MUMBAI: A ten-year-old girl, rendered disabled during 26/11 terror strikes, on Wednesday identified in court arrested gunman Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab as one of the two gunmen who had fired indiscriminately at passengers inside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
Devika Rotawan, the youngest eyewitness to depose in the terror strikes trial, was asked by the court if she could identify the gunman among the three accused present in the dock. All three accused, including Kasab stood in the dock, and the ten-year-old pointed at the Pakistani gunman. He, however, did not react.
Describing the events on the night of November 26 Devika said, "There was a loud explosion, at that time my father said we should leave and holding me in his arms he started running in one direction while my brother ran in another direction."
"Just as we were leaving I saw two persons firing at people. I received a bullet injury in my right leg," she said.
"My leg broke, and blood spilled out," Devika said. Devika was among three witnesses to depose before the court regarding the terror strike at the CST rail terminus.
Her father, Natwarlal, and a Assistant Police Inspector who were injured in the firing at the terminus, also deposed before the court today.
The ten-year-old, who uses crutches to walk, was assisted by her father in walking inside the courtroom. She preferred to depose in Hindi as her brother and father looked on.
Devika Rotawan's father breaks down before special court
Natwarlal Rotwan, an eyewitness and father of a ten-year-old girl who was injured in the terror strike, broke down when asked by the court if he could identify the gunman who had fired indiscriminately at people in the busy rail terminus in south Mumbai.
"It is that fellow who is sitting there. He should be hanged," an emotional Rotwan told the court, pointing at Kasab.
"He has hurt my daughter and should be hanged," he said. When Special judge M L Tahaliyani asked him to calm down, Rotawan said, "only one who gets hurt understands the pain."
Looking at Kasab, he said, "Do such people have any compassion? Does he not have any parents? It's the question of my girl's life."
Rotawan, a 45-year-old who hails from Sumerpur in Rajasthan, told the court he was travelling with his daughter and son to Pune on November 26 night.
They were waiting on a bench at the main waiting hall of CST when he heard a loud explosion, Rotawan said.
Two terrorists were firing at people and one of them was tall while the other was short, Rotawan told the court. "I decided to leave the main hall but while I was running away my daughter was injured," Rotawan said.
Loans likely to get cheaper as Govt prods banks to cut rates
NEW DELHI: Home and other retail loans and industrial lending may become cheaper soon as public sector banks are likely to cut interest rates after the government prodded lenders to provide credit at reasonable rates to spur the economy.
"Our bank will decide on lowering interest rates by the end of this month," country's largest lender SBI's Chairman O P Bhatt told reporters after a meeting between PSU bank heads and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee here.
Expressing concern over non-availability of credit at affordable prices from banks, Mukherjee said, "As a financial intermediary, the banks have to stand-by to provide credit at reasonable rates. This is an area of concern in many quarters both within the government and outside," he said.
He said reduction in key rates by RBI is not getting adequately reflected in the reduction of prime lending rates by banks. "I would urge the banks to address these concerns expeditiously and in adequate measure. This will help restore the environment for rapid growth and ensure that the growth process benefits all our people," Mukherjee said.
To a query as to how much the rates could be cut, the finance minister told reporters, "All possibilities will be explored.I can't quantify it (rates cut)."
Now, racial attack on six Indians in Canada
Vancouver:Close on the heels of Indians being attacked in Australia, six members of the community were racially assaulted by a group of young Canadians while playing tennis on the outskirts of Vancouver.
Police have arrested four Canadians, including a woman, in connection with the assault for shouting racial slurs at and robbing a group of tennis players in Aldergrove on Friday last.
The four - all in their teens - have been charged with robbery, assault with a weapon and uttering threats.
The attack began when a group of four teenagers approached six players at the Jackman Park tennis courts. The youths allegedly used a metal bar and boards ripped off a fence to menace the six victims, all the while shouting racial slurs' local media reported quoting police.
The players were herded into a corner of the court, and one was hit on the head by a thrown board. Their personal belongings were taken by the teenagers.
The B.C. Hate Crime Team is helping the Langley RCMP with the investigation, said RCMP Cpl. Holly Marks. Rodney Mercieca, a 19-year-old Surrey man, and Lesley Rothwell, an 18-year-old Langley woman, have both been charged with four counts of robbery, one count of uttering threats, six counts of assault with a weapon, and one count of assault causing bodily harm.
Mercieca has also been charged with breaching his probation. He had been bound by a probation order on June 4, the day before the attack, said Marks.
