Delhi’s hit-and-drag horror: What we know so far

News Network
January 3, 2023

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In the early hours of Sunday, January 1, while most were ringing in the new year in Delhi, a woman's body was found abandoned on the side of the road with no clothes. The 20-year-old, teh sole breadwinner of her family, was returning home on a scooter when her vehicle was hit by a car. The occupants of the car in, what seems to be an attempt to flee, drove away with the woman's body stuck in the wheels dragged with the car for nearly 12 km from Sultanpuri to Kanjhawala.

The gruesome nature of the incident led to a political slugfest in the nation's capital with fingers being pointed at the Delhi police, and protests by the kin of the victim and AAP over shoddy work by teh law enforcement in the case. Parallels were even drawn to the 2012 Nirbhaya case that remained fresh in public memory a decade since the horrific gang-rape took place. 

Here is all that has happened so far in the Delhi hit-and-run case. 

Drunk driving, body trapped under borrowed car - What the FIR says

As per the FIR filed by the police, the men who were involved in the accident confessed to being drunk. Further, NDTV reported that according to the FIR, the woman's body was tangled in the undercarriage of the car after she fell from her two-wheeler and the men had already driven nearly 12 km before they were aware of the same.  

The five people in the car were Amit and Deepak Khanna, Manoj Mittal, a local BJP leader who has a ration shop, Krishan, an employee at the Spanish Cultural Centre in Connaught Place and Mithun, a hairdresser. 

The FIR notes that the police tried to track down the owner of the vehicle, at which time, they found out that it was owned by an individual named Lokesh, who had lent to someone called Ashutosh, who in turn had given it to his friends - the Khannas, who were present in the vehicle at the time of the accident. 

A Delhi court sent all five of the accused to three-day police custody while officers investigate the matter. 

All five have been named under IPC sections 279 (rash driving) and 304-A (causing death by negligence) over the accident. 

Removed body and fled 

Those in the car described how the accident went down.

"They said they were going on a narrow lane and a girl, approaching on her scooter, met with an accident. Since no one raised an alarm, they kept driving. It was later they realised that something was stuck in the car wheel and saw a woman’s body after driving for a few kilometres. They removed the body from the car and fled from the scene," an official familiar with th investigation told The Times of India.

Pillion rider was friend, fled scene of accident 

Police investigation also showed that there were two girls on the scooty on the night of the accident. The pillion rider reportedly sustained minor injuries and allegedly fled the scene because she was afraid. Police have tracked her down, and her statement is being taken.

Where were the police? An eyewitness speaks out 

Deepak Dahiya, the owner of a dairy shop in Ladpur village, northwest Delhi, recounted his version of events on the night of the accident. 

"I heard a car’s noise, and initially it sounded like it’s tyre had burst, but it was still being driven. It was going at the speed of barely 20km per hour, so I could clearly see what was happened. That’s when I saw the body of a girl beneath the car -- between the two left side tyres," he said, speaking to Hindustan Times.

He placed a call to the police control room but was asked to call back in some time. 

"I told them that there were about four-five people in the car, and that I wasn’t sure how dangerous they could be. I thought I will follow them, but not stop them," he added. 

The individual began his pursuit in an electric vehicle. 

"As I started going after them, I realised they were driving very slow, and the body was still attached to the car. It’s difficult to believe that they didn’t know there was something beneath their car. Meanwhile, I was giving almost minute-by-minute updates to the police. I would have called them 18-20 times in the next 45 minutes, of which one call lasted more than 10 minutes," he continued. 

During the pursuit, at one point, Dahiya realized that the body was no longer attached to the car. As the grey Baleno headed towards Begumpur, Dahiya continued following it and saw two PCR vans on the way, but they didn't take any action suggesting Dahiya's calls had not been communicated to them. In Begumpur, Dahiya told officials in a third PCR van what he had seen but they let the vehicle go after initially flagging it, and speaking with the drivers. 

"Within minutes of returning to the shop, I saw police and some people on the road rushing to the same stretch I had seen those men driving the Baleno with the body earlier. I followed the police, which led me to the spot where another police team had found the body on the road. I then returned home," he said, adding, "There is little that the police did despite calling them several times. I was following the car right from the start. If police were active the culprits would have been caught from the spot. I have a recording of my conversation with police control room officials." 

