Indian's subway death: NY woman indicted, deemed fit for trial

A 31-year old woman, accused of shoving an Indian immigrant to his death in front of a subway train last month as she hated "Hindus and Muslims", has been found mentally fit to stand trial and was indicted on charges of murder as a hate crime by a US grand jury.
Erika Menendez of Queens pushed Sunando Sen, 46, in front of an oncoming subway train on December 27, telling authorities later that her hatred for "Hindus and Muslims" prompted her to do so.
Menendez had shown no remorse for her actions during an initial court hearing after her arrest last month, often laughing uncontrollably and telling a authorities that she "pushed a Muslim... in front of the train because I thought it would be cool."
At the hearing, she was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said that at a hearing before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin-Brandt in a criminal court yesterday, Menendez was deemed fit to stand trial.
Indicted on charges of one count of second-degree murder as a hate crime and two counts of second-degree murder, Menendez faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
She has been ordered to return to court on January 29, when she would be arraigned on the indictment.
She remains held without bail.
"The defendant is charged with having been motivated by hate when she allegedly shoved an innocent man into the path of an oncoming train. The violence ... has no place in a civilised society...

"When hate crimes do, regrettably, occur, they will be condemned in the strongest possible terms and those responsible will be brought to justice to answer for their actions," Brown said in a statement.
Witnesses said Menendez was seen muttering to herself while sitting on a bench at a Queens subway station on the night of December 27.
As a train approached the station, Menendez stepped behind an unsuspecting Sen, followed him briefly and then pushed him off the platform and into the path of the train.
Sen, who lived with roommates in a small apartment in Queens and was unmarried, died of multiple blunt force trauma.
At the time of her arrest, Menendez admitted pushing Sen and said "I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims, ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up."
Sen, who had owned a printing business in the city, was cremated on New Year's eve in the presence of friends and business partners.

India stopped Pakistan from raising bilateral issues in UNSC

NEW DELHI: There is concern that Pakistan, as current president of the UN Security Council, might try to bring bilateral issues like the LoC firings to the international table. As India steps down from the UNSC after two years, South Block can take satisfaction from the fact that in the past two years, no bilateral issue by Pakistan saw the light of day.

Ascending to the UNSC after a gap of 18 years, India came to the job under a fair amount of international scrutiny. Since India likes to proclaim its natural candidature for being at the global high table, there was a lot of interest about what it would bring to the table, whether India would be able to graduate out of its South Asia cocoon to address global problems.

With a UNSC delegation smaller than Togo, India's resources were fully stretched. It took some criticism regarding its approach to Syria, but Indian officials say the first and only outcome document on Syria was a presidential statement (PRST) adopted during India's presidency of the UNSC in August 2011.

India supported the Kofi Annan initiative as well as the Lakhdar Brahimi one, while the IBSA countries unusually sent a delegation to meet Bashar Al Assad to seek a peaceful resolution. Equally unusually, Syria attracted three double-vetoes, which shows the deep polarization of the world body.

India also weathered similar criticism on Libya because of its abstention on resolution 1973, but every Indian assessment has concluded that it was on the right side of history regarding its objections to the Libya enterprise. As an official observed, "Regime changes by externally induced means cannot become the norm of the day."

 

One of India's primary diplomatic and military challenges is piracy off Somalia in the Indian Ocean. It's an issue that concerns India directly, given that 11% of the world's seafarers are Indian. It's also a place where India has the opportunity of taking a leadership position. In the UNSC, the first ever thematic discussion on piracy and a PRST was piloted by India.

The Indian action, sources said, led to a UNSC decision to define the boundaries of High Risk Areas based on actual incidents. The decision, officials said, has been picked up by the insurance industry to adopt new global norms on these lines.

A lot of India's efforts went into "blocking" initiatives — to keep the counter-terrorism focus of UNSCR 1988 and 1989 on al-Qaida and Taliban, to make sure the international community did not come nosing into Maldives, to block the US from pushing through a resolution on nuclear proliferation keeping the primacy of the NPT. But that, as officials said, is a function of India's current international position, where it is a rising power, but still beset with a number of vulnerabilities which would be exacerbated as a result of international attention.

