After meeting Karnataka home minister G Parameshwar and state police chief Om Prakash in Bengaluru on Friday, Tanzanian high commissioner John WH Kijazi told the media: "I don't want to dwell too much on racism. We are not here to discuss racism." This comes a day after he had said the Tanzanian woman who had been assaulted, stripped and paraded naked in Bengaluru on Sunday had been attacked because she was black. An inspector and a constable were suspended over the incident, and nine people, including a BJP panchayat member, were arrested in all. The envoy urged the city's African community to respect the law and "live peacefully by integrating with locals".

Even as Mumbai-based Jamiat-i-Ulama moved the Supreme Court on Friday, saying that any exercise by the court to evolve a uniform civil code would amount to interference with personal laws, the Centre is planning a meeting with Muslim organisations, including the personal law board, to discuss the rights of Muslim women, reports The Telegraph. "The government has decided to call a meeting of prominent Muslim organisations, including Muslim women representatives, to address the age-old problem faced by women," said a government official. Mumbai-based 70,000 member-strong Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan had written to the Prime Minister, law commission and the National Commission for Women last November asking for reforms in the Sharia law.

An accident involving a state transport bus killed 37 people and injured 24 when the bus fell into the Purna river from a 20-foot high bridge in Navsari district, reports the Hindustan Times. Survivors said the bus driver had lost control of the vehicle, and it crashed through the railings of the bridge. The injured have been taken to hospitals in Navsari, from where the seriously injured might be shifted to Surat.

Saritha S Nair, one of the chief accused in Kerala's solar scam case, said on Friday that she met Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy several times and was close to his family, reports The Indian Express. This belies Chandy's deposition to a judicial commission investigating the case that he had met Saritha only three times. Saritha said: "I was never a stranger to him or his family. I had the freedom to enter his house anytime. the kind of freedom to enter another person's kitchen, I was that close. I was a frequent visitor." In response, Chandy said: "These are all false claims."

Despite the fact that the Maharashtra government called actor Salman Khan's acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case "a travesty of justice", a Supreme Court bench said it is still deliberating over whether to reopen the case at all, reports The Indian Express. "We are still making up our minds. We must remember it is an appeal against an acquittal," said Justices J S Khehar and C Nagappan, after hearing Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi arguing on behalf of the Maharashtra government which believes that the Bombay High Court's decision to acquit the actor in the hit-and-run case was erroneous.

An Australian national of Malaysian origin was deported by India on Thursday due to "strong indications" that he was a sympathiser of Islamic State (IS), reports The Indian Express. Ahmad Fahim Bin Hamad Awang arrived at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport from Perth, Australia, on Thursday night, and was detained for questioning after a tip-off. Officials searching his luggage found jihadi literature and IS propaganda on his laptop, as well as photographs of him posing with firearms. A security official said: "After scouring through the contents of his laptop, a call was taken that it was too dangerous to allow him to enter India, and he was sent back to Perth."