27 dead as bombs target Sunday Mass in Philippine cathedral
Jolo(Philippines), Jan 27 : Two bombs minutes apart tore through a Roman Catholic cathedral on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are active, killing at least 27 people and wounding 77 others during a Sunday Mass, officials said.
Witnesses said the first blast inside the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital sent churchgoers, some of them wounded, to stampede out of the main door.
Army troops and police posted outside were rushing in when the second bomb went off about one minute later near the main entrance, causing more deaths and injuries. The military was checking a report that the second explosive device may have been attached to a parked motorcycle.
The initial explosion scattered the wooden pews inside the main hall and blasted window glass panels, and the second bomb hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, witnesses said.
Cellphone signal was cut off in the first hours after the attack. The witnesses who spoke to The Associated Press refused to give their names or were busy at the scene of the blasts.
Police said at least 27 people died and 77 were wounded. The fatalities included 20 civilians and seven troops. Among the wounded were 14 troops, two police and 61 civilians.
Troops in armoured carriers sealed off the main road leading to the church while vehicles transported the dead and wounded to the town hospital. Some casualties were evacuated by air to nearby Zamboanga city.
"I have directed our troops to heighten their alert level, secure all places of worships and public places at once, and initiate pro-active security measures to thwart hostile plans," said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in a statement.
"We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy," the office of President Rodrigo Duterte said in Manila.
It said that "the enemies of the state boldly challenged the government's capability to secure the safety of citizens in that region. The (Armed Forces of the Philippines) will rise to the challenge and crush these godless criminals."
Jolo island has long been troubled by the presence of Abu Sayyaf militants, who are blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization because of years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. A Catholic bishop, Benjamin de Jesus, was gunned down by suspected militants outside the cathedral in 1997.
No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack.
It came nearly a week after minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead.
Although most of the Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that's opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that not part of any peace process.
Western governments have welcomed the autonomy pact. They worry that small numbers of Islamic State-linked militants from the Middle East and Southeast Asia could forge an alliance with Filipino insurgents and turn the south into a breeding ground for extremists.
"This bomb attack was done in a place of peace and worship, and it comes at a time when we are preparing for another stage of the peace process in Mindanao," said Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
"Human lives are irreplaceable," he added, calling on Jolo residents to cooperate with authorities to find the perpetrators of this "atrocity."
Security officials were looking "at different threat groups and they still can't say if this has something to do with the just concluded plebiscite," Oscar Albayalde, the national police chief, told ABS-CBN TV network.
Hermogenes Esperon, the national security adviser, said that the new autonomous region, called Bangsamoro, "signifies the end of war for secession. It stands for peace in Mindanao."
Aside from the small but brutal Abu Sayyaf group, other militant groups in Sulu include a small band of young jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group, which has also carried out assaults, including ransom kidnappings and beheadings.
Abu Sayyaf militants are still holding at least five hostages a Dutch national, two Malaysians, an Indonesian and a Filipino in their jungle bases mostly near Sulu's Patikul town, not far from Jolo.
Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, including those in Jolo, a poverty-wracked island of more than 700,000 people. A few thousand Catholics live mostly in the capital of Jolo.
There have been speculations that the bombings may be a diversionary move by Muslim militants after troops recently carried out an offensive that killed a number of IS-linked extremists in an encampment in the hinterlands of Lanao del Sur province, also in the south.
The area is near Marawi, a Muslim city that was besieged for five months by hundreds of IS-aligned militants, including foreign fighters, in 2017. Troops quelled the insurrection, which left more 1,100 mostly militants dead and the heartland of the mosque-studded city in ruins.
Duterte declared martial law in the entire southern third of the country to deal with the Marawi siege, his worst security crisis. His martial law declaration has been extended to allow troops to finish off radical Muslim groups and other insurgents but bombings and other attacks have continued.
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Three arrested for gangrape, blackmail of college student in Bengaluru
Ramanagara (Karnataka) (PTI): Three men have been arrested for allegedly gangraping a 19-year-old college student and blackmailing her using a video of the assault, police said on Thursday.
The incident occurred in October at the house of one of the accused in Magadi taluk of Bengaluru South district, they added.
Of the three accused, two are college students, while the third is an electrician by profession, police said.
According to police, the woman came into contact with the prime accused, also a college student, around six to seven months ago.
He befriended her, gained her confidence, and later entered into a relationship with her after promising marriage.
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On the pretext of the relationship, he allegedly established a physical relationship with her and secretly recorded the act on his mobile phone without her knowledge.
He later showed the video to his friends, who are co-accused in the case, a senior police officer said.
In October, the prime accused allegedly threatened and blackmailed the woman using the video clip of their intimate moments and forced her to comply with his demands.
He then allegedly sexually assaulted her along with the other two accused. The assault was also recorded, police said.
The video was later circulated on WhatsApp by one of the accused, they added.
Unable to bear the harassment, the victim informed her parents and approached the police.
Based on her complaint, a case was registered on December 17 at the Magadi police station under Sections 64 (rape), 70 (gangrape) and 71 (punishment for repeat offenders) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, police said.
Bengaluru South District Superintendent of Police Srinivas Gowda said all three accused were arrested.
"Two of them are students, and one is employed. All three were known to the victim and had been acquainted with her for more than a couple of months," he said.
