Former Indian shot put medalist arrested in US for killing wife and mother
Washington: Iqbal Singh, a former Asian Championship bronze medalist for India, has been charged with murder in the US after he chillingly admitted to killing his wife and mother, according to media reports.
Singh, 62, from Delaware County in Pennsylvania called police on Sunday morning to admit his crime, The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted officials as saying.
When police arrived at Singh's home in Newtown Township, they found Singh covered in blood, suffering from self-inflicted stab wounds. Inside were the bodies of the two women, the report said.
Singh was charged on Monday with first- and third-degree murder, court records show, and remained in custody, denied bail given the nature of the charges. There was no indication that he had hired an attorney, it said.
The former shot-putter won a bronze medal at the 1983 Asian Athletics Championship, which was held in Kuwait. This remained the biggest achievement of his sporting career before he moved to the US.
He was working as a taxicab driver, US media reports said. Singh was taken to an area hospital for the treatment of self-inflicted injuries, where he remains in police custody, NBC News reported.
At Singh's home on Rockwood Road, police found his mother, Nasib Kaur, lying unresponsive on the first floor with her throat slit. Singh's wife, Jaspal Kaur, was found upstairs, similarly wounded. Both women were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
The motive in the slayings was unclear.
At this point, there's been no previous criminal contact with this individual and so the mystery of why this happened is still a mystery, CBS Local quoted Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer as saying.
A chilling phone call between Singh and his son brought the responding officers to his home. I killed both of them. I killed your mother and grandmother. Call the police to come get me, he told his son over phone.
He then talked to his daughter, who was with her brother and told her the same story. That's when law enforcement was contacted, they arrived and they found Mr Singh covered in blood, injured. But they also found the two deceased individuals in the home, Stollsteimer said.
Neighbours say the now-accused killer was well-known. He was often seen walking and meditating in the quiet Newtown Square neighbourhood.
But they say something seemed off a day before the killings.
He didn't seem to be his usual self. When he was doing his prayers, I just kind of sensed that he was maybe a little bit off or agitated about something, neighbour Sue Davison said.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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