Uttarakhand: Four days after woman found charred, brother's body found in a ditch nearby
Gopeshwar (PTI): The mystery shrouding the death of a woman whose charred body was recovered last Sunday from a burnt car near Tapovan in Chamoli district has deepened with the discovery of her missing brother's body from a ditch nearby, police said.
The body of Sunil Senapati was retrieved on Thursday from a ditch 400 metres away from the spot where his sister Shweta Padma Senapati was found dead.
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police and State Disaster Response Force personnel discovered Sunil's body with the help of sniffer dogs, the district police said.
The cause of his death will be ascertained after post-mortem, they said.
Senapati was initially viewed as a suspect since he went missing the same day his sister was found dead.
Shweta and Sunil were originally from Bengaluru but had been living in Dhak for some time, police said.
The woman was found charred inside a car on Sunday.
Police who reached the spot after receiving information about a burnt car parked on Chachdi-Bhavishya Badri Road near Tapovan, found a charred skeleton from the front passenger seat.
They found some ornaments near the skeleton which indicated that it belonged to a woman.
A number plate (KA01-0590) was also found near the burnt vehicle.
Further investigation revealed the identity of the deceased. It was learnt that Shweta and her brother from Bengaluru had been living together in Dhak.
A police team that visited Bengaluru to verify their identities and spoke to their relatives were informed that the siblings were broke and often borrowed money from family and acquaintances.
Relatives said the brother-sister duo would call them to say that their condition was dire and that they could be driven to committing suicide, police said.
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BJP 'fearful' of any opinion which it dislikes: Cong on arrest of Ashoka University professor
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Monday condemned the arrest of Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, saying it shows how fearful the BJP is of any opinion which it dislikes.
Mahmudabad, Ashoka University's head of the political science department, was arrested on Sunday after two FIRs were lodged on stringent charges, including endangering sovereignty and integrity, for his social media posts related to Operation Sindoor.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said his party condemns any character assassination, vilification, trolling, harassment, unlawful arrest of any individual and vandalism of any business entity, either through fringe elements or through official state machinery.
"The arrest of Ashoka University professor, Ali Khan Mahmudabad shows how fearful the BJP is of any opinion, disliked by them," he said in a post on X.
Kharge said the arrest follows a chain reaction which began from targeting the "grieving widow of our martyred Naval officer, our Foreign Secretary and his daughter, and the deplorable disparaging comments made by a BJP Minister for a serving Colonel in the Indian Army".
"Instead of sacking their own Madhya Pradesh's Deputy CM & Minister, who made disgusting statements against our valiant Armed Forces, BJP-RSS is hellbent in casting a narrative that anybody who represents Pluralism, questions the government or simply performs his professional duty in the service of the nation, is a threat to its existence," he noted.
Kharge said supporting the armed forces and the government, when national interest reigns supreme, does not mean that it cannot question the government.
"National Unity is supreme for the Congress party, BJP should be under no impression that it can foster Dictatorship under the garb of the present developments. Democracy should stand tall," the Congress chief said.
The Haryana State Commission for Women had recently sent a notice to the associate professor questioning his remarks, though Mahmudabad had maintained that they were "misunderstood" and asserted that he had exercised his fundamental right to freedom of speech.
