Bengaluru: As many as 12 people were killed and another eight injured in a head-on collision between a mini-goods carrier and a private bus in Chikkaballapura district here Wednesday, police said.

The accident took place at Murugamalla near Chintamani town under the Kencharlahalli Police Station, police said, adding that the goods carrier was reduced to a mangled heap of metal.

The injured have been admitted to a nearby hospital, police said.

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



Kochi (PTI): The Kerala High Court on Monday upheld the death sentence given by a sessions court to the perpetrator, Ameerul Islam, in the 2016 rape and murder of a 30-year-old Dalit law student in the state.

A division bench of the high court upheld the death penalty, dismissing the appeal filed by the convict challenging the sessions court verdict. The confirmation of the capital punishment was also made based on the death sentence reference from the sessions court.

Islam was charged with raping and murdering the woman at Perumbavoor on April 28, 2016.

He brutally assaulted the woman, who hailed from a poor family, using sharp-edged weapons before murdering her at her house.

In 2017, the Ernakulam Principal Sessions court awarded the death penalty to Islam, a migrant labourer from Assam, for committing the murder.

Islam was found guilty by the sessions court under various sections of the IPC, including 449 (house trespass to commit an offence punishable with death), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 302 (murder), 376 (rape), and 376 (A) (causing death or causing the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state while committing rape).

The Special Investigation Team that probed the case used DNA technology and verification of call record details to prove Islam's role in the crime.

Islam, who had left Perumbavoor soon after committing the crime, was arrested from Kancheepuram in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, 50 days after he committed the gruesome crime.

More than 100 police personnel questioned over 1,500 people in the case.

Fingerprints of over 5,000 people were also examined by the SIT personnel, who went through over 20 lakh telephonic conversations before tracing Islam.