Woman assault in Belagavi: Five-member BJP fact-finding team arrives at Belagavi
Belagavi: The five-member fact-finding team of BJP on Saturday reached here to collect firsthand information into the matter where a tribal woman was assaulted and paraded naked.
A delegation of MPs comprising Aparajita Sarangi, Sunita Duggal, Ranjeeta Koli, Locket Chatterjee and BJP national secretary Asha Lakra arrived at the Belagavi airport in the morning.
The team will not only meet the victim and console her, but will also get detailed information about the incident.
The woman was also tied to a pole after her son eloped with a girl from the same community at Vantamuri village in Belagavi on December 11.
Police have arrested eight people while eight others are still at large.
The Karnataka High Court has taken up the case on its own. It also termed the incident worse than what had happened to Draupadi during Mahabharata, as Lord Krishna came to her rescue, but in the Belagavi incident, no one came to help the victim.
The BJP will also be staging statewide demonstrations in all the districts condemning the incident.
BJP president J P Nadda and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman have also condemned the assault. In a statement, Nadda said such henious crimes especially against women, are happening at regular intervals ever since the Congress government has come to power in Karnataka. This also exposes the irresponsible behaviour of Congress governments everywhere in the country in tackling such crimes.
ALSO READ: JP Nadda issues statement condemning Belagavi incident, netizens ask "What about Manipur?"
In a post of 'X', Sitharaman said: ''In @INCIndia there is no 'nyay' (Justice) for the SCs and STs. The recent incident in Belagavi, Karnataka falls in the same category as those repeated atrocities against the Dalits seen till recently in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. For Congress the downtrodden are just a votebank.'' Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah slammed Nadda for attempting to gain political mileage out of the Belagavi incident.
ALSO READ: FM Sitharaman slams Cong over Belagavi woman assault incident
In a strongly worded statement, the chief minister said the BJP's rule in Karnataka witnessed multiple instances of violence against women, but Nadda had forgotten this to politically target the Congress government. Unfortunately, he is using a recent incident of violence against a woman in Belagavi for politics, he charged.
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Israeli strikes kill 12 in Gaza including children as war grinds into new year
Deir Al-Balah, Jan 1: Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, officials said Wednesday, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year.
One strike hit a home in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory, where Israel has waged a major operation since early October. Gaza's Health Ministry said seven people were killed, including a woman and four children, and at least a dozen other people were wounded.
Another strike overnight in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a woman and a child, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.
“Are you celebrating? Enjoy as we die. For a year and a half, we have been dying,” said a man carrying the body of a child in the flashing lights of emergency vehicles.
Israel's military said Hamas group fired rockets at Israel from the Bureij area overnight and that its forces responded with a strike targeting a group. The military also issued evacuation orders for the area.
A third strike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three people, according to Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital, which received the bodies.
The war began when Hamas-led group attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250. About 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.
Israel's air and ground offensive has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. It says women and children make up more than half the dead but does not say how many of those killed were members of the group.
The Israeli military says it only targets Hamas members and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. The army says it has killed 17,000 Hamas members, without providing evidence.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90 per cent of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands live in tents on the coast as winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) at night. At least six infants and another person have died of hypothermia, according to the Health Ministry.
Many displaced Palestinians in central Gaza rely on charity kitchens as their sole food provider amid restrictions on aid and skyrocketing prices. AP footage showed a long line of children waiting for rice, the only item served at the kitchen in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday.
“Some of those kitchens close because they don't receive aid, and others distribute little amounts of food and its not enough,” said Umm Adham Shaheen, displaced from Gaza City.
American and Arab mediators have spent nearly a year trying to broker a ceasefire and hostage release, but those efforts have repeatedly stalled. Hamas has demanded a lasting truce, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu has vowed to keep fighting until “total victory."
