Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior CBI official told IANS that the priest, Varghese Thekekara, who is the manager of the Angamali diocese of the Syrian Jacobite church, has been named the first accused in the murder of Malankara Varghese in December 2002.

The CBI filed teh charge sheet at the Ernakulam chief judicial magistrate's court.

'Right now the priest is not in custody. Now the court will look into the matter,' the official said.

On investigation, the CBI's Chennai unit, which began in September 2007, accused 19 people of the murder and said it was possibly due to the long standing feud between the Malankara Orthodox Church, headquartered in Kottayam, and the Syrian Jacobite Church, which has its headquarters in Ernakulam district.

The century-old feud between the two churches has always been a bother for successive governments in the state and on several occasions in the past feuds between the followers of the two churches have ended in brawls.

Initially, the murder of Varghese was considered a crime conducted by his business rivals, but five long years of probe by the state police's crime branch yielded nothing conclusive.

Varghese's widow then approached the Kerala High Court and in September 2007, the court asked the CBI to launch the probe.

The truth came out last month when the CBI arrested Joy Varghese alias Cement Joy, who confessed he had hired the criminals who committed the murder for a large sum of money.

Alappuzha District Collector P.Venugopal, who initiated talks between the school management, the girl's parents and other locals, told IANS that the issue has been settled.

'The school management accepted their wrong-doing. The principal, Mary Jessinda, has been suspended and an inquiry ordered,' Venugopal said.

Nabala, a Class 10 student of the Believers' Church English Medium School at Gurupuram, was issued a transfer certificate April 26 after she refused to stop wearing the 'maftha' (headscarf) to the school. She had been a student of the school from the kindergarten.

Her father Nazir Musaliar, an imam at a madrassa, took up the issue. Many local people also extended support to the girl.

An inquiry by the district's deputy director of education, early this week, found that the complaint was true.

Venugopal said the school management has agreed to take back Nabala.

'But the problem is that she is not willing to return. So I have decided that I myself will take steps to see that she is admitted to a CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) school here itself,' he said.

The state Human Rights Commission has also taken up this issue and is awaiting a report from the principal secretary of general education.

Education Minister M.A.Baby has condemned the incident and since the school follows the CBSE syllabus, the matter has been reported to the board headquarters in New Delhi.

The celebrations which went on till late Thursday night and continued in some areas even before the Friday namaaz, took many other citizens by surprise.

'We are not celebrating like Muslims - we are Indians and this is India's victory over a Pakistani 'shaitaan' - and he deserved nothing less than the death penalty,' said Shabbir S., the trustee of a hospital in south Mumbai who lit firecrackers worth nearly Rs.10,000 soon after the sentence was pronounced Thursday.

Many Muslims in the city also happily distributed sweets, especially pedas - the symbolic sweetmeat distributed for all auspicious occasions or glad tidings - to friends, neighbours and even people on the streets.

Sayed Zafar, a businessman, said there were news reports suggesting a shortage of hangmen in India.

'No problems at all. I am ready to become a hangman and I shall hang Kasab - it will give me great satisfaction - if the government permits,' Zafar told IANS.

A Muslim social worker and businessman, Afzal Sheikh, said the judgment should come as an eye-opener to the whole world about the majesty of the Indian democracy.

'Now that India has done what it promised, will the US break relations with Pakistan and stop supporting that country?' Sheikh demanded.

The Raza Academy in south Mumbai, a forum of prominent Muslim intellecturals, was also at the forefront of celebrations. Its office-bearers burst fire crackers and distributed sweets.

Some families - like the Kachwalas in Kandivli - offered a 'namaaz' of thanksgiving after the judgment was pronounced.

'This one human being is responsible for taking so many innocent lives that he cannot be a Muslim, and no terrorist has any religion - they are only terrorists and must go to hell,' said Abdullah Kachwala.

Mohammed Taufiq Shaikh, a humble tea-vendor at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) where Kasab and his associate Abu Ismail killed many people, perhaps celebrated the most. He distributed tea free of cost to all commuters who cared to take it Thursday.

He had the maximum reason to be happy - he was after all a victim of one of the bullets fired by Kasab and survived. Reason enough to distribute free tea...!!

Both Shia and Sunni scholars expressed their vehement condemnation of Kasab's role in the 60-hour mayhem that killed 166 people.

'Terrorism has no place in Islam. Therefore, anyone perpetrating terrorist activities deserves the severest punishment,' observed well-known Shia scholar and Lucknow's Imam-e-Juma Maulana Kalbe Jawaad.

