Police said the incident took place when a group of protesters blocked a local road for over three hours and a contingent of police personnel was attacked.

KOLKATA:  Protestors against the amended Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) hurled bombs at the police on Tuesday injuring an IPS officer and two other police personnel at Sankrail, near Howrah on Tuesday.DCP (headquarters), Howrah, Ajit Singh and two other policemen received splinter injuries when they tried to get a blockade lifted.

The incident took place even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who led a TMC protest march against NRC and CAA, appealed for cessation of violence.

Police said the incident took place when a group of protesters blocked a local road for over three hours and a contingent of police personnel was attacked.

“We lobbed tear gas shells and used baton charges to disperse the mob. Suddenly, the group started hurling bombs,’’ said an officer. 

The police, meanwhile, raided trouble spots and arrested 354 persons, including a leader of the AIMIM in Malda even as rail tracks and highways were blockaded.

The CM held a meeting with the DGP and Kolkata police commissioner and asked them to step up surveillance.

Meanwhile, leading a TMC protest-march against CAA, the CM accused the Centre of suspending railway services in large parts of the state.

The rally started from Jadavpur and passed through the areas dotted with colonies which were set up during the Left Front regime for the refugees from Bangladesh. 

Referring to PM Narendra Modi’s speech in Jharkhand, where he had said that the protesters could be identified by their clothes, Mamata hit out saying, “Miscreants and commoners cannot be differentiated on the basis of attire or food habits,’’ while asking people to organise a mass movement against CAA.

She claimed 30 persons committed suicide in Bengal because of NRC fear.

“More than 13 lakh Hindus were left out of NRC in Assam… Now they are trying to divide Bengalis on the line of religion.’’

Train services in South 24-Parganas were affected after protesters threw banana leaves on the overhead wires. Long distance trains from New Jalpaiguri to Sealdah and Howrah were suspended throughout the day

“The country is burning and they are talking about clothes…. Miscreants and commoners cannot be differentiated on the basis of attire or food habits. Clothes do not determine a person’s political view
Mamata Banerjee,”  West Bengal CM

The court on Wednesday dismissed the review petition challenging the death penalty given to Akshay Kumar, one of the convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case.

NEW DELHI: Nirbhaya’s mother on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to dismiss the plea filed by one of the four convicts in the Delhi gang-rape and murder case, seeking review of its 2017 judgment upholding his death penalty.

“I am very happy with this. We have a hearing in Patiala House court regarding the issuance of death warrant to the accused and we hope it will be in our favour,” she said.

The court on Wednesday dismissed the review petition challenging the death penalty given to Akshay Kumar, one of the convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice R Banumathi dismissed the petition and said, “The petitioner has again sought to assail the facts and findings, which cannot be permitted. Grounds raised were the same raised in previous appeals and review petitions.”

“Arguments raised have been made previously in the Supreme Court and had also been looked at during consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances,” the bench said.

The bench made it clear that there was no error in the judgement of the trial court, Delhi High Court and the apex court convicting the accused and awarding death sentence.

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to lead a rally from Jadavpur 8B bus stand to Bhawanipore in south Kolkata area against the citizenship law.

KOLKATA: Protests were reported from some parts of West Bengal for the fifth day on Tuesday against the amended Citizenship Act.

Agitators raised slogans against the new Citizenship Act at Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district.

The police has stepped up vigil across the state and as many as 354 protesters were arrested for violence.

Several trains to north Bengal were either cancelled or delayed, officials said.

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to lead a rally from Jadavpur 8B bus stand to Bhawanipore in south Kolkata area against the citizenship law.

Banerjee, who led a mega rally from Red Road to Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the ancestral house of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in north Kolkata on Monday, had urged the agitators to not indulge in vandalism and arson.

The chief minister had declared on Monday that the Amended Citizenship Act and the National Register of Citizenship could be enforced in the state only over her “dead body”.

Road and rail blockades were witnessed in the state on Monday as violent protests over the contentious Citizenship Act refused to die down, amid warning by state authorities and appeal from the chief minister.

Anti-citizenship law protests snowballed into a major flashpoint in West Bengal on Monday with highways and railway lines blocked and incidents of arson and loot reported from many places.

The court further said that the defence even tried to influence the rape case by trying to prove that the entire gang rape case was a ‘sham’.

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday lashed at the counsel for expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar for trying to “demolish” the character of the rape survivor during the trial.

The court convicted Sengar for raping a woman in Unnao in 2017, when she was a minor.

