Belgaum: A 24-year-old youngster was brutally murdered in Belgaum under the jurisdiction of Belagavi Railway Police Station on Tuesday, 28 September.

The deceased youngster has been identified as Arbaaz Aptab Mulla (24), a resident of Khanapur.

According to the complaint filed by Arbaaz’s mother, a Ram Sena activist Maharaj along with two others for the murder of her son. The mother Nazeema Shaikh, has named two other in her complaint including the father of Shweta, a girl who her son was allegedly having affair with.

Shaikh claims this to be a case where the family of the girl got her son brutally killed for being in an inter-religious relationship. She also alleged that Arbaaz was getting threatening calls from Maharaj and others against his friendship with Shweta.

Nazima also stated that Shweta was asking Arbaaz to break up with her saying she was getting marriage proposals from rich families.

According to Nazima, Maharaj called Arbaaz and her to a secluded place last Sunday and threatened them asking them to delete all pictures and contact details of Shweta and demanded money from them.

“He said that he has around 40 cases registered against him and that he is not bothered about getting another one registered against him. He said he would pour acid on our faces if we failed to give money. I had not taken cash with me so I told him I will pay using UPI but he did not agree. After pleading for several minutes we managed to come out of there” Nazima said.

“On Tuesday I had gone out of station for some paperwork related to my travel plans to the UK where my daughter stays. When I returned home, Arbaaz was missing from home. And then I get a call from a random person adding that they found my son’s phone. Later we found his body, he was killed. His hands and legs were tied and was brutally murdered” a grieving Nazima told Vartha Bharati over a phone call.

“Some people say it was a suicide because he was madly in love with the girl. But if it was a suicide how were his hands and legs tied?” Nazima questions while demanding justice for her son.

Based on her complaint, Maharaj, Shweta’s father Kumbar, and another person named Birje have been named in the FIR by the cops, but no arrests or action has yet been initiated against the three accused.

Vartha Bharati tried getting more details about the police action in the case and allegations of lapses from their side while the investigation, but the Railway Police SHO refrained from commenting on the matter citing “Technicalities” of the investigation. He said they will give details of the case and investigations shortly.

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Washington (AP): Crowds of people angry about the way President Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the Republican's first weeks in office.

So-called Hands Off! demonstrations were organised for more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organisations, labour unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The rallies appeared peaceful, with no immediate reports of arrests.

Thousands of protesters in cities dotting the nation from Midtown Manhattan to Anchorage, Alaska, including at multiple state capitols, assailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's actions on government downsizing, the economy, immigration and human rights.

On the West Coast, in the shadow of Seattle's iconic Space Needle, protesters held signs with slogans like “Fight the oligarchy.” Protesters chanted as they took to the streets in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, where they marched from Pershing Square to City Hall.

Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration's moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs.

Musk, a Trump adviser who runs Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in the downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that “President Trump's position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats' stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, criticized the administration's treatment of the LBGTQ+ community at the rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where Democratic members of Congress also took the stage.

“The attacks that we're seeing, they're not just political. They are personal, y'all,” Robinson said. “They're trying to ban our books, they're slashing HIV prevention funding, they're criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives.”

“We don't want this America, y'all,” Robinson added. “We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us.”

In Boston, demonstrators brandished signs such as “Hands off our democracy” and “Hands off our Social Security.”

Mayor Michelle Wu said she does not want her children and others' to live in a world in which threats and intimidation are government tactics and values like diversity and equality are under attack.

“I refuse to accept that they could grow up in a world where immigrants like their grandma and grandpa are automatically presumed to be criminals,” Wu said.

Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, was one of hundreds who rallied at the Statehouse in Columbus. He said he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.

“He's tearing this country apart,” Broom said. “It's just an administration of grievances.”

Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few miles from Trump's golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club's Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.

“They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security,” said Archer Moran of Port St. Lucie, Florida.

“The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long,” Moran said. “And it's amazing how soon these protests are happening since he's taken office.”

The president golfed in Florida Saturday and planned to do so again Sunday, the White House said.

Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump and Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But before Saturday the opposition movement had yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women's March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington after Trump's first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd's killing by police in Minneapolis in 2020.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women's reproductive rights.

“Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what's going on today, what's happening today is abhorrent,” said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. "It's disgusting, and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They're not listening to the people."

Among thousands marching through downtown San Jose, California, were Deborah and Douglas Doherty.

Deborah, a graphic designer, is a veteran of the 2017 Women's March and was nervous that fewer people have turned out against Trump this time. “All the cities need to show up,” she said. “Now people are kind of numb to it, which is itself frightening.”