8-yr-old girl raped and murdered in Palghar; son of ex-sarpanch held
Palghar (PTI): An eight-year-old girl, who had gone to a friend's birthday party, was murdered after allegedly being raped by a man in Maharashtra's Palghar district, police said on Wednesday.
The police have arrested a 21-year-old son of a former sarpanch (village head) in this connection, an official said.
The victim, resident of a village in Mokhada taluka, went to the birthday party of her friend in the village on Sunday but did not return home.
Her family members then carried out a search for her.
The victim's body was found near a graveyard in the village late Sunday night. The police sent the bodyfor postmortem and initiated a probe into the girl's death, Mokhada police station's assistant inspector Premnath Dhole said.
A police probe team worked on various leads, including technical and intelligence inputs, and arrested the man on Tuesday, he said.
The man allegedly stalked the girl on Sunday and then raped and murdered her at night, he said.
The mother of the accused was earlier a local councillor, as per the police.
The accused has been booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 103(1) (murder), 65 (2) (rape of a female under 12 years of age) and 66 (punishment for causing death or resulting in a persistent vegetative state of the victim) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Dhole said.
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Amit Shah authorised actions to "intimidate or kill" Sikh separatists in Canada: Canadian Minister
Ottawa: Amid heightened diplomatic tensions between India and Canada, Canadian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Morrison, alleged that Indian Union Home Minister Amit Shah authorised actions to "intimidate or kill" Sikh separatists in Canada, as reported by CBC News. The statement came during a hearing of Canada’s Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on October 31, which focused on “electoral interference and criminal activities in Canada by agents of the Government of India.”
Morrison’s remarks follow accusations by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that Indian officials, including diplomats and consular staff, gathered intelligence on Sikh separatists, allegedly sharing this information with “criminal organisations” tasked with carrying out violent acts. RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme stated that credible threats had been identified against several members of the South Asian community in Canada, primarily those supporting the Khalistan movement, which seeks to establish an independent Sikh state.
The controversy around these allegations intensified in September when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed Parliament, claiming credible intelligence linking Indian agents to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Khalistan supporter, in June 2023. India has denied these claims, branding them as “absurd and motivated,” and has accused Canada of sheltering individuals threatening India's sovereignty. Following the escalation, both countries expelled multiple diplomats, further straining relations.