He said Islam not only denounces all forms of terrorism but even abhors any kind of oppression, injury or atrocities on the human race.

All India Shia Personal Law Board secretary Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi said: 'Kasab should be hanged without any delay as that alone would drive home the point that those waging war against India will not go scot free and would receive deterrent punishment.'

'We ought to make it loud and clear to all and sundry that India knows how to deal with all those who indulge in terrorism or abet terrorist activities,' he added.

Maulana Khalid Rasheed, popular Sunni cleric and head of Lucknow's oldest Islamic seminary, Firangi Mahal, went to the extent of holding an assembly of his students to hail the Mumbai special court's judgment awarding death sentence to Kasab.

Students dressed in white kurta-pyjamas and matching skullcaps held placards condemning Kasab and hailing the judgment outside the madrassa run by the seminary. Raising pro-India patriotic slogans, they also exchanged sweets at the end of the assembly.

'Islam condemns terrorism in the harshest of words. The verdict has further strengthened everyone's faith in the Indian judiciary,' the Maulana said.

'The judgment has also sent the message loud and clear that the enemies of the nation would eventually go to the gallows,' he added.

Special Judge M.L. Tahaliyani Thursday gave Kasab death sentence on four counts -- waging war against India, murder, conspiracy to commit murder and indulging in terrorist activities.

Both Shia and Sunni scholars expressed their vehement condemnation of Kasab's role in the 60-hour mayhem unleashed by him and nine other Pakistani terrorists that killed 166 people Nov 26-28, 2008.

'Terrorism has no place in Islam. Therefore, anyone perpetrating terrorist activities deserves the severest punishment,' observed well-known Shia scholar and Lucknow's Imam-e-Juma Maulana Kalbe Jawaad.

He said Islam not only denounces all forms of terrorism but even abhors any kind of oppression, injury or atrocities on the human race.

All India Shia Personal Law Board secretary Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi said: 'Kasab should be hanged without any delay as that alone would drive home the point that those waging war against India will not go scot free and would receive deterrent punishment.'

'We ought to make it loud and clear to all and sundry that India knows how to deal with all those who indulge in terrorism or abet terrorist activities,' he added.

Maulana Khalid Rasheed, popular Sunni cleric and head of Lucknow's oldest Islamic seminary, Firangi Mahal, went to the extent of holding an assembly of his students to hail the Mumbai special court's judgment awarding death sentence to Kasab.

Students dressed in white kurta-pyjamas and matching skullcaps held placards condemning Kasab and hailing the judgment outside the madrassa run by the seminary. Raising pro-India patriotic slogans, they also exchanged sweets at the end of the assembly.

'Islam condemns terrorism in the harshest of words. The verdict has further strengthened everyone's faith in the Indian judiciary,' the Maulana said.

'The judgment has also sent the message loud and clear that the enemies of the nation would eventually go to the gallows,' he added.

Special Judge M.L. Tahaliyani Thursday gave Kasab death sentence on four counts -- waging war against India, murder, conspiracy to commit murder and indulging in terrorist activities.

The Assiniboine Credit Union (ACU), based in the city of Winnipeg, has launched what it calls the Islamic Mortgage Programme to help devout Muslims fulfill their dream of owning a home. Following strict Islamic laws which condemn interest on loans as usury, the credit union will not charge any interest from the borrowers.

Under the Islamic Mortgage Programme, the credit union will enter into an agreement with the borrowers to own a share in the property bought with its money.

Rather than charge interest from the borrowers, the credit union will sell its share of the property over a period of time agreed upon by the two parties. During the period of the contract, both the credit union and the family will co-own the home.

'During this time, the family has exclusive rights to live in the home and in exchange they agree to pay ACU a profit. At the end of the contract, the Muslim family is the sole owner of the home,'' according to the credit union.

Since devout Muslims in Canada don't take out traditional bank mortgage, a spokesperson for the credit union justified the Islamic Mortgage Programme, saying, 'It was an issue of financial exclusion for the Muslim community.''

Of about one million Muslims in Canada, 13,000 live in Winnipeg which is the capital of Manitoba province.

The Islamic Mortgage Programme assumes significance as the community is set to triple in population in the next two decades. The Islamic Mortgage Programme is the first such step under Muslim laws in Canada.

