16-yr-old Mangaluru girl’s remains found 2 weeks after going missing, brother arrested

Crime

Fiona Swedal Cutinho had gone missing on October 8, with police launching a massive manhunt for the 16-year-old.

Harsha Raj Gatty

More than two weeks after a missing case was registered, Mangaluru City Police (MCP) discovered the skeletal remains of a 16-year-old girl in a forest area behind her residence on Saturday evening. Based on the preliminary findings, the jurisdictional police said that they suspect it to be remains of Fiona Swedal Cutinho. The police have also arrested Fiona’s brother Samson Cutinho (18) in the murder. According to the complaint filed by the victim’s father Francis Cutinho on October 8, his son Samson Cutinho had allegedly told him that Fiona had gone to Mangaluru but never returned. Francis, a resident of Pajeer near Mudipu, which is around 25 km from Mangaluru, tried contacting friends, relatives over phone but the whereabouts of Fiona remained unknown. Following the complaint, a kidnap case was registered at the jurisdictional Konaje police station. The city police had launched a massive manhunt to trace the 16-year-old, who was a student pursuing her first PUC at a private college in Mangaluru city. Initially, police said they interviewed nearly 40 people in an attempt to trace the ‘missing person’. Mangaluru City Police commissioner PS Harsha had also sought public help to find Fiona. Investigators suspicion turned to the family after electronic surveillance of Fiona’s cell phone was traced to Mudipu (close to the victim’s home) contradicting the family’s version that she had gone to Mangaluru. Further, police also received a tip-off that Fiona’s elder brother Samson was allegedly addicted to ganja and other contrabands and since failing his engineering degree was idling at home, the police official said. Subsequently, Samson was questioned, when he allegedly admitted to killing his sister with a hammer over a trivial reason at home. “Samson was miffed that his parents focused more on Fiona over him. This we believe might have lead to jealousy that turned into a rage during an argument with his sister – that instigated him to kill her,” the police said. Following the murder, the victim’s elder brother allegedly dumped the body in an isolated forest area behind the house, and then fabricated a story of his sister leaving to Mangaluru, the police said. According to the police, Samson also showed the authorities the spot where he had allegedly dumped the body after committing the crime. Police also found the victim’s mobile phone, teeth and hair samples around the same spot and are further scouting the areas for more evidence. Police said that they have dispatched the skeletal remains for forensic examination to ascertain that the body belonged to Fiona. Subsequent to the verification by Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Konaje police said that they will convert the kidnap case to murder. The hammer used for the crime has been recovered by the police. Samson is currently in police custody.  (Content provided by https://ift.tt/2DX7vnh and Scribes Media Ventures LLP).

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Bengaluru Metro’s Green Line to get two more six-car trains

Transport

On Friday, the Namma Metro registered its highest ridership of 4.83 lakh.

Soumya Chatterjee

Commuters of the Green Line of the Namma Metro in Bengaluru have reason to cheer as the authorities have decided to add two additional six-car trains from Monday to ease the rush hour journeys. At present, the Green Line trains has only four six- car trains out of the total 18 that ply on the Nagasandra-Yelachenahalli route. Compared to this, all the 18 trains running in Purple Line ((Baiyappanahalli to Mysuru Road) have six cars.  Until June 2018, all Namma Metro trains plying in the city consisted of three coaches with a total capacity of 975 passengers at a given time. This caused a space crunch during peak hours. The six-car train, in comparison, can accommodate as many as 2,000 passengers. All the six-car metro rakes are provided by Indian public sector unit Bharat Earthmovers Ltd (BEML). The first compartment is reserved for women in all six-car trains. Passengers on the Green Line have been complaining of crowding during peak hours as the capacity of the trains have stayed the same since operations began, while all trains on the Purple Line have been converted to six-car trains.   While the Green Line between Nagasandra-Yelachenahalli spans 24.22 km, the Purple Line between Baiyyappanahalli and Mysore Road runs for 18.08 km. However, ridership has been consistently higher in the Purple Line than in the Green Line. Incidentally, the announcement comes when the Metro on Friday also breached its peak daily ridership figures. On the eve of Deepavali (Friday), more than 4.83 lakh people used the metro which pipped the previous record of 4.64 lakh recorded on Dasara (October4). Out of these, 2.63 lakh was on the Purple Line and 2.19 lakh were on the Green Line. Speaking to TNM, BMRCL Executive Director Operations A Shankar said, “This spike in ridership ensured that our farebox revenues increased by a substantial margin.” While the fare earnings on Friday was Rs 1.12 crore, the average daily fare collections for the 2018-19 financial year was Rs 0.97 crore.

