US student opened fire in school to take on bullies

A16-year-old boy armed with a shotgun opened fire in a California high school classroom on Thursday, critically wounding a fellow student before two staff members talked him into surrendering the weapon, authorities said.
    The accused gunman was arrested at Taft Union High School in inland Kern County following the shooting and investigators later said he felt he was being bullied by one or two students in the class, including the boy who was shot and seriously wounded.
    One student critically wounded by gunfire from the 12-gauge shotgun was airlifted to a nearby hospital, police said, and remained in critical but stable condition.
    “We did develop some information that leads us to believe the suspect felt he was being bullied or had been bullied by students,” Kern County Sheriff ’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said.
    Police said the gunman called out the name of another boy and shot at a group of students but missed. There were 28 students in the classroom at the time he opened fire, Pruitt said.
    Pruitt added that the investigators believe the gunman planned his attack on Wednesday evening and that the gun belonged to his 19-year-old brother. REUTERS

Mayhem in Charminar area over Akbar’s arrest Youth Clash With Cops After Prayers

Hyderabad: In what was a fall-out of the arrest of MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi, hundreds of youngsters emerged out of Mecca Masjid after the Friday prayers and indulged in massive stone-pelting. The cops responded with bursting teargas shells and caning the protesters. In the violence that rocked the Charminar area for about half an hour, 15 people were injured including six police personnel and a police vehicle extensively damaged. Although order was restored quickly, the heavy police deployment in all the sensitive areas of Old City remained in place.
    Apprehending some trouble, the police was present in full strength outside Mecca Masjid as the faithful gathered for the prayers a little before 12.30 pm. Fifty minutes later, the devout started dispersing and at the forefront emerged a group of about 50 boys, many of them minors, holding a portrait of Akbaruddin Owaisi and shouting slogans in his favour, they made their way towards Charminar. And even as the cops pushed them back, a big crowd that had gathered at the main gate of the masjid started pelting stones at the police.
    The stone pelting intensified after some protesters inside the masjid came across stones that were meant for ongoing construction work in the premises. In September last year, the Mecca Masjid authorities began construction of a sump and due to the ongoing work, the excavated debris including hundreds of stones was still lying around near the northeast corner of the masjid close to the second gate. This became god send for the protesters and armed with the huge supply, they began targeting the cops.Within minutes, the cops and others standing outside were subjected to a volley of stones that were hurled both from the entrance of the masjid as well as from inside. The police then swung into action and resorted to a mild lathicharge first which was followed by bursting of teargas shells. In all, 25 rounds of teargas shells were fired. The protesters inside the masjid got enraged when a stun grenade landed near the northeast gate inside the premises and resulted in the stone pelting getting further intensified.
    The standoff continued for well over half an hour. Finally, with the protesters unrelenting, the cops announced through the public address system that unless they dispersed, strict action would be taken against them. The stone-pelting slowly got reduced and the protesters finally dispersed from the Moghulpura and Shalibanda side.
Police get 5-day custody of Akbar
    Nirmal munsif magistrate K Ajesh Kumar on Friday granted the local police five days custody of MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi. Arrested for delivering hate speeches on January 8, Akbaruddin has been lodged in the Adilabad district jail and is on judicial remand till January 22. The Nirmal police had sought 7-day custody of the MLA but the magistrate granted them 5-day custody beginning Saturday. The cops can question Akbaruddin from 10 am to 5 pm every day till January 17 when he should be produced before the court.According to sources, the cops want to record Akbaruddin’s voice and match it with the videos in which the MLA is seen delivering the speech at a public meeting in Nirmal on December 22, 2012. A police team led by Nirmal rural circle inspector A Raju will question Akbaruddin in the Armed Reserve police headquarters in Adilabad town. P4 10 picked up for rioting
Hyderabad: Of the 15 persons injured, six were police personnel, two from the media, and the remaining were protesters and civilians caught in the crossfire. At least 10 protesters were rounded up while one police Rakshak vehicle was damaged by the rampaging mob and police sources said those who were detained are likely to be arrested. The injured were taken to Osmania General Hospital and Esra Hospital in Moghulpura and discharged after being treated for minor injuries.
    Around 2 pm, after normalcy was restored, the police allowed movement of vehicular traffic between Machli Kaman and Mecca Masjid.
    Meanwhile, even as the violence began, shop keepers from Charminar to Moghulpura, Gulzar Houz, Pathargatti and Madina downed shutters and reopened only after 3 pm much after normalcy was restored. As a precautionary measure, the controversial Bhagyalakhsmi temple abutting Charminar was completely sealed and rendered invisible with the help of huge barricades. The huge police presence in Old City will remain till Saturday, officials said.