Police provide their justifications 

Special commissioner of police Dependra Pathak confirmed that Dahiya made the calls which helped them track down the vehicle. He added that the incident with the third PCR van would be probed. 

The police probe has shown that the vehicle was able to avoid two permanent police pickets because they were on the other side of the carriageway and since the car was travelling at a steady speed of 40-50 kmph, they didn't raise any suspicion. Deepak, who was at the wheel, was familiar with the routes as well as police presence, and therefore managed to drive around for 90 minutes. 

The police are going to submit their findings in the report by December 3 evening. 

Girl's family suspects rape and murder

While the police have investigated the accident, the girl's mother alleged that she was raped and killed. 

"My daughter was wearing an inner, a T-shirt, a jacket and pants. How come not a single cloth was found on her body? I heard that her bones were visible and legs were gone. The culprits dumped her body and left," Times of India reported her mother alleging. 

Her uncle added, "The condition of the body shows she was sexually assaulted. We want proper investigation in the matter and justice for our daughter." 
 

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News Network
March 14,2024

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Mangaluru, Mar 14: “Hindutva is my commitment and development is my priority,” said Indian army veteran and entrepreneur Captain Brijesh Chowta after the BJP high command announced a ticket to him from Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency.

Known as a BJP stronghold, Nalin Kumar Kateel has served as the MP of this constituency for the past 15 years.

Soon after the announcement was made, 42-year-old Chowta, who is also the BJP state secretary from Dakshina Kannada constituency, sought the blessings of his parents and went to Shree Sharavu Mahaganapathi Temple and visited the war memorial to offer tributes.

A BSc graduate from St Aloysius College, he completed his executive business Management program from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore.

He was commissioned into the 7th battalion of the 8 Gorkha Rifles and served in counter-insurgency operations in Assam and Manipur and was part of Elite Ghatak team. He also served as the adjutant to the battalion. He has been associated with the BJP since 2013. He is the president of Mangaluru Kambala and organiser of Mangaluru Lit Fest.

“Humbled and grateful to our party seniors led by our commander-in-chief PM Narendra Modi for giving me this opportunity to be our party’s candidate and representative of his work and vision in Dakshina Kannada. I pledge to continue to work with even greater rigour for the welfare of our region and people driven by the mantra of ‘Nation First’. I humbly bow down to all our karyakartas & everyone who stood by me & toiled with me to make this happen. Our task has just begun, as we work towards making Dakshina Kannada the number one in the state,” Captain Chowta said on X.

Kateel welcomes change 

Meanwhile, sitting Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel has welcomed the party’s decision to field Capt Brijesh Chowta as the BJP candidate for Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency.

He said the change aligns with the party’s strategy of fostering new talent to broaden its base and activities. He hoped that he will win by a margin of more than 3 lakh votes.

Soon after the list was announced on Wednesday, the three-time MP told reporters that he has brought projects worth about Rs 1 lakh crore during the last 10 years, under the Modi government.

He thanked the party for giving him a big responsibility of leading the party in the state. “I have worked honestly,” he said.

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News Network
March 21,2024

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New Delhi: India has now become more unequal in terms of wealth concentration than the British colonial period as income and wealth of the top 1% of the country’s population have hit historical highs, according to a paper released by World Inequality Lab.

By 2022-23, the top 1 per cent income share in India was 22.6 per cent and the top 1 per cent wealth share rose to 40.1 per cent, with India’s top 1 per cent income share among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Co-authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, the paper stated that the “Billionaire Raj” headed by “India’s modern bourgeoisie” is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. 

The paper said there is evidence to suggest the Indian tax system might be “regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth”. A restructuring of the tax code is needed, the paper said, adding that a levy of a “super tax” of 2 per cent on the net wealth of 167 wealthiest families would yield 0.5 per cent of national income in revenues and create space for investments.

“A restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition are needed to enable the average Indian, and not just the elites, to meaningfully benefit from the ongoing wave of globalisation. Besides serving as a tool to fight inequality, a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues and create valuable fiscal space to facilitate such investments,” the paper said. 

The paper has analysed data based on the annual tax tabulations published by the Indian income tax authorities to extract the distribution of top income earners between 1922-2020.