Mercieca will now remain in custody until June 12 when he will be back before a Surrey Provincial Court judge for a bail hearing, while Rothwell has been released on several conditions, including no contact orders with the victims or her co-accused.
Wreckage of IAF plane found, all aboard dead
Itanagar, June 10: The wreckage of the IAF AN-32 transport aircraft, carrying 13 defence personnel, was found on Wednesday at a village in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, a day after it went missing, police said.
The defence personnel were feared to have died when the aircraft crashed over Rinchi hill above Heyo village, 60 km from Mechuka in the district, located closed to China border, they said.
Though a wireless message, received at the SP's office at district headquarters Aalo, confirmed the recovery of the wreckage, there was no word about any recovery of human remains.
The aircraft was on a routine food supply sortie and was carrying seven IAF personnel and six army personnel, an IAF spokesman said.
The message, sent by the officer in-charge of Mechuka police station, said two search parties of the Army and the border guarding paramilitary force, ITBP, left for the village this morning.
The police quoted some local people saying that they saw smoke billowing after a very loud sound from the distant hills.
Among the IAF men on board were two wing commanders, two squadron leaders and a flight lieutenant.
The plane had taken off from the Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh to Jorhat in Assam at around 2 pm on Tuesday after which it went missing.
French submarine to begin search for black box
Paris:A French submarine with advanced sonar equipment is due to begin searching on Wednesday for the flight recorders of the Air France airliner which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean last week, the French military said.
The nuclear-powered submarine Emeraude was dispatched to the area last week to help recover the "black box" flight recorders, which may contain clues to explain the disaster and which are believed to lie deep on the Atlantic ocean floor. "The Emeraude will begin its patrol during the morning in an initial search zone of 36 km by 36," Christophe Prazuck, a spokesman for the French military said. He said the search zone would be changed daily.
If the recorders are found, unmanned robot submarines on board the Pourquoi Pas, a French exploration and survey ship which has also been deployed to the area, could be used to bring them in. All 228 people aboard Air France flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris are believed to have died when the Airbus A330 aircraft crashed into the ocean after flying into stormy weather more than a week ago.
Brazilian military search teams have recovered 41 bodies from the sea and moved some of them to the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's northeastern coast, which is being used as a base for the search operations. Several pieces of wreckage have also been found but a full understanding of the accident will depend on the black box recorders being recovered.
The doomed jet sent 24 automated messages in its final minutes on June 1, detailing a rapid series of systems failures. Speed sensors that gauge how fast an aircraft is flying have become the focus of the investigation after some of the messages showed they provided inconsistent data to the pilots.
Indian Business News|Business News
Sensex up 340 pts, closes at 10-month high
Mumbai:The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Wednesday, surged by nearly 340 points to close at a 10-month high as funds remained aggressive buyers on expectations of higher spending in the Budget to boost economic growth.
The 30-share index, gained 339.81 points, or 2.25 per cent, to settle at 15,466.81 points, a level last seen around mid-August 2008. It touched the day's high of 15,580.81 points.
The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty soared by 104.30 points, or 2.29 per cent, to 4,655.25, after touching the day's high of 4,688.95.
Marketmen said that expectations of high spending in the Budget to boost economic growth and the firming global stock markets remained a positive factor for the market.
Stocks in power, capital goods, consumer durables and banking segment were the major supporter to the rally. Metal shares spurted after the base-metal prices firmed up in global metal markets last night.
FM asks banks to cut rates for growth
New Delhi:Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee asked banks to cut interest rates and provide cheap credit to industry in order to spur economic activity.
"As a financial intermediary the banks have to stand by to provide credit at reasonable rates," Mukherjee said addressing the chief executives of public sector banks.
Mukherjee said reduction in key rates by the Reserve Bank is not "adequately (getting) reflected in the reduction of BPLR (benchmark prime lending rates) of banks".
Besides the officials of the finance ministry, the meeting is being attended by heads of major banks and financial institutions including SBI Chairman O P Bhatt, PNB chief K C Chakrabarty and IIFCL Chairman SS Kohli.
Indian cricket News|Indian Sports News|T20 World cup News
Sehwag admits sustaining injury in IPL
Nottingham:Opener Virender Sehwag on Wednesday admitted he was not fit going into the Twenty20 World Cup as he had hurt his shoulder during the Indian Premier League semi-final. "I had suffered the injury during our IPL semifinal clash against Deccan Chargers when I dived to stop a ball," said Sehwag, who captained the Delhi Daredevils in the event, after being ruled out of the T20 World Cup.
