Koppal: Koppal District and Sessions Court has pronounced its verdict on 101 accused whom it had found guilty in the case of atrocity against Dalits at Marakumbi village in 2014, on Thursday. The convicts had also burnt the huts of Dalits and had physically assaulted their victims.

The court has sentenced 98 out of the 101 convicts to life term imprisonment and has levied a fine Rs 5000 on each of them. As three of the convicts belonged to the SC/ST category, the atrocity act hasn’t been applied to them. These convicts have been sentenced to 5 years of jail and Rs 2000 fine.

Judge C Chandrashekhar of the Koppal District and Sessions Court had pronounced the guilty verdict on Monday, nine years after the incident. He had reserved the judgement on punishment to Thursday.

The case concerns with the practice of untouchability where Dalits were barred entry to barber shops and restaurants in Marakumbi village of Gangavathi in 2015. This had resulted in a clash between two communities. Police had visited the village to register a case regarding this and an investigation was in progress. Enraged by the complaint filed, upper caste people had attacked the Dalit colony at night and set huts on fire.

117 people of the village had been booked for the crime. Some of the accused died before the case came to a closure. 101 of the accused had been found guilty by the court. However, the police had arrested only 100 and one accused had escaped them. The police have finally succeeded in nabbing him.

 Taking hoax bomb-threat messages and calls seriously, the government has started identifying those behind the menace and asked social media platforms like Meta and X to share data on such messages, sources said.

The government has also asked top multinational technology conglomerates to cooperate with it in helping identifying those behind such hoax calls, saying this involves public good.

Top sources said the government has traced some people who were behind hoax bomb-threat calls targeting airlines and that action is being taken accordingly. The government sources did not provide any further details on where these hoax calls and messages came from and who were behind those.

“The government has told social media companies Meta and X to share data pertaining to such hoax calls and messages made on their platforms targeting several airlines and asked them to cooperate,” a senior official said.

“They will have to cooperate and provide data since this involves public good at large,” he said, when asked whether the social media companies are cooperating with the government or not on the issue.

Several hoax messages and calls targeting a number of airlines were received in the recent past.

An unidentified caller on Wednesday threatened to blow up the Dumna airport at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, which turned out to be a hoax, a police officer said.

On Tuesday alone, around 50 flights, including 13 each of IndiGo and Air India, received bomb threats. Akasa Air got the threats for more than 12 flights and 11 Vistara flights also received the threats, the sources said.

Around 30 flights of IndiGo, Air India and Vistara got bomb threats on Monday night, they added.

In nine days, more than 170 flights operated by Indian carriers received bomb threats, mostly through social media, that also forced the diversion of some international flights.

CJI DY Chandrachud

 Supreme Court administration, under CJI DY Chandrachud, has waived off the need for law degree as a basic requirement for the correspondents covering the apex court, Bar and Bench reported on Thursday.

Earlier, the reporters who wanted to work at the Court had to have a law degree, unless exempted by the CJI in exceptional cases.

Srinagar: Two soldiers who were critically wounded in Thursday’s terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Gulmarg succumbed to their injuries, raising the death toll in the ambush to four.

Two Army porters died on Thursday while another porter and a soldier were injured.

Terrorists attacked a vehicle of the force six kilometres from tourist hotspot Gulmarg in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, officials said on Thursday.

They had said the terrorists opened fire on the Army vehicle in the Bota Pathri area in the evening when it was headed for the Nagin post in the Afrawat range.

Confirming the deaths of the two porters, the officials had said the condition of two of the injured soldiers was critical.

They had said the soldiers in the vehicle opened retaliatory fire when they came under attack.

The area is completely dominated by the Army and there were reports recently that a terrorist group had infiltrated during early summer and taken shelter in the higher reaches of the Afrawat range, they said.

The Bota Pathri area was recently opened to tourists.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the recent spate of attacks in the Valley was a matter of serious concern.

“Very unfortunate news about the attack on the Army vehicles in the Bota Pathri area of north Kashmir, which has resulted in some casualties and injuries. This recent spate of attacks in Kashmir is a matter of serious concern,” he said in a post on X.

“I condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms and send my condolences to the loved ones of the people who lost their lives. I also pray that the injured make a complete and swift recovery,” he added.

Former chief minister and People’s Democratic Party supremo Mehbooba Mufti also condemned the attack.

The BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir president Ravinder Raina, meanwhile, condemned the attack and blamed Pakistan for trying to destabilise peace and tranquillity in the Union Territory.

The attack came amid a spike in terror incidents in the Valley.

In another deadly attack on Sunday, six non-local labourers and a local doctor were killed when terrorists fired indiscriminately upon them at the Z-Morh tunnel construction site in the Gagangir area of central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.

Before that, a labourer from Bihar was shot dead by terrorists in Shopian district on October 18.

Earlier on Thursday, terrorists shot at and injured a labourer from Uttar Pradesh in the Tral area of Pulwama district.