NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stayed Tamil Nadu government’s decision to release four more convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The apex court issued notice to the state government and the four prisoners on the Centre’s plea against their release.

The court was hearing a writ petition filed by the Centre on Monday, challenging the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to release the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

On the Centre’s application, the court had earlier stayed the release of Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, whose death sentence was commuted.

The application had not sought a stay on the release of Nalini, Robert Pius, Jayakumar and Ravichandran. - PTI

SRINAGAR: A trooper fatally shot dead five of his colleagues and then turned the gun on himself following a heated argument in north's Kashmir Ganderbal district, officials said Thursday.

A police officer told IANS that an angry trooper of the Rashtriya Rifles went berserk inside the Safapora (Manasbal) camp in the district, 35 km from here, following a heated exchange of words with his colleagues.

"He resorted to indiscriminate firing resulting in the death of five Rashtriya Rifles troopers. After the firing, the irate trooper shot and killed himself," the police officer said.

Lt. Col. N.N. Joshi, public relations officer at the Indian Army's Srinagar-based 15 Corps, said that a court of inquiry has been ordered. 

He said the incident took place during the intervening night of Wednesday-Thursday.

Incidents of fratricidal firing have been occurring in security forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir during the last two decades.

The incidents are attributed to tensions among soldiers and troopers deployed in extremely hostile conditions, long periods of separation from families, lack of recreational facilities and poor command and control structure.

Counsellors have suggested various measures to address the problem.

These include periodic holidays to enable soldiers and troopers join their families, recreational facilities at their places of posting and an effective command and control structure. - IANS

CHENNAI: Petrol bombs were today hurled at the office of a local Tamil outfit while statues of Rajiv Gandhi were found damaged in some parts of the city, a day after pro-Tamil outfits and Congressmen clashed over the issue of release of convicts in the assassination case of the former prime minister.

Unidentified persons hurled petrol bombs at the Porur head office of Naam Tamilar Katchi, headed by actor-politician Seeman, police said.

Party sources said the incident happened in the wee hours of today but none was injured in the incident.

The statues of Rajiv Gandhi were found damaged at Otteri and Vepery here and local Congress functionaries staged protest against this.

Workers of pro-Tamil outfit "Tamil Padai" (Tamil Force) had yesterday tried to storm the headquarters of the state Congress Unit to condemn the Centre's stand over the release of convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Later, Naam Tamilar Katchi, also held a protest on the same issue. - PTI 

SAN FRANCISCO: A U.S. appeals court ordered YouTube on Wednesday to take down an anti-Muslim film that sparked violent riots in parts of the Middle East and death threats to the actors.

The decision by a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a lawsuit filed against YouTube by an actress who appeared briefly in the 2012 video that led to rioting and deaths because of its negative portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

YouTube resisted calls by President Barack Obama and other world leaders to take down the video, arguing that to do so amounted to unwarranted government censorship and would violate the Google-owned company’s free speech protections. Besides, the company argued that the filmmakers and not the actors of “Innocence of Muslims” owned the copyright and only they could remove it from YouTube.

Typically, that’s the case with the vast majority of clips posted on YouTube and Hollywood in general that don’t violate decency laws and policies. But the 9th Circuit said on Wednesday that this case was far from typical and that the actress, Cindy Lee Garcia, retained a copyright claim that YouTube must respect. That’s because she believed she was acting in a different production than the one that ultimately appeared online.

“Had Garcia known the true nature of the propaganda film the producers were planning, she would never had agreed to appear in the movie,” said Cris Armenta,  Garcia’s attorney.

Google argues that the actress had no claim to the film because filmmaker Mark Basseley Youssef wrote the dialogue, managed the entire production and dubbed over Garcia’s dialogue during postproduction editing.

Writing for the court, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said the ruling was not a blanket order giving copyright protection to every actor, but that in this case, Garcia’s performance was worthy of copyright protection.

Youssef, the filmmaker, was sentenced to 21 months in prison for cheque fraud in 2010 and barred from accessing the Internet without court approval. He was returned to prison in 2012 for violating terms of his probation and was released on probation in September 2013.

Garcia was paid $500 to appear for five seconds in a film she was told was called “Desert Warrior” that she thought had nothing to do with religion or radical Islam. When the clip was released, her lines were dubbed to have her character asking Muhammad if he was a child molester.

“This is a troubling case,” Judge Kozinski wrote. “Garcia was duped into providing an artistic performance that was used in a way she never could have foreseen. Her unwitting and unwilling inclusion in Innocence of Muslims led to serious threats against her life. It’s disappointing, though perhaps not surprising, that Garcia needed to sue in order to protect herself and her rights.”

For Google, the ruling represents a nettlesome issue if allowed to stand. The company fears that bit players and extras appearing in popular clips will now be emboldened to send takedown notices to YouTube unless settlements can be reached with the filmmakers.

