Karwar: A recent campaign visit by BJP leaders to Bavala in Majali, Karwar taluk, turned sour when villagers asked why their local MLA, Roopali Naik, was absent from the event. Pramod Madhwaraj, former MLA from Udupi, and MLC Ganapathi Ulvekar led the campaign, accompanied by local BJP leaders, but Naik was not part of the team.

The villagers expressed their disappointment that their elected representative had not visited the village in the last five years, except for campaigning in 2018. They also expressed anger that the BJP campaign team included leaders from other districts, but not the local candidate. The villagers demanded that Naik should present herself and campaign for her own votes.

The villagers also questioned the effectiveness of the BJP leaders' campaign work, as no developmental work had been undertaken in the village.

Despite Ulvekar's efforts to pacify the villagers, they refused to attend the BJP convention and listened to the speeches from outside the venue. Congress candidate and former MLA Sathish Sail, who was also campaigning in Majali, referred to the incident in his campaign speech, mocking the BJP for failing to fulfill their duties towards the locals.

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Varanasi (UP), Apr 7 (PTI): A 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped by 23 people over six days, with the accused drugging her and taking her to several hotels as they passed her on for abuse, police said here on Monday. Six of the accused have been arrested.

Additional Commissioner of Police, Cantonment, Vidush Saxena said the woman had gone out with some youths on March 29. Her family filed a missing report on April 4 when she did not return home.

When the police rescued her, she did not mention about the rape, he said.

However, the survivor's family on April 6 lodged a complaint alleging that she had been gang-raped.

The woman told the police that between March 29 and April 4, the accused allegedly took her to many hotels and hookah bars and gang-raped raped her, the officer said.

The police said 11 unnamed persons have also been booked. Out of 12 named accused, six were arrested on Sunday, and efforts are on to nab the rest of the accused.

The woman's mother in her complaint said that her daughter had gone to her friend's house on March 29. "On the way back home, she met a boy named Raj Vishwakarma, who took her to his cafe in Lanka, where Raj and his other friend did 'bad acts' with her.

"The next day my daughter met a boy named Sameer, who was on a bike with one of his friends. Sameer took her on the bike to a highway and did a 'bad act' with her on the bike itself and left the girl at Nadesar," she alleged.

"The next day, on March 31, a boy named Ayush along with his five other friends named Sohail, Danish, Anmol, Sajid and Zahir took her to Continental Cafe in Sigra and made her drink intoxicants and raped her one by one. On April 1, a boy named Sajid along with his friend took her to a hotel, where two-three other people were present.

"There, a man raped her and them threw her out. As she was leaving the place, she met a boy named Imran on the way, who also raped her in a hotel after making her drink intoxicants. Later, when the girl screamed, he left her outside the hotel," the mother alleged in her complaint to the police.

On April 2, a boy named Raj Khan took her to the roof of his house in Hukulganj where he tried to rape her after drugging her. When the woman screamed, the youths took her to Assi Ghat in an intoxicated state and left her there, her mother alleged.

On April 3, a person identified as Danish took her to his friend's room and there Sohail, Shoaib and some other boy drugged her daughter and raped her. Later, they left her near Chowkghat. The next day on April 4, her daughter came home and told them about her ordeal, the complainant said.

The named accused have been identified as Raj Vishwakarma, Sameer, Ayush, Sohail, Danish, Anmol, Sajid, Zahir, Imran, Jaib, Aman and Raj Khan.

A case has been registered under sections 70(1) (gang rape), 74 (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 123 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence), 126(2) (wrongful restraint), 127(2) (wrongful confinement) and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the police said.