A female teacher was shot dead by unidentified assailants here on Monday while she was on her way to school, police said.

According to the police, the incident took place at around 8 a.m when the bike-borne assailants intercepted the scooty of the 41-year-old victim identified as Sunita.

“Sunita was taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared bought dead. She received three gun shots in her abdomen,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajneesh Gupta told IANS.

“Sunita was a resident of Bawana village, worked with a government senior secondary girls school in Ferozpur, Sonipat. She was going to school when the assailants targeted her on the Bawana road.”

Initial probe suggests that the assailants were waiting for Sunita to kill her, the officer said.

“We are checking CCTV cameras of the area to establish the identity of the accused persons.”

IANS

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia was on Monday sentenced to seven-year jail in a corruption case.

The verdict was announced at the temporary court premises set up at the old central prison in the capital, bdnews24.com reported.

The case was filed against Khaleda by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) eight years ago. The ACC had accused her and three others of embezzling 31.54 million taka ($397,435) from the the Zia Charitable Trust.

The final trial proceedings in the case went ahead in the absence of Khaleda, who is serving time in jail over another corruption case, after the prison authorities repeatedly failed to bring her to court.

Khaleda’s former political affairs secretary Harris Chowdhury, his former aide Ziaul Islam Munna and former Dhaka Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka’s personal secretary Monirul Islam Khan were the three others convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.

The former Prime Minister and the other convicts were also fined 10 lakh taka each, in default of which they will have to suffer six months more in jail, according to the verdict.

Chowdhury has been at large since the start of the case. The other two convicts were present in the court to hear the verdict.

Khaleda has been in custody since February 8, when she was sentenced to five years in prison in another Zia Orphanage Trust graft case. In this case, Khaleda and five others, including her elder son Tarique Rahman, were accused of embezzling over 20 million taka ($253,164) from the orphanage trust during her 2001-2006 Prime Minister term.

Khaleda has reportedly been facing dozens of cases, including five on corruption charges and 15 for masterminding violence during their anti-government movement since 2014.

Khaleda has often said that political vendettas were to blame for the cases against her and her son.

IANS

 A man in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district was arrested on Monday for raping his daughter, police said.
Imtiyaz Ahmed Bhat, the accused’s son filed a complaint in Kunzer police station against his father for raping his sister.

Medical examination has confirmed rape, the police said, adding that statements of the victim and other witnesses were being recorded.

Hearing on two appeals pertaining to two poaching cases against Bollywood actor Salman Khan were deferred to December 18 by a sessions court here on Friday due to lack of time.

“There are two appeals pending in the sessions court — one each by the government against acquittal of Khan in the Arms Act case and one by Khan himself challenging the conviction in a poaching case,” said Khan’s counsel Mahesh Bora.

Both were deferred due to “unavailability of enough time with the court”.

Before this, hearing on the two applications moved by prosecution against Khan was also deferred till November 29.

One of these applications was moved by the prosecution alleging that Khan had misled the court to obtain exemption from appearance in the court on the ground of a physical problem, while the other application had alleged that Khan had given false information about his arms through an affidavit.

Khan was sentenced to 5 years by the trial court, convicting him in a case under Wildlife Protection Act for killing two blackbucks in Kankani of Jodhpur in 1998.

IANS

An eight-year-old student of a madrasa died after he sustained a head injury during a scuffle between two groups of minor boys in south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar on Thursday, police said. The scuffle broke out in the morning when students from madrasa objected to playing by some local boys on a land in front of the madrasa, the police said.

The police have registered a case of murder and apprehended four juvenile boys. An officer said that Mohammed Azeem ,who lived in the madrasa, collapsed during the scuffle and was declared brought dead at the hospital. According to the police, doctors said there were no external injuries on the deceased’s body.

A 11-year-old boy, also an eyewitness, said that he, along with Azeem and two others, were playing in the compound outside the madrasa. “They(other group of boys) threw fire crackers and stones at us. We had a fight when they started abusing. They were five. We were four. Four of them picked up Azeem and threw him on a bike nearby. They also threw him on a rickshaw. He fell unconscious,” the eyewitness said.

The police said they received a call at 10:10 am from a madrasa, informing one of their residents, a minor boy, had been declared dead at the MM Hospital in Malviya Nagar, after getting into a fight with the other boys of the neighbourhood. The victim studied and lived in the madrasa.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Vijay Kumar said that a police team rushed to the spot and the hospital. “During initial inquiry, we found that the minor boy was a student of Madrasa ‘Dar-ul-Uloom-Faridiya’ and is a native of Haryana. The staff at the madrasa and other eyewitnesses told police that on Thursday morning four minor boys, all 12-year-olds, were playing in front of the madrasa. Five to six boys from the madrasa were also playing there,” the DCP said.

