‘Brutally attacked, left on road to die’: BJP Yuva Morcha leader accused of trying to mow down girlfriend with car

News Network
December 16, 2023

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Mumbai, Dec 16: A woman was severely injured after her boyfriend, a leader of Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha (BJYM) and the son of a senior bureaucrat, allegedly tried to run her over with his car in Maharashtra Thane. 

The victim has been identified as Priya Singh, a 26-year-old model and a social media influencer. She described the harrowing ordeal of how an argument resulted in her boyfriend allegedly beating her, trying to strangle her, and then asking his driver to mow her down.

The incident took place last Monday near a hotel in Thane and police have registered a case against Ashwajit Gaikwad, who is the president of BJYM, Thane division, and the son of Anil Gaikwad, Managing Director at the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation.

Priya says she received a call from Ashwajit, who she has been in a relationship with for nearly 5 years, at 4 am on Tuesday asking her to join him at a family function.

"Upon reaching there I met some friends and found that my boyfriend was behaving strangely. So I asked him if everything was fine and insisted him for us to talk in private," she said.

Priya stepped out of the function and waited for Ashwajit hoping to talk to him and defuse the tension. But he came out with his friends who started abusing her.

"My boyfriend and his friend used abusive language to which I asked my boyfriend to defend me and not abuse which led to the start of something beyond my imagination. My boyfriend slapped me, tried to strangle my neck, I tried to push him away he bit my hand, beat me, pulled my hair, and his friend out of nowhere pushed me to the ground," she wrote on her Instagram.

But it did not end there. When she tried to collect her phone and other belongings from his car, Ashwajit asked his driver to mow her down, police said.

"The incident took place around 4.30 am on Monday near a hotel on Ghodbunder Road, where the woman had gone to meet Ashwajit Gaikwad. An argument broke out between the two. Later, when the victim collected her belongings from his car and started leaving, the one who was driving the vehicle tried to mow her down, due to which she fell down and suffered serious injuries," a police official said.

Priya claims she was lying on the road, in pain, for nearly half an hour before a passerby stopped and called for help, which she had been unable to do as Ashwajit hadn't returned her phone.

She was taken to a nearby hospital where she is currently undergoing treatment.

"My right leg is broken and I had to undergo surgery, had to put a rod in my right leg. I have bruises all over my body, my arms, my back, and my stomach area are deeply scrapped. I will be bedridden for a minimum of 3-4 months and after that, I will have to take support to walk for another 6 months," Priya Singh told police in the hospital.

Following the incident, a case was registered against him and two others under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 279 (rash driving), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and others of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A Maharashtra police official said that a probe into the incident is underway and no arrest has been made so far.

He tells a different story

Gaikwad has, however, refuted all the allegations made by Priya Singh and also dubbed the entire incident an attempt to "extort money".

In the initial investigation, Gaikwad, told the police that he and Priya were just "friends".

"Whatever has been portrayed is untrue. She (Priya Singh) is just a friend of mine," sources quoted him as saying.

"She came in a drunken condition to a hotel where I was involved in a family function and forced me to talk to her. When I refused, she started abusing me. She also assaulted my friends when they tried to intervene in the matter. When my driver, Shelke, started my car so that she would step aside, she fell. The accident was not intentional," he said.

Gaikwad said, "This is nothing, but a way to extort money from me. I have also given her money in the past and I have all the records".

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Agencies
March 24,2025

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The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the tight Israeli blockade on the entry of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip is pushing the coastal territory closer to an acute hunger crisis.

Philippe Lazzarini made the remarks in a social media post, in which he noted that the siege, which is preventing food, medicines, water and fuel from entering the region, has lasted longer than what was in place in the first phase of the war.

Israel has banned the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 4, following the expiry of the first phase of a ceasefire and an agreement with Hamas resistance movement on the exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners.

Lazzarini warned that Gaza’s population depends on imports via Israeli-occupied territories for their survival.

“Every day that passes without the entry of aid means more children go to bed hungry, diseases spread & deprivation deepens,” he said.

“Every day without food inches Gaza closer to an acute hunger crisis,” the UNRWA chief noted.

Lazzarini described the banning of aid as a collective punishment on Gaza’s population – the vast majority of which are children, women and ordinary men.

He called for the siege to be lifted and for humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to be brought into Gaza “uninterrupted and at scale.”

Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 50,021 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 113,274 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

On November 21 last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its deadly war on the blockaded coastal sliver.

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News Network
March 27,2025

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The Karnataka government has announced that Nandini milk will become ₹4 costlier per litre starting April 1, 2025. This is the second price hike this year.

The decision was made during a cabinet meeting led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Karnataka Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna and Animal Husbandry Minister K Venkatesh said the increase is meant to support dairy farmers by covering the rising costs of producing and processing milk.

Officials also said that:

>> The extra money from the price hike will go directly to the milk producers.

>> The earlier ₹2 price hike (announced on June 26, 2024) will be withdrawn.

>> The new price hike of ₹4 will apply to both 500 ml and 1-litre packets.

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Agencies
March 26,2025

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday claimed that he was not being given a chance to speak in the House which was being run in a "non-democratic style", and said Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had made "unsubstantiated" remarks about him.

Gandhi's remarks came after Birla asked him to follow the rules of procedure that members are expected to observe to uphold the dignity of the House. It was not immediately clear what was the reason for the Speaker to make the observation.

The former Congress president said the Speaker made remarks about him and then adjourned the House without giving him an opportunity to speak.

"The Speaker just got up and left. He did not allow me to speak a word. He was speaking about me, and I don't know what he said about me, all unsubstantiated. I said, 'let me speak as you have spoken about me', but he did not say a word and just left. He adjourned the House when there was no need of it," the former Congress president said.

About 70 Congress Lok Sabha MPs, including deputy leader of Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, party general secretary KC Venugopal and party's whip in the Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore, met the Lok Sabha speaker and raised the "denial" of opportunity to Gandhi to speak in the House.

Speaking with reporters in Parliament House complex, Gandhi said there is a convention that the Leader of Opposition is allowed to speak, but whenever he gets up to speak, he is not allowed to speak.

"So, in what manner is this House being run? We are not being allowed to speak. I have not done anything, I was sitting quietly, I did not speak anything. In the last 7-8 days, I have not been allowed to speak," the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

In a democracy, the opposition has a place, and the government has its own place but here there is no place for the opposition, he alleged.

Gandhi said he wanted to speak on Maha Kumbh last week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a statement on it but he was not allowed to speak.

"I wanted to state that it is good that Kumbh happened, and I wanted to speak about unemployment, but I was not allowed to speak. I don't know what thinking or approach does the Speaker have but the truth is we are not being allowed to speak. It (the House) is being run in a non-democratic style," Gandhi claimed.

Earlier, in his remarks, the Speaker said members are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that upholds the high standards and dignity of the House.

"Several instances have come to my notice where the conduct of members does not conform to the high standards," the Speaker said.

"In this House, father and daughter, mother and daughter, husband and wife have been members. In this context, I expect the Leader of the Opposition to conduct himself in accordance with Rule 349 that deals with rules to be observed by members in the House," the Speaker said.

"Especially, it is expected of the Leader of the Opposition to conduct himself as per the rules," the Speaker said.

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