India detains hundreds, cancels more than 300 trains after deadly ‘godman’ protests

PANCHKULA, India (Reuters) - Indian authorities have arrested hundreds of people and cancelled more than 300 trains passing through two northern states after at least 29 people were killed in violent protests following the conviction of a self-styled ‘godman’.

Security forces were on “standby” outside the spiritual leader’s headquarters where some 10,000 followers remained holed up, the Director General of Police in Haryana state, Baljit Singh Sandhu, told India Today news station.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the head of a social welfare and spiritual group with a wide following in Punjab and Haryana states, was found guilty on Friday of raping two followers in a case dating back to 2002 at the headquarters of his Dera Sacha Sauda group in the northern town of Sirsa.

Supporters rampaged in response, attacking railway stations, petrol stations and television vans in towns across the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, witnesses said.

At least 29 people were killed in Panchkula town where the court returned its verdict on Singh and more than 200 people were injured, mainly in Haryana state.

The protests, about 250 km (155 miles) from the Indian capital New Delhi, was one of the biggest this year related to a ‘godman’ spiritual leader.

About 524 people had been arrested, Ram Niwas, a top Haryana administrator, told Reuters.

Authorities said they were bracing for Singh’s sentencing on Monday when there could be more violence.

A spokesman for the northern division of Indian Railways said 340 trains have been cancelled on Saturday as a precaution. TAL AFAR, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces raised the national flag yesterday in the heart of Tal Afar, Islamic State’s stronghold in the country’s northwest, and said they were poised to take full control of the city after a week-long offensive.

Tal Afar is the latest objective in the US-backed war on the jihadist group following the recapture in July of Mosul, where it declared its selfproclaimed caliphate over parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Tal Afar was cut off from the rest of IS-held territory in June and the campaign to recapture it started on Aug. 20, when up to 2,000 militants were believed to be defending it against around 50,000 attackers, according to western military sources.

“Tal Afar city is about to fall completely into the hands of our forces, only five per cent remains” under Islamic State control, an Iraqi military spokesman told Reuters.

Elite forces had liberated the heart of the city “and raised the national flag on top of the citadel building,” a statement from the Iraqi joint operations command said.

Much of the Ottoman-era building was destroyed by the militants in 2014.

Such a quick collapse of Islamic State in the city, which has been a breeding ground for jihadist groups, would confirm Iraqi military reports that the militants lack command and control structures west of Mosul.

A Reuters visuals team in Tal Afar said fighting had eased yesterday, with just occasional artillery rounds heard. There was no sign of civilians in two neighborhoods it visited.