2 killed, 10 missing after vehicle carrying pilgrims falls into Alaknanda river in Uttarakhand
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Rudraprayag (PTI): At least two people were killed, eight injured and ten others were reported missing when a vehicle carrying pilgrims fell into the Alaknanda river here on Thursday, police said.
The vehicle - a tempo traveller - met with the accident near the Gholthir village on the Badrinath National Highway between Rudraprayag and Gauchar, they said.
Relief and rescue teams have reached the spot.
Two bodies have been recovered, one near the accident site and the other from the river near Rudraprayag, Satyendra Singh Bhandari, a member of the Red Cross Society rescue team told PTI.
Seven people, including three women and two children, were injured in the accident while ten others went missing, he said, adding that the injured have been hospitalised.
There were 20 people, including the driver, on board the vehicle when it fell into the river, Bhandari added.
The tempo traveller is said to have been going towards the Badrinath Dham when the accident occurred at around 7.30 am, he said quoting the injured.
The pilgrims had come on Uttarakhand's Char Dham Yatra from Udaipur in Rajasthan.
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Karnataka MLA Vinay Kulkarni disqualified after conviction in Goudar murder case
Bengaluru (PTI): The Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Saturday issued an official notification regarding the disqualification of Congress MLA Vinay Kulkarni following his conviction in the murder case of BJP leader Yogeshgouda Goudar.
The former minister is currently in prison, serving life imprisonment in the case.
“Consequent upon the conviction of Vinay Kulkarni, Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly representing the Dharwad constituency, by the LXXXI Additional City Civil & Sessions Judge, Bengaluru City (CCH-82), in Spl CC No. 565/2021, he stands disqualified from the membership of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from the date of conviction, i.e, April 15, 2026,” the notification read.
“He stands disqualified in terms of the provisions of Article 191(1)(e) of the Constitution of India, read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and such disqualification shall continue for a further period of six years after his release, unless the conviction is stayed by a competent court,” it added.
Hence, one seat in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly has fallen vacant, the notification said.
Bypolls were held on April 9 to fill two other seats in the 224-member Assembly that fell vacant due to the death of sitting MLAs. The results will be declared on May 4.
On April 15, Judge Santhosh Gajanan Bhat convicted Kulkarni and others under various IPC sections, including criminal conspiracy and murder. Subsequently, on April 17, the court sentenced Kulkarni and 15 others convicted in the case to life imprisonment.
The case pertains to the killing of Goudar, a BJP Zilla Panchayat member, in Dharwad on June 15, 2016. Kulkarni was a minister at that time. Hired assailants attacked and hacked Goudar to death in his gym at Saptapur in Dharwad.
Following demands from Goudar’s family and others, the then-BJP government transferred the case to the CBI in 2019.
The CBI filed a supplementary chargesheet in 2020, naming Vinay Kulkarni as the “main conspirator.” It alleged that he perceived Yogeshgouda Goudar as a growing political rival in Dharwad and hired contract killers to eliminate him.
Kulkarni was arrested by the CBI in 2020. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court in August 2021 under certain conditions, including a ban on entering Dharwad district. However, in June 2025, the apex court cancelled his bail following allegations of witness tampering and attempts to influence prosecution witnesses.
Kulkarni again sought bail in January 2026, but the High Court rejected it, citing judicial propriety.
However, the Supreme Court granted him bail on February 27 after noting that all witnesses had been examined.
