Praveen Togadia was arrested at a rally in the city of Ajmer in April 2003 accused of inciting religious hatred.

He is a senior leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) which is closely linked to the BJP.

The massacre, one of the biggest in recent months, took place just days before Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh holds talks with Kashmiri separatists in New Delhi and later travels to the violent region for a "roundtable" conference with Kashmiris.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – A Buddhist woman, Kripa Bhoteni, was sentenced to 12 years in jail by a court in Sankhuwasabha, north-eastern Nepal, for butchering a cow. The police launched its investigation two weeks ago and the legal system was quick in passing judgement. In the Himalayan kingdom slaughtering bovines is considered a very serious crime that can be punished with the death penalty.

“The court was indeed quick in dealing with the case. But it is mind boggling that our Nepalese courts rarely show such urgency in murder cases. It is a tragedy that the life of cow is more important than a human life,” lamented Pawan Shrestha, a Buddhist human rights activist.
For Shrestha, although Nepal is officially a Hindu Kingdom, “only 20 per cent belong to Vedic-Sanatani Hinduism, which considers beef eating a taboo and a great sin. Most people practice other cults like Buddhism and Animism”.

“Butchering cows is banned in Nepal,” he added, “but the truth is that almost all the people living in the high Himalayas near Tibet are of Tibetan-Mongol stock, followers of Lamaism or Mahayana-Tantrik Buddhism which do not prohibit eating beef and killing cows. Despite the ban locals do kill cows for meat. Actually, cows are the main source of meat in this cold region.”

Thanakorn Pakdeepol, who police said had a history of mental illness, was killed by worshippers after he broke into the Erawan shrine and used a hammer to shatter a four-headed statue of Brahma.

There are bloodstains on the cracked wall behind the terrible postcard-size image and, around the dark room, splattered gore on the heavy wooden furniture. These dark marks bear witness to a child sacrificed in the name of the abominable goddess.

Through the doorway, in the distance, colourfully dressed women are bent double, toiling in the fields, their faces worn and wrinkled from the sun, their hands cracked from digging at the dry earth from dawn until dusk.

A convoy of cars carrying Swami Sant Gyaneshwar was ambushed near the city of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh state.

The seer was killed instantly. It was not immediately known who carried out the attack.

A rising number of Hindus are the victims of hate crimes, partly as a backlash from the London suicide bombings, Britain's largest Hindu organisation has said.

A telephone hotline to report attacks is being set up to help the 700,000 Hindus in this country.

Ramesh Kallidai, secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain, said "hate crime" incidents ranged from verbal and physical attacks on worshippers to graffiti and vandalism at Hindu temples. In one of the most recent attacks, paving slabs with swastikas scratched on them were thrown through the windows at a hall in Basingstoke, Hampshire, while a religious meeting was taking place.

Celebrations marking the 5,000-year-old festival of Janmashtami are to take place at the Bhaktivedanta Manor Hare Krishna temple in Watford, Herts.

The festival marks the birth of Lord Krishna, the most highly venerated God in the Hindu pantheon.