Six killed, dozens injured in India temple stampede
The stampede occurred on Friday night during the annual Shri Lairai Zatra festival in Shirgao village, which is popular for its events including fire-walking.
'Devotees were witnessing a religious ceremony and the frenzy caused during the rituals triggered a stampede,' said V.S. Chadonkar, a police officer in Goa's state capital Panjim.
'Six people lost their lives and at least eight were critically injured,' he said.
Stampedes during large Hindu religious gatherings are routinely reported in India, as huge crowds gather in tight spaces often ignoring safety protocol.
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Saudi Gazette
6 days ago
- Saudi Gazette
Chemistry on trial: How a professor tried to convince a court she didn't kill her husband
DELHI — "Are you a chemistry professor?" the judge asked. "Yes," Mamta Pathak replied, clasping her hand in a respectful namaste. Draped in a white sari, glasses perched on her nose, the retired college teacher stood before two judges in a courtroom in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, speaking as if delivering a forensic chemistry lecture. "In the post-mortem," she argued, her voice trembling but composed, "it is not possible to differentiate between a thermal burn and an electric burn mark without proper chemical analysis." Across the bench, Justice Vivek Agarwal reminded her, "The doctor who conducted the post-mortem said there were clear signs of electrocution." It was a rare, almost surreal moment — a 63-year-old woman, accused of murdering her husband by electrocution, explaining to the court how acids and tissue reactions revealed the nature of a burn. The exchange, caught on video during her April hearing, went viral in India and stunned the internet. But in the court, no amount of expert-like confidence could undo the prosecution's case — a spouse murdered and a motive rooted in suspicion and marital discord. Last month the High Court dismissed Mamta Pathak's appeal and upheld her life sentence for the April 2021 murder of her husband, Neeraj Pathak, a retired physician. While Pathak mounted a spirited, self-argued defence — invoking gaps in the autopsy, the insulation of the house, and even an electrochemical theory — the court found the circumstantial evidence conclusive: she had drugged her husband with sleeping pills and then electrocuted him. In court, Mamta, a mother of two, had peered over a stack of overflowing case files, leafing through them before she grew animated. "Sir, electric burn marks can't be distinguished as ante-mortem [before death] or post-mortem [after death]," she argued quoting from a forensics book. "How did they [doctors] write it was an electric burn mark in post-mortem [report]?". Microscopically, electrical burns look the same before and after death, making standard examination inconclusive, say experts. A close study of dermal changes may reveal whether a burn was ante — or post-mortem, according to one paper. An impromptu exchange on chemical reactions followed, with the judge probing her on laboratory processes. Mamta spoke about different acids, explaining that distinctions could be made using an electron microscope — something not possible in a post-mortem room. She tried to walk the judge through electron microscopy and different acids. Three women lawyers in the background smiled. Mamta ploughed on — she said she had been studying law in prison for a year. Flipping through her tabbed files with stickers and quoting from forensic medicine books, she pointed to alleged gaps in the investigation — from the unexamined crime scene to the absence of qualified electrical and forensic experts at the scene of the crime. "Our house was insured from 2017 to 2022, and inspections confirmed it was protected against electrical fire," she said. Mamta told the court that her husband had high blood pressure and heart disease. She stated the actual cause of death was narrowing and "calcification of his coronary arteries due to old age". She also suggested he may have slipped and sustained a hematoma, but no CT scan was conducted to confirm this. Neeraj Pathak, 65, had been found dead at the family home on 29 April 2021. The autopsy ruled electrocution as the cause of death. Days later, Mamta had been arrested and charged with murder. Police had seized an 11-meter electric wire with a two-pin plug, and CCTV footage from the couple's house. Six tablets of a sleeping pill were recovered in a strip of 10. The postmortem report cited cardiorespiratory shock from electrical current at multiple sites as the cause of death, occurring 36 to 72 hours before the autopsy conducted on 1 May. "But they didn't find my fingerprints on the strip of tablets," Mamta told the judges. But her arguments quickly unravelled, leaving Judges Agarwal and Devnarayan Sinha unconvinced. For nearly four decades, Mamta and Neeraj Pathak had lived a seemingly orderly middle-class life in Chhatarpur — a drought-prone district of Madhya Pradesh known for its farms, granite quarries, and small businesses. She taught chemistry at the local government college; he was the chief medical officer at the district hospital. They raised two sons — one settled abroad, the other, sharing a home with his mother. Neeraj retired voluntarily in 2019 after 39 years as a government doctor and then opened a private clinic at home. The incident happened during the pandemic. Neeraj was showing Covid symptoms and kept to the first floor. Mamta and her son, Nitish, stayed downstairs. Two staircases from the ground floor linked Neeraj's rooms to the open gallery and waiting hall of his private clinic, where