Gunmen kill youth in J&K mosque

Gunmen shot dead an 18-year-old youth inside a mosque in Jammu and Kashmir’s north-western town of Sopore late Tuesday night. The police has blamed the murder on the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and said it has, along with other security forces, launched a massive manhunt for the assassins. The murder was widely condemned in Kashmir. Chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted: “Militants chase an 18-year-old boy into a mosque and shoot him. Imagine the outrage if this had been done by security forces — hypocrisy.” Separatist leader and Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, termed it a “cold-blooded murder” and said “such acts are savage and unacceptable to every, and any, civilised society”. The police has registered a case under Ranbir Panel Code Section 302 and Section 7/27 of the Arms Act and has started investigation.

*** 1993 Mumbai blast case: SC verdict today Age Correspondent New Delhi, March 20

Twenty years after the country’s financial capital was rocked by a series of bombings in a single day, the Supreme Court will on Thursday pronounce its judgment in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case in which 100 people were convicted by a Tada court which awarded death penalty to 12 convicts and life sentence to 20. A bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan will also decide the appeal of actor Sanjay Dutt challenging his conviction and six-year imprisonment for illegal possession of weapons under the Arms Act. The CBI had not challenged Dutt’s acquittal under Tada.