Gujarat

Ahmedabad, Jan 18 (PTI) Congress leader Hardik Patel was arrested on Saturday night from Viramgam taluka in Gujarat's Ahmedabad district for failing to appear before a trial court here in a 2015 sedition case, hours after a warrant was issued against him.

Patel's arrest was confirmed by DCP Rajdeepsinh Zala (cyber crime).

Gandhinagar, Jan 10 (PTI) The Gujarat Legislative Assembly on Friday passed a resolution congratulating Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for securing the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

The resolution, which was opposed by Congress MLAs, claimed that persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were not offered Indian citizenship by earlier governments because of their "policy of appeasement".

Ahmedabad, Jan 8 (PTI) Banking services were partially hit in Gujarat on Wednesday due to the nationwide strike called by 10 central trade unions to protest against the Central government's "anti-labour" policies.

Transport services are absolutely normal across the state while offices of various business establishments also remained open.

Although trade unions claimed that factory production was hit in many parts of Gujarat, industrialists said it was business as usual.

Vadodara, Dec 26 (PTI) The central government has sent 11 teams to Gujarat to tackle the problem of locusts entering various districts of the state from Pakistan side and damaging crops, an official said on Thursday.

Massive swarms of locusts- which are mainly tropical grasshoppers with strong powers of flight - descended on Banaskantha, Mehsana, Kutch, Patan and Sabarkantha districts in the last few days and were destroying crops like mustard, castor, fennel, cumin, cotton, potato, wheat and jatropha.

Ahmedabad, Dec 19 (PTI) Police on Thursday baton- charged some people who gathered in Sardar Baug area here in Gujarat to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens.

A police official said they dispersed the protesters to maintain law and order as those who had gathered were not given permission to hold the protest.

The protest was organised by Left parties, including the CPI and CPI(M), and organisations associated with them.

Ahmedabad, Dec 17 (PTI) An accused in the 2002 Gulberg Society massacre case has been acquitted by a special court here for lack of evidence.

Ashish Pandey, the accused, was arrested on January 10, 2018, after being on the run for almost 16 years.

The case pertained to a mob attack on Gulberg Society here on February 28, 2002, in which 69 persons including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri were killed.

Ahmedabad, Dec 12 (PTI) Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Thursday directed state officials to seek the Centre's permission for sterlising leopards to control their population and prevent incidents of man-animal conflict in the state.

As per the data released in the state Assembly, as many as 14 persons were killed while 71 were injured in leopard attacks in Junagadh and Amreli districts alone in the last two years, an official said.

Gandhinagar, Dec 11 (PTI) The Nanavati Commission report on the 2002 Gujarat riots was tabled in the state Legislative Assembly here on Wednesday.

Minister of State for Home Pradeepsinh Jadeja tabled the report in the House, five years after it was submitted to the then state government.

Retired Justices G T Nanavati and Akshay Mehta had in 2014 submitted their final report on the 2002 riots - in which over 1,000 people, mainly of the minority community, were killed - to the then state chief minister Anandiben Patel.

Ahmedabad, Dec 8 (PTI) Ahmedabad crime branch on Sunday arrested two persons for the alleged gang-rape of a 14 -year-old girl in Vadodara, police said.

The accused, identified as Kishan Mathasuriya (28) and Jaso Solanki (21), were arrested from Tarsali locality of Vadodara where they lived, Special Commissioner of Police (Crime), Ahmedabad, Ajay Tomar said.

"The duo was arrested from Tarsali locality of Vadodara. Ahmedabad crime branch worked in co-ordination with the Vadodara city police to crack the case," Tomar told reporters.

Rajkot, Dec 7 (PTI) A man was held from Chotila in Gujarat's Surendranagar district for allegedly raping a woman on the pretext of offering her a job after assuming a fake identity online and blackmailing her, police said on Saturday.