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Bengaluru police detains 60 suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrants

Crime

Police said they will be deported to Bangladesh by the Border Security Force

TNM Staff

The police in Bengaluru detained as many as 60 persons on Saturday, suspecting them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. There were 29 men, 22 women and nine children, police said.  At a press conference led by City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, the police said that these suspected illegal immigrants were living in shanties in peripheral areas of the city falling under Ramamurthynagar, Bellandur and Marathahalli police station limits. “All the arrested will be deported to Bangladesh. There is information about some foreign nationals who are overstaying in KR Puram, Bagalur and other areas. Efforts are being made to arrest them. The passport and visa documents of all foreigners staying in the city are being checked,” Bangalore Mirror quoted one official as saying. Those detained were rounded up during a raid by the Central Crime Branch police who were probing the issue of illegal migrants after an intelligence report. According to reports, police also fear that those detained, who have been living here for a considerable time, may also have obtained identification documents such as Aadhaar and Voter ID cards illegally. Many of the people were employed as daily wage labourers and worked either in the construction sector or collected scraps. Some of them were also employed by the contractors of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). Police said most of these workers work at night and stay indoors during the day. The cops added that the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Office has been informed and the people will be handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF), who will deport them to Bangladesh. Police are also looking to book the agents who brought them here. The City Police Commissioner also said that from now on, property owners would be booked if it is found that they did not check the identity of tenants before renting their property. It was reported in July that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had directed the Karnataka government to look into the issue of illegal foreigners making their way into the city. 

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Pelosi's office working to kill progressive change to drug pricing bill

House Democratic leaders are telling rank-and-file lawmakers they have concerns with the wording of the amendment.

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Capture of wild elephant in Bandipur sparks fresh debate on GPS-enabled radio collars

Wildlife

The tusker was fitted with a GPS-enabled radio collar but forest officials involved in the capture said that the elephant was untraceable.

Prajwal Bhat

On Thursday, forest officials in Bandipur Tiger Reserve were faced with a tough operation - to capture an elephant which had attacked two residents of a village on the periphery of the tiger reserve. The elephant was fitted with a GPS-enabled radio collar just a month ago but forest officials involved in the capture said that the elephant was untraceable on Thursday.  "The collar was not working. We are unsure why this happened. Whether the battery was not working or whether it was not transmitting the location because of a technical defect," says T Balachandra, Conservator of Forests and Field Director, Project Tiger, Bandipur. Eventually, forest officials had to resort to the traditional method of alerting local residents about the tusker. "We decided to circulate the photograph of the elephant on TV channels and newspapers and sent it to each village panchayat in the area. On Thursday morning, a few residents informed us that the elephant is in a farm near Gundlupet," explains Balachandra. The elephant was soon tracked and a team of four trained elephants was used to get close to it. The wild elephant was then bound with thick ropes and led to a truck and shifted to the elephant camp at Dubare in Kodagu. The capture of the elephant sparked a fresh debate on the use of GPS-enabled radio collars on elephants.  Elephant captured in Bandipur  What is a radio collar? The GPS-enabled radio collar is an electronic device with a radio telemetric transmitter which acquires the GPS position and sends it to a local server. The GPS-enabled collars will update the location of a herd and help forest officials track them even during migration. They are powered by a lithium battery and weigh as much as 10 kg, a fraction of the body weight of an elephant.  Earlier this year, the Karnataka Forest Department fitted GPS-enabled collars on wild elephants as an experiment to track their movement and potentially reduce human-elephant conflict. The radio collar on the captured elephant was however fitted by forest officials in Tamil Nadu's Mudumalai reserve. The elephant had strayed from Mudumalai to the periphery of the Bandipur Tiger Reserve.   Elephant fitted with a GPS-enabled radio collar 'Collars are not foolproof' "The collars are not foolproof solutions to track elephants. It is a machine that is susceptible to damage based on what the elephant does. If some part is not working, it has to be rectified but usually, it is difficult to do that. This is what happened with the recent case in Bandipur," adds Balachandra. Placing the collar on the elephant is a task that requires meticulous planning. First, trained elephants are used to familiarise themselves with elephants in a herd. Then the female leader, usually the largest and strongest elephant in a herd, is identified. Experts give her a dosage of a tranquillising drug when she is isolated. The dosage depends on the strength of the elephant. When the elephant falls asleep, the collar is fitted on the elephant. Identifying the female leader of the herd allows forest officials to track the herd since the elephant kingdom is matriarchal.  The experiment with radio collars might have its detractors but forest officials in Kodagu's Virajpet taluk say that it has been beneficial to them in stopping human-elephant conflicts in the region. "There are practical difficulties but it allows us to find out where elephants are and monitor them easily. This allows rapid response teams to reach faster than before," says Gopal, a forest officer in the Virajpet range.  Forest officials in Kodagu Human-elephant conflict Elephant-human conflict is common whenever elephants stray into the agricultural fields of farmers. The conflict has led to loss of both human and elephant lives in Karnataka. Forest officials say that the lack of water in the forest is forcing elephants to turn up in coffee plantations and paddy fields to quench their thirst. In the last few years, forest officials have tried to set up solar fencing that gives a mild jolt, iron fencing, spike pillars and digging trenches, to reduce human-elephant conflict particularly in Kodagu. "They (radio collars) have not reduced instances of elephant-human conflict but have allowed us to respond faster to defuse situations,” says Gopal. "We need to communicate with local residents effectively to reduce the instances of conflict," he adds. Conservationist Joseph Hoover says that in addition to attaching a radio collar, forest officials should regularly keep a check on whether the device is transmitting the location. "There should be coordination between the forest departments of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu because Nilgiris is situated in a tri-junction area," he says.