The semi-final against Deccan Chargers, which Delhi Daredevils lost badly, was held in South Africa on May 21, almost three weeks ago. The injury has been described by coach Gary Kirsten as "a Grade I tear" and with the urgency being shown on Sehwag's treatment, it raises question why no medical solution to get him in shape was sought for close to three weeks.
Reports now suggest Sehwag would leave for South Africa to show himself to a specialist, but he first intends to show himself to a specialist in London. "There is little I can do. At the moment I would leave for London with my wife (Aarti) and son Aryaveer," Sehwag said.
Kirsten had earlier said Sehwag's medical treatment, besides the physio's work, was restricted to just giving injections to the opener. "It's the type of injury we can't make a decision on, yet. He's had an injection and we want to see how he responds to that," Kirsten had said. "He was picked in the squad and he then had got injured which wasn't serious enough for him to miss the whole tournament." A Grade 1 injury is less than five per cent damage to individual muscle fibers. It's a mild strain which requires two to three weeks' rest.
South Africa will rise above Pietersen rivalry, says Smith
London:South Africa captain Graeme Smith has insisted the presence of Kevin Pietersen in the England side won't act like a red rag to a bull when the sides meet in their World Twenty20 Super Eights opener. Tomorrow' clash at Trent Bridge is set to be the latest high-profile match which sees South Africa-born Pietersen up against the Proteas.
Pietersen controversially quit South Africa and opted to play for England, where his mother was born, in protest at a policy of racial quotas in domestic cricket which he believed were hampering his prospects. Smith, another white cricketer, by contrast stayed and his relationship with Pietersen has often been fractious. England batting ace Pietersen labelled Smith "an absolute muppet" in his autobiography and Smith once said: "Kevin and I would get on a lot better if he kept his mouth shut."
But Smith, speaking after South Africa's one-run win over New Zealand in their final group match, insisted such ill-feeling was a thing of the past. "I don't think there's animosity there," he told reporters. "There will always be the competitiveness between players. He's a world-class batter. "There's no doubt he'll be up for the game on Thursday and tactically we will look at a few things."
"But I think South African teams have come a long way in terms of the way we play our game. We control our emotions very well now. We are tactically quite astute and calm under pressure," Smith said. "We'd rather look at executing good skills rather than get into scrambles that don't really need to be there." During the past year South Africa have won Test series in both England and Australia and Smith said that was proof of their increasing maturity. "It's shown in the results we've turned out in the last two years. We've travelled to pretty much every continent and won."
India await Irish treat
NOTTINGHAM: India take on Ireland in a meaningless Group A World Twenty20 match at Trent Bridge on Wednesday. Meaningless, because Bangladesh the third team in India's group are already out and India and Ireland are already through to the Super Eight stage.
Like the 50-over World Cup, teams that qualify for the next round don't carry the points forward with them ( a major flaw in tournament rules and a classic indicator of ICC's myopia). Hence, there is very little to gain for the two teams from the contest.
Tell that to the Indian captain though and he will quickly dismiss any such thoughts. "You cannot underestimate any team in this format. Ireland will play aggressive cricket. They have nothing to lose, they have already qualified for the super eight stage. There will be less pressure on them."
Does that mean that there is more pressure on India as there is every chance that an associate nation can upset a full-member country which can lead to a major embarrassment especially for the captain.
"I don't know what to say.When we go out, we want to give our best and perform. It's a dead rubber. Maybe the intensity will be a bit low as compared to the game against Pakistan and Bangladesh. But we want to win this game," Dhoni said.
Winning the game and winning it convincingly will also give the Indian team and Dhoni bragging rights over the rivals, who claim they have in Kevin O'Brien, a hitter on par with India's Yuvraj Singh.
The Indian captain had nothing but a sarcastic smile to offer to that comment. He also called Kevin, a good batsman. "But I won't compare him with Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj has proved himself over a number of years. He is one of the biggest hitters in the game. He hits sixes quite consistently."
Dhoni himself is quite a big hitter of the cricket ball. And now, he has more bats to choose from and he can use them to send the ball into orbit. "The more bats you have the better it is. It's a back up. But it's good to score more runs than the number of bats you have," he said jokingly.
The new bat, one hopes will help Dhoni to score big on Wednesday. But more importantly, he will want another thorough and professional performance from his team that will enable the Indians to enter the super eights on a high.
No comments:
Post a Comment