New Delhi: Muslim parties in the Ayodhya land dispute case on Friday issued a statement expressing shock over reports suggesting that the Sunni Waqf Board was withdrawing from the case.

Advocate Eijaz Maqbool, who represented key Muslim litigant M Siddiq in the Ayodhya land dispute, said all Muslim parties, except the Sunni Waqf Board, have rejected settlement as the main Hindu parties to the dispute were not part of the mediation process and its purported settlement.

The Muslim parties, except the Sunni Waqf Board, issued a clarificatory statement to say they don't accept the Supreme Court appointed mediation panel's proposal on the purported settlement to amicably resolve the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid land dispute.

On October 16, when a five judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi reserved its verdict in the case after 40-days of hearing, the mediation panel's report was also reportedly submitted to the court.

The three-member mediation panel is headed by former apex court judge Justice F M I Kalifulla. According to sources close to the mediation panel, the report filed in a sealed cover is a "sort of a settlement" between the Hindu and the Muslim parties.

The sources said the Sunni Waqf Board, Nirvani Akhada, Nirmohi Akhada, Ram Janmabhoomi Punruddhar Samiti and some other Hindu parties are in favour of settling the contentious land dispute. It was also purportedly said the Sunni Waqf Board was willing to withdraw the law suit as part of a compromised formula.

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Bengaluru (PTI): Two men were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two minor girls, recording the acts on mobile phones and uploading the videos online as child sexual abuse material, police said on Thursday. 

The accused have been identified as Kiran Kumar (29), hailing from Chitradurga district, and Aditya M K (20), hailing from Shivamogga district, they said. 

A probe was initiated after information was received from the NCRP portal regarding a suspected instance of creation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) for online dissemination, police said. 

Accordingly, a case was registered at Kaggalipura Police Station under relevant sections of the IT Act on May 10, they added.

Investigation revealed that two minor girl victims were exploited and videos were created and uploaded to the internet. The child victims have subsequently recorded their statements as per procedure and further necessary legal steps have been taken, Pronab Mohanty Director General of Police, Cyber Command, said in a statement.

Based on the statements of the victims, the accused persons, who allegedly assaulted the minors, recorded the acts on mobile phones and uploaded the videos online, were arrested, he said.

Following the probe, sections 65(2) (rape) and 70 (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with relevant sections of the POCSO Act, have been added to the FIR, police said.

Officials collected relevant information and on May 12, arrested the accused persons and seized three mobile phones belonging to them, in which the videos had allegedly been recorded, he said.

The accused were later produced before the court and taken into police custody for further investigation, he added.

According to him, in CSAM cases, police usually apprehend offenders who have downloaded such content or have kept them in their possession after obtaining them from elsewhere, usually the internet. 

"The present case is one of the very few instances where content creators and uploaders have been apprehended," Mohanty added.