Tamil Nadu farmers hold dead rats in mouths demanding Cauvery water from Karnataka

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. 

A 19-year-old woman was hacked to death in broad daylight in Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district by two brothers, including the man accused of raping her, police said Tuesday (November 21). Police said the killers - Ashok and Pawan Nishad - had been released on bail a few days before the brutal murder.

Police said the woman - butchered with an axe on the main road as scared villagers watched helplessly - had accused Pawan Nishad of raping her three years ago, when she was a minor. Pawan (and his associates) had been harassing the woman, since then, to get her to drop the case filed against him.

Pawan's brother, Ashok Nishad, is an accused in a separate murder case and was released less than two days before the young woman's murder, police added. Pawan was out of jail by this time and the two plotted to confront the woman's family and force them to close the case, police explained.

However, the young woman refused to back down, after which the brothers ambushed and slaughtered her as she was returning from grazing her family's cattle at a nearby field, police said.

Pawan and Ashok Nishad are now on the run, police added.

"There was a dispute between two parties in the same community regarding an old rivalry and litigation... members of one party killed the girl with a sharp weapon. A police complaint was filed and the accused have been booked," Kaushambi Superintendent of Police, Brijesh Srivastava, said.

The horrific incident took place at the Dherha village. The police have sent the woman's body for a post-mortem examination and have formed teams to arrest the accused, Mr Srivastava added.

The murder has triggered a predictable political row in the BJP-ruled state. The opposition Congress' state office posted a brief video on X (formerly Twitter) showing police covering the woman's body.

"In Kaushambi, two brutes publicly killed a girl by cutting her with an axe. One criminal had come out on bail just two days ago in a murder case. The other was accused of raping the same deceased girl."

"... brutes in UP are so fearless they have no fear of law... no respect. Here, the daughters are so unsafe that if they raise their voice about their stolen honour, they may even have to lose their lives," the opposition party said in its post, ""When will this darkness of the dark city go away?"

The murder has once again focused attention on the UP government's record on preventing crimes against women. And it comes just two months after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath declared 'Yamraj (the Hindu god of death)' would exact retribution against anyone who harassed or harmed women.

The Chief Minister's grand remark came after a teen was killed in UP's Ambedkar Nagar district.

Two men on a motorcycle pulled on her clothes as she was riding a bicycle, causing her to fall and be hit by an oncoming vehicle. Police said she died on the spot.

According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, UP recorded over 56,000 cases of crimes against women in 2021 - the most of any state. This includes, rape, rape and murder, and acid attacks.

New Delhi, Nov 29: The National Investigation Agency on Wednesday said that it has filed a charge sheet against two accused -- Mohamed Shariq, who prepared the pressure cooker IED and Syed Shariq who provided material for the explosive -- in connection with the pressure cooker blast that took place in Karnataka's Mangaluru in November last year.

A NIA official here said that the agency filed the charge sheet against the two before a court on Wednesday.

The official said that Shariq and Syed, along with an online handler, had planned the explosion as part of a conspiracy to establish a Caliphate.

"In pursuance of the conspiracy, Mohamed Shariq had prepared the pressure cooker IED and Syed Yasin had provided material support for the explosive," the official said.

Mohamed Shariq was carrying the pressure cooker IED in an auto-rickshaw when it exploded on November 19 last year. The official said that he had planned to plant the IED at Kadri Manjunatha Temple in Mangaluru, with the aim to spread terror among the Hindu community but the low intensify bomb accidentally exploded on the way.

The case was filed by the NIA on November 23 last year under several sections of the IPC and the Explosive Substances Act.

Shariq was arrested by the NIA in July 2023, along with his co-accused Syed Shariq.

The official pointing out the role of Shariq in other cases said that he had first come on the radar of the security forces in November 2020 when he was arrested by the state police for pro-terror graffiti in Mangaluru city.

"He and his associates had put up the graffiti in support of the global terror outfit, the IS," the official said.

"Subsequently, Shariq was also named in the Shivamogga IS Conspiracy Case of 2022, in which so far 10 accused have been arrested," the official stated.

Of the 10 arrested, nine, including Shariq and Syed Yasin, were charge sheeted on June 30 this year for radicalising and recruiting gullible Muslim youth, raising funds, and conducting a trial blast to further the anti-India activities of the IS.