Archives for 2023

BHOPAL: A seven-year-old boy was murdered in his sleep by his father in Madhya Pradsh’s Indore, because of pressure from his stepmother. 

The incident happened in Indore’s Tejaji Nagar area on the intervening night of Sunday and middle, as the middle-aged man Shishupal Munde, allegedly asked his son  Pratheek, a Class III student to sleep in his room, which had an air cooler.

The boy usually sleeps with his grandparents. The boy, excited about the cooler, told his grandparents he was going to his father’s room. That was the last they saw him alive. 

According to the police, when his son fell asleep, Shishupal turned up the TV volume and strangled him. He allegedly tried to video call his wife, but she didn’t take it.

After killing his young son, Shishupal sent a video to his third wife Payal in MP’s Rajgarh district, to prove that he had killed Prateek, as repeatedly asked by her.

Acting in the matter, the Tejaji Nagar police have arrested the accused man Shishupal and his third wife Payal, (23) who gave birth to a child just three months back.

According to additional DCP (ADCP) JS Bhadauria, the prime accused Shishupal, who drove the car of a respected family in Indore, had married first in 2015 and had a son Prateek from that marriage. His first wife died in 2019, after which he married another woman, but the marriage broke within 15 days.

Two years back, Shishupal married for the third time, this time with Rajgarh district native Payal, who since getting married didn’t want to live with stepson Prateek.

Around 7-8 months back, she returned to her parent’s place and started pressurizing Shishupal regularly to eliminate Prateek if he wanted to live with her. Three months back, she gave birth to a child and since then started exerting more pressure on Shishupal to get rid of seven-year-old Prateek, if he wanted her to return to Indore with the three-month-old child.

The video clip of the murder was found on Shashipal Munde’s mobile phone, the police said. 

CHANDIGARH: A 33-year old woman was shot dead in Dukh Niwaran Sahib Gurdwara in Patiala late on Sunday night by another devotee as she was allegedly under the influence of liquor and this hurt his religious sentiments.

Sources said that Parminder Kaur had come to the historic gurdwara in Patiala from Zirakpur near Chandigarh was allegedly consuming liquor near the sarovar (holy water tank). 

A few devotes objected to her drinking and an attendant (volunteer) Sagar Malhotra stopped her. Kaur got agitated and broke the bottle and hit Malhotra on his arm.

She was over powered by the devotees and taken to the manager’s room. Then manager tried to ask the women her credentials and other details but she did not give a proper reply. Then the police was called by the gurdwara authorities.

While the police personnel were taking Kaur in their custody from the manager’s room, a person standing nearby fired four bullets at her. Kaur died on the spot.

The accused identified as 32-year old Nirmaljit Singh Saini of Urban Estate in Patiala is a property dealer and a regular visitor to gurdwara.

The attendant, Sagar Malhotra, was also injured in the firing. The police have recovered few tobacco packets and a bottle of liquor from the spot where the incident took place, said sources.

Senior Superintendent of Police of Patiala Varun Sharma said, “Prima facie it seems Saini’s religious sentiments were hurt and he fired five rounds at the woman with his 32-bore licensed revolver of this four hit her and she died on the spot, while one bullet hit Malohtra and is injured but out of danger as he was taken to Rajindra Medical Collage and Hospital.’’

“It seems Saini took this step in the heat of the movement as he was regular visitor to the gurdwara and has no criminal back ground, the women was unemployed and alcoholi. We traced her back ground and found a prescription in her bag which was of a private de-addiction centre at Patiala.”

“They told the police that she was undergoing treatment for alcohol addiction and was having mood swings. We are trying to locate the family members or any relatives as no one has come forward to claim her body, as further investigations are going on,’’ said Sharma and added that her mobile has been sent for technical analysis.

He further said that the accused never knew the lady and he took this extreme step in heat of the moment. “The accused Singh has been arrested and the weapon used in the crime has been recovered. The CCTV footage in the gurdwara has been scanned.’’

Meanwhile, additional police has been deployed around the gurdwara premises. A case of murder and arms act has been registered at Anaj Mandi Police station.

NEW DELHI: “I will stand and fight again, against what is wrong and for what is right,” said Bilkis Bano, who has moved the Supreme Court challenging the remission and release of 11 convicts in the 2002 case related to her gangrape and murder of seven members of her family.

Bano was 21 years old and five-month pregnant when she was gangraped while fleeing the 2002 Gujarat riots that broke out after the Godhra train burning incident.

Her three-year-old daughter was among the seven family members killed.

In a statement, issued on Thursday, she said, “The decision to once again stand up and knock on the doors of justice was not easy for me. For a long time, after the men who destroyed my entire family and my life were released, I was simply numb. I was paralysed with shock and with fear for my children, my daughters, and above all, paralysed by loss of hope.”

She added, “But, the spaces of my silence were filled with other voices; voices of support from different parts of the country that have given me hope in the face of unimaginable despair; and made me feel less alone in my pain. I cannot express in words what this support has meant to me.”

Bano said the support to her cause from different parts of the country has helped her in rekindling her faith in humanity and renewed her courage to believe again in the idea of justice.

“So, I will stand and fight again, against what is wrong and for what is right. I do this today for myself, for my children, and for women everywhere”, she said.

BHOPAL: Amid the dark shadow of the deaths of three cheetahs in less than 45 days, five of the 17 Namibian and South African cheetahs housed in big enclosures at the Kuno National Park (KNP) are likely to be released into the open jungles of the park in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district by the end of May.

According to highly placed sources at the MP Forest Department in Bhopal, the task force constituted by the central government to monitor the introduction of cheetahs at the KNP has given its nod for the release of at least five more cheetahs, including Namibian and South African felines, into the open jungles.

“We’re working on it and if all goes as planned, then the five cheetahs may be released in the open jungles within the next 15 days,” a senior state forest department official told The New Indian Express on Thursday.

Once in the open jungles, the five cheetahs (possibly three females and two males) will join three Namibian cheetahs – female Aasha and male coalition Elton aka Gaurav and Freddy aka Shaurya, who were among the four cheetahs released into the open jungles in March.

Of the four Namibian cheetahs released into KNP’s open jungles in March, male cheetah Oban aka Pawan had to brought back into the big enclosure of the KNP (and is now housed in a big enclosure with two females), as it was regularly straying out of the KNP and causing panic to human habitats in adjoining villages.

As per informed sources, the central government task force monitoring cheetah introduction at KNP has in consultation with South African experts and specialists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) decided to okay the release of five more cheetahs into the jungles after closely monitoring their behavioural patterns.

The KNP, which had welcomed 20 African cheetahs in two batches (eight from Namibia on September 17, 2022 and 12 from South Africa on February 18, 2023) as part of the country’s ambitious project to reintroduce the fastest moving animal on earth in the Indian wilds 70 years after their extinction, now has just 17 cheetahs (seven from Namibia and 10 from South Africa) and four cubs born to Namibian female Siyaya aka Jwala on March 29.

The KNP has already lost three cheetahs including two females in less than 45 days. While Namibian female Sasha died of acute renal infection on March 27, South African male Uday died due to cardiopulmonary failure on April 23 and South African female Daksha died reportedly due to violent mating by the duo Vayu and Agni on May 9.