Cyanide Mohan acquitted in 2005 Bantwal woman rape-murder case

coastaldigest.com news network
October 25, 2017

Mangaluru, Oct 25: The Karnataka high court on Tuesdayacquitted Mohan Kumar alias Cyanide Mohan in the rape and murder of 32-year-old Leelavati Mistry, a resident of Vamapadavu in Bantwal taluk, who was found dead at a KSRTC bus stand in Mysuru in September 2005.

A division bench comprising Justice Ravi Malimath and John Michael Cunha noted that both the postmortem and Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) reports only established the presence of organophosporous (insecticide), and the 'last seen' theory was not proved by the prosecution.

Partly allowing a criminal appeal filed by Mohan, the bench, however, upheld the trial court's order holding him guilty under section 392 of IPC (robbery), for which a five-year jail term was imposed.

However, the same was set off as Mohan had already spent seven years in jail since his arrest in July 2009.

On October 12, the court had commuted Mohan's death penalty to life sentence in the murder of 22-year-old Anitha who was found dead at a KSRTC bus stand in Hassan on June 18, 2009.

The third case in which Mohan was awarded the death penalty - the murder of Sunanda Pujari - will be taken up on October 31.

Took her to Mysuru on pretext of job interview. Leelavati was found dead in the urinal at the Mysuru bus stand on September 10, 2005.

The prosecution had alleged that Mohan befriended Leelavati in August 2005 claiming that he belonged to her caste and would marry her. On September 9, 2005, he took her to Mysuru from Bantwal on the pretext of an job interview.

He booked a room at a lodge and the duo checked in. Later, he allegedly raped her.

The next morning, he asked her to remove her ornaments and keep them in her bag to give the interviewers the impression that she belonged to a poor family.

He also gave her a pill laced with cyanide, claiming it was an 'anti-pregnancy medicine' and asked her to consume it in the lavatory. Then he checked out of the lodge and decamped with her jewellery.

On December 21, 2013, the IV additional sessions judge, Dakshina Kannada district, had awarded death penalty to Mohan in connection with the murders of Anitha, Leelavati and Sunanda.

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News Network
March 24,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 24: Eight new positive coronavirus cases were confirmed in Karnataka on Tuesday, taking the tally to 41 in the state, the health department said.

"Till date 41 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state which includes one death and 3 discharged," the department said.

According the department bulletin, 37 positive patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and their condition is stable.

Of the 41 confirmed cases, six are transit passengers hailing from Kerala who have landed in airports and being treated in Karnataka.

Among the eight passengers confirmed on Tuesday also three men and a woman are from Kasaragod in Kerala with a history of travel to Dubai and Saudi Arabia respectively.

All the four had landed in Mangaluru, where they are being treated.

The others are: two men, aged 40 and 65, from Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka with travel history to Dubai;

a 56-year-old woman, a resident of Chikkaballapura district, who is a family member and co-passenger of person who tested postive with travel history to Mecca, and a 56-year-old woman, resident of Bengaluru, a contact of another person who has tested positive for the virus,

Among the 41 cases, 24 has been reported from Bengaluru, five from Dakshina Kannada, three each from Kalaburgai and Chikkaballapura, two each from Mysuru and Uttara Kannada, and one each from Kodagu and Dharwad.

All the three discharged patients are from Bengaluru, while one death was reported in Kalaburagi earlier this month, which was the country's first COVID-19 related death.

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News Network
April 25,2020

Udupi, Apr 25: Senior RSS leader H Somashekhar Bhatt received a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday enquiring about his health.

Bhatt got emotional hearing the Prime Minister's voice at the other end, family sources said.

The Prime Minister called at 8.30 AM and began the conversation with 'Somashekharji' and spoke for about six minutes.

The 85-year-old veteran recalled how the Jana Sangh came to power in Udupi municipality under the leadership of V S Acharya in 1968 and about his association with the Sangh Parivar through the decades and his imprisonment during the Emergency.

Bhatt, former Udupi municipality president, later said it was a rare honour for him.

"I am very glad that PM Modi called and spoke to me. I shared the experience of meeting him at the Jaipur session.

Asked to take care of health and expressed concern," he said.

The Prime Minister has been calling senior functionaries of the party who worked for the Sangh Parivar in the time of adversities to build up the BJP in its present form and seeking advice from them.

He had also called in recent days former MLA Ram Bhat who was elected from Puttur in Dakshina Kannada and D H Shankar Murthy, who was former chairman of the state legislative council, BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel tweeted.

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News Network
April 19,2020

New Delhi, Apr 19: The government on Sunday prohibited the sale of non-essential items through e-commerce platforms during the ongoing lockdown, four days after allowing such companies to sale mobile phones, refrigerators and ready-made garments.

Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla issued an order excluding the non-essential items from sale by the e-commerce companies from the consolidated revised guidelines, which listed the exemption given to the services and people from the purview of the lockdown.

The order said the following clause -- "E-commerce companies. Vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be allowed to ply with necessary permissions" -- is excluded from the guidelines.

The previous order had said such items were allowed for sale through e-commerce platforms from April 20.

However, the reason for reversing the order is not known immediately.

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