Maneka for death penalty in child rape cases
New Delhi, April 13: Following a public outrage over the gang rape of a minor girl in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday declared that her ministry intends to amend the POCSO Act, making provision for death penalty in child rape cases.
"I have been deeply, deeply disturbed by the rape case in Kathua and all the recent rape cases that have happened on children.
"I and the (Women and Child Development) Ministry intend to bring an amendment to the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act asking for the death penalty for rape on children below 12 years," the WCD Minister said in a video message.
Eight people, including mastermind Sanji Ram, have been charged with abduction, rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl from the Bakerwal community in Rasana village in January.
Investigations have revealed that the girl was held in a temple, drugged, repeatedly raped and finally murdered to scare the nomadic Muslim community out of the village.
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ECI website faces outage amid vote counting in Jharkhand, Maharashtra
New Delhi: Election Commission of India’s official results website ‘results.eci.gov.in’ has reportedly experienced a technical outage on Saturday morning, at a time when India closely watches the high-stakes Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly poll battle.
Visitors visiting the site were met with non-functional links and a generic “counting in progress” message, leaving them without updated election data. The ECI has not issued an official explanation for the disruption.
Vote counting, which began at 8 a.m. with postal ballots, is underway for 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra and 81 in Jharkhand. Early trends suggest a lead for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra, currently ahead in 141 seats, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is leading in 96. In Jharkhand, the BJP-led NDA is ahead in 43 seats, while the ruling JMM-led alliance is trailing with leads in 33 constituencies.
Additionally, counting is underway for 48 assembly bypolls across 13 states and two parliamentary seats, Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala.
