A trial court rejected a petition filed by the Uttar Pradesh government to withdraw all charges against 10 persons accused in the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in 2015. It directed that the matter be categorised as “most important” and heard on a daily basis.

The court also told the authorities to write to the police to ensure that the evidence is protected.

On September 28, 2015, 50-year-old Akhlaq was lynched following rumours that he and his family had killed a calf and eaten beef during Eid festivities.

A forensic report in May 2016 said the meat found in Akhlaq’s home was that of a cow or its progeny. The police had said that the report “does not diminish the case as murder is an offence”.

All the accused persons have been out on bail since 2017. Read on.

The Delhi High Court suspended the life sentence of expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case. Granting him bail, the bench directed Sengar to remain in Delhi during the pendency of his appeal against his conviction.

He was also told not to go within 5 km radius of the complainant’s home and report to the police every Monday at 10 am. The bench also directed him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 15 lakh with three sureties of the same amount.

In December 2019, Sengar was convicted and sentenced to life for raping a woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao in 2017. She was a minor at the time. Read on.

Hundreds of persons associated with Hindutva groups protested outside the Bangladesh High Commission on Tuesday against communal violence in that country, including the recent lynching of a Hindu man. Some of the protestors were associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal.

Earlier in the day, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry summoned the Indian envoy in the country to express concerns about the security of its missions in India after protests in front of them on December 20 and December 22.

After the disruption in the high-security zone on Tuesday, the Delhi Police detained several persons.

A Hindu man, Dipu Chandra Das, was beaten to death in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district on December 18 by a mob that accused him of blasphemy. Seven persons have been arrested in the case. Read more.

The Union government has issued 91 takedown notices to social media platform X since March 2024 for over 1,100 URLs allegedly violating legal provisions. Over half of these URLs, or 566 of them, were flagged for “disturbing public order”, The Indian Express reported.

There was reportedly an increase in notices around the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 and Operation Sindoor in May.

These notices were issued to X under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act via the ministry’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.

This provision states that online intermediaries, such as social media platforms, can lose their safe harbour status if they fail to remove or disable access to content that is used to commit an “unlawful act” despite being told to do so by government authorities. Removing this status would mean that the platforms would be liable for the content in question. Read more.

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