In 2005, an attempt was made to introduce a motion in the assembly of French-speaking Quebec province to allow Sharia laws for Muslims alongside the mainstream legal system. But the motion was rejected.

Five people have been detained for attacking Dayalu Suna, the pastor, late Thursday at the church in Kalyanpur, some 80 km from Lucknow.

'Those who attacked the pastor should have approached us if they believed he indulged in forceful conversions. Anyhow, we have initiated an enquiry into the case to verify the charges made by locals against the pastor,' Inspector M. Qazi said.

'Security in Kalyanpur area, particularly around the church, has also been strengthened,' he added.

According to the police, the mob also tried to attack some students and a teacher of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, who had come to the church to attend a function.

However, they were rescued by the timely intervention of police.

The 17-member council of Vaiano Cremasco, a small town of 4, 000 people 40 km from Milan, voted against the measure proposed by council member and former mayor Giovanni Alchieri.

Alchiery cast the sole vote in favour of the proposal and called on his colleagues to express their 'lack of solidarity' over the pope's failure to take action on sex abuse allagations against priests.

The Vatican is seeking to contain the damage caused by the alleged sexual abuse of thousands of children by paedophile clerics and lay brothers over the past 60 years in Europe and North America.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed his solidarity with the pope after Benedict issued an historic pastoral letter expressing a heartfelt apology over sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Church. Berlusconi described it as an incredibly effective response to a difficult situation.

--IANS/AKI

hv/vt

It is 'unlikely that the trial will be over shortly, but in case a trial gets over the verdict will not be pronounced,' the court said in connection with social activist Teesta Seetalvad's allegations of faulty investigation into riots cases.

A bench of Justice D.K. Jain, Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Aftab Alam asked A.K. Malhotra, former deputy inspector general of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Gujarat riots, to look into complaints of deficiencies in the investigation and their handling in courts.

The SIT was set up by the apex court.

The court also directed that SIT chief R.K. Raghvan in consultation with amicus curiae Harish Salve would select two special public prosecutors (SPPs) for Gulberg Society and Naroda Patiya massacre cases linked to the riots.

The court said as soon as the new SPPs are selected, the trial in both the cases would resume.

The trial in the cases was being conducted by SPPs R.K. Shah and Nigam R. Shukla till now. Shah resigned recently and Shukla was Thursday relieved on the request of the SIT chief.

Shukla was earlier slammed by the apex court for sending e-mails and speaking to media airing his grievances over the ongoing trial in the riots cases. Both the SPPs had questioned the fairness of trial court judges.

On Thursday, the court asked Malhotra to look into the application of Seetalvad pointing to deficiencies in the investigations into the riots cases and their trial.

The court also told Malhotra to examine the response of the SIT chief to Seetalvad's application and other available records.

Before the start of the day's proceedings, the apex court judges met with amicus curiae Salve and Raghvan in their chambers.

While the court was about to pass the order, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani appearing for Bharatiya Janata Party's legislator from Gujarat, Kalubhai Marwari, said that the April 27, 2009, order directing the SIT to look into the complaint of Zakia Jafari was causing him 'untold harm'.

The court pointed out that the order asked 'the SIT to only look into the matter. At the moment, we don't want to comment on how the SIT interpreted that order'.

After court declined to stay the April 27, 2009, order without hearing the matter, Jethmalani said: 'I have not seen usage of such words like 'look into' in the parlance of criminal jurisprudence.'

Just as the court indicated that it shall pass an order, senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi appearing for the Gujarat government intervened, saying that before doing so the court should hear him on the maintainability of Seetalvad's application.

He said her application should be rejected.

The notices were issued by a division bench on public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Shruti Singh. The court has given the Dalai Lama and the Bihar government 12 weeks' time to file their replies.

The petitioner moved the court Tuesday seeking a stay on the Bihar government's inauguration plan on the ground that the park promotes a particular religion in violation of the constitution.

Singh said the plea was filed on the basis that India is a secular state and the Bihar government has no right to promote a particular religion by constructing a park in the name of the Buddha alone.

'A secular state cannot violate the constitution by providing land for a park dedicated to a particular religion,' Singh told IANS.

Official sources said the park's inauguration will be a gala international event. Delegations from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Japan and Thailand are expected attend the prayer ceremony at the inaugural function to be presided over by the Dalai Lama May 27, the sources said.

The park is located near the Patna railway station and is spread over 20 acres of prime land located in the heart of the city. The project's cost is estimated to be more than Rs.125 crore ($2.5 million).