Israel shells besieged Gaza, tanks target observation posts

Mangaluru: A 21-year-old woman was allegedly electrocuted in a village in Belthangady taluka in Dakshina Kannada district, police said on Friday. 

The deceased has been identified as Pratiksha Shetty, they said, adding that the incident happened in Shibaje village within the Dharmasthala police limits on Thursday evening.

According to police, the woman had stepped out of her house to collect a parcel when she was electrocuted. An insulator of an electricity wire had broken and fallen into the water-filled trench, resulting in Pratiksha’s electrocution. 

She was heading towards the main road, just 100 meters from her home, to collect an online parcel she had ordered. The trench, which becomes waterlogged during the monsoon, lay in her path. 

She was electrocuted on the spot. Her father, Ganesh Shetty, also received a shock while attempting to rescue her.

Pratiksha was a resident of Bargula hamlet in Shibaje village, a police official said. The body was handed over to the family after the post-mortem, the official added.

This is the second incident of electrocution this week. Earlier, two autorickshaw drivers had come into contact with a live cable in Pandeshwar in Mangaluru city on Tuesday and died, police said.

Twelve former US officials have denounced President Joe Biden’s policies on Gaza as “a failure and a threat” to the country’s national security, calling on the government to overhaul them and use all "available leverage” to bring the ongoing war to an immediate end.

The 12 signatories who quit their posts over Biden’s controversial approach made the remarks in a joint public statement titled "Service in Dissent" which was released on Tuesday in conjunction with Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July.

“Each of us has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as our nation celebrates its Independence Day, each of us are reminded that we resigned from government not to terminate that oath but to continue to abide by it; not to end our commitment to service, but to extend it,” the former officials said.

“This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives,” they said, noting that it has not brought safety to the Israeli regime and has rather been “devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, with all the implications of that cycle, for generations to come.”

The signatories went on to say, “As a group of dedicated Americans in service of our country, we insist that there is another way,” outlining steps to ensure that a "catastrophic policy failure like this can never happen again."

The ex-officials also argued that the US policy toward Gaza has “been deeply damaging” not only for US relations in the region, but also for the country’s global credibility.

The former officials further noted that US’ continuous flow of arms to Israel has ensured the country’s “undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza.”

"This is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and US laws, but it has also put a target on America’s back," they added, arguing that it has put the lives of service members and diplomats at risk.

The signatories also called on Washington to use “all necessary and available leverage to bring the conflict to an immediate close”, ensure expansion of humanitarian aid to Gazans and support the self-determination of the Palestinian people.

“There is an urgent need for change in the organizational cultures and structures that have enabled the current US approach,” they stressed, calling on Washington to have transparency regarding arms transfers.

The signatories further stated they “stand united in a shared belief that it is our collective responsibility to speak up,” urging their colleagues to use their voice and not to be complicit.

Among the signatories are Josh Paul, who oversaw Congressional relations on weapons transfers, a former White House official, two former air force department personnel and a former army officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Israel launched the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.

Since then, the United States has supplied the Tel Aviv regime with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment, and used its veto power against all United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has so far killed nearly 38,000 people, most of them women and children.

The Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which filed a chargesheet against former CM and BJP veteran BS Yediyurappa and three others, has claimed that Yediyurappa not just sexually assaulted minor at his house but also tried to cover it up by giving cash. 

In the chargesheet, three of Yediyurappa’s aides have been charged for destruction of evidence and trying to cover up the case on his behalf. 

The charges have been filed under IPC Sections 354A (sexual harassment), 204 (destruction of document or electronic record to prevent its production as evidence), 214 (offering gift or restoration of property in consideration of screening offender) and Section 8 (sexual assault) of the POCSO Act.

Bengaluru Police had registered an FIR against the 81-year-old BJP leader on March 15 under the law based on a complaint from a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her 17-year-old daughter. The girl had allegedly gone to meet the leader along with her mother at his home in February this year, seeking his help to speed up a probe into a past rape case. Her mother, who had made the complaint against Yediyurappa, died of lung cancer last month.

The government later transferred the case to the CID. A Bengaluru court had issued a non-bailable warrant for the leader’s arrest earlier this month, but the Karnataka High Court halted his arrest.

With the case back in the news last month, the BJP had sharply retaliated at the renewed interest, insinuating that the Congress government was doing this to divert attention from its loss in the recent general elections in the state. Yediyurappa had denied the charges, saying “people would teach a lesson to those indulging in conspiracies against me.”

750-page chargesheet

The 750-page chargesheet filed by the CID explains the minor girl’s ordeal.  The investigators found that on February 2, 2024, at around 11.15 am, the survivor, along with her 54-year-old mother, the complainant who died on May 26, visited Yediyurappa, 81, at his residence in Dollar’s Colony, Bengaluru seeking help in a previous case of sexual assault and other matters. While Yediyurappa was speaking with the mother, he was holding the survivor’s right wrist with his left hand.

Yediyurappa then called the minor inside a meeting room next to the hall and locked the door. He then asked the survivor, if she remembered the face of the person who had sexually assaulted her earlier. After the survivor replied twice that she did, Yediyurappa asked her what her age was then and proceeded to sexually assault her, the investigations found.

The survivor, startled, pushed the former CM’s hand, moved away and asked him to open the door. Yediyurappa put some cash in the hand of the survivor from his pocket and exited the room. He told the survivor’s mother that he couldn’t help them, gave her some money from his pocket and sent them away, the investigations revealed.

On February 20, after the survivor’s mother uploaded a video related to the crime on her Facebook account. Arun Y M, accused No.2, at the behest of Yediyurappa, along with Rudresh M and G Mariswamy, accused No.3 and 4, initiated contact with the survivor and her mother.

Rudresh and Mariswamy, along with another person listed as the witness, went to the survivor’s house and ferried her and her mother to Yediyurappa’s residence in their car. Investigations found that the three accused then coerced the survivor’s mother into taking down the video from her Facebook account and deleted the video from her iPhone’s gallery.

At Yediyurappa’s directions, Rudresh paid the survivor Rs 2 lakh in cash, the investigations revealed. Another conversation recorded by the survivor in her phone, which was not deleted, and the voice samples of Yediyurappa, formed key pieces of the evidence, reported Deccan Herald quoting sources.