An official said this is similar to what China used to be in the 1990s, when it stayed largely silent. Now that China has greater weight, the Chinese function with much greater confidence. For instance, Beijing tabled several resolutions on Syria, even if they went nowhere.

The unwritten issue that keeps India from taking a larger role is obviously the lack of hands on deck. With miniscule delegations, India has to deal with countries like South Korea and Japan, not to speak of China, who come with ample bench strength.

The reality check for India was that despite everybody's best efforts, it will not make it as a permanent member of the UN Security Council anytime soon. The second reality check is that just being on the UNSC is not enough, if one is not a member of the P-5. While on the one hand, the UNSC is losing international relevance, it remains a club where the top decisions are only made by five powers. That's not about to change.

Court in Egypt orders retrial for Mubarak after appeal

   

Mubarak is seen here in court in June

 A court in Egypt has ordered a retrial for ex-President Hosni Mubarak after accepting an appeal against his life sentence over the deaths of protesters

Mubarak, 84, was overthrown in 2011 after mass street protests in the capital Cairo and other cities, and jailed in June.
Ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly will also be retried on the same charge.
Mubarak, who remains in custody, will also be retried on corruption charges for which he was acquitted in June.
He led Egypt for almost 30 years, surviving six assassination attempts, before the revolt against his rule.
Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was elected president in June.

'Same evidence'

Judge Ahmed Ali Abdel Rahman announced: "The court has ruled to accept the appeal filed by the defendants... and orders a retrial."
Mohamed Abdel Razek, one of Mubarak's lawyers, told Reuters news agency the retrial would be based on the same evidence used in the previous trial.

 

Hundreds of protesters were hurt during the revolt against Mubarak's rule

"No new evidence will be added to the case," he said.

At the request of prosecutors, Judge Abdel Rahman also overturned the acquittal of Mubarak, his sons Gamal and Alaa, and fugitive businessman Hussein Salem on corruption charges.
A new panel of judges could consider the former leader's health when issuing their verdict, Mubarak's lawyer added.
Since Mubarak was jailed in Cairo, there have been frequent reports about his ill-health.
He is currently in a military hospital after hurting himself in a fall in his prison bathroom last month.
On Saturday, the former leader was reportedly questioned over gifts worth millions of Egyptian pounds which he allegedly received from the country's flagship state newspaper, Al-Ahram.
He was ordered detained for 15 days pending the investigation, a judicial source told AFP.

'We love you'

Sunday's ruling was met with cries of "Long live justice!" by Mubarak supporters who held up his picture and hugged each other in the courtroom while dozens more outside shouted "We love you, president!", AFP news agency reports.
On 2 June, following a 10-month trial, Mubarak and Adly were convicted of conspiring in the killing of protesters.
The two men had faced possible death sentences over the killing of 850 protesters.
Families of victims were disappointed that Mubarak had not been convicted of ordering the killings, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool reports from Cairo.
There was also dismay among some that he had not been tried for abuses allegedly committed earlier in his rule.
At the same trial in June, Mubarak was acquitted of corruption.

Indian soldiers' deaths: Pak trying to internationalise issue, say diplomats

New Delhi: Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's call for a UN-led third party probe into the brutal killing of Indian soldiers has sparked off an angry response in India. Indian diplomats claim this is Pakistan's attempt to internationalise the issue.
Speaking to IBN18 Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai during a debate on CNN-IBN, former Indian diplomat KC Singh said, "Civilian governments tend to duck. When the military does something, then Pakistan puts civilian government in the front. In this case, if Hina Rabbani Khar really was in control, she shouldn't have gone back to the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which is provoking India."
KC Singh said, "This has been done to suck UN back in. How can a foreign minister make an argument like this when there is a convention providing means for settling it."

