Stunt biker shot dead by Delhi Police

Stunt biking by around 100 young men led to a tragedy in the heart of Delhi early Sunday when police opened fire killing a teenager riding pillion, police said.

Inspector Rajneesh Parmar of the Police Control Room fired from his revolver in a bid to puncture a motorcycle's rear tyre but it instead hit the victim, Karan Pandey, on his back, police said.

The bike rider, Puneet Sharma, also fell off the bike and suffered bruises. Both Sharma and Pandey were taken to a hospital. The other bikers sped away.

The drama began just after midnight Saturday when police were told that some 100 young men riding 35 to 40 motorcycles were performing stunts near the Gol Dak Khana in central Delhi.

When two police control room vans rushed to the site, the bikers sped towards the city centre.

Near the Le Meridien Hotel in the heart of Delhi, the bikers -- according to police -- got off their bikes and pelted stones and other missiles on the police personnel.

Outnumbered, the inspector fired, killing Pandey, who was said to be 18 or 19 years old.

A medical examination revealed that biker Sharma was under the influence of alcohol, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told IANS.

Police justified the shooting but insisted the intention was not to kill anyone.

"There are times when we are forced to fire," Deputy Commissioner of Police S.B.S. Tyagi told. "The inspector was aiming at the rear tyre. But the rider did a stunt just then, and the bullet hit Pandey."

By the time police took both to hospital, Pandey died.

The Sunday killing took place amid an ongoing police crackdown on stunt biking at night when young men zoom down wide roads at great speed, putting lives of pedestrians and other motorists at risk.

Stunt biking was earlier reported from Sarai Kale Khan in south Delhi and the nearby DND Flyway that links the capital with Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

But in recent times the bikers have concentrated in the city's very heart including Connaught Place and India Gate and nearby tree-lined roads.

Pandey's distraught family in Malviya Nagar in south Delhi demanded life imprisonment to the police officer who shot him.

"I don't know when my son left home," said Manju Pandey, the dead man's mother.

"Police told us at 6.30 in the morning that our son had been injured and was in hospital. When we reached the hospital, we realised that he was no more."

Sharma's family said he left home Saturday night saying he would return the next morning.

"He told us he was going to be with his friends," said his mother, Kusum Lata. "We don't know where he went.

"Even if our children were guilty, they should have been arrested. But why did the police open fire?" she asked.

According to police, most stunt motorcyclists in Delhi are aged up to 25 years. After having "fun" on the roads at night, they return home. Some of them have been accused of assaulting policemen or harassing women.

Twelve people have been arrested and seven cases registered in the crackdown on stunt biking in central Delhi launched in June, police said.

Delhi gangrape accused Ram Singh commits suicide in Tihar Jail

Ram Singh, the main accused in the Delhi gangrape case allegedly hanged himself at around 5am on early Monday morning in the cell he was being kept in Tihar jail, jail sources said.

He was the bus-driver in which the 23-year-old paramedical student was raped on December 16 last

"Yes, he is dead," a jail official, who also asked not to be named, said in the control room of New Delhi's Tihar Jail when asked about the suicide. "The case will continue. There is no reason for the case to suffer," said the officer.

A metropolitan magistrate will investigate Singh's death. Meanwhile, the post-mortem is yet to be conducted.

His body was rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital where he was declared dead.

Tihar jail authorities have ordered for an inquiry in the suicide too.

Singh's lawyer VK Anand told TV channels his client was satisfied with how his trial in the gangrape case was proceeding and had no reason to kill himself. "I doubt if this is a case of suicide," said Anand.

Singh was under guard in Tihar because of fears that he may kill himself or attacked by other prisoners.

Singh was to appear before a court on Monday in Saket, south Delhi, which is hearing the gangrape case.

The suicide of the main accused comes amidst the trial in the fast-track court.

 "He knew he was going to die anyway because we had and still have such a strong case against him," the physiotherapist's 20-year-old brother told Reuters.

"I'm not very thrilled with the news that he killed himself because I wanted him to be hanged ... publicly. Him dying on his own terms seems unfair. But, oh well, one is down. Hopefully the rest will wait for their death sentence."

The 23-year-old, a trainee physiotherapist, was gangraped and brutally assaulted allegedly by six men in a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16 night.

Singh was arrested soon after the December 16 incident from near his home in RK Puram.

She later succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 in Mount Elizabeth hospital in Singapore after battling for life for 13 days.

The rape was followed by outrage and massive protests across the country, following which a fast-track trial was ordered into the case.

Police had slapped murder charges, which has death penalty in rarest of rare cases, against the six accused and the trial was being conducted in Saket fast-track court in New Delhi.

Women don't feel safe in Delhi: Sheila Dikshit

Women do not feel safe in Delhi, chief minister Sheila Dikshit admitted Wednesday.

"Women don't feel safe in Delhi. Fears have risen. I'm shocked to learn about the Lajpat Nagar attempted rape case. It's a big setback for us," she said referring to the rape bid on a 19-year-old woman Tuesday.

The Class IX student fought off the rape bid in her own house by an electricity contractor, who thrust an iron rod into her throat to quell her cries for help. The accused has been arrested.

However, the chief minister promised to do everything possible to provide safety to women.

"My government will do everything possible to provide a conducive atmosphere for the women in the city," Dikshit said.

But CPM leader Brinda Karat criticized Dikshit.

"It is clear that women in Delhi are insecure. The chief minister is speaking the truth. But it is surely not enough. What is her responsibility as chief minister?

"Women's security issues have become political football between central and state government. Chief minister blames Delhi Police; central government defends police. It's a shame."

