US President Donald Trump’S Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh repeatedly denied accusations of sexual misconduct that have threatened to derail his confirmation in an exclusive interview with Fox News.

“What I know is the truth, and the truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone,” Kavanaugh said in the interview on Monday night.

Kavanaugh’s wife, Ashley, said the allegations against her husband were “hard to believe”.

“I know Brett. I’ve known him for 17 years… He’s decent, he’s kind, he’s good. I know his heart. This is not consistent with Brett,” she said.

California professor Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of covering her mouth and trying to remove her clothing at a party in the early 1980s, when both were in high school.

Kavanaugh and Ford are set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

In the interview, Kavanaugh emphatically denied Ford’s claim against him, saying that he was “never at any such party”.

Kavanaugh added that he was “not questioning and have not questioned that perhaps Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted by someone at some place, but what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone”.

He also denied a New Yorker report published on Sunday night in which classmate Deborah Ramirez said he exposed himself to her while they were students at Yale.

“I never did any such thing,” Kavanaugh told Fox News.

“The other people alleged to be there don’t recall any such thing. If such a thing had happened, it would have been the talk of campus.”

Top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have slammed what they described as a “smear campaign” orchestrated in part by Democrats.

Trump has also repeatedly defended his nominee against sexual misconduct accusations, which he has called “totally political” and “one of the single most unfair, unjust things to happen to a candidate for anything”.

Kavanaugh said in the interview that Trump had called him on Monday afternoon to say “he’s standing by me” and said he was confident that will remain the case.

IANS

Comedian Bill Cosby, who was earlier facing up to 30 years behind bars, will now face a maximum of 10 years after his three counts of his conviction were merged into one.

Prosecutors asked a US court on Monday to sentence Cosby to 5-10 years for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, saying he had shown “no remorse” for his actions,media reported.

“This is about a person who put himself in a situation of being a mentor, but we know he had other intentions just from the beginning,” District Attorney Kevin Steele said on the first day of a hearing that would determine how severely the disgraced actor sould be punished.

“We know that from the statements he made. What he saw in Andrea the first time he laid eyes on her. What his plan was. To get to the point they were going to get to. And that didn’t involve consent.”

Cosby, the first high-profile American celebrity to be convicted in the #MeToo era, should be locked up for as long as a decade and be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life, prosecutors said.

However, Cosby’s defence attorney, Joseph P. Green, asked for a sentence of house arrest, citing Cosby’s advanced age and blindness.

“Cosby is not dangerous,” he said. “Eighty-one-year-old blind men who are not self-sufficient are not a danger, unless perhaps to themselves.”

The sentence was expected to come on Tuesday after Judge Steven T. O’Neill decides whether Cosby should be required to register himself with state police and submit to sex-offender counselling and notification for life.

Cosby was convicted in April of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and assaulting Constand at his home in 2004.

Judge O’Neill announced that the charges had been merged into one because they all stem from the same event.

Monday’s hearing also featured victim impact statements from Constand, her parents and her sister.

A prosecution expert said Cosby should be labelled a “sexually violent predator” because he has a mental disorder that involves urges toward non-consenting women.

Cosby has declined to participate in any evaluation on his mental state to decide whether he was sexually violent predator.

IANS

A local court in Gobichettipalayam in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday acquitted all nine accused in the sensational abduction case of Kannada matinee idol Dr Rajkumar by forest brigand Veerappan in July 2000.

Additional district judge K Mani, while acquitting all the nine accused, tore into the prosecution for not presenting a watertight case.

The judge also criticised Dr Rajkumar’s family for not coming forward to file a complaint against the people who abducted the Kannada icon.

The judge also said the prosecution failed to provide even an iota of evidence to prove that the accused were connected to Veerappan and his aide Sethukuzhi Govinda.

IANS

A 45-year-old native of Kerala has been arrested for allegedly sexually harassing women and subsequently filming them, on Sunday, September 23.

The man’s twisted ways came to light when one of the victims approached a social worker to complain about the incident. After obtaining the man’s number from the woman, the social worker is reported to have contacted the man and spoken to him in a civil manner. The social worker then contacted the police regarding the same and the man was arrested.

He was handed over Kadri police to the Barke police for further interrogation.

Reportedly, the man’s modus operandi is to lure young women to his apartment at Vyasanagara, sexually harass them and film the entire episode.

PTI

A court in Haryana has sent two of the main accused in the gang rape case of a 19-year-old college student to four days police custody, police said on Monday.

The Haryana Police’s Special Investigating Team (SIT) on Sunday arrested the two main accused, Pankaj and Manish.

Both were on the run for 11 days after the rape. They were arrested from Satnali in Mahendragarh district.

A court in Kanina sent them to four days of police custody. Pankaj is a soldier in the Indian Army.

The police on Monday were interrogating the two to find out whether more people were involved in the crime as has been suggested by the victim’s family.

The victim, a school topper, was abducted and gang raped after being drugged on September 12 while she was on the way to a coaching institute.

Earlier, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) had announced the arrest of the third accused, Nishu and two other men — Deendayal, the owner of a tubewell room where the crime took place in Mahendragarh, and Sanjeev Kumar, a medical practitioner who had treated the victim.

Both Deendayal and Sanjeev were booked as they did not inform police despite knowing about the crime.

The police had earlier announced a reward of Rs one lakh for providing information on the absconding main accused, all residents of Kanina village.

The victim, who has identified her attackers, and her parents had earlier accused the police of not taking action and dealing with the matter casually.

She alleged that her attackers gave her sedative-laced water to drink and gang raped her in a room on an agricultural field till she fell unconscious. They later dumped her at a bus stop near her village.

