Maoist tactic during Latehar gunbattle evokes memories of acclaimed Bosnian war film

NEW DELHI: In an action reminiscent of a scene from Oscar-winning Bosnian war film "No Man's Land", Naxalites in Latehar district of Jharkhand put the body of a critically injured and incapacitated jawan over a landmine following a fierce battle between the Maoists and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Monday morning. On Tuesday evening, security forces along with local villagers found the jawan's body deep in Karmatiya jungles. However, as soon as the body was picked up, the mine exploded, killing three villagers and blasting the jawan to smithereens.

The death toll of forces in the encounter has now risen to 10, including a jawan from Jharkhand Jaguars. However, a senior CRPF official, alluding to the landmine blast, put the figures rather tragically. "We can confirm the death of 10 jawans. However, we have found only nine bodies so far," he told TOI.

The film No Man's Land had ended with an injured Bosnian soldier lying on the mine while still alive with no hope of rescue. Bosnian Serbs had put his body over a landmine while he was unconscious.

Sources said, in all probability the jawan bled to death while lying on the mine adding that even if he had gained consciousness and tried to move, he would have died. Following the blasts, the forces retreated on Tuesday night and the combing operation was restarted with reinforcements on Wednesday.

On the trail of senior CPI (Maoist) leader Arvindji, around 300 soldiers from CRPF and Jharkhand Jaguars were combing Karmatiya forests when they were ambushed by a contingent of around 200 Maoists — led by a woman — who were firing at them from hill top. The forces had taken the only narrow path that cut through the jungle and then opened into a plain with hills surrounding it. That the Maoists were in Army fatigues confounded matters. About 600 Maoists are suspected to be hiding in the jungles moving between Bihar and Jharkhand.

The government, however, is not perturbed by the deaths as the operation is part of a "fight-to-finish" war to flush out Maoists from Latehar and Chhattisgarh's Sukma districts. "Maoists have been considerably weakened as is evident from constantly decreasing incidents of Naxal violence (from 2,258 in 2009 to 1,412 in 2012). This is the season (before the onset of monsoons) to strike and we want to considerably weaken them through continuous offensive," said a home ministry official.

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.

Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.

How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, and float down to rest in the cervix, where Pap tests are performed. These cells are too rare to recognize under the microscope. But researchers from Johns Hopkins University used some sophisticated DNA testing on the Pap samples to uncover the evidence — gene mutations that show cancer is present.

In a pilot study, they analyzed Pap smears from 46 women who already were diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer. The new technique found all the endometrial cancers and 41 percent of the ovarian tumors, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

This is very early-stage research, and women shouldn't expect any change in their routine Paps. It will take years of additional testing to prove if the so-called PapGene technique really could work as a screening tool, used to spot cancer in women who thought they were healthy.

"Now the hard work begins," said Hopkins oncologist Dr. Luis Diaz, whose team is collecting hundreds of additional Pap samples for more study and is exploring ways to enhance the detection of ovarian cancer.

But if it ultimately pans out, "the neat part about this is, the patient won't feel anything different," and the Pap wouldn't be performed differently, Diaz added. The extra work would come in a lab.

The gene-based technique marks a new approach toward cancer screening, and specialists are watching closely.

"This is very encouraging, and it shows great potential," said American Cancer Society genetics expert Michael Melner.

"We are a long way from being able to see any impact on our patients," cautioned Dr. Shannon Westin of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She reviewed the research in an accompanying editorial, and said the ovarian cancer detection would need improvement if the test is to work.

But she noted that ovarian cancer has poor survival rates because it's rarely caught early. "If this screening test could identify ovarian cancer at an early stage, there would be a profound impact on patient outcomes and mortality," Westin said.

More than 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 die. Symptoms such as pain and bloating seldom are obvious until the cancer is more advanced, and numerous attempts at screening tests have failed.

Endometrial cancer affects about 47,000 women a year, and kills about 8,000. There is no screening test for it either, but most women are diagnosed early because of postmenopausal bleeding.

