9 yrs after murder of Dell techie Payal Surekha, gym trainer gets life term

Crime

The horrific murder of 29-year-old Payal had shocked the city back in 2010.

TNM Staff

Nine years after Payal Surekha, a software professional in Bengaluru was found murdered in her flat in a case that had shocked the city, a special CBI court sentenced James Ray, a gym trainer, to life imprisonment for the murder on Wednesday.  In the horrific murder, 29-year-old Payal was bound and stabbed 23 times by the accused James Ray, who worked at a fitness centre run by Payal's husband Ananth Narayana Mishra. Ray was sacked due to misbehaviour and alleged financial irregularities. James blamed Payal, a senior technical assistant at Dell in the city, for his dismissal and plotted for weeks to kill her at her apartment in JP Nagar in the city, the Times of India reported. James was also fined Rs 1 lakh.  SK Umesh, who was then the inspector of JP Nagar Police Station, arrested James and recovered a blood stained knife and a pair of goggles from him. James had reportedly used the goggles before hiding it in an isolated place in Puttenahalli. The police said that James committed the murder to take revenge on Payal, The Hindu reported. The murder had shaken the city back in 2010 and the case made headlines for weeks. Her family had even accused the husband Ananth of committing the murder. Payal's parents later approached the Supreme Court seeking a CBI enquiry into the role of their son-in-law Anantha Narayan Mishra in the murder. Supreme Court directed CBI to investigate the case in August 2013.The CBI re-examined the evidence and concluded that James killed Payal and tried to implicate her husband, who was in Cuttack at the time, in the murder. 

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Karnataka woman allegedly kills her 3-month-old baby, dumps body in Bhadra river

Crime

The woman may have mental health issues and a medical examination will be conducted.

Theja Ram

The Karnataka police on Wednesday arrested a 28-year-old woman from Chikkamagaluru district for allegedly throwing her three-month-old baby into a canal. The incident came to light when the baby's body was found floating in the Bhadra River on Wednesday.  Tavarakere Police, who are investigating the case, says that the woman may have mental health issues and that a medical examination would be conducted to determine the same. Early on Wednesday morning, residents of Bettatavarakere village in Karnataka's Chikkamagaluru district, noticed the body of a baby floating in the water. The village residents immediately informed the Tavarakere Police, who arrived at the spot to recover the child, named Tejas.  The investigating officers contacted Tejas' mother Kamala about her son's death. "The baby's mother came to the police station after we called her and confessed to killing the baby. She had also chopped off his tongue, she said," the Tavarakere Police said.  According to the investigating officials, Kamala and her mother-in-law had taken Tejas to a private hospital in Tavarakere when he fell sick three days ago. The baby was admitted to the hospital and was undergoing treatment. On Tuesday night, Tejas allegedly began to cry and was inconsolable.  "The mother, Kamala, tried to pacify the baby and she told her mother-in-law, who was asleep at that time, that she would take the baby out of the ward for a while to pacify him. She says that the baby did not stop crying and so she cut off his tongue," the Tavarakere Police added.  Kamala allegedly took Tejas to Haliyur, which was 4 km away from the hospital and allegedly threw the baby into the canal (Upper Bhadra project), which is currently under construction. Police say that Kamala then went back to the hospital and slept in the visitor's area. On Wednesday morning, Kamala allegedly called the Tavarakere police and informed them that her baby was missing from the hospital.  "When we got a call that a baby's body was found in the water, we called the woman, so she could come and identify the body. She confessed when she came to the station," the police added.  Tejas' body has been sent for an autopsy as the police are uncertain whether the baby was dead or alive before he was thrown into the canal. The Tavarakere Police have arrested Kamala and have booked her under section 302 (murder) of the IPC. She was produced before the magistrate and has been remanded to 14-day judicial custody.  In August 2017, a Bengaluru woman allegedly flung her daughter off the terrace twice, ultimately killing the child. It was later reported that the woman was ‘mentally unstable.’  In many cases like this, the accused have been found to have postpartum depression, which if left untreated, can manifest as postpartum psychosis. Postpartum depression is a condition caused after childbirth where a mother experiences symptoms of severe depression - which may be attributed to many reasons like post-delivery stress or hormonal changes. If left unchecked, postpartum depression may escalate into an episode of psychosis. 

