Lynching will shake constitutional principles in the country: Prof K Phaniraj
Protest against lynching incidents
Udupi: Scholar Prof K Phaniraj said Thursday that instead of seeing the lynching incidents just as criminal activities, it should be considered as an anti-constitutional act.
He was addressing a protest at the Ajjarakadu grounds here on Friday, organized by the Federation of Dalits, Backward Classes, Minorities and Progressive Organisations against lynching incidents in the country. He said that lynching activities were a part of the conspiracy of defaming the Constitution and equality. Hindutva and communal politics of 1990s were the main reasons for such anti-constitutional (lynching) incidents and the main intension of such politics was to make the Constitution inactive, he added.
Bahujana Kranti Morcha leader Jayanth Mangaluru said that after independence, more killings were reported in the country on the name of religion and castes. Dalits should be educated against the followers of Manu who want to change the Constitution. Those who claim all are one in the name of religion were keeping the Dalits away on the name of castes, he alleged.
DSS leader Shekhar Hejmadi said that some vested interests have been trying to convert the country as Hindu nation by suppressing dalits and minorities. Untouchability and torture for entering the temples was a biggest crime than terrorism, he said.
JDS district president Yogesh Shetty, CITU district president Vishwanath Rai, Idris Hoode of District Muslim Federation, Rev. Fr. William Martis spoke on the occasion. Dalit leaders Shamraj Birthi, Sundar Master, Vasu Nejar, S Narayan, Prashanth Jattanna of Federation of International Christian Organisations, CPM leaders Balakrishna Shetty, Shashidhar Golla, Kaviraj, office-bearers of various organizations were present on the occasion. Before this, the protest march was taken out from the Service Bus Stand and passed through KM Marg, Court Road, Double Road and converged at Ajjarakadu.
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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.