Delhi Art Gallery refuses to remove nude exhibits

The war of words between the Delhi Art Gallery owner and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad seems to have worsened. Despite facing threats, the organiser of the nude art works says he won't take down the paintings.

Delhi Art Gallery Director Ashish Anand said, "We'll continue with the same exhibition and nothing is going to change. The exhibition will continue till March 15. Whatever Husain has painted is the depiction of a human body, there are no gods and godesses, no vulgar manner, so there is no reason why we should be removing Husain's paintings from the exhibition."

Meanwhile, VHP is also refusing to budge. VHP activists are likely to hold protests on Wednesday too. "We are democratic people and we are expressing feelings in a democratic manner. Our organisation only came into the picture when the administrative machinery failed," VHP spokesperson Vinod Bansal said on Tuesday.

Earlier on Monday, the art exhibition at the Delhi Art Gallery, showcasing a retrospective on modern nude art, ran into trouble when VHP activists forced it to shut down temporarily. The exhibition was resumed after the organisers sought police protection.

The protests, led by the Durga Vahini, the women wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, objected to the Naked and the Nude exhibition which covers a large span of works ranging from Raja Ravi Verma, Souza, Husain, etc to modernists. The activists wanted a ban on the show as they said that the nude and obscene paintings portrayed women in a bad light.

The protesters objected to the "indecent pictures" that showed women as a mere commodity. "In the light of Delhi's gangrape, this kind of immoral act which depicts women as a sex object should not be allowed," said said Sanjana Chaudhary, state convener of Durga Vahini.

The protesters say they had written to the organisers before the exhibition opened and sent a copy of letter to Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, LG Tejendra Khanna, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar, requesting them to get the exhibition banned and arrest its organisers.

The exhibition, 'The Naked and the Nude', which opened in the city this Saturday and scheduled to continue till March 15 showcases around 250 works by artists like Karamkar, Goud and Ara

Delhi gang-rape trial from February 5

Paving the way for their much anticipated trial, a fast-track court on Saturday framed charges against the five accused in the December 16 bus gang-rape and murder case.

Within 10 days of the case being sent to the special fast-track court, exclusively set up to deal with cases of sexual offences against women, it concluded the arguments on charges and put the five persons on trial on various counts, including conspiracy to abduct the 23-year-old girl and sexually assault and murder her.

In the in-camera proceedings that took place on Saturday, the court framed charges under Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (2)(g) (gangrape), 377 (unnatural offences), 395 (dacoity), 396 (murder in dacoity), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120-B (conspiracy), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 365 ( kidnapping or abducting with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine person), 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery), and 412 (dishonestly receiving property stolen in the commission of a dacoity) of the IPC. If found guilty under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, the accused could face a maximum punishment of death penalty.

A fresh offence under section 366 of the IPC was added by the court against the accused for abducting the girl with the intention to compel and force her to "illicit intercourse". The accused bus driver, Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. The court has now fixed February 5 for starting the trial. The prosecution will begin with its evidence and examine its witnesses in the case.

Additional sessions judge Yogesh Khanna framed the charges after finding a prima facie case to suggest that the accused conspired to deceitfully induce the girl and her male friend to board the vehicle by making them believe it was a chartered bus for raping the victim and committing other offences.

In the order, the fast-track court described the juvenile as an "associate" of the five accused, who committed the gang rape in furtherance of the conspiracy and "in furtherance of common intention". The juvenile, the sixth accused, has been been declared a "minor" by the Juvenile Justice Board, which will try him separately for the offences.

Delhi Police had on January 3 filed the chargesheet against the five accused for gang-raping and brutally assaulting the girl on a moving bus on December 16.

Delhi Airport Metro Express resumes service

The Delhi Airport Metro Express, developed under public-private partnership, today resumed commercial operations,nearly six months after it was shut down on grounds of safety. Reliance Infra, which runs the service, had on Monday announced that the Metro line will begin service from today.

The Airport Express Line provides connectivity from New Delhi Railway Station to Indira Gandhi Airport (T3) terminating at Dwarka Sector 21. Passengers arriving at or boarding flights from Terminal-1 can also avail this service from Aerocity Station.

Passengers can travel on the line at a discounted fare of Rs. 30 per trip on Tuesday, Reliance Infra said in a statement yesterday. The Airport Express Line would run from 5.30 am to 11.30 pm daily at a frequency of 15 minutes, the company added.

Baggage check-in for both national and international travel would start shortly, the company said.

In addition to single journey tokens, the Airport Line has introduced new products in the form of Return Journey Tokens and Sunday/Holiday discount tokens while retaining the Monthly passes for regular commuters.

The Delhi Airport Metro line started its commercial operation in February 2011, but services had to be suspended in July 2012 because of defects in civil structures.

"These defects have since been rectified by DMRC and the line was offered for re-inspection to the Commissioner Metro Rail Safety in December 2012...a formal clearance for commercial operation was received on January 18, 2013," the statement from Reliance Infra said on Monday.

The Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) last week gave clearance certificate to the swanky high-speed line, which took 18 minutes for the 23-km journey from New Delhi Railway Station to the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. The same journey by road would take upwards of an hour.

However, now the trip will take more time, as the CMRS has given permission to operate the high-speed line only at 50 kmph.

Before the service's suspension, the trains were running at a speed of 105 kmph.

No safety in Capital, it must be restored: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today expressed concern over the recent brutal gangrape and murder in Delhi saying there is no safety in the Capital as such incidents are happening repeatedly.

"There is no safety in the city and it has to come back," a bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said while pointing out that December 16 incident was not an isolated one and "it is being repeated in the city.