Tales of two subcontinent cities

If the Indian policeman doesn't like the way you sip your tea, he can take that freedom away from thee (until a judge catches up with him, anyway);

When Sub-Inspector Jadhav asked what Vijav Patil was doing at a tea stall in the town of Kolhapur one mid-morning, he was unhappy with the explanation of "cutting chai" - grabbing a quick half-glass of tea - reports the Times of India. So it seems the officer arrested him under a law that allows preventative detention of someone suspected of being about to commit a crime.

However, Mr Justice Gautam Patel, at Bombay High Court, was not impressed and ordered police to drop the case. "We were unaware that the law required anyone to give an explanation for having tea, whether in the morning, noon or night. One might take tea in a variety of ways, not all of them always elegant or delicate, some of them perhaps even noisy. But we know of no way to drink tea 'suspiciously'," he's said to have ruled. 

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, one can get away with murder. After all, what could go wrong;

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says releasing one of the founders of the Taliban and a mastermind of the Afghan insurgency would seem a counter-productive step for the Kabul government and the US-led coalition.

But Mullah [Abdul Ghani] Baradar has been seen as one of the few senior Taliban figures who has shown a willingness to negotiate, our correspondent says.

The government in Kabul has been pressing for him to be free.

Been seen, is believing?