Google Inc., which has removed the clip, said it will appeal the decision to a special 11-judge panel of the appeals court. The next move after that would be to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

“We strongly disagree with this ruling and will fight it,” said Google spokeswoman Abbi Tatton. - AP

CHENNAI: Signalling its pan-India expansion,members of various parties from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat today joined ruling AIADMK in the presence of party supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

A total of 201 leaders and members of parties such as Congress, Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal (U) from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh received AIADMK membership cards from Jayalalithaa at the party headquarters here, an AIADMK release said.

Uttar Pradesh JD(U) unit General Secretary Rakesh Kumar,NCP leader Yogendra Kumar Pandey, Samajwadi Party Muzaffarnagar District Secretary Bhopal Shaini and UPCC member Sanjay Shaini were among those who joined the AIADMK and the initiative for this was taken by party Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan, it said.

The development comes amid calls for a larger national role for Jayalalithaa after the Lok Sabha elections and days after she unveiled her party's manifesto assuring to increase IT exemption limit to Rs Five lakh and implement various freebies being extended in Tamil Nadu to the entire country if it is elected to be part of the next government.

Besides its base of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, AIADMK hasstate units in Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Further, as many as 300 members of DMDK, PMK and Congressin the state also joined the AIADMK, the release said.

Jayalalithaa asked the new comers to cooperate and workwith her in ensuring 'peace, prosperity and progress for theentire nation', which is AIADMK's poll plank for the coming Lok Sabha polls. - PTI 

NEW DELHI: Four persons, including a woman, have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court for strangulating the head priest of a gurdwara here over "hostilities" between them regarding control of gurdwaras in several cities including the capital.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau held Sukhpal Singh, 28, Ranjeet Singh, 28, Jasbir Kaur, 42, and her son Malkit Singh, 22, who all belonged to different group, guilty of the offences of murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the IPC.

They had murdered Baba Lakhbir Singh, the 'mahant' (head) of Gurdwara 'Rub Da Kutta' in Azadpur here, as he was made Head Granthi in place of Jasbir Kaur who was earlier nominated for the post. The victim and convicts belonged to two different groups which were part of 'Buddha Dal', a religious sect of 'Nihang Sikhs'.

"The circumstantial evidence conclusively establishes the common purpose/plan of the accused persons i.e. to finish Baba Lakhbir Singh so that reigns of the gurdwara were taken over by Jasbir Kaur who was forcibly removed and was already reeling under insult of being forcibly removed by the victim.

"The manner in which the victim had been killed i.e. by strangulation and then being hit by a hard object after which his body was partially burnt establishes that it was the work of more than two persons. The deceased was an able-bodied man who could not have been easily overpowered by a single person," the court said in its 243-page judgement.

It imposed a fine of Rs 32,000 each on the four convicts and said, if realised, out of the fine amount, Rs one lakh be given to the family members of the victim as compensation.

According to the prosecution, on the intervening night of February 3-4, 2010, when Baba Lakbir Singh was alone in the gurdwara and his family had gone to Punjab, the four accused conspired and strangulated him with his turban.

They concealed his body for 24 hours in the store room of the gurdwara and even tried to burn it, the police had said, adding that the next night, Malkit, along with Sukhpal and Jasbir, put the body in a gunny bag and threw it near a drain in Timarpur here. 

The accused had also tried to mislead the police by lodging a missing complaint about the victim so that they may not be suspected, the prosecution had said.

The four were caught after a man who was also residing in the gurdwara raised suspicion about them. The accused were arrested and a case was lodged at Adarsh Nagar Police Station.

In the judgement, the court said that the entire sequence of events established the criminal object, plan and a common agreement among Jasbir, Malkeet, Sukhpal and Ranjeet.

The fact that an attempt was made to create a defence by filing a complaint regarding the deceased being missing from the gurdwara confirmed the existence of the conspiracy and they had tried to destroy evidence by partially burning the body of the victim, it said.

The court noted that there was internal discord between the two different groups resulting into a spate of civil as well as criminal litigations all over the country.

"Needless to say, all this was for the control of power and administration of the gurdwaras and properties belonging to the Buddha Dal situated all over the country," it said.

The court said after accused Jasbir's husband, who was the previous head of Gurdwara 'Rub Da Kutta', was arrested by the police in Punjab, she was nominated as the head of the gurdwara.

But due to the opposition of the rival group, Lakhbir Singh, who belonged to the other group, was nominated as the head of the gurdwara and he took over the charge, it said.

"This was followed by frequent altercations between them.

In order to retain their physical possession and control over this gurdwara situated in almost one-and-a-half acres of land, these persons (accused) belonging to the rival faction also occupied various rooms in the gurdwara and started residing in the same precincts," it said . - PTI