When former Pakistan minister Javed Jabbar questioned during the debate as to why did India want to avoid an independent third party mechanism evaluating the charges, KC Singh said, "There is 49 convention to which both are signatories."
Meanwhile, External Affairs minister Salman Khurshid admitted that the incident is a set back to normalisation of Indo Pak ties but also added that India should tread cautiously taking one step at a time. "I would imagine that this issue has very serious implications. But let's take it one step at a time. I don't think we should either let our guard down or get hysterical. Let's take one step at a time. Let's get a formal response from them and then we will see."
When asked whether India was ready to take it up at the UN International Convention, Khurshid said, "Because we are distressed and disturbed doesn't mean that we will give a go by to sort out positions that we have taken about not inviting multilateral interference. We have consistently maintained this in the bilateral situation between India and Pakistan."
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar denied Pakistan's hand in the killings of Indian soldiers. Speaking to CNN-IBN, she said Pakistan was ready for a third party to verify their claims if 'India doesn't believe in our enquiry'. She also told CNN-IBN that Pakistan had completed its investigation.
Pakistan Ambassador to India, Salman Bashir, also reiterated that the country did not violate ceasefire or cross the Line of Control (LoC) at any point of time. Pointing that a Pakistani post was attacked on January 6 wherein a soldier had died, Bashir said that though the matter was raised by the Foreign Ministry, Pakistan had refrained from going to the media.
Ex-Pak army general blames LeT for killing of two Indian soldiers
Reacting to India's protest, Former Pakistan Army General Talat Masood has denied the role of the army in the killing of Indian soldiers, saying "Jihadis like Lashkar-e-Toiba could be behind the attack".
Masood further claimed that the Pakistani army is not backing militants.
Clear evidence of Pakistan's involvement: Antony
There is clear evidence that Pakistani troops were involved in the killing of two Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir in an "inhuman" manner, Defence Minister AK Antony said Wednesday.
"That it has happened is real. There is clear evidence to it," Antony told reporters on the sidelines of a function at the Indian Statistical Institute here.
Antony's statements came in the wake of Pakistan denying its involvement in the latest killings.

Delhi Gang Rape Case

On 16 December 2012 a female physiotherapy intern was beaten and gang raped in Delhi. She died from her injuries thirteen days later while undergoing emergency treatment in Singapore for brain and gastrointestinal damage. After watching a film in South Delhi in the early evening, she and a male companion had boarded a bus, which was being driven as an unauthorized "joyride", thinking it was a public bus. The only other passengers on the bus were five men who were friends of the driver. All six, including the driver, were charged in connection with the assaults and have been arrested.
After the attack, she was taken to Safdarjang Hospital, received multiple surgeries, and was placed on mechanical ventilation. On 26 December, she was moved to Singapore for further treatment, where she died on 29 December.
The incident has generated international coverage and was condemned by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, who called on the Government of India and the Government of Delhi "to do everything in their power to take up radical reforms, ensure justice and reach out with robust public services to make women’s lives more safe and secure". Public protests took place in Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country.

Incident

The victims, a 23-year old woman and her male friend, were on their way home after watching the film Life of Pi in Saket in South Delhi. They boarded a chartered bus at Munirka for Dwarka that was being driven by joyriders at about 9:30 pm. The minor among the accused had called for passengers telling them that it was going towards their destination. The woman's friend became suspicious when the bus deviated from its normal route and its doors were shut. When he objected, the group of six men already on board taunted the couple, asking what they were doing alone at such a late hour.
When the male victim tried to intervene, he was beaten, gagged and knocked unconscious with an iron rod. The men dragged the woman to the rear of the bus, beating her with the rod and raping her while the bus driver continued to drive. Medical reports later suggested that the woman suffered serious injuries to her abdomen, intestines and genitals due to the assault, and doctors say that the damage indicates that a blunt object (suspected to be the iron rod) may have been used for penetration. That rod was later described by police as being a rusted, L-shaped implement of the type used as a wheel jack handle. According to the International Business Times, a police spokesman said that the youngest attacker "sexually abused his victim twice and ripped out her intestines with his bare hands." According to police reports the woman attempted to fight off her assailants, biting three of the attackers and leaving bite marks on the accused men. After the beatings and rape ended, the attackers threw both the victims from the moving bus. Then the accused allegedly tried to drive the bus over the woman but she was pulled aside by her male friend. One of the perpetrators later cleaned the vehicle. Police impounded it the next day.
The victims were found by a passerby on the road, partially clothed and unconscious, around 11 pm. The passerby phoned the Delhi Police, who took the couple to a hospital, where the female victim was given emergency treatment and placed on mechanical ventilation. She was found with only 5% of her intestines left inside of her. A doctor at the hospital later said that the "rod was inserted into her and it was pulled out with so much force that the act brought out her intestines also. That is probably the only thing that explains such severe damage to her intestines.”

