One of the first woman journalists, Rekha Duggal, burnt to death by servant in Delhi

[email protected] (News Network)
July 9, 2014

Rekha DuggalNew Delhi, Jul 9: One of the first woman journalists, Rekha Duggal, was allegedly murdered by her domestic help at her Greater Kailash-II residence here on Monday night. She was 81.

According to the police, Duggal was allegedly strangulated by the help, Neeraj, who later set her body on fire to prevent it from being identified.

The 81-year-old widow of a former journalist with a reputed news agency was found burnt to death inside her flat here in Delhi, police said on Tuesday. The victim's servant has been arrested for the suspected murder.

Rekha Duggal's body was recovered around 9.30 p.m. on Monday from the second-floor flat of her four-storey building in south Delhi's posh Greater Kailash area.

Duggal's younger sister and son-in-law along with the accused servant Neeraj, in his 20s, found her body.

The woman's son-in-law, Manmohan, also a former journalist, said, "My wife got a call from a neighbour, Saroj Prakash, around 9 p.m. on Monday that her mother (Duggal) was missing."

"We reached the house and found her body from the second floor. When we entered the floor, it was full of smoke and my mother-in-law's body was burning in the bedroom."

"We made a call to the fire service, and firefighters took out the body. In the meantime, police also reached there," Manmohan said.

"Duggal's post-mortem examination report revealed that she was strangulated with a dupatta, beaten up and later set on fire," said a police official.

The officer said the servant, Neeraj, who was employed seven months ago at Duggal's home, has been arrested but police were yet to find out his motive.

An investigating officer said the victim, as per initial information, would go for a walk around 6 p.m. and come back around 7 p.m.

A reason for the servant's arrest was that the woman was staying alone in the flat along with him, the police official said.

Rekha Duggal, whose husband K.K. Duggal - a journalist with the UNI news agency - died in 2005, was staying on the first floor of her house, which she had gifted to her elder sister residing in the US.

The second floor was gifted to her younger sister while the third and the fourth floors were given on rent to other people.

Duggal hailed from pre-independence Pakistan's Gujranwala area. She later shifted to Karnal in Haryana.

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Agencies
May 6,2020

A man posed as Superintendent of Police (SP), called up a subordinate police official and asked him to get his mobile phone repaired or face the consequences. But, his bluff was later called and the man landed in lockup.

Azamgarh SP Triveni Singh said the 23-year-old youth, Shubham Upadhyay, is the son of a farmer. He was preparing for competitive exams when his phone developed a snag on Saturday. He tried to reach out to local mechanics, but they were unavailable to fix it due to the lockdown.

Upadhyay used a free caller identification app to call up the in-charge of the Kotwali police station, K. K. Gupta, and threatened to shunt him out, if he failed to swiftly get the work done. Gupta grew suspicious and eventually caught the youth.

n his statement to the police, Shubham Upadhyay said, "On Sunday noon, I tried to breach the district borders to reach Lucknow to repair my phone, but since there was heavy police presence and barricading, I returned home. Later, I installed a free caller identification app in my handset and mentioned the name as SP Azamgarh and even uploaded a photo of the cop to appear genuine."

He first called SHO, Kotwali to get the phone repaired and was told the handset would be picked up from the SP office in an hour. Then, he called a businessman to bring his SUV and hand over his mobile to the SHO.

But when Upadhyay called the police again to suggest a separate meeting point, he raised suspicion. When the SHO tried to confirm the venue, Upadhyay got hesitant and said he would send a peon.

"I suddenly realised something was fishy and rang up the public relation officer of SP Azamgarh, who denied any such order from the SP. When the caller's number was scanned, it displayed the name of SP Azamgarh," said SHO Gupta.

A trap was laid and when the SHO reached the venue, he found one Praveen Shukla sitting in the vehicle. Police got the address of the accused from Shukla and reached Upadhyay's home in Bilariya locality and arrested him.

Upadhyay has been booked under IT Act and for threatening a public servant.

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News Network
July 15,2020

Mumbai, Jul 15: A domestic row between a couple spilled onto road when a woman stopped her husbands car and climbed on its bonnet, briefly disrupting traffic on the busy Pedder Road in South Mumbai, police said on Wednesday.

The incident, which took place on Saturday evening, was recorded by some passersby on their mobile phones and its videos are making rounds on social media.

The wife chased the husband's SUV (sports utility vehicle) in her car after she spotted another woman seated next to him in his vehicle.

As her husband's SUV stopped at the Pedder Road signal, the wife get down from her car, rushed towards his four-wheeler and started shouting at him, a police official said.

In the video, the woman is seen climbing the bonnet of the SUV, removing her footwear and hitting the vehicle's windshield with it. She is also seen asking the husband's co- passenger to get out of the SUV and shouting for police help.

As she stopped her car in the middle of the busy road, one lane got blocked for some time and the traffic police personnel present there tried to ensure movement of other vehicles, the official said.

After sometime, the traffic police asked the couple to take their cars near the footpath.

By that time, the husband stepped out of his SUV, following which the wife ran towards him and caught him. She even kicked him a couple of times and took him to her car, the video shows.

She then again ran towards her husband's SUV, which was parked a few metres away. She opened its driver-side door and lunged at the woman seated in the vehicle, but was stopped by some people who had gathered at the spot, the police official said.

Later, the couple and their cars were taken to Gamdevi police station, where the wife refused to lodge a complaint against her husband.

A fine was imposed on her for traffic rules violation and abandoning her car in the middle of the road, which caused disruption of vehicular movement, the official said.

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News Network
May 9,2020

Shillong, May 9: The poisonous mushrooms that killed six people at a remote village in Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills district have been identified as Amanita phalloides, commonly known as the 'Death Cap', a senior official said on Saturday.

Six people, including a 14-year-old girl, of Lamin village along the India-Bangladesh border in Amlarem civil sub-division died after consuming wild mushrooms they collected from a nearby forest late last month.

The wild mushroom has been identified as Amanita phalloides and is hepatotoxic as it directly affects the liver, state Director of Health Services (MI) Dr Aman War told PTI.

He said it has been established after an investigation that the cause of the deaths was the poisonous mushrooms.

At least 18 persons from three families were taken ill after consuming the mushrooms.

The symptoms after consuming the poisonous fungus include vomiting, headache and unconsciousness, the senior doctor said.

Most of those taken ill, including a pregnant woman, have already recovered and gone home. Therefore, people can survive as it depends on the amount of poison that you have consumed. Only one person was unaffected, maybe he did not consume much, he said.

Three people are still undergoing treatment and are recovering. Two of them are at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) and one in Woodland Hospital, Dr War said.

He said the health department can only appeal to the people, especially those in the rural areas, to refrain from eating wild mushrooms, while the horticulture department should take measures to create awareness.

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