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Why Democrats keep winning on health care

Here are four takeaways on how health care pushed Democrats over the top Tuesday night.

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New York judge tosses Trump administration's conscience rule

The rule allowed health plans to refuse to cover or perform any services they oppose on religious or moral grounds.

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For senior citizens, crossing Bengaluru roads between 6 pm-10 pm dangerous: Study

Accident

Two-wheelers accounted for 35% of all fatal crashes that pedestrians faced, a study on pedestrians deaths in 2018 has shown.

Soumya Chatterjee

Winter months and a four-hour window between 6 pm and 10 pm every day are the most dangerous times to be a pedestrian on Bengaluru’s roads, a new detailed study of pedestrian crashes in Bengaluru for the year 2018 has revealed. As many as 30% of the total fatal crashes that pedestrians suffered were reported during this period. Incidentally, the number of crashes reported during this time period was 84 per cent higher than the average crashes reported at any other time.  In Bengaluru, as many 276 people have died after being hit by vehicles while walking on the roads. Read: Over 40 per cent of road accident victims in Bengaluru are pedestrians The same study also found two-wheelers were the major (35%) cause of all fatal crashes pedestrians have suffered. An overwhelming 62% of the victims died were attempting to cross the road while another 25% died as they were walking on the roadside. These findings were consolidated by The Footpath Initiative, a community advocating pedestrian safety, based on RTI applications to all 44 traffic police stations. These figures are based on data provided by the traffic police about instances where a motor vehicle was involved. There is no official record of injuries due to bad footpaths and roads alone. Read: Broken ‘Pelican’ crossings shows lack of concern for Bengaluru pedestrians: Experts As earlier reported, both the figures for death and injury was lower compared to the previous three years. The same can be attributed to the increased vehicular congestion in the city. The number of pedestrian deaths in Bengaluru for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 was 338, 320, 284 and 276, respectively. The corresponding figures for injuries to pedestrians in these years were 1254, 1292, 1346 and 1217. Out of the 274 cases of pedestrian crashes, 232 were attributed to “over-speeding and reckless driving”. A look at month-wise data will also reveal that the winter months are also the worst with December, January, February and March showing the most number of pedestrians affected. The data also establishes a correlation between better pedestrian infrastructure and lesser pedestrian injuries and deaths. As observed the city centre on a whole has better pedestrian infrastructure than the outskirts be the city. Even though the jurisdictional area of these police stations varies, the total pedestrian crashes reported in each of these jurisdictions confirm this trend. Pedestrian crashes varied between 7 each in Shivajinagar and High Grounds to 81 in KR Puram. Yelahanka reported the highest number of pedestrian deaths in 2018, followed by KR Puram and Chikkajala. Peenya was the location where the highest number of pedestrian injuries were reported, followed by KR Puram and Kamkshipalya. Pedestrian crashes were also found to be largely concentrated around arterial roads of the city. Hosur Road, Bellary Road, Mysore Road, Old Madras Road, and Outer Ring Road (ORR) saw a high number of crashes.  Age of the victims, type of vehicle Another revelation that stood out was that most of the victims were senior citizens and those above 45 years of age. 33% of all accidents involved victims aged 60 years and above. Next, was the age group of people aged between 45-59 that accounted for 28% of the victims.  The study also recorded the type of vehicles involved in injuring or killing pedestrians in 232 of the 274 cases. While 35% of these accidents involved two-wheelers, 26 % of them involved a car or a jeep hitting the pedestrian. Heavy vehicles— trucks and buses — contributed to 24% of all crashes.  “There has been no such change in our findings from 2017; the crashes have dipped by only 2%. This means we have not done anything in the past year. If you see, the victims, one-third of the victims are above 60 years old. The trends are mostly the same, that accidents are happening in arterial roads and mostly on peripheral areas of the city,” Anusha Chitturi, a member of Footpath Initiative, said.  “The notable change is the involvement of two-wheelers causing accidents. Last year the percentage was not as high as 35%,” she added.

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Tipu Jayanti not a state-sponsored event, but can be celebrated privately: K'taka HC

Court

The BJP government cancelled the celebrations in July this year barely days after coming to power.

