Breaking News, August 27

Two BSF personnel have been arrested over the rape of a woman who was allegedly trying to illegally enter Bangladesh from India, a senior official of the paramilitary organisation said on Saturday. The BSF assistant sub-inspector and constable were arrested late on Friday night and handed over to West Bengal Police for further legal action, he said. The accused have been suspended and a court of inquiry has been ordered against them, the official of the Border Security Force's South Bengal frontier said. The incident took place early on August 26 near Bagda border outpost in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district, he said.

Haryana Police on Saturday (August 27) said it arrested three persons allegedly involved in separate ATM fraud cases. A police spokesperson said the ATM fraud investigation cell (AFIC) arrested Jaiveer Singh, a resident of Hisar, from Sultanpuri in Delhi. The AFIC has been set up to effectively deal with cases of ATM frauds across the state. Jaiveer was wanted in 16 cases of cheating people after committing ATM frauds in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In January, Ranveer Singh, a resident of Gandhi Nagar, had lodged a complaint with the Yamunanagar district police alleging that some unidentified person changed his ATM card.

A court in Goa on Saturday remanded two accused arrested in the murder case of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sonali Phogat in police custody for ten days. The accused duo- Sudhir Sagwan and Sukhwinder Singh- were produced before the court in Mapusa town by Anjuna police on Saturday. A senior officer said the court remanded the duo in police custody for ten days. Sagwan and Singh had accompanied Phogat, a popular TikTok star who hailed from Haryana to Goa on August 22. Phogat, 42, was brought dead to St Anthony Hospital at Anjuna in North Goa district on August 23 morning from her hotel. The police on Friday said Sagwan and Singh allegedly mixed some "obnoxious substance" in water and forced Phogat to drink it while partying at Curlies restaurant on the intervening night of August 22 and 23, adding they have been charged with murder. 

There is a word of caution from a few residents of Kerala's Maradu Municipality for those living in the neighbourhood of two high rise structures in Noida to be demolished on Sunday--"Secure legal assurances from the authorities before demolition to ensure safety of your buildings". Sugunan, 56, a resident of Maradu Municipality, here is still knocking on the doors of authorities seeking compensation for the damage his two-storey house suffered when one of the four illegal waterfront high rise apartments in his neighbourhood was brought down using a controlled implosion two years ago. He said cracks appeared in the roof of his house as a result of the demolition of Alfa Serene twin apartment complex. As a result, he suffered a loss of over Rs 3 lakh.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday inaugurated the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Armed Forces Preparatory School in Najafgarh here and asked students to imbibe the feeling of living and dying for the country. The school has state-of-the-art facilities and students will be trained according to entrance examination patterns of the various armed forces, he said. "There was no sainik school in Delhi. We began preparations a year back but did not know it would be ready in a year. I thank those who made this dream possible within one year on behalf of Delhi and the country," the chief minister said at the event. Stressing that education and other facilities are free at the school, Kejriwal said he had always wanted an education system where the rich and the poor could study together.

A team of doctors and medical staff has been deployed for the "Gotmar" (stone pelting) festival, which began in a village of Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara district on Saturday, an official said. People have lost their lives and many were injured in the past during this traditional annual event held at Pandhurna in the district. Security personnel have been deployed in the area and a team of more than five doctors has also been pressed into service for the event, additional superintendent of police (ASP) Sanjeev Uikey said. Drones will be used and cameras will be installed to keep a watch over the venue, where section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) has been imposed, he said.

The Pakistan government has decided to call in the Army to help in the rescue and relief operations after many parts of the country were ravaged by the worst floods in more than a decade that has affected more than 33 million people, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Saturday. So far 982 people have been killed due to floods across Pakistan. As many as 45 persons died in the last 24 hours, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Another 1,456 persons were hurt, with 113 injuries reported in the last 24 hours, it said. Interior Minister Sanaullah said the armed forces were being deployed in the wake of the biggest floods in more than a decade.

Three men were killed when a truck hit the motorcycle they were riding in Madhya Pradesh's Anuppur district, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred Friday late at night near the Godaru Nala area on national highway no. 43, police said. Bhalumada police station in-charge Jodhan Singh said the deceased men were aged between 20 to 22 years. They were returning on a motorcycle after meeting a friend when a truck rammed into them, he said, adding that the truck driver fled with the vehicle after the incident. A case was registered and further investigation is underway. 

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The Congress on Saturday demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged murder of Haryana BJP leader Sonali Phogat claiming the police were trying to hush up the matter. Phogat died in Goa on Tuesday under mysterious circumstances following which two men, including her personal assistant, who had accompanied her to the coastal state are arrested on the charge of murder by the state police. “Many politicians said that her death was due to a heart attack. But finally, it has been revealed as murder. There is more to this murder than meets the eye and every angle needs to be investigated. These kinds of cases need to be investigated by the CBI to unravel the truth," Goa Leader of Opposition Michael Lobo told media. 

The minimum temperature in the national capital was recorded at 26.4 degrees Celsius on Saturday and strong surface winds are expected during the day, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) bulletin said. It said the maximum temperature is expected to settle around 34 degrees Celsius. The relative humidity recorded at 8.30 am was 73 per cent, the IMD bulletin said. Private forecaster Skymet Weather said rainfall is likely in the region on August 29. "Winds will blow from the northwest on August 28, at the time of the twin towers demolition. It will be a threat to Delhi as dust may travel to Uttar Pradesh initially but may change direction on August 29 and blow from the east," Skymet Weather vice-president Mahesh Palawat said.

