Uttar Pradesh: Minor girl, being treated for snakebite, tied and gang-raped by 5 in ICU

New Delhi, Mar 13: Delhi's Tis Hazari Court on Friday sentenced expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and six others to 10 years imprisonment for the death of Unnao rape survivor's father. Sengar is already serving life imprisonment for raping the minor.

While sentencing them, District Judge Dharmesh Sharma said, "There can be no denying that rule of law was broken. Sengar was a public functionary and had to maintain the rule of law. The way the crime has been committed, it does not call for leniency."

Sengar and his brother Atul has been directed to give 10 lakh compensation to family of the victim for loss of their father. "There are four minor children involved, three girls and one boy. They have also been uprooted from native place," the judge said.

Seven people, including Sengar, his brother and two police personnel, were held guilty for culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy, earlier this month.

The case pertains to the death of rape survivor's father in custody on April 9, 2018. It was alleged that he was assaulted following a quarrel with some of the accused in the case.

He was taken to the police station and then framed for allegedly possessing an illegal firearm. Pursuant to this, he was sent to custodial remand, during which he died.

The case was transferred to Delhi from a trial court in Uttar Pradesh on the Supreme Court's directions in August last year. Both the death and illegal firearm case was later clubbed by the court.

During the arguments on sentencing on March 12, Sengar had told the court that he should be "hanged and acid poured into his eyes if he has done anything wrong".

The former MLA had also raped the daughter of the deceased in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district and was sent to jail for "remainder of his natural biological life", last year.

Tamil Nadu, Jul 12: An alleged attempt by a 19-year-old man to "open a branch of the State Bank of India" at Panruti near Tamil Nadu was scuttled and he was arrested for forgery, police said on Saturday.

The man, son of retired SBI employees, had readied fake seals and challans of the public sector lender, and had other paraphernalia like a cash counting machine needed "to run a bank branch," on an upper floor of his residence at Panruti, about 25 km from Tamil Nadu.

He had not, however, put up any signboard. The SBI Panruti branch manager lodged a complaint with police seeking action following a tip-off by a customer that the man was "opening an SBI branch and has challans as well."

A printer who printed the challans and another who had made fake seals were held for similar offences and abetment.

They were produced before a magistrate court and enlarged on bail.

Asked if the man had cheated people by soliciting deposits or facilitating loans, Panruti police inspector K Ambethkar said, "no..we have not received any such complaint so far."

The man's late father had worked for SBI and his mother had retired from the same bank some time back, he said.

To a question, the police inspector said the man's mother, who has mobility issues, and another woman a relative living in the same house had no clue about his "idea."

Investigations revealed that he aspired to work for a bank and since he had closely watched banking operations for long he was "very knowledgeable" about it.

On the suspected motive, he said several of his replies were incomprehensible, childish, and strange notwithstanding his excellent understanding of the banking processes.

"He even calmly told us that he awaited approval from Mumbai to open the (SBI) branch and that he was about to put up a signboard," the inspector said, adding that the man had tried unsuccessfully to get employment on compassionate grounds in the SBI following the death of his father in harness.

Cuttack, Jan 16: At least 15 passengers were injured as five coaches of the Mumbai-Bhubaneswar Lokmanya Tilak Express derailed and three more were displaced after colliding with a goods train amid heavy fog near Cuttack in Odisha on Thursday, railway officials said.

Railway officials had earlier said that 25 passengers were injured in the incident but later officers who reached the site reported that four passengers were found to have suffered major injuries and 11 had received minor injuries.

Passengers with major injuries have been sent to Cuttack Medical College. All passengers are stated to be out of danger.

Officials said the accident happened when the passenger train hit the guard van of a good train around 7 am between Salagaon and Nergundi stations.

The officials said there was heavy fog at the site but it was not clear what led to the accident. The speedometer of both the trains have been seized for inquiry, East Coast Railway Spokesperson J P Mishra said.

Buses have been arranged for all remaining passengers to move towards their destination.

Cuttack is around 10-12 km away and Bhubaneswar(Terminating station) is 35 km.

The accident disrupted train services in the area.

Five trains have been affected due to the accident where restoration work in underway. These include the Bhubaneswar-Mumbai LTT SF Express, the Puri-Rourkela Express, Dhanbad-Bhubaneshwar Rajyarani Express which have all been diverted via Naraj.

"East Coast Railway acknowledges with deep gratitude help of nearby locals and villagers who have displayed great humanitarian values and come to the rescue of injured passengers," Mishra said.