(IANS)

Unidentified criminals on Friday snatched a rifle from a policeman sipping tea near the Jharkhand Chief Minister’s official residence here on Friday but flung it after being chased by the police.

According to police, the incident took place near Ram temple on Kanke road, just 300 metres from Chief Minister’s heavily guarded residence.

A group of policemen from the Police Control Room were having tea when one of them asked a motorcycle rider to halt.

The youth suddenly snatched the rifle from one of the policeman and escaped along with an accomplice on the bike.

As the police personnel pursued them, the criminals threw away the weapon near Morabadi ground but managed to escape.

IANS

Simple likes and comments on social media posts from unknown users can be an ISI trap for the armed force personnel as well as common people. The investigators of UP Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) discovered this alarming trend while interrogating the BSF jawan Achyutanand Mishra, who was arrested from Noida on charges of spying on Wednesday.

He has been taken into five-day police remand since Wednesday evening. Mishra was honey-trapped by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) over social media and he was being used to extract crucial information about BSF logistics and troop movement.

Inspector general (IG) of police of ATS, Asim Arun said the BSF jawan was honey-trapped by an unknown Facebook user posing as a woman who simply liked his photograph. The jawan walked into the trap laid by the ISI and sent a friend request to the unknown user, he said. Sources said the Facebook ID that was used to trap Mishra had as many as 90 Indians on its friend list.

Asim Arun admitted that multiple cases of ‘social media trap’ by ISI have been reported in the recent past in which people got trapped through simple likes and comments on their posts by unknown people, mainly girls. He said the ISI trap trend is not limited to the armed forces alone but some common men were also trapped in this manner for recce of important installations and collect crucial information.

Citing a case, the IG said the UP ATS had recently tracked one similar case where a 19-year-old youth from Alwar, Rajasthan was also trapped using the same trick and was interrogated around a week ago. “Similar to the BSF jawan case, the unknown social media user first became friends with the unemployed youth posing as defence journalist of some reputed organisation and asked him to collect information about the armed force movement and logistics. The unknown social media user proposed that the youth regularly work for him for a salary of Rs 4,000,” he stated.

He said the youth was let off as he had not shared any crucial information with the unknown social media user.

The IG said the ISI targets such people who are armed forces aspirants or stay somewhere close to important security and armed forces installations.

Another senior police official said some cases of honey trap were reported where the same trick was used to trap the armed forces aspirants. He said the unknown social media user continued friendship with the aspirants till they got inducted in different forces and then used them to extract crucial information.

He said one similar case was that of an armed force personnel. He said the unknown social media user posed as a girl and promised to marry after being friends with him for over two years. He said the aspirant was in love with the girl whom he had never met and started sharing his training pictures and other details. The personnel was later tracked by the intelligence unit and was terminated from his services, he added.

ANI

Delhi Police on Thursday arrested six persons, including a domestic help, for assaulting, robbing and holding captive the wife and daughter of a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court here.

“The accused have been identified as Dinesh, Dheerender, Upender Rai, Ram Swaroop, Deepak and domestic help Sandeep. They were arrested from different areas of their native state Jharkhand,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Chinmoy Biswal.

The incident occurred on Monday night when their recently hired domestic help Sandeep called the other accused to the former Chief Justice Dalip Kapoor’s residence in New Friends Colony.

The accused allegedly assaulted and held captive wife and daughter of the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court and later escaped with jewellery and cash, Biswal said.

“Reeba Kapoor,78, wife of former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Dalip Kapoor, in her statement to the police had said Sandeep, along with accomplices, assaulted her and her daughter Sheeba, 45. They then tied them with ropes and escaped with jewellery and cash worth lakhs of rupees,” the officer added.

(IANS)

Militants on Friday killed three abducted policemen in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district.
“Three bullet-riddled bodies were recovered from Kapran village in the morning. The slain policemen have been identified as Firdous Ahmad Kuchai, Nisar Ahmad Dhobi and Kuldeep,” police sources said.

Reports said fourth abducted person, a civilian, was released unharmed.

The four people were abducted on Thursday night from Kapran and Batgund villages.

The victims were Special Police Officers (SPOs).

Militants have been threatening SPOs in south Kashmir areas to give up job or face consequences.

IANS

The Kerala Police began questioning Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accused of raping a nun, for the third consecutive day on Friday, even as demands for his arrest grew.

Mulakkal has been accused of repeatedly sexually abusing the nun between 2014 and 2016. Nuns have been protesting in Kochi for the past 14 days demanding his arrest.

The bishop, who belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar, Punjab, has been questioned for seven hours each on two days starting Wednesday near here at a Crime Branch office.

He was accompanied by his counsel and a few priests as he arrived for the questioning under heavy police escort around 10.45 a.m.

With Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan leaving for medical treatment to the US, Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan, the de facto Chief Minister, speaking to the media, said that the probe was advancing in the right direction.

“The state government has always been with the victim and whosoever does a wrong — the wrongdoer will be taken to task,” he said.

Kottayam police chief Hari Sankar, who leads the police probe team told the media on Friday that at the moment they were unable to say anything about the arrest.

“It will only be decided after the interrogation is over. It is completely the prerogative of the investigating officer. And there is no need for him to take any permission from anyone. We have already consulted legal experts,” said Hari Sankar .

He also met Inspector General of Police Vijay Sakhre, who is heading the probe team.

For the past two days, K. Subash, the deputy superintendent of police, was the investigating officer. He was also the first one to meet the bishop when he questioned him in Jalandhar in August.

The Kerala High Court will be hearing the bishop’s anticipatory bail plea on September 25.

An FIR was registered against the bishop and a 114-page detailed statement was taken from the nun and other inmates of the convent.

(IANS)