half a dozen staff bustled between the lab and the medical store. The 97-page judgment stated that Mamta reported finding her husband Neeraj unresponsive in his bed on 29 April, but did not inform a doctor or the police until 1 May. Instead, she took her elder son to Jhansi — over 130km away — without clear reason, according to the driver, and returned the same evening. She claimed ignorance about how he died when she finally alerted the police. Beneath this silence lay a troubled marriage. The judges highlighted longstanding marital discord, with the couple living apart and Mamta suspecting her husband of infidelity. On the morning of the day he died,, Neeraj had called an associate, alleging that Mamta was "torturing him," locking him in a bathroom, withholding food for days, and causing physical injuries. He also accused her of taking cash, ATM cards, vehicle keys, and bank fixed deposit documents. Pleading for help, Neeraj's son contacted a friend who alerted the police, who then rescued the retired doctor from what was described as "Mamta's custody". The couple had even lived apart in recent times, adding weight to the court's doubts. Mamta had told the court she was the "best mother," presenting a birthday card from her children as proof. She also showed photos of herself feeding her husband and snapshots with family. Yet, the judges were unmoved. They noted that such tokens of affection didn't erase motive — after all, a "doting mother" can also be a "suspicious wife," they said. Fifty minutes into her deposition, after parrying questions and defending herself against the court's doubts, Mamta's composure faltered for the first time. "I know one thing... I did not kill him," she said, her voice trailing off. At another moment, she confessed, "I can't take this very much more." Trying to ease the tension, Judge Agarwal remarked, "You must be used to this... you must be taking classes for 50 minutes in college." "Forty minutes, sir. But they are small children," Mamta said. "Small children in college? But your designation is assistant professor," the judge pressed. "But they are kids, sir," she replied. "Don't tell us such stories," Judge Agarwal interrupted sharply. Mamta fought not just as a defendant, but as a teacher turning the courtroom into a chemistry lab — hoping to prove her innocence through science. Yet in the end, the cold facts proved stronger than her lessons. — BBC
Saudi Gazette
31-07-2025
- Saudi Gazette
India court acquits seven accused in 2008 Malegaon blast case
DELHI — A court in India has acquitted all seven accused in a deadly bombing that struck a Muslim-majority town in Maharashtra state nearly 17 years ago. At least six people were killed and nearly a hundred injured in the blasts that hit Malegaon in September 2008. Among the seven acquitted are Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a former MP of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and a serviceman, Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit. According to legal portal Live Law, the judge noted that the prosecution failed to prove the motorbike that allegedly triggered the blasts belonged to Thakur. The court also observed that while the prosecution had proven a bomb blast did occur, it failed to establish that the explosive was planted on the motorbike. Regarding Purohit - who was accused of raising funds to purchase explosives for a right-wing outfit and organising meetings to plan the attack - the court said there was "no evidence of storing or assembling the explosives at Shrikant Prasad Purohit's residence," according to the verdict cited by news agency special court in Mumbai cleared the accused of all charges, including under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act - an anti-terror law."Terrorism has no religion because no religion can advocate violence. The court cannot convict anyone merely on perception and moral evidence; there has to be cogent evidence," ANI reported, quoting the of the victims' families said they will challenge the acquittal in the High Court and file an appeal case was initially handled by Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before being transferred to India's premier counter-terror agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in politically important case was one of the first major instances where right-wing Hindu nationalist groups were directly accused of militant the years, the case saw several twists and turns. More than 300 witnesses were examined during the trial, with at least 34 later turning 2016, NIA filed a chargesheet and said they could not find sufficient evidence against Thakur and three others. It recommended dropping charges against the court acquitted the three, it ordered that Thakur must still stand 2018, an NIA special court formally framed charges against the remaining seven accused under the anti-terror law, charges of criminal conspiracy, murder and promoting enmity between religious verdict, initially expected in May, was postponed after the judge ordered all accused to be present in court. — BBC
Saudi Gazette
24-07-2025
- Saudi Gazette
A mother's heartbreak: The unresolved mystery of missing Indian student