Victims

The female victim was born and raised in Delhi while her parents were from a small village in the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh. Her father, who sold his agricultural land to educate her, works for a private company as a loader in Delhi.
Complying with Indian law, the real name of the victim was initially not released to the media, so pseudonyms were used for her by various media houses instead, including Jagruti ("awareness"), Amanat ("treasure"), Nirbhaya ("fearless one"), and Damini ("lightning", after the 1993 Hindi film Damini), although some media commentators have questioned the judgement of using pseudonyms for her.
The male victim is 28 years old, from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, and lives in Ber Sarai, New Delhi.
Delhi police registered a criminal case against the editor of a Delhi based tabloid for disclosing the female victim's identity, as such disclosure is an offence under section 228(A) of Indian Penal Code. Shashi Tharoor, union minister, suggested that if the parents had no objection, her identity could be made public, with a view to showing respect for her courageous response by naming future laws after her, but Tharoor's remark created controversy. Later, her father and brother said that "if her name is made public for this purpose, they have no objection to it" as well as "if the government names the revised anti-rape law after her, they have no objection and it would be an honor to her".

Treatment and death

On 19 December 2012, the woman's damaged intestines were resected due to risk of gangrene, and she received intravenous nutrition and medication. On 21 December 2012, the government appointed a committee of physicians to ensure she received the best medical care. By 25 December 2012, she remained intubated, on life support and in critical condition. Doctors stated that the internal bleeding had been controlled to an extent, but her increased bilirubin level (suggesting hepatic dysfunction or hemolysis) was a "serious cause of concern".
At a cabinet meeting chaired by Manmohan Singh on 26 December, the decision was made to fly her to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore for further care. Mount Elizabeth is a multi-organ transplant speciality hospital.
The decision to move the patient while she was still in critical condition has been criticised for being purely political. Doctors have questioned the need to transfer an ICU patient for organ transplants that were not scheduled for weeks or even months later.
Government sources indicate that the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, was personally behind the decision. Hours earlier, Union Minister P. Chidambaram had stated that the woman was not in a condition to move. Some reports suggest that the decision to shift was taken when it was already clear that she would not survive the next 48 hours.
During the six-hour flight by air-ambulance to Singapore, at 30,000 feet (9,100 m), the woman suddenly went into a near collapse. Her blood pressure dipped alarmingly, and doctors on the flight had to create an arterial line to stabilize her. That the doctors were able to perform this procedure in-flight was considered a medical feat. However, the victim never regained consciousness in Singapore.
On 28 December 2012, at 11 am (IST), her condition was "extremely critical" and the Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Elizabeth Hospital said that the woman suffered brain damage, pneumonia, abdominal infection, and that she was "fighting for her life." Her condition continued to deteriorate, and she died of a cerebral edema at 4:45 am on 29 December, Singapore Standard Time (2:15 am, 29 December, IST; 8:45 pm, 28 December, UTC).
Her body was cremated on 30 December 2012 in Delhi under high police security. The government denied access to the media and the public. The "fortification" of Delhi was criticised by many, including the main opposition party of India.

 

After the death

After the woman's death on 29 December, protests were staged all over India, including Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam. Many of the mourners carried candles, wore black dress and some pasted black cloth across their mouths.
The following day a large number of people staged protests near Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. There were minor clashes between some groups of protesters and the police; the police then shifted some protesters from the spot. One group of protesters also observed a one-day hunger strike at Jantar Mantar. All roads leading to India Gate were closed by police and areas where protesters had gathered during the previous week were out of bounds to the public. Some of the protesters drew graffiti and slogans on papers spread on the road, condemning the incident, demanding stricter laws and speedy judgement. The main opposition party of India, the BJP, renewed its demand for a special parliament session to discuss the case and to adopt stricter laws on crime against women.
New Year’s celebrations were scaled down to a large extent, with the Indian armed forces and some clubs and hotels in Delhi cancelling their new year parties.