51% turnout at Jammu and Kashmir DDC polls, counting to begin on Tuesday

Elections

The polls commenced on November 28 and concluded on Saturday with voter turnout reaching up to 67 % in the final phase.

PTI

The necessary arrangements have been made for counting of votes in all 280 District Development Council (DDC) constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, State Election Commissioner (SEC) KK Sharma said. The counting will begin at 9 am in all 20 districts of the union territory on Tuesday, Sharma said at a meeting held on Sunday to review preparations and other arrangements for the counting process. The eight-phase DDC elections were the first democratic exercise held in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 and division of the erstwhile state into two union territories last year. The polls commenced on November 28 and concluded on Saturday with an overall voter turnout of approximately 51 per cent. As much as 67.60 % and 47.56 % polling was recorded in the final phase of polling. "The Returning Officers will be incharge of the counting process for each DDC constituency. The entire counting exercise will be monitored and recorded to achieve full transparency," Sharma said. He said counting of ballot papers would be taken up on a round-wise basis after proper mixing of ballot papers from different polling stations as per the prescribed procedure and counting guidelines. On the implementation of necessary COVID-19 protocols, Sharma said directions have already been issued to concerned deputy commissioners to adhere to coronavirus SOPs during the counting process. KK Sharma said that in panch bypolls, Kupwara recorded the highest 75.57 per cent voter turnout in Kashmir division, followed by Bandipora at 75.42 per cent and Baramulla at 66.64 per cent.

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Six arrested in Karnataka for kidnapping 8-year-old, demanding ransom in bitcoins

Crime

The boy was traced to Kurnahosahalli hamlet in Malur of Kolar district, which is 54 kms from Bengaluru and he was reunited with his family in Belthangady.

TNM Staff

An eight-year-old boy from Dakshina Kannada, who was kidnapped on December 17, was rescued from Kolar on Saturday. The gang of abductors sought ransom in bitcoins, the police said and they have now been arrested.The police have arrested six persons with this case who were with the boy in connection to the case. They are tech-savvy, the police added.   The arrested have been identified as Ranjith (20) and Hanumanthu (21), both residents of Mandya; Gangadhar (25), a resident of Mysuru; Kamal (22), a resident of Electronic City who works as mechanic in Bengaluru; and Manjunath (24) and Mahesh (26), both from Kolar. Ranjith, Hanumanthu, Gangadhar and Kamal were the abductors while Manjunath and Mahesh helped the abductors in Kolar. The police however said that the main accused in the case is yet to be arrested. "We will know the exact details only after the main accused is apprehended. The others apprehended were all just hired for the job," investigating police said. The boy was traced to Kurnahosahalli hamlet in Malur of Kolar district, which is 54 kms from Bengaluru and he was reunited with his family in Belthangady, Dakshina Kannada, police said. The case gained public attention due to the abductors demanding ransom in bitcoins, a kind of digital cryptocurrency. The police said that at around 5 am on Saturday morning, after ensuring that the kidnappers and inmates in the house were fast asleep, the joint police team of Kolar and Dakshina Kannada districts raided the house and rescued the boy from the clutches of his kidnappers. Anubhav, son of Bijoy and grandson of an ex-serviceman Shivan, had been abducted on Thursday evening by the occupants of an Indica car bearing a yellow number plate. The kidnappers had demanded ransom of 100 bitcoins, valued around Rs 17 crore initially and later the gang kept revising their demand downward from Rs 17 crore to Rs 10 Crore and finally "agreed" for Rs 25 lakhs. The abductors had wanted the ransom in bitcoins as it would be difficult to trace the transaction, Dakshina Kannada superintendent of police Laxmi Prasad told reporters here. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Bantwala Subdivision, Valentine D'souza who led the four teams comprising of 20 policemen to track this case said that after the boy was kidnapped at around 6:30 pm on Thursday from near his house, the police took this up as a challenge since this is the first time in the state any kidnapper had demanded ransom in a virtual currency. He added that the Bantwal police first tracked down how they got a whiff about the child, whose father had been dealing in bitcoins since 2016. "This gang had kept track of the movement of the family for quite some time and they cultivated a few friends in the process here. One of them happened to reveal that this gang had inquired a lot about the father and his dealings, which co-related with our investigations too," the Dy. SP said. Another police officer said that the gang had developed contact with a local autorickshaw driver, and through him they collected all the information. He not only helped the police get their original number but also tracked them through CCTV footage. The police added that the panicked gang took NH-73, that connects Belthangady, Mangaluru and Tumkuru, the police followed them here and they took shelter in Kurnahosahalli, which is a hamlet of just about 150 houses and a population of less than 1000 people. "This village is strategically located where one can easily slip to Chennai or towards Andhra Pradesh," the police said. Read: Mangaluru businessman's grandson abducted, kidnappers demand Rs 10 cr in bitcoin

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‘A shining moment’: Congress agrees to restore Medicaid for Pacific Islanders

After fleeing their homeland scarred by U.S. nuclear tests, Marshall Islanders finally get the health care that was promised them.

