Unnao victim's dying statement strong evidence: Top cop

Agencies
December 10, 2019

Lucknow, Dec 10: The dying declaration of the 23-year-old Unnao rape victim, who was set ablaze last week by five men, including the two accused of raping her earlier, is a "strong evidence" and will be used to nail her killers, Uttar Pradesh police chief O P Singh said on Tuesday.

The police will go in for the prosecution of the five accused in a fast-track court, the director general of police said a day after the Utter Pradesh government took a Cabinet decision to set up 218 new fast-track courts -- 144 to try rape cases and 74 for sexual offences against children.

"Dying declaration is a very strong evidence, and certainly, it will be used. Before dying, the girl deposed before a sub-divisional magistrate that these five persons attacked her," DGP Singh told PTI.

"When she was taken to Delhi and admitted to the hospital, she also had a chat with doctors. We will try to get the statement of the doctor also in this regard. These will be strong evidence to chargesheet these five criminals," he added.

Singh also said the police will soon file the chargesheet in the murder case.

"We will be chargesheeting them within a few days. We want to fast-track the entire case," said the police chief.

"We are also exploring the possibility of going for the DNA test of the accused," said Singh.

Explaining the rational behind going in for the DNA test of the accused, the police chief said the victim also had a mobile phone and a purse, which have already been sent for the forensic test to ascertain if those items came in contact with the accused and carry their fingerprints or traces of their sweat or hair etc from which the DNA sample of the accused could possibly be lifted.

"We would then match the DNA samples of the accused to those found on the victim's items," said Singh.

"We also have several strong pieces of circumstantial evidence in the case," said the DGP.

In her statement to Sub Divisional Magistrate Dayashankar Pathak, the woman had said she was attacked when she reached Gaura turn near her home on her way to the court to attend hearing in her rape case.

She had specifically named Harishankar Trivedi, Ram Kishore Trivedi, Umesh Bajpai, Shivam Trivedi and Shubham Trivedi as the persons who set her on fire.

She had also said Shivam and Shubham Trivedi had abducted and raped her in December 2018. The FIR in the case, however, was registered in March.

After being set on fire, the woman had run amok in a ball of fire, crying for help for a while, before people rushed to help her and called police.

After the chilling incident, the woman was first taken to a community health centre from where she was sent to the district hospital and then to a hospital in Lucknow, before finally airlifted to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi where she died a day later.

All the five men involved in the Thursday morning attack were arrested within hours of the crime.

In a video, which surfaced on social media on Tuesday, family members of Shivam Trivedi said, "All I want from the government is a CBI probe into the matter. We want justice."

The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday cleared a proposal to set up 218 new fast-track courts to try sexual offences against women and children. The state presently has only 81 fast track courts.

Now, all cases of sexual offences in the state will be tried by fast-track courts, state Law Minister Brajesh Pathak had told reporters on Monday while announcing the Cabinet decision to set up 218 fast track courts to handle cases of rapes and other sexual offences.

The state presently has over 42,000 cases of crime against children besides 25,000 cases of rape.

Comments

Dead Indian
 - 
Wednesday, 11 Dec 2019

My dear police officer....treat this unnao rape victim as your daughter and encounter the rapist as you did in DR killer. if even he is from BJP, baba or MLA..

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News Network
June 2,2020

London/Milan, Jun 2: World Health Organization experts and a range of other scientists said on Monday there was no evidence to support an assertion by a high profile Italian doctor that the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has been losing potency.

Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy, which bore the brunt of Italy's COVID-19 epidemic, on Sunday told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists".

But WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, as well as several other experts on viruses and infectious diseases, said Zangrillo's comments were not supported by scientific evidence.

There is no data to show the new coronavirus is changing significantly, either in its form of transmission or in the severity of the disease it causes, they said.

"In terms of transmissibility, that has not changed, in terms of severity, that has not changed," Van Kerkhove told reporters.

It is not unusual for viruses to mutate and adapt as they spread, and the debate on Monday highlights how scientists are monitoring and tracking the new virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed more than 370,000 people and infected more than 6 million.

Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said major studies looking at genetic changes in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 did not support the idea that it was becoming less potent, or weakening in any way.

"With data from more than 35,000 whole virus genomes, there is currently no evidence that there is any significant difference relating to severity," he said in an emailed comment.

Zangrillo, well known in Italy as the personal doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said his comments were backed up by a study conducted by a fellow scientist, Massimo Clementi, which Zangrillo said would be published next week.

Zangrillo told Reuters: "We have never said that the virus has changed, we said that the interaction between the virus and the host has definitely changed."

He said this could be due either to different characteristics of the virus, which he said they had not yet identified, or different characteristics in those infected.

The study by Clementi, who is director of the microbiology and virology laboratory of San Raffaele, compared virus samples from COVID-19 patients at the Milan-based hospital in March with samples from patients with the disease in May.

