Maharashtra Election Commission on Wednesday said that among other things, the use of social media platforms by the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections would be closely monitored.

The Election Commission of India announced the schedule of the Lok Sabha elections.

“It would be mandatory to provide details of the use of social media (for campaigning),” chief election officer of the state Nitin Gadre said here.

Maharashtra has 7.89 crore registered voters, he said. Elections in the state would be held in three phases, beginning April 10.

“People can register as voters till March 9. There are 450 registration centres in the state,” he informed.

There are 6,000 sensitive and 650 highly sensitive polling centres in the state. “A helpline number has been launched where people can register complaints. IAS-level officers would act as observers at these centres,” he added.

A 21-year-old youth, who had accidentally fatally shot his friend at Kashimira in the district in 2011, was sentenced to four years rigorous imprisonment by a district court.

Thane ad-hoc District Judge M M Wali Mohammed awarded the sentence to Kiran More, but acquitted five other youths in the case.

Police had arrested all the six friends and booked them under various sections of the IPC including 302 (punishment for murder).

The court, after hearing both the sides, convicted More under section 304 (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and sentenced him to four years rigorous imprisonment.

According to Additional public prosecutor Ashok Khamkar, Nitesh Dandekar, 22, who was married and worked with a private company, had gone to the jungle on September 19, 2011 along with his half a dozen friends to catch crabs.

While his friends returned the next morning, they could not give any satisfactory reply about Nitesh’s whereabouts, Khamkar said.

When Nitesh’s family got to know that he had gone missing, they launched a search, but in vain. His mother then lodged a missing person report with the police.

Police then detained his friends and after a thorough interrogation, they told that More had accidentally fired from his country-made gun, in which Nitesh had died. His friends then hid his body in Kashi village and covered it with huge stones.

NCP leader Tariq Anwar on Wednesday dismissed suggestion of a realignment of political forces after the Lok Sabha polls and insisted that his party chief Sharad Pawar never had any political meeting with Narendra Modi.

“There will not be realignment after elections. Pawar had made it clear that meeting between the central ministers and the state chief ministers keep happening on various issues. There was never a political meeting with Modi,” he told.

“As far as I know, our party’s ideology does not allow giving or taking support from BJP,” Anwar said on the sidelines of industry body Assocham event soon after the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll schedule.

Anwar, whose party is the second largest constituent of the Congress-led UPA, said that more than corruption, communalism is the main election issue as this affects the country’s unity and peace.

“We can take steps to curb corruption,” he said.

“The biggest challenge that we face today is that there is a need to make people understand the importance of stopping communal forces. If such forces come to power, the country’s unity and peace will suffer. This is a major issue,” he said.

Anwar, Minister of State for Agriculture, disputed that there was a strong anti-incumbency factor against the UPA government.

“If we are able to convey achievements of the UPA government among people successfully, this will go in our favour rather than against us,” he said.

Holding that the main fight would be between Congress- led alliance and BJP-led NDA, he said, “In Bihar, we will fight with all strength. We know that BJP will not get support as Bihar has remained a liberal state.”

NCP will be contesting a total of 32 seats, including 22 in Maharashtra. “We do not have huge claim,” he added.

Asked about the Election Commission move to go in for a nine-phase poll for the first time, Anwar said, “After a lot of thinking, EC has taken this decision keeping in mind the challenges of weather and Naxal issues. Election can be managed better in nine phases.”

Maharashtra will elect 48 Lok Sabha members over three days in April.

The first lot of votes will be cast in 10 constituencies in eastern Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region on April 10.

These constituencies are Akola, Amravati, Buldana, Bhandara-Gondiya, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Nagpur, Ramtek, Wardha and Yavatmal-Washim.

The next to follow will be 19 constituencies covering Marathwada and coastal Konkan regions which will go to polls on April 17.

These are: Ahmednagar, Baramati, Beed, Hatkanangle, Hingoli, Kolhapur, Latur, Maval, Madha, Nanded, Osmanabad, Parbhani, Pune, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Shirur, Shirdi, Solapur, Sangli and Satara (19 seats).

The remaining 19 constituencies in Mumbai region, parts of Vidarbha and northern Maharashtra will go to polls on April 24.

These include: Aurangabad, Bhiwandi, Dhule, Dindori, Jalna, Jalgaon, Kalyan, Mumbai North, Mumbai North-East, Mumbai North-West, Mumbai North-Central, Mumbai South-Central, Mumbai South, Nandurbar, Nashik, Palghar, Raver, Raigad and Thane.

The main parties in Maharashtra are the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Aam Aadmi Party besides other smaller groups.

The hearing in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks trial against seven Pakistani suspects was postponed till next week following a boycott by lawyers to protest the recent suicide assault at a court premises in Islamabad.

The next hearing in the case related to attacks, that killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008, will take place on March 12.

The hearing was postponed following a week-long boycott call given by the lawyers to protest the suicide attack on the Islamabad court on Monday in which 11 people were killed including an Additional Sessions Court judge.

Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Anjum have been charged with planning, financing and executing the attacks.

The accused are lodged at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, where they are undergoing trial behind closed doors for security reasons. India has already expressed dismay over slow progress of the trial, which is becoming an irritant in bilateral ties.

Indian authorities have urged Pakistan to speed up the prosecution of the suspects.

Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to the premier on National Security and Foreign Affairs, had assured India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid last month that there had been forward movement in the case and a verdict was likely in a couple of months.

Pakistan has acknowledged that the conspiracy behind the attacks was hatched on its soil.

Holding that a father was a natural guardian of his child, Bombay High Court has ordered the custody of a two-year-old child be handed over to his biological father who had filed a habeas corpus petition after his acquittal in a case for wife’s murder.

The child is currently in the custody of his maternal grandfather who stays in Baramati, near Pune.

Amol Pawar, a resident of Satara, got married in 2010. The couple was blessed with a son, Tejas, a year later. Pawar’s wife died of burn injuries in 2012.

An FIR was lodged by his father-in-law Ramesh Dhotre and Pawar was tried for cruelty meted out to his wife and murder.

However, he was acquitted.

The Court noted that Pawar had been acquitted in the case filed against him and no appeal had been filed by the State.

However, Pawar’s father-in-law has filed an appeal against his acquittal.

“Since Pawar has been acquitted and he is the natural guardian of the minor child, the petitioner cannot be deprived from obtaining the custody of his minor child,” said a bench headed by Justice P V Hardas recently.

“If the respondents feel that the petitioner is disentitled to continue the custody of the minor, they may avail the remedies available in law,” the bench said.

“The question as to whether the welfare of the minor would warrant the handing over the custody of the minor to any other person is a question which can only be decided after the evidence of the parties is recorded and certainly not in this petition,” the Judges remarked.

The bench observed that the respondent (Pawar’s father-in-law), however, would be at liberty to file appropriate proceedings under the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act for claiming custody of the child.

These proceedings if they are filed by the Respondent would be decided in accordance with law.

Presently, the Petitioner, being the father, cannot be deprived the custody of his minor child, the bench observed.

Allowing the petition, the Court asked Ramesh Dhotre to hand over the child to his biological father, Amol Pawar.

If the child’s custody was not given to his father, the bench directed the State Government and Police to help the father in getting his child’s custody from his grandfather.

The court rejected the plea of the respondent for a six-week stay on its order to file an appeal.