The Hopkins research piggybacks on one of the most successful cancer screening tools, the Pap, and a newer technology used along with it. With a standard Pap, a little brush scrapes off cells from the cervix, which are stored in a vial to examine for signs of cervical cancer. Today, many women's Paps undergo an additional DNA-based test to see if they harbor the HPV virus, which can spur cervical cancer.

So the Hopkins team, funded largely by cancer advocacy groups, decided to look for DNA evidence of other gynecologic tumors. It developed a method to rapidly screen the Pap samples for those mutations using standard genetics equipment that Diaz said wouldn't add much to the cost of a Pap-plus-HPV test. He said the technique could detect both early-stage and more advanced tumors. Importantly, tests of Paps from 14 healthy women turned up no false alarms.

The endometrial cancers may have been easier to find because cells from those tumors don't have as far to travel as ovarian cancer cells, Diaz said. Researchers will study whether inserting the Pap brush deeper, testing during different times of the menstrual cycle, or other factors might improve detection of ovarian cancer.

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Arias Kissed New Beau Day After Killing Boyfriend

Jodi Arias drove to the home of her new romantic interest, kissed him, and laughed with his friends just 24 hours after she stabbed and shot her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander to death, according to court testimony today.

Ryan Burns, whom Arias met in the spring of 2008, took the stand today at the start of the fourth day of testimony in the trial.

Arias, 32, is accused of murdering Alexander, 30, her one-time boyfriend whom she continued to sleep with occasionally. She claims he was abusive and she stabbed and shot him in self-defense. Alexander's body was riddled with 27 knife wounds including a slashed throat and a bullet wound to the head.

WATCH LIVE: Jodi Arias Murder Trial

Burns, who met Arias at a business conference, exchanged frequent long phone calls and online conversations with Arias before inviting her to come visit him in West Jordan, Utah, in June. Arias lived in California at the time.

Arias has confessed to driving to Alexander's home in Mesa, Ariz., where she killed him, and then to Burns' home in Utah. She arrived at Burns's home 24 hours after she was expected there, telling him that she got lost, drove the wrong way on a freeway for a few hours, fell asleep for awhile, and then got lost again, Burns testified today.

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

Jodi Arias Trial: Defense Claims Victim Was Sex Deviant Watch Video

Photos of Key Players and Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial

She never told him that she had confronted Alexander with a knife or gun and ended up killing him just hours before their date.

When she arrived, the pair quickly got physical, he testified.

"We went back to my house. We talked for awhile, and agreed that we were going to watch a movie. At some point we were talking and we kissed. Every time we started kissing it got a little more escalated. Our clothes never came off, but at some point she was kissing my neck, I was kissing hers, but our clothes never came off," he said.

Burns said that both he and Arias stopped kissing at the time, though they again became physically involved later in the evening when Arias climbed on top of Burns and began kissing him. Burns said that they stopped kissing because he did not want her to "regret the visit" because of her Mormon beliefs about sex.

He also told prosecutors upon questioning that Arias was physically strong.

"She's very fit," he said, describing their encounter when she climbed on top of him. "She's very strong. She has close to a six pack (of abs)."

Prosecutors likely asked about the strength of Arias because in testimony Tuesday Maricopa County medical examiner Kevin Horn said Alexander was stabbed so forcefully that the blade chipped his skull and his neck was cut all the way back to the spinal cord.

Burns, who is also a Mormon, said he noticed two bandages on Arias's hand when she arrived at his house, which she told him she got when a glass broke at her place of employment, Margaritaville.

During her visit, the pair also went to a business meeting and went out with Burns' friends where Burns described Arias as acting "shy" and a "little awkward."

"She was fine, she was laughing about simple little things like any other person. I never once felt like anything was wrong during the day. With a crowd she was a little awkward in social areas, but one on one she was very talkative and excitable," he said.

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U.S. does not rule out complete pullout from Afghanistan after 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration does not rule out a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after 2014, the White House said on Tuesday, just days before President Barack Obama is due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The comments by U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes were the first signal that, despite initial recommendations by the top military commander in Afghanistan to keep as many as 15,000 troops in the country, the final decision may be to remove everyone, as happened in Iraq in 2011.