"The result was unambiguous: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March compared to" those admitted last month, Zangrillo said.

Oscar MacLean, an expert at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research, said suggestions that the virus was weakening were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds."

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News Network
April 29,2020

New Delhi, Apr 29: India's tally of COVID-19 cases has reached 31,332, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday. With 73 more deaths reported, the number of deaths due to coronavirus in the country breached the 1,000 mark and stood at 1,007.

The tally is inclusive of 22,629 active coronavirus cases, 7,695 patients who have been cured/discharged and one patient migrated.

According to the Ministry, Maharashtra has the most number of COVID-19 cases with 9,318 cases of which, 1,388 patients have been cured/discharged while 400 patients have succumbed to the virus.

Gujarat has the second-highest number of positive cases in the country with 3744 cases including 434 patients cured/discharged and 181 deaths.

Delhi's tally stands at 3314 cases of which, 1078 patients have recovered while 54 patients have succumbed to the virus.

Madhya Pradesh has a total of 2387 positive cases including 377 patients recovered/discharged and 120 fatalities.

Meanwhile, Goa (seven cases; all seven recovered), Arunachal Pradesh (one case; now recovered), Manipur (two cases; both recovered), Tripura (two cases; both recovered) have reported no new cases of COVID-19.

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News Network
February 14,2020

London, Feb 14: Liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya once again asked the Indian banks to take back 100 per cent of the principal amount owed to them at the end of his three-day British High Court appeal on Thursday against an extradition order to India.

The 64-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss, wanted in India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to an alleged Rs 9,000 crores in unpaid bank loans, said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are fighting over the same assets and not treating him reasonably in the process.

“I request the banks with folded hands, take 100 per cent of your principal back, immediately,” he said outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

“The Enforcement Directorate attached the assets on the complaint by the banks that I was not paying them. I have not committed any offenses under the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) that the Enforcement Directorate should suo moto attach my assets," he said.

"I am saying, please banks take your money. The ED is saying no, we have a claim over these assets. So, the ED on the one side and the banks on the other are fighting over the same assets,” he added.

Asked about heading back to India, he noted: “I should be where my family is, where my interests are.

"If the CBI and the ED are going to be reasonable, it’s a different story. What all they are doing to me for the last four years is totally unreasonable.”

Lord Justice Stephen Irwin and Justice Elisabeth Laing, the two-member bench presiding over the appeal, concluded hearing the arguments in the case and said they will be handing down their verdict at a later date after considering the oral as well as written submissions in the “very dense” case over the next few weeks.

On a day of heated arguments between Mallya’s barrister, Clare Montgomery, and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) counsel Mark Summers, arguing on behalf of the Indian government, both sides clashed over the prima facie case of fraud and deception against Mallya.

“We submit that he lied to get the loans, then did something with the money he wasn’t supposed to and then refused to give back the money. All this could be perceived by a jury as patently dishonest conduct,” said Summers.

“What they [Kingfisher Airlines] were saying [to the banks] about profitability going forward was knowingly wrong,” he said, as he took the High Court through evidence to counter Mallya’s lawyers’ claims that Westminster Magistrates Court Judge Emma Arbuthnot had fallen into error when she found a case to answer in the Indian courts against Mallya.

Mallya, who remains on bail on an extradition warrant, is not required to attend the hearings but has been in court to observe the proceedings since the three-day appeal opened on Tuesday. A key defence to disprove a prima facie case of fraud and misrepresentation on his part has revolved around the fact that Kingfisher Airlines was the victim of economic misfortune alongside other Indian airlines.

However, the CPS has argued that “there is enough in the 32,000 pages of overall evidence to fulfil the [extradition] treaty obligations that there is a case to answer”. “There is not just a prima facie case but overwhelming evidence of dishonesty… and given the volume and depth of evidence the District Judge [Arbuthnot] had before her, the judgment is comprehensive and detailed with the odd error but nothing that impacts the prima facie case,” said Summers.

At the start of the appeal, Mallya’s counsel claimed Arbuthnot did not look at all of the evidence because if she had, she would not have fallen into the multiple errors that permeate her judgment. The High Court must establish if the magistrates’ court had in fact fallen short on a point of law in its verdict in favour of extradition.

Representatives from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), as well as the Indian High Commission in London, have been present in court to take notes during the course of the appeal hearing.

Mallya had received permission to appeal against his extradition order signed off by former UK home secretary Sajid Javid last February only on one ground, which challenges the Indian government's prima facie case against him of fraudulent intentions in acquiring bank loans.

At the end of a year-long extradition trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London in December 2018, Judge Arbuthnot had found “clear evidence of dispersal and misapplication of the loan funds” and accepted a prima facie case of fraud and a conspiracy to launder money against Mallya, as presented by the CPS on behalf of the Indian government.

Mallya remains on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April 2017 involving a bond worth 650,000 pounds and other restrictions on his travel while he contests that ruling.

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