At least 16 persons were injured when security forces lobbed tear gas shells at a crowd of 15,000 protesting alleged desecration of the holy Qur’an at Handwara in the frontier district of Kupwara on August 24. Villagers of Rangward-Handwara took to streets this morning to register their protest against desecration of the Holy Book allegedly by security forces who entered a mosque. Security forces tried to persuade agitators to disperse but they refused and pelted them with stones. In ...

The Thane Cyber Crime Cell has arrested a computer engineer employed with HCL at Ghaziabad for posting defamatory messages against Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on the community site Orkut. This is the second arrest made by the police in connection with the case. Adarsh Sinha, a computer engineer with HCL had created an email account with the forged identity of Faizab Farooqi and used this account to post messages on Orkut.

The text of this message was initially compiled by Mir...

Jaipur based Muslim organisations and human rights groups on August 22 welcomed the release of Abrar Ali, who was detained by police on August 16 in connection with Jaipur bomb blasts. Hafiz Mansoori, a member of Jamait-e-Ulema said, “Police officials who arrested Abrar should not be spared. Muslim doctors (Abrar Ali and Anwar Hussein) were illegally detained by the police and it is a sheer violation of human rights.”

Jamait discussed the issue of illegal detentions...

Illegal migrants from Bangladesh must be expelled from the country, says Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Maulana Arshad Madani, while cautioning the government against harassing Muslim citizens of India in the process. “Illegal migrants, whether Muslims or Hindus, must be detected and expelled in accordance with the due process of law. But hounding out people just because they are Muslims and (sport) a beard cannot be accepted. Care must be taken to make sure that genuine citizens are n...

Aligarh Muslim University is all set to raise its academic standards with plans to upgrade research, library facilities and infrastructure. “The academic standard of AMU is showing an upward trend and plans are underway to upgrade research, library facilities and infrastructure of the university,” said AMU Vice-Chancellor Professor P. K. Abdul Azis during a gathering of members of Aligarh Alumni Association (AAA) of Metropolitan Washington. Professor Azis was in the US recently ...

CPM MP Hannan Mollah has complained that the government departments in the states are not cooperating with students trying to avail themselves of the government programme to award scholarships to needy students from the minority community. Mollah, who has recently toured Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, has said government departments and schools were avoiding publicising the scheme and not issuing application forms to students to enable them to avail themselves of these scholarships. He ...

For the first time in the history of Karnataka State Wakf Board and Haj Committee or perhaps in a frantic bid to win the confidence of Muslim minority, the BJP government has proposed to nominate women. Haj, Wakf and minority welfare minister Mumtaz Ali Khan said here on Friday: "It's time we gave representation to women in Wakf Board and Haj Committee, which are dominated by men. There are qualified and willing women. We will create history with this move.'' He said the 16-member Wakf...