The share of national income going to the top 10 per cent fell from 37 per cent in 1951 to 30 per cent by 1982 after which it began steadily rising. From the early 1990s onwards, the top 10 per cent share increased substantially over the next three decades, nearly touching 60 per cent in the most recent years, the paper said. This compares with the bottom 50 per cent getting only 15 per cent of India’s national income in 2022-23.

 The top 1 per cent earn on average Rs 5.3 million, 23 times the average Indian (Rs 0.23 million). Average incomes for the bottom 50 per cent and the middle 40 per cent stood at Rs 71,000 (0.3 times national average) and Rs 1,65,000 (0.7 times national average), respectively.
The richest, nearly 10,000 individuals (of 92 million Indian adults) earn on average Rs 480 million (2,069 times the average Indian). “To get a sense of just how skewed the distribution is, one would have to be at nearly the 90th percentile to earn the average income in India,” the paper said.

In 2022, just the top 0.1 per cent in India earned nearly 10 per cent of the national income, while the top 0.01 per cent earned 4.3 per cent share of the national income and top 0.001 per cent earned 2.1 per cent of the national income.

Enlisting the probable reasons for sharp rise in top 1 per cent income shares, the paper said public and private sector wage growth could have played a part till the late 1990s, adding that there are good reasons to believe capital incomes likely played a role in subsequent years. For the shares of the bottom 50 per cent and middle 40 per cent remaining depressed, the paper said, the primary reason has been the lack of quality broad-based education, focused on the masses and not just the elites.

“One reason to be concerned with such high levels of inequality is that extreme concentration of incomes and wealth is likely to facilitate disproportionate influence on society and government. This is even more so in contexts with weak democratic institutions. After largely being a role model among post-colonial nations in this regard, the integrity of various key institutions in India appears to have been compromised in recent years. This makes the possibility of India’s slide towards plutocracy even more real. If only for this reason, income and wealth inequality in India must be closely tracked and challenged,” it said.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will face Kerala BJP chief K Surendran in the high-profile Wayanand constituency this Lok Sabha election.

Wayanad, a Congress stronghold, has been with the party since 2009. Mr Gandhi won it in 2019 and retained his Lok Sabha membership, having lost his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

His rival this time, Mr Surendran, has the significant task of challenging the Congress-Left binary in Kerala's political landscape. Both the Congress and the Left are in a national alliance though they remain rivals in this southern state.

Surendran has contested all three Lok Sabha elections since 2009 and also four Assembly elections. In 2021, he contested from Konni and Manjeshwar seats simultaneously. 

In 2019 general elections, Mr Surendran finished third in Pathanamthitta constituency behind the Congress and the Left. He had lost the 2016 assembly polls from Manjeswaram by merely 89 votes. He also contested a bypoll in 2019, but lost it as well.

He was appointed to head the BJP Kerala unit in 2020 and became the face of the protests against the entry of young women into Sabarimala years ago.

Mr Surendran, who is from Kozhikode, figured in the BJP's fifth candidates' list, which also named actor Kangana Ranaut and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

Wayanad is the second Kerala seat to see a battle of titans after Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will face the three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

The BJP has also fielded former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University K S Radhakrishnan from Ernakulam and actor-turned-politician G Krishnakumar from Kollam. T N Sarasu, a former educator, will contest from Alathur in Palakkad.

The highlight of the BJP's fifth list was the electoral debut of actor Kangana Ranaut from Mandi in her homestate Himachal Pradesh. The list, which named 111 candidates in 17 states, also featured new joinees like industrialist Naveen Jindal and Mr Gangopadhyay.

Mr Gangopadhyay, who joined the BJP recently after taking voluntary retirement, is the first former judge to join electoral politics. He has been fielded from Tamluk in Bengal and will face Trinamool's Debangshu Bhattacharya, a youth leader who had penned the party's "Khela Hobe" song.

Varun Gandhi, a sitting MP from Pilibhit, has been dropped and his seat has gone to Jitin Prasada, who switched to the BJP from the Congress in run-up to the election. His mother Maneka Gandhi has been fielded from her current seat, Sultanpur.

Actor Arun Govil, who played Ram in popular TV series Ramayan, will contest from Meerut. Union ministers Ashwini Kumar Choubey and General VK Singh too were part of the list.

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