Kerala: Youth trapped in mountain cleft rescued by Army team
Palakkad (PTI): After being trapped in a cleft on a mountain face in Malampuzha area of Palakkad district in Kerala for nearly two days, rescue teams of the Army were able to reach Babu, provide him food and water and then haul him to safety.
Visuals on news channels showed the youth being helped up the mountain by Army personnel, who are part of the specialised teams which arrived here last night from Bengaluru, by strapping him to one of the rescuers.
The visuals also showed the rescue team slowly climbing up by making stops in between to give the youth some rest.
The youth was hauled up to safety by 10.08 AM by the Army personnel and successfully completed the massive rescue effort, perhaps the first of its kind in the state, which involved local bodies, NDRF, Coast Guard with the Air Force also standing by to chip in.
Babu was trapped in a recess on the mountain face, between rocks, in the scorching heat with no water or food since Monday.
According to locals, the youth, along with two others had on Monday decided to climb to the top of Cherad hill there, but the other two abandoned the effort halfway.
However, Babu continued to climb to the top, and after reaching there, slipped and fell and got trapped between rocks on the mountain face.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