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Cyclone Kyarr: IMD predicts more rainfall in Malnad region of Karnataka

Weather

Heavy rainfall was reported in the three coastal districts of Karnataka and a holiday was declared in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts.

TNM Staff

The Indian Meteorological Department on Saturday forecast heavy rains in isolated areas in Malnad region of Karnataka. Heavy rains have been predicted in Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Kodagu and Shivamogga districts of South Interior Karnataka for Sunday.  "Rainfall could exceed 65 mm. Thunderstorm accompanied by lightning and gusty winds speed reaching 30 to 40 kmph likely to occur at isolated places over all the districts of South Interior Karnataka,” read a note released by the IMD. Gusty winds were predicted in South Interior Karnataka on Monday as well. The winds were predicted at a time the cyclonic storm Kyarr intensified and continued to move towards the coast of Oman over the Arabian Sea. Heavy rains were reported in the three coastal districts of Karnataka — Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada. In Udupi, the rains claimed the lives of two people. A rescue operation was also initiated in Uttara Kannada's Kurmagada island by the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard. A total of 18 fishermen were rescued and taken to Mangaluru on Saturday.   A holiday was declared for schools and colleges in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts for the second day in a row on Saturday. A holiday was also declared in the five coastal taluks of Uttara Kannada district on Saturday. Karnataka state natural disaster monitoring centre director GS Srinivas Reddy told IANS that the westward moving cyclonic storm Kyarr will result in with heavy rains and thunder showers in the coastal and south interior areas of the state of Karnataka, disrupting normal life, for the next two days. Since October 18, 21 have people died due to strong winds, floods, wall collapses, drowning and uprooted trees. Besides death of 171 cattle, 14,680 houses have been damaged and 5,450 people are sheltered in relief camps. The government has advised fishermen not to venture into the sea since it will be rough and choppy. With IANS inputs

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Celebration over DKS’s return causes traffic blocks in Bengaluru airport area

One of the videos also showed an ambulance stuck in a traffic jam caused by the celebration.

TNM Staff

A traffic gridlock on the road coming out of Bengaluru International Airport inconvenienced commuters on Friday evening after thousands of supporters of Congress leader DK Shivakumar gathered at the Devanahalli toll plaza.  The supporters were celebrating the release of DK Shivakumar from Tihar jail, 50 days after he was arrested on September 3. Shivakumar, who was in New Delhi after he was granted bail, landed at the Bengaluru International Airport on Saturday at 2.30 pm. The planned celebration was held at the Devanahalli toll plaza and supporters gathered as early as 12 noon. One of the videos also showed an ambulance stuck in a traffic jam caused by the celebration.  "There was a minor traffic jam at the Devanahalli Toll plaza which was later cleared," a traffic police official at Devanahalli Traffic Police Station said. Traffic police officials maintained that there was minimal effect on the traffic due to the celebration even as videos of the long lines of vehicles stuck on the road coming out of the airport surfaced on social media. The traffic was stuck behind the procession held celebrating Shivakumar's release. A long line of vehicles headed towards Bengaluru city from the airport were seen in a traffic jam as thousands of Congress party workers and DK Shivakumar supporters joined the celebration of his release from jail. DK Shivakumar was arrested on September 3 in connection with a money laundering case. He was released after he was granted bail earlier this week. A celebration organised by his supporters on his return was attended by thousands of people. 

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