India's Anshu Malik grabs silver at Wrestling World Cup
Belgrade, Dec 17: Young Anshu Malik was the lone Indian woman wrestler to win a medal at the individual World Cup, grabbing a silver in the 57kg category, here.
Anshu, who is coming up from the junior ranks, clinched her third medal at the senior level from as many tournaments. She lost the gold medal bout 1-5 to Moldova's Anastasia Nichita on Wednesday night.
She had won a bronze at the Asian Championship early this year in New Delhi and a silver at Mattio Pellicone event in Rome in January.
She is gradually making the 57kg category her own despite presence of World championship medallist Pooja Dhanda and experienced Sarita Mor in the same weight class.
Anshu began with a 4-2 win over Azerbaijan's Alyona Kolesnik and followed it up with 3-1 victory over Germany's Laura Mertens in the quarterfinals.
In the semi-final, she outplayed Russia's Veronika Chumikova, recording a victory by fall.
Another Indian grappler Pinki also did well to reach the 55kg semi-finals, where she lost to Belarusian Iryna Kurachkina.
She later lost the bout for bronze to Russia's Olga Khoroshavtseva by technical superiority.
Sarita (59kg), Sonam Malik (62kg) and Sakshi Malik (65kg) could not go beyond quarterfinals in their respective categories.
Veteran Gursharanpreet got a repechage round in the 72kg but lost that by technical superiority to Evgeniia Zakharchenko.
Nirmala Devi (50kg) and Kiran (76kg) fizzed in the Qualification round, losing 6-9 to Poland's Anna Lukasiak and Canada's Erica Elizabeth Wiebe respectively.
From among the Greco Roman grapplers, only Arjun Halakurki could reach the quarterfinals in the 55kg while all other could not go beyond qualification rounds.
Arjun lost 5-10 to Kyrgyzstan's Balbai Dordokov.
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Police arrest 5 murder accused after encounter in UP's Ballia
Ballia (UP) (PTI): Police on Sunday arrested five men accused in the murder of a roadways employee's son after a brief exchange of fire early Sunday, officials said.
Four of the accused – Nitish Yadav, Ashish Yadav, Dilip Yadav and Rahul Verma – sustained bullet injuries in their legs during the encounter in the Ubhaon area and were admitted to a hospital, Additional Superintendent of Police, Dinesh Kumar Shukla, said.
Police received information around 2.45 am that some criminals had gathered near Chainpur to carry out an offence. When a police team reached the spot, they found two four-wheelers and a motorcycle parked there, the ASP said.
"One of the accused alerted the others about the police. When asked to surrender, they opened fire on the police team with the intention to kill. In retaliatory firing, four accused were injured and arrested,” Shukla said.
A fifth accused, Anand Kumar Verma, managed to flee but was later arrested after a cordon operation.
During interrogation, the accused confessed to their involvement in the December 13 murder of Ayush Yadav (25), son of a roadways employee, who was shot in the Belthara Road area under the Ubhaon police station limits, the officer said.
Police had already arrested six accused in the case, while another accused, Rabin Singh, surrendered at the Mau city Kotwali on Saturday, taking the total number of arrests to 12.
