Shafiq Ur Rahman Khan

 In a landmark judgement in a Haryana honour killing case, a court here today awarded capital punishment to five persons and life sentence to one for murdering a couple on the diktats of a self-styled community panchayat for marrying against societal norms. Additional District and Sessions Judge Vani Gopal Sharma pronounced the sentence after reserving the judgement in the case yesterday. The prosecution had termed the case as the "rarest of the rare" and pleaded for capital punishment to the six convicts for killing Manoj (23) and Babli (19), who hailed from Karora village in Kaithal district and had got married on May 18, 2007. Last Thursday, the court had convicted them for murdering the couple of the same 'gotra' (sub-caste) in 2007. Another person was held guilty of abduction and the quantum of punishment was reserved. It is the first case in which the boy's family had moved court against the honour killing after the 'khap' panchayat (caste-ba...

Batla House encounter victims Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid were hit by ‘blunt force impact by object or surface’, besides multiple gunshot wounds. The post-mortem report, a copy of which is with TwoCircles.net, has confirmed this. The family members and relatives of the two terror suspects of Azamgarh, who gave them last bath, had claimed the bodies had multiple injuries of brutal beating. The million dollar question: why the police had to resort to beating of the suspects during a ‘genuine’ encounter. Whether Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid were involved in terror activities only the court can decide. But genuineness of the September 2008 Batla House encounter in which the two Azamgarh youths were killed has been contested since the day one on various counts. The injury marks other than the gunshot wounds on their bodies were presented by the families and several independent fact finding teams and human rights activists as strong proof that the encounter was fake and the duo were killed pointb...

One of the most telling things about a society is how it treats its women, that half of its population which lives, works and struggles to contribute to the family, community and society at large, In a larger sence, what defines a society is how it treats its poorest, weakest and most vulnerable members. Parts of Haryana today present a rather vicious picture, far removed from the moral parameters or principles on which any progressive society is built. for the brokers of human trafficking, Haryana, is the point of demand of consumers, the buyers of a women's dignity. women are brought here from different parts of country, most of them from Magadh belt of Bihar-Jharkhand; Musrshidabad in west bengol; the border areas of Assam and secunderabad; and hydrabad in Andhra Pradesh- all poverty stricken muslim areas. These women are promised marriage of inducted as farm labourers but the real purpose is to center them into the sale-purchase chain to provide sexual satisfaction to thei...