Fresh clashes have erupted in Jammu and Kashmir’s eastern district of Kishtwar, leaving three persons injured on Saturday, a day after Army was called out in the main town of the volatile hilly region which had witnessed worst incidents of communal violence on Friday. Two persons were killed and scores injured in the day-long mayhem which had also left behind a trail of burned properties. Curfew was imposed in Rajouri too.

An appeal for a shutdown against Friday’s violent incidents in the town of Kishtwar issued by separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani evoked no or very little response in Kashmir Valley on Saturday.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is all set to register a separate case to probe alleged kickbacks into the `3,6000 crore AgustaWestland copter deal. The agency, sources said, is likely to register a case by the end of this month.

Dawood Ibrahim, a prime accused in the 1993 Mumbai bombings, has been identified in the fresh intercepts available with the Delhi police talking to his close aide Chhota Shakeel and others in Dubai while sitting in Pakistan as late as April this year.

The much-anticipated meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is still a mystery as the two sides try to come out of the recent Line of Control (LoC) skirmishes that have threatened to suspend the peace process between the two nuclear neighbours.

Referring to the Malegaon blasts, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday said “three or four years ago in a speech, I had publicly told R.R. Patil that I couldn’t believe that on a Friday, Muslims will place a bomb in a masjid. I told him that the police’s line of investigation was wrong. Mr Patil then sent Hemant Karkare to meet me and I told him about my suspicions.”

Declaring the ongoing indefinite bandh in Darjeeling as “illegal and unconstitutional”, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday gave a 72-hour deadline to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to withdraw it or face the music.

The Army on Saturday said that Pakistani troops violated November 2003 ceasefire yet again by opening fire towards Indian forwards posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch sector on Friday night.

With Narendra Modi at the helm of affairs, the BJP is planning to focus on the majority community. The BJP’s proposed “vision document” for the minority community is merely aimed to divide Muslim votes. “We don’t want consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the Congress. We want the Muslim votebank to remain divided among the secular parties,” a BJP strategist said.

The Indian security establishment has trashed Pakistan’s claim that Dawood Ibrahim, one of India’s most wanted terrorists, has left Pakistan which has been providing him a “safe haven” for decades.