DELHI — Nine years ago, an Indian student vanished into thin air. Najeeb Ahmed was studying biotechnology at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, when he mysteriously went missing in October 2016. The night before his disappearance, the then 27-year-old who lived in one of the university's residential hostels was involved in a scuffle with members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a right-wing student group. The students have denied any involvement in his disappearance. For years, India's crime-fighting agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has been trying to figure what may have happened to Ahmed — the agency took over the case from city police in 2017. Now a court in Delhi has finally shut the investigation after the CBI said it had exhuasted all possible leads in the case. "As a parting note, the court earnestly hopes that Najeeb Ahmed shall be traced soon," the court said in the order, which was announced last family, however, have alleged the inquiry was not conducted in a proper manner and said they would appeal the decision in a higher court."What message does it send, that India's premier investigating agency has not been able to find a missing student from one of India's best universities?" Ahmed's mother Fatima Nafees told BBC Hindi."We will not give up until we find our son."Born in a village in Uttar Pradesh, Ahmed, the son of a carpenter, was the eldest of four. His family made many sacrifices to support his JNU education."After completing his undergraduate degree, he was adamant that he wanted to study at JNU," Ms Nafees said."I told him you can take admission, but you won't stay in the hostel. You are too naive. But he didn't listen to me."On the night of 14 October, 2016, Ahmed reportedly got into a scuffle with a group of students affiliated to ABVP who were campaigning for hostel elections. JNU is known for its vibrant and intense student politics, with ideological groups often clashing over campus his testimonies to the CBI, his roommate Mohd Qasim said that Ahmed got injured in the altercation and had to be taken to a public hospital, where he was allegedly refused doctors told him they could not treat his wounds without a formal crime complaint having been made to the police, his roommate to the court order, Ahmed chose not to file a complaint and returned to campus. He went missing the next day, leaving behind his phone, wallet, and clothes in his hostel room.A CBI report says Ahmed last used his phone and laptop around 10am the day he disappeared. A hostel warden told the agency that he saw Ahmed getting into a tuk-tuk in the morning and leaving Nafees, who had been informed of the scuffle over phone by Ahmed's roommate, was on her way to Delhi to see her son. She arrived in the morning and upon finding him missing, filed a missing persons complaint on 15 October days, there was no progress. Protests erupted on campus as students and activists accused authorities of November 2016, Ms Nafees filed a petition in the Delhi High Court, accusing the police of being "slow, misdirected and subjective" and called for a court-monitored probe.A month later, Delhi Police conducted two extensive searches using sniffer dogs across JNU's sprawling campus — but again, nothing was May 2017, the court handed over the investigation to the CBI.A year later, the CBI told the court it had exhausted all possible leads — and asked the bench to close the agency said it had examined more than 500 witnesses, collected information from taxi, bus, train and flight operators, and searched hospitals and morgues, but had found nothing.A one million rupees [$11,600; £8,600] reward for information about Ahmed also failed to yield results, investigators case dragged on for two more years, when in 2020, Ms Nafees returned to court, this time to challenge the CBI's alleged the agency failed to properly probe the students involved in the scuffle with her son. She said they had a "clear motive", had threatened him, and should have been arrested. The CBI denied all allegations saying they had left "no stone unturned" in looking for agency said it had tracked the phone locations of the nine students involved in the fight with Ahmed that night, but found no evidence linking them to his its decision to finally shut the case, a court in Delhi said that the CBI has investigated "all plausible avenues" thoroughly but "no credible information" could be received about Ahmed's judge dismissed Ms Nafees' plea, noting that while witnesses confirmed verbal threats, there was no "direct or circumstantial" evidence linking Ahmed's disappearance to the fight with ABVP members."Such scuffles and exchanges are not unheard of" in the charged atmosphere of JNU, the order court, however, added that the CBI could reopen the case if new information comes to order has been a huge blow for Ahmed's family and Gonsalves, who represented Ms Nafees in the Delhi High Court in 2018, said he still questioned the investigation."The police routinely arrest people for minor crimes in India. It's shocking then, that none of the students were taken into custody for questioning," he Nafees alleges that her son's religion had affected the seriousness of the investigation."If the victim had been a Hindu boy, would the police have responded the same way?" she asked."They would have demolished the houses of those suspected," she alleged, referring to the rising instances where homes of individuals accused of crimes are bulldozed by Indian authorities. The BBC has reached out to the CBI for the agency has consistently maintained that they have carried out the probe impartially. In 2018, the Delhi High Court had said that they had found no evidence that CBI investigated the case unfairly or "under political compulsions".Ms Nafees says she's not done fighting. Every 15 October, the day her son vanished, she joins a candle march at JNU in his memory. The hope has dimmed, but the wait continues."Sometimes I wonder if I should put a nameplate outside our house," said Nafees Ahmed, his father."Our house has been renovated. What if he comes, but can't recognise it?" — BBC
