Former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh to join BJP next week
Chandigarh, Sep 16: Former chief minister and Punjab Lok Congress chief Amarinder Singh will join the BJP next week, a party spokesperson said on Friday.
Singh will also merge his newly formed party with the BJP.
He had floated the Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) last year after quitting the Congress following his unceremonious exit as chief minister. Singh (80) will join the BJP in the presence of party president JP Nadda and other leaders in Delhi.
Seven former MLAs and one former MP, who joined the PLC, will be among those to follow Singh on Monday, PLC spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal told PTI over phone.
Other office bearers and district presidents of the PLC will join the BJP in a separate event in Chandigarh next week, Baliawal added.
Singh, who recently returned from London following a spinal surgery, has met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the past fortnight.
After his meeting with Shah on September 12, Singh said he held a very productive discussion on various issues related to national security, rising cases of narco-terrorism in Punjab and the future roadmap for the state's overall holistic development.
Singh had conveyed his intention to merge his party with the BJP before departing for London, senior Punjab BJP leader Harjit Singh Grewal had said in July. The former chief minister would announce the merger upon his return, Grewal had said at the time.
The two-time former chief minister is the scion of the erstwhile Patiala royal family. He quit the Congress after being replaced by Charanjit Singh Channi last year.
However, the Congress was routed in the Assembly polls in February with Channi losing both the seats he contested.
The PLC contested the elections in alliance with the BJP and the Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa-led Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyuk). However, none of its candidates could register a win, with Singh himself losing from his home turf of Patiala Urban.
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UP man gets life term for electrocuting mentally challenged wife to death in Bareilly
Bareilly (UP) (PTI): A local court here has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for murdering his mentally challenged wife by repeatedly electrocuting her while she was tied to a cot, lawyers said on Thursday.
Additional district government counsel Harendra Singh Rathore said Additional Sessions Judge Avinash Kumar Singh on Wednesday convicted Vinod Kumar (45) for killing his wife, Satyavati, in Chaina village of Bareilly district and imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on him.
According to the prosecution, he was allegedly frustrated with his wife Satyavati's mental illness and often assaulted her.
Rathore said the prosecution examined nine witnesses to establish the charges against him.
As per court records, on the night of May 1-2, 2022, when Satyavati was asleep, Vinod tied her hands and legs to a cot using ropes and then connected an aluminium cable to an electric board to repeatedly administer electric shocks to her.
"She writhed in pain, but the accused continued to electrocute her until she died," the prosecution said.
The court observed that the murder was carried out in an inhuman manner.
After committing the crime, the accused threw the rope and cable on the roof and left for work at a brick kiln around 2 am to create a false alibi.
He later tried to mislead the police and the victim's family by claiming that Satyavati, whose mental condition was unstable, had accidentally died by suicide after grabbing a live electric wire.
However, the victim's brother, Sanjeev, a resident of Shahjahanpur district, suspected foul play and lodged an FIR under sections 498A (husband subjecting wife to cruelty) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code at Nawabganj police station.
During the trial, the prosecution relied on the post-mortem report prepared by Dr Faraz Anwar, who stated that multiple electrocution marks found on different parts of the victim's body could not have been self-inflicted.
The police also recovered the rope and electric wire used in the crime on the accused's identification, officials said.