Prajwal Bhat

There will be no government sponsored celebrations of Tipu Jayanthi but private celebrations of the occasion without the involvement of the state government will go ahead on November 10. This, after the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday declined to grant a stay against privately held celebrations of Tipu Jayanthi in the state. The High Court asked the Karnataka government to place on record all the government orders of decisions to celebrate various Jayantis in the state by January 20 2020.  The decision was made while hearing a petition filed by Bilal Ali Shah, a resident of Lucknow and who claims to be Tipu Sultan’s descendant, along with organisations working in favour of Tipu Sultan. The  BJP government in the state cancelled the celebrations in July this year barely days after coming to power. The state government cited protests, particularly in Kodagu district, as the reason for its decision. In 2016, protests against the occasion turned violent causing the death of two persons in Kodagu. The petitioners challenged the government order passed in July in the High Court. The Advocate General appearing for the state government clarified that the government order barred the state sponsored celebrations of Tipu Jayanthi. "We argued that the latest government order cited a letter from an MLA in Kodagu stating that there will be law-and order problem in the district. This has been used to extend to the entire state," Ashwini Obulesh, a lawyer appearing for the petitioners told TNM. She added that the previous government orders announcing Tipu Jayanti celebrations in the state were detailed orders. "The orders issued earlier by the previous government laid out who Tipu Sultan was and what he did in Mysore Kingdom. The latest order only mentioned the violence that affected Kodagu", Ashwini added. Tipu Jayanthi marks the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of Mysore Kingdom. The celebration of Tipu's birth anniversary was held by the state government for the first time in 2015 during the tenure of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress.  BJP leaders in Karnataka had earlier celebrated Tipu Sultan and taken part in celebrations honouring his memory but after the state-sponsored celebrations were introduced in 2015, party leaders have steadfastly opposed the former ruler of the Mysore Kingdom. Every year, on the days leading up to the celebration, BJP and pro-Hindu groups have run a campaign to show Tipu Sultan allegedly persecuted Kodavas and Christians during his reign in Mysore. However, the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah had continued to celebrate the occasion every year. In October this year, Madikeri MLA Appachu Ranjan wrote to the Karnataka Education Department seeking the removal of references to Tipu Sultan from state syllabus school textbooks. The Education Department is currently preparing a report on the matter. In the letter, Appachu  argued that Tipu Sultan supported the French and persecuted Kodavas in Coorg (now Kodagu) and Christians in Mangalore (now Mangaluru).  

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Karnataka police arrest man for assaulting daughter with hammer

Crime

A video of the man in an inebriated condition holding a hammer and charging towards the girl was shared widely on social media.

Prajwal Bhat

Police officials in Hassan district arrested a man after a video of him assaulting his daughter with a hammer emerged on Tuesday. The video showed Prashanth, 47, charging towards his 12-year-old daughter with a hammer in-hand. Prashanth was in an inebriated condition and hit his daughter on her left hand. The video, which was shared widely on social media, was being filmed by the daughter.  The incident occurred around 10 pm on November 2 in the residence of Prashanth and his family in Champakanagar in Sakaleshpura of Hassan district.  In a complaint filed by Janaki, a Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) working in Hassan, it was stated that Prashanth, had come home in an inebriated condition. At the time, his wife and two daughters were at home.  Prashanth picked up a hammer and began to taunt the 12-year-old girl, who was shooting a video to show her grandfather. The complaint said that Prashanth assaulted the girl by hitting her left hand with the hammer while she was filming. An FIR was registered based on the complaint and Prashanth was charged under section 324 of the IPC and under sections of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. In the video, Prashanth, who appears to be visibly drunk, also refers to the popular Kannada film KGF before proceeding to hit his daughter. "Have you seen KGF?", Prashanth taunted with the hammer in-hand. He then says, "I will hit you all with this hammer. My father used to hit us as well." He then charges at the girl and swings the hammer, hitting her on her left arm. Even though a visible red bruise was seen on her arm, she was given medical treatment at home by her mother, child protection officials said. The girl was taken to a hospital for treatment by the CDPO before a complaint was filed in the Sakaleshpura Town Police Station.  Prashanth was arrested on Tuesday and produced before a local court. The child was counselled at the Hassan Child Protection Unit. "We decided to take a precaution and bring her in for counselling. She told us that this was the first incident like this and that her father did not have a habit of hitting her. We will be taking assurances from her father when he is out on bail that this will not occur again," an official at the unit told TNM. 

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