A bomb threat call was received to a Dubai-bound private carrier on Saturday following which the checks were underway to ascertain if any explosive items were planted in the aircraft, officials said. An anonymous call was received at the police control room in this connection following which the airport police were alerted. Subsequently, security agencies were conducting searches inside the Indigo aircraft that was ready for departure at 7.20 am with around 160 passengers, airport officials said. An enquiry was on to trace the caller. 

Delhi Police has rejected permission to stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui to perform his August 28 scheduled show in the national capital.The licensing unit of the Delhi Police denied the permission after the local central district police wrote a report stating that "the show will affect communal harmony in the area."

Philippine coast guard personnel and volunteers have rescued more than 80 passengers and crew of an inter-island ferry that caught fire as it approached a port south of Manila, prompting many to jump into the water as flames spread fast in windy weather, officials said Saturday. Only two passengers are unaccounted for and authorities are checking if the two are missing or had been rescued but immediately went home without notifying officials who led the search efforts Friday, the coast guard said. The M/V Asia Philippines was listed as carrying 49 passengers and 38 crewmembers. The ferry, which came from Calapan city in Oriental Mindoro province, was more than a kilometer away from the Batangas port, when smoke emerged from the second deck followed by flames, according to one of the rescued passengers.

Some activists of the Yuva Rajput Sabha (YRS) on Friday staged a demonstration and blocked the Jammu-Pathankot national highway to press their demand for declaring a holiday on the birth anniversary of Maharaja Hari Singh, the last Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, on September 23. YRS leaders said they had been making the demand for the last 10 years but the administration was yet to fulfil it. They withdrew the road blockade after about half-an-hour. Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha had formed a four-member committee in January this year to look into their long-standing demand. "We do not know the fate of the committee formed by the government on our demand for a public holiday as a tribute to our great Maharaja who was the one who made J&K the crown of India by signing the instrument of accession," the organisation's leader said. 

Indian American bodies on Friday condemned the hate crime against a group of four Indian Americans in Texas. Esmeralda Upton from Plano in Texas was arrested for the racially-motivated physical and verbal assault of four South Asian women in a parking lot on Wednesday. "The recent news of four Indian-origin women being harassed and abused with vile racial slurs in Plano, TX, has sent shock waves through the Indian-American community," said Sanjeev Joshipura from Indiaspora. "The viral video captures the unreal encounter of four friends facing a tirade in a suburban parking lot, following their quiet dinner meet-up. We at Indiaspora strongly condemn this racial attack and reiterate our commitment to fighting discrimination and prejudice in all its forms," he said.

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A district and sessions judge here on Friday assigned the Jahangirpuri violence case to a sessions court in Rohini, which will hear the arguments on framing of charges on September 23. The case was assigned to the court of additional sessions judge Smita Garg. Earlier, on August 18, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepika Singh sent the case to the district and sessions judge, noting that the offences arrayed by the prosecution were punishable by more than seven-year jail terms, and, therefore, not triable by a magisterial court. Clashes broke out between two communities during a Hanuman Jayanti procession in Jahangirpuri on April 16, 2022, leaving eight police personnel and a local resident injured. According to police, there was stone-pelting and arson during the clashes and some vehicles were also torched.

Tamil Nadu logged 539 new COVID-19 infections pushing the tally to 35,66,101 while the death toll remained unchanged at 38,034 with nil fatalities in the last 24 hours, the health department said on Friday. As many as 628 people recuperated from the virus in the last 24 hours, aggregating to 35,22,660 leaving 5,407 active infections, according to a medical bulletin issued here. Chennai recorded the majority of cases with 90, Coimbatore 69 while the remaining cases were spread across other districts. Ariyalur and Tenkasi recorded zero new cases in the last 24 hours. The number of new cases was below 10 in 21 districts of the total 38. The state capital leads among districts with 2,255 active infections and overall 7,87,035 coronavirus cases. A total of 23,231 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of tests so far to 6,87,98,968, the health bulletin said. 

Russia's attack on a Ukrainian train station that killed more than 20 people this week is the latest in a series of strikes on the country's railway system that some international legal scholars say may be war crimes. While Russia claimed that it had targeted the train because it was carrying Ukrainian troops and equipment on Wednesday, an Associated Press reporter on the ground said there was no visible indication that Ukrainian troops were among the dead, who included children. If civilians were the target, experts said Thursday, the attack could be considered a war crime.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's convoy was stuck in traffic briefly Friday evening after a truck and a car broke down blocking the highway near Chandani Chowk in Pune. Personnel from the Pimpri Chinchwad Police traffic department rushed to the spot and helped the chief minister's convoy pass through the area. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Anand Bhoite said the chief minister's convoy was on the way to Satara.

Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday declared a rain emergency in several districts with immediate effect till August 30 after disaster management officials warned that the Swat River has reached "high to very high" flood levels. The emergency was declared on the recommendation of the district administration and the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) after flash floods wreaked havoc in Swat, Shangla, Mingora, Kohistan and other areas.