France killings: Gunman jumps to his death in hail of bullets

March 22, 2012

gun_man


Toulouse (France), March 22: A 23-year-old gunman suspected of killing seven people in southwestern France in the name of al-Qaida, jumped from a window to his death in a hail of bullets after police stormed his apartment on Thursday.

"At the moment when a video probe was sent into the bathroom, the killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence," interior minister Claude Gueant said, adding that Merah was firing several guns at once.

"In the end, Mohamed Merah jumped from the window with his gun in his hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground," he told reporters at the scene. Two police commandos were wounded.

Special forces entered the five-storey building in a suburb of Toulouse after besieging Merah since early on Wednesday.

Gueant said earlier police hoped to capture Merah, who had confessed to police negotiators to killing three soldiers as well as three Jewish children and a rabbi at a school, alive.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose already slim chances of beating off a Socialist challenger in next month's presidential election may be affected by his handling of the crisis, has vowed justice will be done and urged people not to seek revenge.

Early on Thursday, the first opinion poll since the school shooting showed Sarkozy would narrowly beat Socialist Francois Hollande in the first-round vote. But Hollande was seen at eight percentage points ahead in the second round.

There had been a long silence overnight from Merah, who said he wanted to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and French army involvement in Afghanistan.

"Despite renewed efforts all through the night to reestablish contact by voice and radio, there has been no contact, no showing from him," Gueant said.

A police source said that the lack of activity picked up by night vision goggles could merely mean that Merah was merely asleep but time was pressing to investigate. "At some point soon we'll have to go in and see," the source said.

Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin who had been under intelligence surveillance for years, shot at police as they closed in on him in the early hours of Wednesday and later boasted to negotiators that he had brought France to its knees.

He said his only regret was not having been able to carry out more killings.


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Agencies
May 19,2020

Yavatmal, May 19: Four migrant workers were killed and 15 others were injured after a bus they were travelling in crashed into a truck in Yavatmal on Tuesday morning.

The bus was travelling from Solapur to Jharkhand. More details are currently awaited.

This comes amid nationwide COVID-19 lockdown has been extended to May 31, albeit with some relaxations.

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Agencies
May 27,2020

Mumbai, May 27: "Crime Patrol" actress Preksha Mehta has committed suicide. She was 25.

Preksha took her life by hanging from a ceiling fan on Monday night at her residence in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reports timesofindia.com.

The actress reportedly left a suicide note but it does not mention why she decided to end her life. As per reports, Preksha went into depression due to lack of work amid the lockdown.

Her last few social media posts hint at mental agony she was going through. In her last Instagram story, Preksha wrote: "Sabse bura hota hai sapno ka mar jaana" (the worst thing is the death of your dreams)."

Apart from "Crime Patrol", Preksha has appeared in TV soaps like "Meri Durga" and "Laal Ishq".

This is the second suicide by a TV actor during the ongoing lockdown, when all shooting activity has come to a halt for two months now. A few days ago, actor Manmeet Grewal took his life by hanging from the ceiling fan at his Mumbai home. Reportedly, the actor was in a financial crisis and had run into huge debts.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Mumbai, Feb 10: Ankita Pisudde, a resident of Hinganghat town in Wardha, was critical after sustaining 40% burns on February 3 when she was set afire, allegedly by one Vikesh Nagrale (27) while she was on her way to college.

The 25-year-old woman lecturer who was set on fire by a stalker in Maharashtra’s Wardha district last week died at a hospital in Nagpur on Monday morning, a police official said.

Ankita Pisudde, resident of Hinganghat town in Wardha, had been critical after sustaining 35 to 40% “grade III” burns on February 3 when she was set afire allegedly by one Vikesh Nagrale (27) while she was on way to her college, they said.

She was undergoing treatment at the Orange City Hospital & Research Centre here, located around 75 km from Wardha.

“Doctors at the hospital declared her dead at 6.55 a.m. today,” Hinganghat’s police inspector Satyaveer Bandiwar said.

The woman sustained deep burn injuries on scalp, face, right upper limb, left hand, upper back, neck and eyes along with severe inhalational injuries, the hospital said in a medical bulletin on Monday.

She died of “septicemic shock” after suffering from deep dermal burns along with severe inhalational injuries, respiratory distress and related complications, it said.

Around 4 a.m. on Monday, her oxygen levels deteriorated inspite of ventilator support, coupled with decreasing urine output and reduction in blood pressure, the hospital said.

As part of immediate resuscitation measures, medicines were escalated to maintain the blood pressure and all feasible steps were taken to improve the oxygen levels in blood, but the patient remained “extremely critical”, it said.

“Around 6.30 a.m., she had bradycardia and inspite of prolonged cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the patient could not be revived and was declared dead at 6.55 a.m.,” it said.

The probable cause of death was “septicemic shock”, the bulletin added.

During her treatment, she underwent tracheostomy (creating an opening in neck to place a tube into the windpipe to allow air to enter the lungs), burn dressings, debridement and escharotomies, the hospital informed.

Debridement is a medical procedure to remove dead, damaged or infected tissue, while escharotomy is a surgical procedure used to treat full-thickness (third-degree) circumferential burns.

The woman’s parents and uncle were kept informed about her deteriorating health condition and death, the hospital said, adding that the body was later handed over to police for postmortem and other formalities.

After the woman’s condition deteriorated, the hospital informed about her critical status to Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, Wardha Guardian Minister Sunil Kedar, Nagpur Divisional Commissioner Sanjeev Kumar, Police Commissioner Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay, Wardha Collector Vivek Bhimanwar and Wardha Superintendent of Police Basavraj Teli.

Heavy security was deployed in Hinganghat to avoid any law and order problem following her death, the police said.

Several locals, mostly women and college students, took out a march in Wardha city last Thursday, demanding death penalty for the accused.

Home Minister Deshmukh visited the hospital on Tuesday and announced that the accused’s trial would be fast-tracked.

The State government last week flew Navi Mumbai-based National Burns Centre director Sunil Keswani to Nagpur to supervise the woman’s treatment.

It has also appointed well-known lawyer Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor in the case.

According to the victim’s relatives, Nagrale, who was arrested within hours of the incident on February 3, had been harassing her for quite some time.

Nagrale and the woman were friends till two years ago when she severed ties with him due to his “irrational behaviour”, the police earlier said.

A special team led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Trupti Jadhav will probe the case, the Wardha Police said last week.

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