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CDC panel: Frontline workers, 75-plus seniors should get Covid shots next

The recommendations came after spirited debate about whether more seniors should be next in line.

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Testing czar says Covid-19 variant no 'reason for alarm'

“We don’t know that it’s more dangerous and, very importantly, we have not seen a single mutation yet that would make it evade the vaccine,” Brett Giroir said.

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Warp Speed official takes blame for overcount of Covid shot allocations

A discrepancy in the amount of vaccine doses available for states has left governors scrambling to revise their vaccination plans.

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How an alleged rape and murder of a student in Bengaluru has sent shockwaves in Assam

Death

A massive candlelight march was held in Howly in Barpeta district of Assam for the 20-year-old nursing student from Assam who was found dead in Bengaluru on December 16.

Prajwal Bhat

Candlelight march in Howly, Barpeta, Assam

A group of residents and students' organisations, on Friday, took out a massive candlelight march in Howly in Assam's Barpeta district, the hometown of a 20-year-old nursing student in Bengaluru who was allegedly murdered in the city on Wednesday. The march, which was organised on Friday night after her funeral in Howly, was attended by hundreds of people seeking justice in the death of the student from the village in Assam.  Those who took part in the march want the police in Bengaluru to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. The victim had arrived in Bengaluru on December 14 just two days before her tragic death to complete her admission process in a nursing school. She was found dead in the residence of Anisur Rahman, a 21-year-old paramedical student who also hails from Assam. Anisur was arrested by the Bengaluru police on charges of rape and murder on Wednesday.   The victim's father is a lab technician in a government hospital and her mother is a homemaker.  She left Assam, like many others in her village, for Bengaluru with the hope of a better education. Though the cause of death is yet to be ascertained, many people who TNM spoke to said that for those in the victim’s village, her death is a shocking reminder of how dreams can be cruelly cut short. "We can’t believe that she is dead. We held a peaceful campaign seeking justice for her death. A detailed post-mortem investigation should be conducted and if the accused is guilty of rape and murder, the punishment should be stringent," Siraj Munir, who took part in the rally on Friday night, told TNM. Siraj added that the news of the alleged rape and murder had come as a shock to the residents of the district located northwest of Guwahati.  The police complaint filed by Anisur's landlord states that the victim was unconscious and there was bleeding near her genitals when she was found. She was rushed to a hospital in Yelahanka by Anisur and his friends. "The cause of her death is not clear yet. The post-mortem report is yet to come out and it will determine whether she was raped," said a police official investigating the case.  The victim's family and residents in her hometown in Barpeta urged the police to speed up the investigation and contended that the police were protecting the accused by not furnishing the post-mortem report. “We are asking for the investigation to be completed and justice to be served. This kind of situation is rare and we are worried that the police will close the case without a fair trial,” said a lawyer connected to the case. The post-mortem is being conducted in Bengaluru's Victoria Hospital and a source in the hospital said that the delay in the report is because the hospital is short-staffed due to examinations for post-graduate medical students. The source added that there were no signs of struggle found on the victim's body and that the report should be out on Monday. Anisur’s version The accused Anisur is a friend of the victim's brother. According to the police, Anisur, in his statement to the officials, said that the victim was his girlfriend and that she started bleeding and fell unconscious when they were having sex. The police are tracking the victim's movements in Bengaluru from the time she arrived on Monday till the time she was found dead two days later.  Read: Bengaluru police arrest paramedical student for alleged rape and murder of 20-yr-old Two MPs from Assam — Abdul Khaleque of Congress and Badruddin Ajmal of All India United Democratic Front — wrote to Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa asking for a thorough investigation in the case and for justice to be expedited.  "I  request the Karnataka government to take all the necessary action against the culprit and urge you to arrest all culprits as soon as possible. I request the government of Karnataka to take necessary action for the safety and security of all the other students and working professionals from Assam residing temporarily in the state," Abdul Khaleque said in a letter to the CM.

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