Daily News Dose: Kerala HC rejects Nisham's plea in 2015 SUV murder case | Sept 16, 2022

Hello, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. I'm your host, Vishnu, and these are the major news stories of the day:

1. A house collapses due to heavy rains in UP's Lucknow, killing at least nine

2. The Kerala High Court rejects Mohammed Nisham's plea to relax his life sentence in the 2015 SUV murder case

3. Thiruvananthapuram Corporation razes the controversial bus waiting shed near CET college, mayor promises gender-neutral waiting centre 

4. Kerala Government will take over buildings under Disaster Act to shelter stray dogs

5. Congress suspends three party workers for allegedly vandalising shop in Kollam

Let's get into the details....

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1. At least nine people were killed and two seriously injured after the boundary wall of an Army enclave collapsed due to heavy rains, police said on Friday.

One person was pulled out alive from the debris, they said.

According to Joint Commissioner of Police Piyush Mordia, the deceased were labourers living in huts outside an Army enclave in the Dilkusha area. Owing to heavy overnight rains, the boundary wall of the Army enclave collapsed. The injured have been admitted to the Civil hospital. The deceased include three men, three women and three children.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed grief over the incident and announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each for the kin of the deceased.

District Magistrate Suryapal Gangwar reached the accident site and supervised relief operations.

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2. The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed the plea by Mohammed Nisham, serving life term in the infamous Chandrabose murder case of 2015, seeking relaxation on his sentence.

Chandrabose's wife Jamanthi expressed happiness over the court decision, but said her request to the court was to award him death sentence.

Nisham, a multi-millionaire businessman, was sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment for killing K Chandrabose, a security guard at a luxury apartment in Thrissur. 

Nisham, the managing director of King Beedi Company, was outraged over the delay in opening the gates of the apartment and assaulted the security guard before ramming the victim with his Hummer SUV in January 2015.

In January 2016, Nisham was awarded rigorous life imprisonment and another 24 years in jail for the coldblooded murder. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 80.30 lakh on him. His sentences run concurrently. 

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3. The city corporation on Friday demolished the Sreekaryam bus waiting area outside the College of Engineering where students had protested sitting on each other's laps to oppose miscreants who damaged the shed in an apparent attempt to stop boys and girls from hanging out there.

Mayor Arya Rajendran said a new gender-neutral bus waiting centre would be built at the same place.

The students held the sit-on-lap protest on July 2. The students had alleged that the miscreants damaged the waiting shed as part of moral policing.

To stop students from hanging out there, miscreants had cut short the long steel bench in the waiting shed, making it almost impossible for two people to sit side by side.

The seating was also reduced to three chairs kept at a distance. Students used to regularly face opposition and even abuse from locals when male and female students sat there; therefore, they weren't shocked by the hostile act.

The students' protest went viral on social media forcing Mayor Arya Rajandran to announce the construction of a new waiting shed. 

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4. In a major move to tackle the stray dog issue plaguing Kerala, the state government has decided to invoke provisions of the Disaster Management Act to take over buildings to set up temporary shelters for these canines.

An order issued by the Local Self-Government Department also says that panchayats and municipalities should identify volunteers from among Kudumbashree workers and Janamaithri police personnel to capture strays, transport them to vaccination centres and take care of them at the shelters.

According to the order, vacant buildings or premises owned by government departments except local bodies could be taken over for arranging temporary shelters under Section 65 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

These temporary facilities will be in use until permanent arrangements are made by the local bodies.

In the first phase, strays in 660 hotspots in the state have to be relocated and the government is planning to arrange at least 330 shelters

Apart from Kudumbashree and Janamaithri police, volunteers could be roped in from animal welfare bodies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also, says the government.

The state government has also issued an order to pay dog-catchers Rs 300 for capturing each dog and Rs 200 to take it to a shelter.

Meanwhile, animal lovers who bring a stray dog to an Animal Birth Control (ABC) centre for vaccination and sterilization will receive Rs 500, says the order.

Along with arranging shelters for stray dogs, the local bodies will launch various training programmes for school authorities, students and parents.

These programmes will cover topics such as activities that provoke stray dogs, response to an attack by a dog, first aid in the event of a bite and further measures to be taken.

According to the government order, the respective District Information Officers will conduct awareness drives about these training programmes.

A toll-free number will also be announced.

In addition to all these measures, a 30-day intensive drive will be conducted in October to remove garbage dumped in public places.

Services of workers under the employment guarantee scheme would be utilized for this drive.

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5. The Congress on Friday suspended three of its workers for allegedly vandalising a shop after its owner Anaz's refused to donate more money towards Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra in Kerala. 

The three suspended workers are Vilakkudy west constituency president Salim Zainuddin, Youth Congress state secretary H Aneesh Khan and District Congress Committee member Kunnikode Shahjahan.

Anaz had already paid Congress Rs 500. However, this failed to appease the three. They insisted on Rs 2,000. 

When Anaz refused, they scattered the vegetables from the shop on the road.

The footage of the attack made rounds on social media enraging many.

However, Congress was quick to react. Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K Sudhakaran, in his tweet, labelled the incident as "unacceptable" and said the three were suspended with immediate effect.

However, he refrained from admitting that his party workers had vandalised the shop. Instead, he wrote, "Congress workers should have shown the maturity to avoid such bad situations even though it is obvious that it was the shopowner himself who destroyed the vegetables."

The party is investigating the matter.

The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which entered Kerala on September 10 evening, would traverse through the state covering 450 km, touching seven districts for 19 days before entering Karnataka on October 1. 

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That brings us to the end of this episode. Be sure to come back tomorrow. As always, thanks for listening to Daily News Dose.