District Judge Dharmesh Sharma referred to a separate case of alleged gang rape of the woman by three other persons and said Sengar’s counsel in a “very strategic manner” tried to “kill two birds/cases with one stone by attempting to demolish the character of the rape survivor”.

The gang rape case is separate from the rape case in which Sengar was convicted on Monday.

While she was raped by Sengar on June 4, 2017, the rape survivor was allegedly gang raped by three others on June 11, 2017 in Unnao.

The trial in the gang rape case is yet to commence in the trial court here.

The court further said that the defence even tried to influence the rape case by trying to prove that the entire gang rape case was a “sham”.

“Defence has in a very strategic manner attempted to tread or venture into the spectrum of the alleged gang rape, the trial of which is yet to commence and the defence has tried to kill two birds/cases with one stone by attempting to demolish the character of the rape survivor but also mounting an attack that the entire case was a sham and bogus,” it said.

The court also observed that three other young girls in the rape survivor’s family were also being subjected to “shame, disgust and indignity in society”.

“The defence miserably fails to prove that the rape survivor’s uncle orchestrated the entire false complaint against Sengar to settle old scores since it was not conceivable that the woman and her mother were not oblivious or unmindful of vulnerability of three other young girls in the family who started to be subjected to shame, disgust and indignity in the society/community.”

The clarification on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act came amidst widespread protests in different parts of the country against the legislation.

NEW DELHI: No illegal immigrants belonging to Hindu and other five communities coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be given Indian citizenship automatically but only after fulfilling the necessary criteria, a senior Home Ministry official said on Monday.

The clarification on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act came amidst widespread protests in different parts of the country against the legislation.

“The new act does not mean that all illegal immigrants getting Indian citizenship automatically. They have to apply for citizenship which will be processed by the competent authority.”

“The applicant concerned will be given Indian citizenship only after fulfilling the required criteria,” the official said.

In her FIR, Aishwarya Roy also accused her husband Tej Pratap Yadav and sister-in-law Misa Bharti of dragging her by the hair, snatching away her mobile phone and other belongings.

PATNA: Aishwarya Roy, the estranged daughter-in-law of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, and her mother-in- law Rabri Devi have lodged complaints of torture against each other, while the police said steps would be taken as per law.

In her FIR, Roy also accused her husband Tej Pratap Yadav and sister-in-law Misa Bharti of dragging her by the hair, snatching away her mobile phone and other belongings before driving her out of their family residence here on Sunday, the police said on Monday.

Rabri Devi, a former Bihar chief minister, has also lodged a written complaint of torture against her daughter-in-law.

“In her FIR, Aishwarya has named her husband, her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law for inflicting torture, atrocities and dowry demands,” Women’s police station SHO.

She also named as accused two security personnel deputed at Rabri Devi’s 10, Circular Road residence.

The station house officer (SHO) said action will be taken against the accused persons as per law.

After Roy lodged her complaint, Rabri Devi also filed one in the Sachivalaya police station.

“Rabri Devi has submitted a written complaint against her daughter-in-law Aishwarya for inflicting torture on her (Rabri Devi). The police are investigating,” Sachivalaya police station SHO Raghunath Prasad said.

Both the complaints were filed on Sunday evening.

Yadav, elder son of Lalu Prasad, and Roy had tied the knot in May, 2018 and the former had filed a divorce petition six months later in November.

Although the divorce petition is pending before a court, Roy has been known to spend time at her in-laws’ place which is a few hundred metres from the house of her father, RJD MLA Chandrika Roy.

The drama unfolded late in the evening when Roy was found weeping outside the family’s Circular Road residence.

Roy told reporters on Sunday that she got a message on her mobile phone that Tej Pratap Yadav’s supporters have pasted posters vilifying her and parents across the Patna University campus.

When she protested, Rabri Devi “flew into a rage and began abusing me and, along with her female security guard, assaulted me physically,” Roy alleged.

“I was hit in my head, knees and feet, dragged by my hair and not allowed to put on my sandals and a shawl before being shoved out of the bungalow,” she claimed.

Roy said they have also snatched her mobile phone as she had shot video footage of their misbehaviour.

Her father who is RJD MLA Chandrika Roy, mother Purnima and younger siblings rushed to the spot on learning about the incident.

Aishwarya’s parents had on Sunday said, “The entire family deserves to be in jail.”

In September, Roy was similarly spotted outside her residence, complaining about misbehaviour at the hands of her in-laws.

After a high drama that lasted for several hours, she had finally re-entered the house late in the night.

Chandrika Roy said the situation has reached a point of no return now.