Kumar said, after some time, the two groups of children clashed during which Azeem sustained an injury on his head. “The students told their elders in the madrasa and the child was rushed to a hospital where the doctors pronounced him dead. There were no external injuries on the child’s body and post mortem reports are awaited to ascertain the cause of death. All four minor boys who were allegedly involved in the scuffle that led to the child’s death have been apprehended,” he said.

Mumtaz Ali, a teacher at the madrasa, who also claimed to be an eyewitness, said, “The boys from the jhuggis threw a stone at Azeem. They then threw fire crackers at Azeem and others. This led to a fight. When our boys objected and one of them came to us with a complaint, four boys picked up Azeem and threw him on a bike and later on a rickshaw.”

During questioning, the boys said that they often play on the vacant land in front of the madrasa but other boys from nearby slums oppose it.

A woman has stabbed or slashed 14 children with a kitchen knife at the gate of a kindergarten in Chongqing, southwest China, according to police.

The attack took place as the children were being led back to class after their morning exercise. The 39-year-old assailant, surnamed Liu according to local police, was apprehended by the kindergarten teachers and security guard and reportedly beaten by parents. She is believed to have told police she was mistreated by the Chinese government, and it is unknown why she targeted these children.

A crowd of police officers, parents and children can also be seen outside the kindergarten in the videos that emerged after the incident.

There have been reports in the media of two of the victims dying as a result of the attack, but this has not been confirmed by police so far.
Distressing footage began to circulate online, purporting to show a fierce confrontation between the woman, flanked by police officers, and angry bystanders.

An unknown number of children were taken to hospital for trauma care following the stabbing, according to CGT.

PTI

Days after actress Sruthi Hariharan accused him of behaving in an “unprofessional” manner, South Indian actor Arjun Sarja Thursday filed a Rs five crore defamation suit against her.

The actor’s manager Shivarjun also lodged a complaint against the actress at the Cyber Crime police station. Attempts by the Karnataka Film Chambers of Commerce to bring about a rapprochement between the two failed as they stuck to their respective stands. Kicking up a storm in the Kannada film industry, the actress had accused Sarja of behaving with her in “lewd and complete unprofessional” manner during the shooting of a movie two years ago.

Senior filmmakers such as Ambarish, Sa Ra Govindu, Congress MLA and film maker Munirathna and Karnataka Film Chambers of Commerce president Chinne Gowda were present at the KFCC office as attempts were made to bring the two artistes to the negotiation table.

Sruthi Hariharan and Sarja came there but they remained adamant on their stand and the KFCC could not arrive at any compromise.

“There is no question of compromise because the pain is intense. Not only me, but my family, friends and above all, my fans in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are deeply hurt. I don’t want others to be sacrificed like this.

Hence, we have gone to court. You will come to know in the coming days who are behind this campaign against me,” Sarja told reporters after the meeting.

Sarja said he has already approached the court and it would be improper on his part to speak on a sub-judice matter.

Sarja’s friend Prashanth Sambaragi said a defamation suit of Rs five crore has been filed against the actress.

Unfazed by the police complaint and court cases against her, Sruthi Hariharan too was adamant.

“Our society has stooped so low that if something wrong happens to the girl she is victimised. Why should I seek apologies when I had faced the problem?” she said.

PTI

A month after the Narendra Modi government passed an ordinance making the illegal practice of instant triple-talaq a punishable offence carrying a jail term of up to three years, the first case under it in Madhya Pradesh has been registered in the poll-bound state’s Jhabua district, which neigbours the PM’s home state Gujarat.

A case under the newly promulgated Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance 2018 was registered at Meghnagar police station of MP’s Jhabua district against Dahod (Gujarat) resident Arif Hussain Diwan and mother Hussain Bano on Wednesday. While Arif has been arrested, mother Hussain Bano is absconding.

According to Meghnagar police station in-charge Kushalsingh Rawat, the victim woman, who is a native of Sherani Mohalla in Meghnagar (Jhabua) was married to Dahod (Gujarat) resident Arif 10 years back. The couple has two children, including a daughter and son.

Right since marriage, Arif allegedly tortured wife for being obese. Unable to tolerate repeated mental and physical agony, the woman came to her brother’s house in Meghnagar recently. On October 12, Arif along with mother Hussain Bano to Meghnagar and verbally and physically abused his wife. Arif and mother also demanded dowry from the woman’s paternal family, before Arif uttered talaq-talaq-talaq to the woman to pronounce instant triple talaq to her.

On Tuesday, the woman along with her kin came to Meghnagar police station and reported the entire episode, after which the police first booked her husband Arif and mother-in-law Hussain Bano under Sections 323, 498A, 506 and 34 of IPC.

The Meghnagar police station in-charge added that on Wednesday, the statements of the victim woman and witnesses were recorded before a court in Petlawad (Jhabua). After the recording of statements, the police registered a case under relevant sections of Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance 2018. While, the victim woman’s husband Arif has been arrested, co-accused mother-in-law is absconding.

This case is the first case registered under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance 2018 in Madhya Pradesh.