Naxals plant IED in jawan’s belly

Deeptiman Tiwary & Alok K N Mishra TNN

New Delhi/Ranchi: Maoists, who implanted a tumour-sized bomb in the body of a slain CRPF jawan in Jharkhand, might not have seen Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar winning film Hurt Locker, but the similarities are uncanny. The audacious tactic poses a deadly challenge to anti-Naxal operations.
    The embedding of a 2.75-kg improvised explosive device (IED) in the jawan’s body, probably aimed at blowing up the hospital where the jawan’s autopsy was to be conducted, replicates a chilling moment from the 2008 film.
    In the film, the madness of war comes home to a bomb disposal expert, played by Jeremy Renner, when during a raid on a warehouse he discovers the body of a football-loving Iraqi boy nicknamed “Beckham”. He finds the body on a table in the process of being made into a bomb.
    The circuitry of the IED planted in the jawan, killed during an anti-Naxal operation that turned into an ambush in Jharkhand’s Latehar area, was wired to trigger a blast as soon as doctors performing the postmortem opened the abdomen.
    Dr Binay Kumar of Ranchi Institute of Medical Sciences’ said: “Apart from the IED, detonator batteries and a small solar panel were extracted from the abdomen.” He said the jawan had received several bullet injuries. “The IED weighed 2.75 kg with its container,” Kumar, who conducted the autopsy, said.
    Over 20 bomb disposal squad members took more than four hours to defuse the bomb. Constable Babulal Patel of CRPF’s 112 battalion hailed from the Nababganj locality in Allahabad.
    This was the second surprise Naxals served up after recently planting a bomb beneath the body of another dead CRPF jawan.That was a lift from another Oscar winning film No Man’s Land in which an injured soldier becomes a living booby trap. That mine had exploded the moment a CRPF search party, including local villagers, shifted the body killing three villagers.
    Whether inspired by these classics on the Iraq and Bosnia conflicts or just a product of indigenous cunning, the ingenious Maoist tactics show that security forces need to face up to a determined enemy that might have taken a few hard blows but will find new ways to strike back. CRPF, local police raid plans leaked
New Delhi/ Latehar: The Latehar operation was a setback to the CRPF and local police as plans were leaked and a raid turned into a deadly ambush. In recent months, Maoists haven’t indulged in big, sensational strikes on civilian or armed establishments, choosing to target “informers” selectively.
    Still, the Jharkhand operation was a rare showdown. While the security forces took casualties, they inflicted some on the Maoists as well. The bullet-riddled body of Babulal Patel, 29, was found on Wednesday evening a few metres away from the site of explosion. “At that time itself we found it suspicious as we saw that his abdomen had been cut open horizontally and then stitched back,” a senior CRPF official said. The body was taken to Ranchi the same evening where it was put through an Xray revealing the bomb even as doctors refused to conduct the post-mortem. A bomb squad took about an hour to defuse the bomb. “It had to be done carefully as any pressure could make the bomb explode. The stitches were opened with awater gun which exposed the bomb kept in a plastic container and wrapped in polythene. Its power supply was cut using claws,” said an official.
    The gelatin stick bomb was checked again to ensure it was not fitted with a backup circuit. Help from NSG was sought over the phone, said sources. An analysis of the operation that began on Monday morning with an encounter between 300 CRPF men and a large group of Maoists in Karmatiya forests has revealed that information on the movement of troops was leaked and the Maoists were waiting atop hills to ambush the forces.
    CRPF managed to prevent a repeat of the massacre at Chintalnar in Chhattisgarh where 76 personnel were killed. “The village is behind an 18-km-long ridge while there are plains around it. To prevent a Chintalnar, while one contingent moved towards the plains, another started scaling the hills. It was this contingent that was fired upon leading to five deaths,” an official said.

Akbar’s hate speech lands TV channels in the dock

Hyderabad: Though the Adilabad police had arrested MIM MLA Akbaruddin first in relation to the ‘hate speech’ he had delivered in Nirmal, their Hyderabad counterparts, who also booked a case against the Chandrayangutta MLA, are a step ahead of them in gathering evidence. On Thursday, the Osmania Univesity (OU) police issued notices to four local TV channels for airing Akbar’s Nizamabad and Nirmal speeches.
    On the directions of a local court, the OU police had earlier this week booked a case against Akbaruddin under section 153-A (Promoting enmity between different groups) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for his hate speeches in Nirmal and Nizamabad in December, 2012. As part of the investigation, the OU police on Thursday issued notices to managing directors of 4TV, Ruby TV, Urdu TV and MQ TV under section 91/ 160 of the CrPC, asking them to produce material evidence in relation to the speeches delivered by the MIM MLA and also ensure camera persons and reporters, who had covered the event, to appear before the investigating officer to record their statement.
    The OU police have specifically asked managements of these TV channels to get a copy of the licence issued to them by the competent authority. They have also asked the TV channels to produce unedited video footage of Akbaruddin’s speeches aired live by them.
    According to sources, police would first verify licence of the TV channels and then record statements of the reporters and camera crew who had covered public meetings in
Nirmal and Nizamabad.“The reporters and cameramen can be made witnesses,” an OU police officer said.
    The statements of these persons along with their cell phone location on the day of the event plus video footage could be used as solid evidence to prove that Akbaruddin had indeed delivered those hate speeches’, the source said. TV channels likely to be booked
Hyderabad: According to a senior police officer, cases could also be booked against the TV channels for airing such inflammatory speeches under section 505 (False statement, rumour, etc, circulated with intent to cause mutiny or offence against public peace or ill will among difference classes) of the Indian Penal Code and The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act. Subsequently, police are also planning to record the statements of gunmen and driver of the bullet-proof vehicle provided to Akbaruddin to substantiate evidence against him.
    After recording the statements of these TV channel employees and obtaining unedited footage, the OU police are planning to file a Prisoner Transit (PT) warrant in court to arrest Akbaruddin.

Study: Sweet and diet drinks could trigger depression

Washington: Are you a regular sweet drinks addict? If yes, so its a time to rethink about your habit as new research claims that sweetened beverages could lead to increased risk of depression in adults.
    “Sweetened beverages, like coffee and tea — and may have important mental — health consequences,” said study author Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, with the National Institutes of Health in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
    The study which involved 263,925 people between the ages of 50 and 71 at enrolment were evaluated on their consumption of drinks such as soda, tea, fruit punch and coffee from 1995 to 1996. About 10 years later, researchers asked the participants whether they had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000. Surprisingly, a total of 11,311 depression diagnoses were made. PTI
‘Superfoods raise risk of cancer’
    Popular anti-cancer superfoods and supplements do not prevent the disease and may even cause it, according to a leading US scientist. James Watson said the cure for many cancers will remain elusive unless scientists rethink the role of antioxidants, which include vitamin pills and food such as blueberries and broccoli. PTI