Mangaluru: 20-year-old MBBS girl jumps to death from college hostel building

Mangaluru: In a shocking development, a 23-year-old woman killed her four-and-a-half-month-old baby and ended her life by suicide at an apartment at Gujjarakere in the city on Saturday, December 2.

The deceased are Fathima Rukiya, 23, and her son Abdulla Hood. 

Police said Rukiya, who married Dr Muhammad Unais 18 months ago, had given birth to a son in July this year. Rukiya had slipped into depression after the delivery and was undergoing treatment for the same.

Rukiya allegedly drowned her son in a plastic tub filled with water and later hanged herself from the window grills of the flat. 

The incident occurred when no one was at home, said police commissioner Anupam Agrawal. 

A case has been registered at Mangaluru South police station and investigation has commenced. 

As many as 59 Palestinian journalists have been killed and dozens injured during the Israeli regime's ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, says an independent human rights advocacy group.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor provided the information in a press statement released through Palestinian media on Sunday.

According to the statement, the fatalities equaled "the highest-ever number of journalists killed in wars and conflicts in modern history."

The group attributed the regime's brutality towards journalists to its efforts to impose "a real and comprehensive media blackout" during the war.

The Israeli regime started the war on Gaza after the territory's Palestinian resistance groups carried out the surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the occupied territories on October 7 in response to the regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 13,000 Palestinians, including more than 5,000 children, have so far been killed, and about 30,000 people have been injured.

The killing spree targeting journalists, Euro-Med Monitor said, came amid unfounded allegations by some Israeli officials that Palestinian press crews had prior knowledge of the October 7 operation.

According to the group, "Israel purposefully [has] left no safe haven for journalists in the Gaza Strip. Journalists were targeted even when they were wearing press jackets in the field, in press tents erected for media coverage next to hospitals, or even in their family homes."

The latest of the fatalities were caused on Saturday, when the regime's forces killed two journalists in an airstrike targeting Gaza's Bureij refugee camp.

The victims were identified as Sari Mansour and his colleague Hassouna Salim. They lost their lives after Mansour’s home came under an Israeli bombardment inside the camp, which is located in the central Gaza Strip.

According to Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli war has led to complete or partial destruction of at least 117 press offices.

The regime has also restricted satellite channels operating in the Palestinian territories during the war, including Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network, and has threatened to restrict Qatar's Al Jazeera network.

The advocacy body added that it has "received identical testimonies from [Palestinian] journalists expressing their fear that the media equipment they received from international organizations via Israel may include location-tracking and eavesdropping devices, which may have facilitated their targeting during the war."

Euro-Med Monitor asserted that targeting journalists is considered a war crime under international humanitarian law. 

Bengaluru: Defending his cabinet's move to withdraw approval for the CBI probe against Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar in a disproportionate assets case, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said, the sanction given by the previous BJP government is illegal.

The cabinet on Thursday deemed the previous BJP government's move to give consent to the CBI to investigate the DA case against Shivakumar as not being in accordance with the law and decided to withdraw the sanction.

The then BJP government had given the sanction on September 25, 2019 following which the central investigating agency registered an FIR against Shivakumar on October 3, 2020.

The CBI has claimed that Shivakumar amassed wealth to the tune of Rs 74.93 crore, disproportionate to known sources of his income from April 1, 2013 to April 30, 2018, when he was the Energy Minister in the then Siddaramaiah-led Congress government of 2013-2018.

"What we have said is that the sanction given is illegal. For an inquiry on any government servant, the government will have to give sanction. If it is a minister, the Governor should give sanction, and if it is an MLA, the Speaker has to give it. Here the Speaker's permission was not taken. Shivakumar was an MLA when sanction was given," Siddaramaiah said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said that even before the Advocate General gave his opinion, the order was issued consenting for the CBI to investigate the case by the Chief Secretary, on the basis of oral instructions of the then Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa.

"We have said this is illegal, as it is not in accordance with law," he added.

Responding to a question, Siddaramaiah said he would not comment on court decisions; the government will do what it has to.

"The sanction was given illegally (by the previous government), it is not right, we will withdraw the sanction is what we have said...we cannot hinder what the court decides, we cannot interfere, let the court decide what it has to," he said.

The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday adjourned to November 29 the hearing of the appeal filed by Shivakumar against the sanction accorded by the previous government to the CBI to prosecute him in the DA case.

The CBI informed the high court on November 15 that the Supreme Court has directed the HC to hear the application filed by the investigating agency seeking vacation of the stay granted on the appeal, preferably within two weeks.

A single judge bench had earlier dismissed Shivakumar’s petition challenging the sanction of September 25, 2019 granted by the government to prosecute him.

Shivakumar then challenged it before the division bench which had stayed the single judge order. The CBI had filed an application for vacation of this stay.

Based on the Income Tax Department's search operations in Shivakumar's home and offices in 2017, the Enforcement Directorate started its own probe against him. Based on the ED investigation, the CBI sought sanction from the state government to register a case against him.