Supaul:

In a shocking incident, a woman was beaten, tortured and paraded half-naked while her ‘lover’ was stripped by a group of people over their alleged affair in Bihar’s Supaul district, police said on Thursday.

A purported video of the incident, which went viral on social media, shows the woman being beaten and paraded half-naked in Karzain police station area. The incident is believed to have occurred three to four days ago, police said.

Sources alleged that the man with whom she was allegedly involved was also stripped and paraded by the same group. Police have arrested one suspect in connection with the case.

The video, the authenticity of which news agency PTI has not independently verified, shows the woman being dragged by her hair while she pleads for mercy. The accused later left the woman in front of her house. The victim’s family has filed a police complaint.

According to a statement by the district police on Thursday, “A video of a woman being stripped and beaten is circulating on social media. After confirming that the case is from Karzain, police registered a case and launched an investigation. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed, and one accused has been arrested. Efforts are ongoing to apprehend the other suspects.” In a similar incident on Wednesday at Jhajha in Jamui district, a woman and her husband were allegedly paraded semi-naked through their village to the beat of drums, police said.

Locals shaved the woman’s head, and her husband was forced to wear a garland of slippers and had his face blackened.

According to family members of the victims, the woman had allegedly eloped with her 35-year-old paramour and married him. The video of this incident also went viral on social media.

Talking to reporters, Jhajha sub-divisional police officer Rajesh Kumar said, “Police have registered a case and a manhunt has been launched to catch the accused”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hajipur:

Local councillor Pankaj Rai was at a clothing shop near his residence in Bihar’s Hajipur Tuesday evening. Three men on a motorcycle pulled over next to him and began firing at him indiscriminately.

Mr Rai, a first-time elected councillor and a member of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), ran into his house to save himself. However, the attackers got off their bike and followed him inside before firing multiple bullets at him. The Ward No.5 councillor was struck three times. Upon hearing the sound of gunshots, his family and locals rushed to him and took him to a hospital but he was declared dead on arrival by doctors.

RJD leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav accused Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of failing to maintain law and order in the state. “NDA goons led by Nitish Kumar shot dead ward councillor Pankaj Rai in Hajipur at night. The Chief Minister and two Deputy Chief Ministers are sleeping peacefully while their goons are creating mayhem,” Mr Yadav said.

नीतीश कुमार की अगुवाई में NDA के गुंडों ने रात्रि में हाजीपूर में वार्ड पार्षद पंकज कुमार की गोली मारकर हत्या कर दी। CM और दो-दो Deputy CM आराम से सो रहे है और उनके गुंडे तांडव कर रहे है।pic.twitter.com/1DwJUrHET9

— Tejashwi Yadav (@yadavtejashwi) August 20, 2024

According to the police, Mr Rai had filed a complaint regarding a dispute six months prior to his murder. However no action was taken, claimed his family. 

In the aftermath of the killing, senior police officials, including Superintendent of Police (SP) Har Kishore Rai visited the crime scene and the hospital to gather details and reassure the grieving family. According to the police, an investigation has been launched and CCTV footage in the area are being scanned to track down the suspects. 

RJD MLA Mukesh Roshan, who also visited the hospital, criticised the state’s law and order situation, labelling the murder as a failure of governance. “Pankaj Rai was an active worker of the RJD. His murder is a testament to the fact that lawmakers are not save inside their own homes. It’s ‘jungle-raj’ in Bihar.” 
 

Muzaffarpur:

A 14-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly kidnapped from her house in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar and her body was found, with injury marks all over, inside a pond, police said on Wednesday.

The incident was reported from a village in Paru police station area, Muzaffarpur Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Kumar said.

“It has been alleged by family members that the girl was kidnapped from their house on the night of August 11. A day later, the body was found lying inside a nearby pond,” he said, adding that a case has been registered against six persons, all but one of them unnamed, based on the complaint.

“The one person named in the complaint belongs to the same village, and family members claim he had been infatuated with the girl and seeking her hand in marriage. We have launched a search to trace him,” he told PTI Bhasha over phone.

A section of the media carried reports claiming the family suspected that the girl was raped before being murdered.

The SSP, however, said “the vaginal swab has been sent for tests and a report is awaited. As of now, inquest and post-mortem do not suggest any injuries on her private parts”.

“The injury marks were on her head, neck and arms. The blows on her head and neck caused her death. Her legs were tied and a trowel, which seems to have been used by the attackers, was found close to the pond,” Kumar said.

