reach a maximum of 13 degrees Celsius and the day will be clear," an India Meteorological Department
(IMD) official said.
The maximum temperature Sunday was nine notches below the season's average at 11.8 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, dense fog on Monday disrupted the schedule of over 30 domestic and international flights at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here.
10 flights were cancelled due to operational reasons. Air India flight AI 996 from Dubai was diverted to Mumbai at around 4.45 am due to operational reasons.
Fog started to descend at the airport around midnight and general visibility dropped to below 50 metres and runway visibility to 50 metres at the third runway around 3 am, while visibility was around 1000 metres on main runway (28/10), airport officials said.
But the situation changed within 40 minutes and visibility at main runway dropped to 125 metres at one end forcing the authorities to implement low visibility procedures.
The visibility remained around 100 metres at the third runway till 6 AM, which left it operational for arriving flight as the minimum visibility for take-off is required 125 metres and 150 metres for small and big aircraft.
Operations at the airport had remained normal for the past two days even as it witnessed moderate to shallow fog. — Agencies
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