Rutuja Latke of Uddhav's Sena faction wins Andheri (East) Assembly bypoll; NOTA at 2nd place
Mumbai (PTI): Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), on Sunday won the bypoll to Andheri (East) Assembly seat, bagging more than 66,000 votes, followed by the None Of The Above (NOTA) option.
The NOTA gives an option to electors not to vote in favour of any of the candidates in an election.
Latke got 66,530 votes out of the total 86,570 votes, while 12,806 votes were polled in favour of NOTA, an official said.
Latke was pitted against six independent candidates.
The November 3 byelection was necessitated due to the death of sitting Shiv Sena MLA and Rutuja Latke's Ramesh Latke in May this year. It was, however, a mere formality after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew its candidate from the race.
This was the first electoral contest in Maharashtra after the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government collapsed in June following a revolt by a section of Shiv Sena MLAs led by Eknath Shinde.
After the bypoll result was declared, Thackeray said Rutuja Latke's victory showed that people were supporting Shiv Sena. "This is just the beginning of a fight. The (party) symbol is important but people look for the character too. The bypoll results show people support us," Thackeray told reporters after Rutuja Latke called on him at his residence 'Matoshree' following the victory.
Sena's Ramesh Latke had represented the Andheri (East) Assembly seat twice.
The Shiv Sena had won 56 seats in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls. Ramesh Latke's death in May brought its tally down to 55.
In June, 40 Sena legislators led by Eknath Shinde revolted against the party leadership, resulting in the collapse of the MVA government.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, both constituents of the MVA, supported Rutuja Latke's candidature.
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Two arrested in K'taka for assaulting minors, uploading CSAM content
Bengaluru (PTI): Two men were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two minor girls, recording the acts on mobile phones and uploading the videos online as child sexual abuse material, police said on Thursday.
The accused have been identified as Kiran Kumar (29), hailing from Chitradurga district, and Aditya M K (20), hailing from Shivamogga district, they said.
A probe was initiated after information was received from the NCRP portal regarding a suspected instance of creation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) for online dissemination, police said.
Accordingly, a case was registered at Kaggalipura Police Station under relevant sections of the IT Act on May 10, they added.
Investigation revealed that two minor girl victims were exploited and videos were created and uploaded to the internet. The child victims have subsequently recorded their statements as per procedure and further necessary legal steps have been taken, Pronab Mohanty Director General of Police, Cyber Command, said in a statement.
Based on the statements of the victims, the accused persons, who allegedly assaulted the minors, recorded the acts on mobile phones and uploaded the videos online, were arrested, he said.
Following the probe, sections 65(2) (rape) and 70 (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with relevant sections of the POCSO Act, have been added to the FIR, police said.
Officials collected relevant information and on May 12, arrested the accused persons and seized three mobile phones belonging to them, in which the videos had allegedly been recorded, he said.
The accused were later produced before the court and taken into police custody for further investigation, he added.
According to him, in CSAM cases, police usually apprehend offenders who have downloaded such content or have kept them in their possession after obtaining them from elsewhere, usually the internet.
"The present case is one of the very few instances where content creators and uploaders have been apprehended," Mohanty added.
