9 dead as Sudan military rulers try to break up sit-in
Khartoum: Sudan's military rulers moved Monday to break up a weeks-long sit-in outside Khartoum's army headquarters, leaving at least nine protesters dead, a doctors' committee said as gunfire was heard echoing from the site.
Heavily armed security forces in pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns were deployed in large numbers all around the capital, while gunfire was heard from the protest site by an AFP journalist.
The United States and Britain called for an end to the crackdown on demonstrators, who want the generals behind the overthrow of veteran president Omar al-Bashir to hand over to civilian rule.
The death toll "from the massacre today has risen to nine martyrs," the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, which is close to the protesters, wrote on Facebook.
It also reported a "large number of critical casualties" and called for "urgent support" from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations to help the wounded.
The military council has denied multiple reports of their forces violently dispersing the sit-in in front of army headquarters.
"Now an attempt is taking place to disperse the sit-in at the headquarters of the people's armed forces by force by the military council," said the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), the group which spearheaded nationwide protests that started in December.
The SPA said it amounted to a "bloody massacre" and called on Sudanese to take part in "total civil disobedience" to topple the military council.
The doctors' committee said forces were also opening fire inside the city's East Nile Hospital and "chasing peaceful protesters". It said another hospital near the site of the sit-in was surrounded and volunteers were prevented from reaching it.
Rallies against Bashir's authoritarian, three-decade rule led to his ouster in April, but protesters have remained outside the army headquarters calling on the generals to cede power to a transitional authority.
Near the demonstration site, a witness living in the Burri neighbourhood said he could "hear the sound of gunfire and I see a plume of smoke rising from the area of the sit-in."
Another resident of the area, in east Khartoum, said he had seen forces in "police uniform" trying to expel the demonstrators. The military council "did not disperse the sit-in by force," their spokesman said.
"The tents are there, and the youth are moving freely," Shamseddine Kabbashi told Sky News Arabia. Britain's ambassador to Khartoum, Irfan Siddiq, said he had heard "heavy gunfire" from his residence.
"Extremely concerned by... reports that Sudanese security forces are attacking the protest sit-in site resulting in casualties. No excuse for any such attack. This. Must. Stop. Now," he wrote on Twitter.
The US embassy in Khartoum said "security forces' attacks against protesters and other civilians is wrong and must stop."
"Responsibility falls on the TMC. The TMC cannot responsibly lead the people of Sudan," it added referring to the transitional military council.
The Alliance for Freedom and Change, the umbrella group of the protest movement, urged "peaceful marches and rallies" nationwide and for barricades to be put up including in the capital.
Protesters had already set about building a brick barricade and had set tyres and tree trunks alight on Street 60 -- one of the main streets in the capital.
The SPA had said on Saturday that it had reason to believe the military council was "planning and working to end the peaceful sit-in at the headquarters with excessive force and violence" after three people were killed in incidents on the fringes of the demonstration last week.
Negotiations between protest leaders and the ruling military council have broken down, as the two sides have failed to agree on whether a planned transitional body would be headed by a civilian or a military figure.
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Broken relationships don't automatically amount to abetment of suicide: SC
New Delhi (PTI): Broken relationships, while emotionally distressing, do not automatically amount to abetment of suicide in the absence of intention leading to the criminal offence, the Supreme Court on Friday said.
The observations came from a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Ujjal Bhuyan in a judgement, which overturned the conviction of one Kamaruddin Dastagir Sanadi by the Karnataka High Court for the offences of cheating and abetment of suicide under the IPC.
"This is a case of a broken relationship, not criminal conduct," the judgment said.
Sanadi was initially charged under Sections 417 (cheating), 306 (abetment of suicide), and 376 (rape) of the IPC.
While the trial court acquitted him of all the charges, the Karnataka High Court, on the state's appeal, convicted him of cheating and abetment of suicide, sentencing him to five years imprisonment and imposing Rs 25,000 in fine.
According to the FIR registered at the mother's instance, her 21-year-old daughter was in love with the accused for the past eight years and died by suicide in August, 2007, after he refused to keep his promise to marry.
Writing a 17-page judgement, Justice Mithal analysed the two dying declarations of the woman and noted that neither was there any allegation of a physical relationship between the couple nor there was any intentional act leading to the suicide.
The judgement therefore underlined broken relationships were emotionally distressing, but did not automatically amount to criminal offences.
"Even in cases where the victim dies by suicide, which may be as a result of cruelty meted out to her, the courts have always held that discord and differences in domestic life are quite common in society and that the commission of such an offence largely depends upon the mental state of the victim," said the apex court.
The court further said, "Surely, until and unless some guilty intention on the part of the accused is established, it is ordinarily not possible to convict him for an offence under Section 306 IPC.”
The judgement said there was no evidence to suggest that the man instigated or provoked the woman to die by suicide and underscored a mere refusal to marry, even after a long relationship, did not constitute abetment.
