Group within Cong conspiring to defeat Siddaramaiah, he will lose poll from Varuna: BJP state chief
Mangaluru (PTI): Expressing confidence that the BJP would achieve a clear majority in the May 10 Karnataka Assembly elections, party state president and Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel on Monday said former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would be defeated in the Varuna constituency, as a group within the Congress was conspiring against its senior leader.
"A group within the Congress is conspiring to defeat Siddaramaiah from the Varuna assembly constituency," he alleged at a press conference here.
Kateel also alleged that a similar group had worked against Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in Kalaburagi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Stating that the BJP would win the elections with a clear majority, he said the party's expected tally would increase following the tour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
He said the BJP had started preparations for the elections some 18 months ago. The party had made its booth-level units strong quite early to face the elections and reached the people on the basis of the achievements of the government, he said.
Kateel said he had visited all 224 constituencies in the state. Even the Mysuru region, which was the stronghold of JD(S) would support the BJP this time, he claimed.
He said the party had given tickets to ordinary workers and all the communities in the coastal districts were in favour of the BJP. The party would be victorious in all the eight constituencies in Dakshina Kannada district, he said.
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Malaysian Indian sentenced to jail and caning for raping Indonesian woman in Singapore
Singapore (PTI): An Indian-origin Malaysian man was sentenced in Singapore to 12 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane for raping a domestic worker outside a train station after tricking her into thinking that he was a police officer.
Sharveen Chetty, 48, pleaded guilty on February 4 to one charge of raping the 35-year-old Indonesian woman in the bushes outside Exit F of a subway, Little India Mass Rapid Transit station, at about 8pm on July 11, 2022.
The victim was with her friends at the time, but Chetty lured her away before he sexually assaulted her, according to a report by The Straits Times on Thursday.
Two other charges – a second rape charge and a charge of impersonating a police officer – were taken into consideration during sentencing on Wednesday.
The witnesses who testified on the first day of the trial included a doctor from Women’s and Children’s Hospital who examined the victim a day after the rapes, and forensic scientists from the Health Sciences Authority.
Chetty had initially contested the charges in a High Court trial that began on February 3. But he changed his mind and pleaded guilty on what would have been the second day of the trial, according to the daily report.
In sentencing, Justice Dedar Singh Gill considered it aggravating that Chetty had targeted the victim because she was a foreigner who might be unfamiliar with the local authorities.
The judge rejected the defence's arguments that the rape was not premeditated.
The judge, however, noted that Chetty had pleaded guilty before the victim and key prosecution witnesses testified, thus sparing her and her friends from going through cross-examination.
The prosecution had sought a sentence of between 11 and 13 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane, noting Chetty’s extensive efforts to disguise himself, and his predatory act of leading the victim away from the rest of the group.
Chetty admitted that he became sexually attracted to the victim.
