A 28-year-old man has been arrested for beating up his girlfriend and banging her head on a rock for refusing to get intimate with him at a public place in Bandra, Mumbai. Reports said the seriously-injured woman has been hospitalised and her condition is improving and the attacker has been charged by police for trying to kill her.

The accused, Akash Mukherjee, is a resident of Kalyan on the outskirts of Mumbai and the victim’s name is Lubna Javed Sukte, a resident of Bhiwandi. They are both aged 28 years and have been working in the same company and had been romantically linked for the last few years.

On Wednesday, they took a train from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and visited the Gateway of India and Girgaon Chowpatty before heading to Bandra bandstand in the evening. They sat near the rocks by the sea. The police said it was Mukherjee’s birthday.

Sometime later, Mukherjee told his girlfriend that he had converted to Islam to marry her. He said he had a certificate saying this which he would show to her parents and get consent to marry her. Soon, he tried to get physical with her and the woman rejected his advances.

She started crying, when he tried to stop her by covering her mouth. During the altercation, she bit his left hand. She tried to scream, but he tried to choke her.

The woman’s refusal filled him with rage and he tried to attack her. He hit her head against the rock. He also tried to drown her in the drain. After this, she screamed for help.

On hearing the scream, people nearby called police who took the man into custody. They sent the woman to the hospital. Bandra Police are investigating the case after arresting Mukherjee.    

Several BJP leaders were quick to pounce on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s comment at the National Press Club in Washington DC calling the Muslim League a secular party.

In his interaction in Washington DC, Rahul Gandhi said the Muslim League is a completely secular party and is in alliance with the Muslim League in Kerala as part of the United Democratic Front. Gandhi said there is nothing non-secular about the Muslim League and questioned the reporter’s knowledge about the Muslim League.

Senior BJP leaders said Rahul Gandhi is insulting India from foreign shores. Uttar Pradesh Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya said Rahul Gandhi should apologise for his comments and should speak about it to the people in India once he is here.

Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel said he does not take Rahul Gandhi seriously and blamed the comment on a Congress tendency. He said the comment was dangerous as such seeds of division can grow up to be challenges to the country.

Former Law Minister and BJP leader Kiren Rijiju criticised Rahul Gandhi’s statement on the Muslim League’s secular character. BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya criticized Rahul Gandhi on Twitter.

In response, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera hit out at Malviya on Twitter and questioned the BJP IT Cell chief’s wisdom and awareness about the Muslim League. He schooled him about the difference between the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala and the Muslim League of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

During the Washington DC interaction, Rahul Gandhi held forth on various topics including the party’s chances in the 2024 Lok Sabha, the move for Opposition unity to take on the BJP and the perils of unemployment that has been encircling India. Gandhi said his party was holding regular dialogue with all Opposition parties, there is a lot of good work happening in that regard.

After the stunning silence from Indian cricketers over women wrestlers’ protest against sexual harassment by Wrestling Federation of India chief, the World Cup 1983 winning team has come out in support of the protesting athletes.

They issued a joint statement on Friday condemning the way protesting wrestlers were manhandled by Delhi Police on May 28. The statement has been put out in the name of current BCCI boss Roger Binny, veteran cricketers Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, K Srikkanth, Syed Kirmani, Yashpal Sharma (now deceased), Madan Lal, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Sandeep Patil and Kirti Azad. Kapil Dev said the statement on the wrestlers is not an individual thing but the whole of the 1983 team stands by it.

The veteran cricketers said they were concerned by the fact that the wrestlers were going to immerse their hard-earned Olympic medals into the Ganga. They were shocked that the situation has come to such a pass that wrestlers are thinking of dumping their hard-earned medals into the Ganga because their medals were a result of years of effort, sacrifice, determination, and grit. The cricketers were unanimous that those medals don’t belong to the agitated wrestlers alone but with the nation’s pride and joy. They said they are distressed and disturbed at the unusual visuals of champion wrestlers being manhandled.

The protest has also been heartbreaking, the statement said, since it wrestlers who should be on the practice mat are out on the roads. The 1983 team added they are not in favour throwing their medals away because earning medals isn’t easy and urged the Government to sort out the issue as soon as possible.

Champion wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia have been protesting in Delhi, demanding the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for alleged sexual harassment of women wrestlers. Last Tuesday, they went to Haridwar to immerse their medals in the Ganga but changed plans with the intervention of farmer’s leaders. 

Under the leadership of Kapil Dev, the Indian cricket team won the country’s first World Cup trophy in 1983 beating the then cricketing superpower, the West Indies.