tagged w/ Delhi
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A bomb blast at a market in India's capital has killed one person and injured at least 15 others.
The market, in the Mehrauli area, was packed with shoppers when, according to eyewitnesses, two men drove up in a motorcycle and dropped a package. Police have described it as a low intensity explosive device. Two weeks ago, five bombs ripped through busy shopping areas in Delhi, killing at least 20 people. Nearly 50 were killed in Ahmadabad in July. Police say they have arrested the head of a group claiming the attacks. Mohammed Arif Sheikh, described as the founder of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), was arrested along with four others, Mumbai (Bombay) police said on Thursday.
(Continues at link)A bomb blast at a market in India's capital has killed one person and injured at... more
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A top Islamic militant suspected of involvement in the wave of bomb attacks on Indian cities has been killed in a shoot-out in Delhi, police say.
They say the man identified as Atif was killed with another man in a "fierce exchange" of gunfire at a house in the mainly Muslim Jamia Nagar district.
Two Indian policemen were injured in the operation and a third suspect was captured alive.
At least 20 people died in a multiple bomb attack on Delhi last week.
News channels showed an ambulance taking away a bloodied person from the crowded site of Friday's gun battle.
A large contingent of policemen had surrounded the four-storey home where the suspected militants were supposed to be hiding, witnesses told the BBC.
"The police were firing at the fourth and top storey of the building," one eyewitness said.
"A lot of people had gathered around the building."
Police arrived at the house after receiving information that some "suspected militants" were hiding there, senior Delhi police official Karnail Singh told reporters.
"They opened fire on the police when we approached the house," he said.
"Two of our men, including an inspector, were injured."
Two militants were killed during the ensuring gun battle and one was arrested, he added.
On Wednesday, Delhi police issued sketches of three men who they believe were involved in the attacks.
About 90 people were injured when the five devices went off in busy shopping areas within minutes of each other.
An e-mail purportedly from a group calling itself the "Indian Mujahideen" claimed it carried out the attacks.
On Thursday, India revealed plans to upgrade its intelligence-gathering ability following a spate of bombings.
A new centre will be established to research surveillance and preventative measures and become a focus for counter-terrorism strategies.
A top Islamic militant suspected of involvement in the wave of bomb attacks on Indian... more
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Five bombs have ripped through busy markets in India's capital, Delhi, within minutes of each other, killing at least 14 people, police say.
The explosions, which also injured about 80 people, are not thought to have been very powerful but happened in areas crowded with evening shoppers.
CNN-IBN, a local TV news channel, said it had received an e-mail before the blasts from a group calling itself the "Indian Mujahideen".
"Do whatever you can. Stop us if you can," the e-mail reportedly said.
The same group has claimed responsibility for two other recent bombing attacks.
-news.bbc.co.uk/Five bombs have ripped through busy markets in India's capital, Delhi, within... more
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Did you know a 'truth serum' even existed!?
A scandal has erupted in India after interrogators on a hjigh-profile murder case used so-called 'truth serum' sodium pentothal, yet failed to catch the killer, the Times reports.
India has been transfixed by the murder of Aarushi Talwar, 14, who was found with her throat slit in May at her home near Delhi. Police initially blamed the Talwars' domestic help, but were forced to rethink when his body was found on the terrace of the family house the next day.
After a series of embarrassing bungles, Indian police were under pressure to get results. So they turned to a practice long since banned in most democracies, but on the rise in India: they injected their prime suspects with a “truth serum”.
They detained Rajesh Talwar, the dead girl's dentist father, and drugged him with sodium pentothal — the “truth serum”. The Central Bureau of Investigation, India's equivalent of the FBI, took over and declared him innocent last week.
The CBI now says that the culprit was Krishna, an assistant in Dr Talwar's clinic, who was subjected to six hours of “narcoanalysis” at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Bangalore. A suspected accomplice is now receiving the same treatment.
The practice is illegal in Britain, the United States and most other Western democracies, although security officials have suggested that it should be used on suspected terrorists — and some allege that it already has been. India adopted the technique in 2000 when S.Malini, a doctor who is now assistant director of the FSL in Bangalore, used it to coax evidence from a witness in another murder case.
Prisoners are usually taken to a specialist forensic laboratory, where doctors give them sodium pentothal, a commonly used anaesthetic, through a drip to induce a trance-like state. A forensic psychologist then questions the prisoner during the trance, which typically lasts from 15 to 45 minutes.
Doctors often have to slap the prisoners to keep them awake, according to rights groups. “This is nothing but torture,” said Amar Jesani, a co-founder of the Forum for Medical Ethics Society.
Although any evidence gleaned is inadmissible in court, police say the technique is an invaluable and harmless way of establishing facts. “It helps the investigating officer to reach the depths of the crime so that justice and law can prevail,” Rajan Bhagat, a police spokesman, told The Times.
Some say that it is unethical for doctors to take part in narcoanalysis, since the drug tends to be administered against the prisoner's will and can cause respiratory or cardio-vascular complications.
Human rights groups accuse the police of using narcoanalysis as a substitute for proper criminal investigation, and say that it violates the Constitution, which prohibits anyone accused of an offence from being “compelled to be witness against himself”.
Did you know a 'truth serum' even existed!? It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Should it be used on criminals, as is happening more often in India? Or should it continue to be banned, as it is in the UK. US and other nations? How do interrogators even know if what their captors are saying is reliable? If people can't tell the truth, should drugs like this be used to help them along...?
Did you know a 'truth serum' even existed!?
A scandal has erupted in... more
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