Terrorism condemned

Strongly pitching for “zero-tolerance” towards terrorism, India and Japan agreed to strengthen cooperation against terror groups like Al-Qaida and Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe asked Islamabad to bring to book the perpetrators of terror strikes, including those involved in the Mumbai (2008) and Pathankot (2016) attacks, a joint statement said. The two leaders also condemned in the “strongest terms” the growing menace of terrorism and violent extremism, it said.

PTI

Rajasthan’s home minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, on Thursday defended the clean chit given by the state police to the six people who had been named by Haryana dairy farmer Pehlu Khan before he died of injuries sustained in an attack by cow vigilantes.

HT spoke to Om Yadav, one of the six people ‘acquitted’ by the CID-CB, shortly after he learned that his name would soon be struck off the FIR. “I got the good news this morning,” he said. “My family, relatives and I suffered a lot for close to six months but truth prevailed.”

A day after HT reported that the CID-CB of Rajasthan police had cleared six people named in Khan’s statement, Kataria backed the police. “They must have concluded this on the basis of evidence and witnesses. I will not say anything on their findings,” he said.

Head of CID-CB Pankaj Kumar Singh said the probe had found six people named in the FIR were not involved. “Khan named eight people; we found two of them were involved in the attack. The other six were not present there,” he claimed.