Replying to a query, he said the police was not informed when the girl was picked up from her house.

“The family members allege that the named accused had threatened to kill the girl if they did not agree to their marriage. They had lodged no complaint then either,” the SSP said.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition in assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, trained his guns at the Nitish Kumar government in the state over the incident.

“The horrific incident is proof of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar losing grip over admonition. Murders, rapes and other serious crimes have become the order of the day,” alleged the RJD leader, who is also a former deputy CM.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Motihari:

Four labourers died after inhaling toxic gases inside a septic tank in Bihar’s East Champaran district on Thursday, triggering violent protests by a mob which vandalised a private clinic, set fire to an ambulance and attacked a police party, leaving two personnel injured.

DSP Kantesh Kumar Mishra said of the five persons who had entered the tank, one survived and is undergoing treatment.

“The incident took place in a village under Dhaka police station area. After they fell unconscious inside the septic tank, the five labourers were rushed to a nearby private clinic. Four were declared as brought dead. By the time, a crowd had gathered. Family members of some of the killed workers blamed the deaths on laxity of doctors, leading to violent protests”, Mishra added.

The killed workers were aged between 18 and 60 years, police said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Patna:

Twelve people were killed in lightning strikes in Bihar over the last 24 hours, an official statement said on Monday.

With this, the total number of deaths in lightning strikes since July 1 rose to 42. Among them are 10 people who died on Sunday, and nine people who died on Saturday.

According to the statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), Jamui and Kaimur reported three fresh deaths each, followed by Rohtas where two people died, while one person each died in Saharsa, Saran, Bhojpur, Gopalganj.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed condolences over the deaths and announced an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh each for the next of families of the victims. 

He appealed to the people to remain alert and stay indoors during thunderstorms. He also urged people to follow advisories issued by the Disaster Management Department.

According to the Bihar Economic Survey of 2023-24, tabled in the assembly in February, the state witnessed 400 deaths related to lightning and thunderstorms in 2022. The highest number of deaths were reported from Gaya (46), Bhojpur (23) and Nawada (21).

Between 2018 and 2022, 9,687 deaths happened due to various natural disasters and accidents in the state, the survey report said.

In 2022-2023, the highest number of deaths occurred due to drowning (1,132), followed by road accidents (654) and lightning strikes (400).

“Bihar allocated Rs 430.92 crore for management of disasters in 2022-2023, with the largest portion going toward local disasters like lightning and drowning (Rs 285.22 crore),” it said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

For months, Bihar’s Muzaffarpur was home to a call centre from hell.

A company called DBR Networking had put up advertisements across social media, including Facebook, seeking agents for a call centre run by them. The catch: the applicants had to be women.

As soon as a woman would apply, police officials said, they would be shown dreams of a bright future and then be asked to pay Rs 20,000 to undergo training for the job, for which they would be asked to go to Muzaffarpur. The training would begin soon after, but so would a cycle of mental torture, fraud and, in some cases, even rape and forced abortions, said an official.

According to a First Information Report (FIR) filed by one of the survivors on June 2, she fell for the advertisement, thinking it was genuine, and reached the company’s centre in Muzaffarpur, where there were around 150 women like her. She said she got in touch with one of the accused, Tilak Kumar Singh, and she and all the other women were trained to make calls and trick people into falling for scams.

The women were mentally tortured when they failed to meet their targets and the survivor who filed the FIR said she was raped when she missed hers. She alleged that Tilak Kumar Singh forced her to have sex with her on multiple occasions and then made her undergo an abortion when she got pregnant.

Nine people have been named as an accused in the FIR with the main accused being Manish Kumar Singh, a resident of Noida, who is said to be the owner of the company.

An official said Tilak Kumar Singh has been taken into custody and is being interrogated. Efforts are on to arrest the other eight, he added.

“Tilak Kumar has been arrested from Gorakhpur… The survivor has alleged that the accused kept on assaulting her in a room for several months,” Awadhesh Dixit, Superintendent of Police (City), Muzaffarpur, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Patna:

In an aggressive demonstration in Mahnar block of Vaishali district in Bihar, girl students of a government school vandalised the vehicle of an Education Department officer while protesting against the lack of facilities in their school.

Angry students damaged the car of the Block Education Officer. They claim they resorted to vandalism only after being beaten up by a woman police officer. After hearing the allegations against her, the woman police officer said her health was worsening.

They blocked the main road of Mahnar Mohiuddinagar near Madan Chowk and Patel Chowk. Security has been tightened in the area after the incident.