Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has severely condemned an American church’s Satanic plan to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by putting the copies of the Holy Qur'an on fire, and termed it as a diabolic part of the ongoing conspiracy against Islam hatched by the forces inimical to Islam.

Jamaat’s Secretary-General Nusrat Ali, in a statement, said the forces that plotted the mischievous plan to assault the Divine Book have taken this irresponsible move just to cover their ong...

A local court in Ahmedabad acquitted six persons accused of hatching terror conspiracy to avenge the 2002 communal riots. Firoz Ghaswala, Maohammad Ali Chippa, Vakil Ahmad, Umar Farookh, Anisul Bari and Muhibul Bari were arrested by the state Anti Terrorist Squad in May 2006 on charges of having links with Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami. The ATS was then headed by D.G. Vanzara, who is presently behind bars in connection with the fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and killing...

With the ongoing agitation against the killings of innocent youths in the Kashmir Valley, various Muslim organisations en masse have urged the Central and State governments to take endeavours to redress the grievances of Kashmiri fraternity. They said, in a press release, that the biggest victim of the ongoing agitation is the student community. Already around 100 days of the academic year have been lost and there is no hope of the revival of the academic session in the near future. Re...

Sheela Bhatt of redif.com lifted the lid off a Gujarat government scheme, piloted by former Law Minister Amit Shah to offer prime plots cheap to judges.Three months before his arrest in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, Amit Shah had offered prime land near Ahmedabad to all judges of the Gujarat High Court on behalf of the state government at a price considerably lower than prevailing market rate. A Gujarat high court off...

S.Y. Quraishi, who assumed charge as the 17th Chief Election Commissioner, said that the poll panel would accord priority to restricting the role of money power in elections, which has become a major challenge. Quraishi said the Commission had held a series of discussions among expenditure observers to find out the areas it could focus on to strengthen checks and controls to prevent misuse of money power. “We will come out with detailed guidelines. They are being fine-tuned. By the en...

Sitaram Yechury, Communist party of India-Marxist leader, warning against the growing network of Hindutva terror groups, said the government and security agencies must take firm action against such groups. “The government will have to take firm action against these groups which are promoting Hindutva terror,” Yechury said on the sidelines of a symposium on Hindutva terror groups organised by the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust. Talking about the alleged links of leading political o...

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a status report in the Supreme Court on its six-month-old investigation into the Sohrabbuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, seeking immediate transfer of the case from Gujarat for a fair trial. The agency expressed apprehensions that the influence of senior politicians and police officers would deprive it of a conducive atmosphere to hold further investigations and prosecution. The agency sought permission from the Supreme Court for further investigat...

The Supreme Court, on June 30, directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to go ahead with its investigation into the Hari Masjid firing in Mumbai in which six persons were killed in 1992. A bench comprising justices P. Sathasivam and A.R. Dave upheld the Bombay High Court order entrusting CBI with the probe of the incident. The bench dismissed the appeal filed by the Maharashtra government against the 2008 direction of the High Court. The Apex Court directed the CBI to complete the inves...

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on July 26 reserved its judgment in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit. The verdict is likely to be announced in September. After more than 60 years, the courtroom battle over the ownership and possession of the 16th century structure is finally inching to a close. Mohammad Hashim, the oldest living plaintiff in the title suit case said, “I am very happy that the decision will be pronounced in my lifetime. I have fought this battl...

Enrolment of Muslim children in primary and upper primary classes in 2009-10 improved significantly with doing better than boys across the country. In fact, at the upper primary level (class VI-VIII) the percentage of Muslim girls, 49.97%, has been higher than the national average of 48.04%. A report by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, after analysing data from 1.28 million recognised schools imparting elementary education from 635 districts spread over 35...