Asked about consideration of a so-called zero-option once the NATO combat mission ends at the end of 2014, Rhodes said: "That would be an option that we would consider."

"Because again, the president does not view these negotiations as having a goal of keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan," he added, saying the objective was to ensure the training and equipping of Afghan forces and combating al Qaeda.

Rhodes, lowering expectations of any breakthrough in the talks with Karzai at the White House on Friday, said it would be months before a final decision is made on troop levels.

In Iraq, Obama decided to pull out all U.S. forces after failing in negotiations with the Iraqi government to secure immunity for any U.S. troops who would remain behind.

The Obama administration is also insisting on immunity for any U.S. troops that remain in Afghanistan, and that unsettled question will figure in this week's talks between Obama and Karzai and their aides.

Jeffrey Dressler, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War who favors keeping a larger presence in Afghanistan, questioned what battlefield conditions would allow for a complete U.S. pullout.

"I can't tell that they're doing that as a negotiating position ... or if it is a no-kidding option," Dressler said. "If you ask me, I don't see how zero troops is in the national security interest of the United States."

U.S. officials have said privately that the White House had asked for options to be developed for keeping between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in the country, a lower range than was put forward initially by General John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

Allen suggested keeping between 6,000 and 15,000 troops in Afghanistan.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and Phil Stewart; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Football: Bradford stun Villa to close on League Cup final

BRADFORD: Fourth-tier Bradford City continued their extraordinary League Cup journey by upsetting Premier League Aston Villa 3-1 in the first leg of their semi-final on Tuesday.

Nehki Wells, Rory McArdle and Carl McHugh scored for the hosts at a raucous Valley Parade, with Andreas Weimann replying for Villa, as the Yorkshire club closed on a first major final since their FA Cup success in 1911.

Bradford have already accounted for Wigan Athletic and Arsenal in this season's competition and are bidding to become the first team from the English fourth division to reach the League Cup final since Rochdale in 1962.

"They came with a really attacking line-up, but they left space and we passed the ball so well. They had chances, but so did we," Bradford manager Phil Parkinson told Sky Sports.

"We don't want to get carried away with our celebrations because we still have to go to Villa Park for the second leg, but the lads can enjoy themselves tonight."

Ahead of the return leg at Villa Park on January 22, Paul Lambert's Villa face the prospect of yet another disappointment in a sorry season that has seen them sink to within a point of the Premier League relegation zone.

"We're very disappointed we lost the game," said Lambert.

"You know what's coming with the set pieces. We never defended them well and that's what hurt us. It wasn't good enough."

Villa made four changes to the team that beat Ipswich Town 2-1 in the FA Cup on Saturday, with Christian Benteke recalled in place of Darren Bent, and the visitors were soon on the front foot.

Charles N'Zogbia twice tested home goalkeeper Matt Duke in the opening 12 minutes, while Benteke headed off-target from corners on two occasions.

Duke was called into action to save from Benteke after Fabian Delph threaded a pass down the inside-left channel, before Bradford took the lead from their first real sight of goal.

Zavon Hines' volley from a Bradford corner flicked off a Villa defender before landing in the path of Wells, and with defenders vainly appealing for offside, the 22-year-old Bermudan kept his cool to beat Shay Given.

Villa stirred, Duke pushing aside a 30-yarder from Benteke, but Bradford refused to retreat.

Hines had a shot saved by Given after jinking into the box from the right, while James Hanson saw a header cleared off the line by Delph and then headed wide at the near post.

Shortly before half-time, Duke boxed away a powerful shot from Gabriel Agbonlahor after a sinuous surge down the right by N'Zogbia, but the first half belonged to Bradford.

Duke thwarted Benteke and Agbonlahor again early in the second half, before Lambert turned to his bench and threw Bent into the fray.

The England striker was presented with a gilt-edged chance to equalise in the 67th minute when Duke could only scoop N'Zogbia's low shot into the air, but with the goal gaping, Bent mistimed his leap and headed over.

McArdle made it 2-0 with a powerful header from Gary Jones' left-wing corner in the 77th minute and Hanson came within inches of putting Bradford three goals up moments later, only for his header to hit the bar.

It looked set to be a telling let-off, as Weimann bravely beat Duke in the 82nd minute to give Villa hope, only for McHugh's 88th-minute bullet header to restore Bradford's two-goal lead and leave their fans dreaming of Wembley.

- AFP/jc

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2G scam: JPC summons former auditor RP Singh

NEW DELHI: The joint parliamentary committee (JPC) looking into the 2G spectrum scam that met on Tuesday decided to call former auditor RP Singh, who had alleged that he was forced to sign the controversial report of the government auditor ( CAG) on the 2G issue, attorney general G E Vahanvati and telecom secretary R Chandrashekhar as witnesses before the panel.

While the next meeting of the JPC has been scheduled for January 22, the members have decided to hold a JPC meeting every Tuesday after the next meeting so that the JPC report could be submitted to Parliament in the budget session, which begins by end-February.

A decision on calling finance minister P Chidambaram to appear before a parliamentary panel is also expected to be taken this month. The JPC appears to have entered its final few laps with members deciding "unanimously" to complete examination of witnesses by February 12 after which the drafting of the report would begin. Tuesday's meeting saw no decision on calling Chidambaram before the panel being taken. "To call somebody we do not need longer time. It is only a question of sending a notice and their coming before the committee," chairman P C Chacko said, while replying to a volley of questions on whether Chidambaram will be called as a witness, after Tuesday's meeting got over.

"Some members had written to the committee to ask R P Singh to appear again in view of some recent statements he had made," Chacko said. Vahanvati has also been asked to appear before the panel on the same day.

Chacko appeared to downplay BJP's demand for calling Chidambaram before the committee. "You know all what had happened in the past. There were demands, there were walkouts, there were coming backs," he said, adding that BJP members Harin Pathak and Ravi Shankar Prasad were present at the meeting on Tuesday. BJP member Yashwant Sinha, who has been most vocal on calling Chidambaram, was not present at the Tuesday's meeting. Sinha is caught up with developments in his home state Jharkhand, where a political crisis has erupted with the JMM withdrawing support to the BJP-led Arjun Munda government.

Members of the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India, which represents CDMA operators, appeared before the panel on Tuesday.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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CIA Nominee May Have 'Zero Dark Thirty' Problem

Navy SEALs are seen fighting through a dust storm in the new thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, "Zero Dark Thirty." (Columbia Pictures/AP Photo)

There’s only one White House staffer portrayed in the new movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” and it is someone described in the credits as “National Security Advisor.”

It’s a position that’s possibly filled in real life by John Brennan, the president’s counterterrorism advisor, who President Obama nominated Jan. 7 to be director of C.I.A.. The character in the movie, with references to the C.I.A’s involvement in the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that led the U.S. into war in Iraq, explains to a frustrated agency representative the difficulty of the president’s decision in acting on partial intelligence.

Spoiler alert: The president does ultimately act on that partial intelligence and Osama bin Laden is nabbed.

The character in real life – Brennan – has been opposed by some for his work at the C.I.A. under President Bush and the “enhanced interrogation” policies like waterboarding that also play a prominent role in the movie.

President Obama makes a cameo in the movie in the form of a “60 Minutes” interview in which he declares that, “America doesn’t torture, and I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture.”

That declaration is viewed, in the film, by a table full of CIA agents in Pakistan who have been involved in “enhanced” interrogations.

The U.S. used waterboarding on three al Qaeda detainees at secret prisons run by the CIA.  It  ended the practice of using secret prisons in September of 2006 under President Bush and in 2009 President Obama signed executive orders in his first days in office that banned of the use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

But that was after the techniques had already scuttled Brennan’s first chance to head the CIA.  Brennan wasn’t nominated to be CIA director back in the early days of the Obama administration, but he was widely considered to be a front-runner for the job. ABC’s Jake Tapper reported at the time that Brennan withdrew his name for consideration and most of the opposition came as a result of his work at the C.I.A. when those techniques were in use.

And there is indication that they will make his nomination difficult this year.

“I appreciate John Brennan’s long record of service to our nation, but I have many questions and concerns about his nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the last administration, as well as his public defense of those programs,” said Sen. John McCain after Brennan was nominated Monday.  ”I plan to examine this aspect of Mr. Brennan’s record very closely as I consider his nomination.”

The movie has certainly brought “enhanced interrogation” – it’s critics call it torture – back into the conversation about the war on terror, as ABC’s Lee Ferran reported Monday:

Last week three high-powered senators, Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) and 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain (R.-Ariz.), revealed they had written two letters to Morell in December demanding to know what impact the CIA may have had on the depiction of enhanced interrogation in the film and whether the agency “misled” the filmmakers into thinking the tactic was effective.

“As you know, the film depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees. The film then credits CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques as providing critical lead information on the courier that led to the [bin Laden] compound,” one letter says. “The CIA cannot be held accountable for how the Agency and its activities are portrayed in film, but we are nonetheless concerned, given the CIA’s cooperation with the filmmakers and the narrative’s consistency with past public misstatements by former senior CIA officials, that the filmmakers could have been misled by information they were provided by the CIA.”

Brennan, for his part, has said he opposed torture techniques, as Jake Tapper reported back in 2008 when Brennan removed his name from consideration for the C.I.A. job in 2008.

In a letter released to the media, apparently by Brennan or someone operating on Brennan’s behalf, the former CIA official wrote, “It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush Administration such as the preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, too include waterboarding. The fact that I was not involved in the decision making process for any of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored. Indeed, my criticism of these policies within government circles why I was twice considered for more senior-level positions in the current Administration only to be rebuffed by the White House.”

But Brennan did defend the practice in news media interviews when he described the actions of C.I.A. director George Tenet. This is what Brennan told CBS’s Harry Smith about enhanced interrogation in 2007: “The CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics, and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures….There have been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hard-core terrorists. It has saved lives. And let’s not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.”

Brennan has also spoken out in support of “rendition” – the practice where the U.S. government captures terror suspects in one country and relocates them to another. That’s a practice still employed by the Obama administration, according to a recent Washington Post investigation.

Related: Watch Martha Raddatz’s Nightline interview with ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Director Kathryn Bigelow:

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Five accused in India rape case charged in court

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of raping and murdering an Indian student were read the charges in a near-empty courtroom on Monday after the judge cleared out lawyers for bickering over whether the men deserved a defense.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died two weeks after being gang-raped and beaten on a moving bus in New Delhi, then thrown bleeding onto the street. Protests followed, along with a fierce public debate over police failure to stem rampant violence against women.

With popular anger simmering against the five men and a teenager accused in the case, most lawyers in the district where the trial will be held refuse to represent them.

Before the men arrived for a pre-trial hearing on Monday, heckling broke out in a chamber packed with jostling lawyers, journalists and members of the public after two of the lawyers, Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand, offered to defend the men.

"We are living in a modern society," declared Lal Sharma, defending his decision. "We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right ... to defend themselves."

One woman lawyer prodded V. K. Anand in the chest, saying: "I'll see how you can represent the accused."

Unable to restore order, presiding magistrate Namrita Aggarwal ordered everyone to leave except the prosecution, and set police to guard the entrance.

She said the trial would now be held behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of the case.

FACES COVERED

Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail and walking, their faces covered, through a metal detector into the South Delhi court building.

The court was across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before she was attacked on her way home.

Aggarwal gave the men copies of the charges, which include murder, rape and abduction, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.

Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the men have no lawyers.

If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange a defense, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.

Two of them, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, have offered to give evidence against the others - Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura - possibly in return for a lighter sentence.

Mohan, describing what he called a heinous crime, said: "The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty."

The case has sharpened long-standing anger against the government and police for a perceived failure to protect women.

A male friend who was assaulted with the woman on December 16 said on Friday that passers-by left her unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour and that, when police arrived, they spent a long time arguing about where to take them.

The woman lived for two weeks after her attack, dying in a Singapore hospital where she had been taken for treatment.

FAST-TRACK COURT

Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. The case is due to move later to another, fast-track court set up since the woman was attacked to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.

Legal experts say the lack of representation for the five men may give grounds for appeal if they are found guilty. Convictions in similar cases have often been overturned years later.

Some legal experts have also warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.

The sixth member of the group alleged to have lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.

The government is aiming to lower the age at which teenagers can be tried as adults, acknowledging public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.

The victim was identified by a British newspaper at the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.

Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them out of the glare of media in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.

The dead woman's father repeated on Monday that he wanted her identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.

"We don't want to hide her identity. There is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.

He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that the perpetrators be hanged.

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Pfeiffer)

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Football: Italy pledges action on football racists

MILAN: Italian interior minister Annamaria Cancellieri on Monday called for "more incisive" action to be taken to end the abuse of non-white players by racist fans.

Cancellieri was speaking after AC Milan's Kevin-Prince Boateng last week responded to racist chants by a small group of fans during a friendly against fourth division side Pro Patria by storming off the pitch.

He was followed by his team-mates, prompting a global outpouring of applause for the German-born Ghanaian international's stance against racist supporters.

Police have identified six Pro Patria supporters suspected of racist chanting and later Monday they were facing a five-year stadium ban.

One of the six suspects was identified by police thanks to television pictures as the Councillor for Sports and Youth Policy of the City of Corbetta near Milan, Riccardo Grittini.

All six were card-carrying fans of Pro Patria, one of whom worked in one of the club's bars.

According to ANSA news agency, all six have admitted being part of the crowd which verbally abused Milan's players but claim not to have uniquely targeted Milan's non-white players.

Sepp Blatter, the president of world football's governing body FIFA, hit out at Boateng's decision to force the suspension of last week's friendly, setting him at odds with AC Milan owner-president, Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Both FIFA and UEFA have previously warned against players walking off the pitch in protest, and Blatter said: "Walk off? No. I don't think that is the solution."

Cancellieri said Boateng's stance was a "nice gesture" but told Radio 24 Monday that a "more comprehensive strategy" needed to be put in place to avoid games being decided by "a minority of racists".

"This episode drew attention to a phenomenon which is unfortunately widespread and, as such, we have to be more serious about dealing with it," Cancellieri said.

At Rome's Olympic Stadium on Saturday some sections of Lazio's crowd were heard making monkey noises at Cagliari's Colombian striker Victor Ibarbo. The majority of the home crowd jeered and whistled to drown out the racists.

The regulations regarding the suspension of matches in such circumstances remain unclear and is a potential minefield for the football authorities, who would either have to replay matches or award victory to the team being victimised.

Cancellieri suggested that if "only a small group of fans" were involved in racist chanting games "should not be suspended".

"Fans involved in racist chanting should be hit very hard and must be removed from the stadium," she said. "If, however, the phenomenon is more widespread the game must be suspended by whoever is responsible for keeping public order."

There have been suggestions that police officials, who already attend football games in Italy's Serie A, could play a bigger role in deciding whether football games are suspended or not due to racist chanting.

Cancellieri said a meeting would be held between Italy's chief of police and the president of Serie A later this week to discuss ways to eliminate abusive fans from matches without necessarily forcing stoppages.

Berlusconi, meanwhile, said he disagreed with Blatter's appraisal of Boateng's gesture after vowing last week that his players would do the same again in a similar situation and calling the scenes at Pro Patria "disgraceful".

"I am of the opposite opinion. I congratulated the players for their courage in standing up to this abhorrent incident," he told Tgcom24, which is part of his Mediaset group.

"Football reflects society and should be something positive; teams should shown an example to the rest of society. What happened in the stadium should not be dismissed, it has done a lot of damage including to the reputation of Italy."

- AFP/jc

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