Execution order :

NEW DELHI: An Indian court on Tuesday ordered the execution of Mohammed Afzal, convicted for masterminding a bloody attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, court officials said. Afzal will be hanged at 6:00 am on October 20 in the maximum-security Tihar prison in the Indian capital, a lower court ordered. Last month, the Supreme Court had endorsed the capital punishment handed down to Afzal by the Delhi High Court, but it reduced the death sentence of another convict, Shaukat Hussain Guru, to 10 years of imprisonment. Fourteen people including security personnel and five Islamic militants were killed in the attack, which India said was carried out on the behest of rival Pakistan. — AFP

Rains kill 20 in Bihar :

PATNA: More than 20 people have died in rain-lashed Bihar since last week with most deaths occurring due to collapse of walls or houses, while the meteorological department here Tuesday predicted no more heavy downpours. Most rivers including the Ganga, Punpun, Bagmati, Gandak, Kosi, Mahananda and Adhwara were maintaining a rising trend because of continuous rains. — HNS

Mine blast kills one :

COLOMBO: An airman was killed and another wounded in northern Sri Lanka on Tuesday when a mine blew up as they underwent routine physical training exercises, the defence ministry said. The Claymore mine exploded in the district of Vavuniya, the ministry said, blaming the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Suspected LTTE gunmen also shot dead a policeman on Monday in the eastern district of Ampara, the ministry added. — AFP

Bird flu death :

BANGKOK: A 59-year-old farmer has died of bird flu in northeastern Thailand, bringing the country’s death toll from the H5N1 virus this year to three, the kingdom’s top health officials said. The victim had touched dead fowl with his bare hands, Thawat Sunthrajarn, director general of the disease control department said, adding the farmer had also fed medicine to sick birds with his own hands. “He did not realize he could get the virus by doing this,” Thawat said, adding most of the farmer’s 40 birds were bred for cockfighting, a popular pastime in Asia. — AFP

Mamata assaulted :

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she feared for her honour in West Bengal.”I will leave Bengal. For the first time they attacked my izzat (honour). I am scared of my honour now. They are playing with my honour,” Banerjee said, virtually bringing molestation charges against the government as she broke down before Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi who consoled the Trinamool chief and slammed West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya for the police baton charge on the party workers at Singur in Hooghly district in the wee hours Tuesday. Banerjee had suffered injuries too and, in a tattered sari, joined the demonstration. — HNS

Bid to end turmoil :

TAIPEI: Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang plans to meet with political leaders to discuss ways of ending the turmoil caused by protests demanding the resignation of Taiwan’s president, a statement said on Tuesday. Su “will listen to voices from the leaders in various fields and look forward to discussing with them how to resolve the current difficult situations,” a cabinet statement quoted him as saying. — AFP