An Indian court handed down life sentences on Friday to three rapists who attacked a photographer and a call-center operator in an abandoned mill compound in the center of Mumbai.
Mohammed Salim Ansari, Vijay Mohan Jadhav and Mohammed Kasim Hafeez Shaikh were given the sentences a day after their conviction for the attacks in July and August last year that triggered worldwide headlines and reignited anger about women’s safety in India.
“This court has to take a stern view of crimes against women, so that a proper message is sent to society,” Judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi told a packed hearing of the sessions court in south Mumbai.
The sentences handed down on Friday only relate to the gang-rape of the phone operator and the judge said that separate tariffs would be announced tomorrow for the assault on the photojournalist.
The men, sitting at the back of the courtroom and surrounded by police, looked down and wept as their sentences were read, while their relatives were heard crying.
A fourth man, Mohammed Ashwaq Sheikh, was also jailed for life in the telephone operator case, while another convicted in the photographer attack, Siraj Rehmat Khan, is expected to learn his fate tomorrow.
The five men were aged from 18 to 27 when arrested and a juvenile suspect is being separately tried.
The phone operator came forward after reading about the photographer’s ordeal in the same compound, which lies close to an upscale area of the city as well as slums.
Police described the photographer’s attackers as unemployed school drop-outs, while neighbors say they were a gang known for petty theft and drinking.
The case sparked anger in the city, which is usually considered safer than the capital, New Delhi, where an attack on a student in December 2012 sparked weeks of angry street protests about India’s treatment of women and led to tougher laws for rapists and other sex offenders.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese