The villagers of Jakhnauli has an unusual visitor last night. The villagers had possibly retired after a long hot Sunday when a helicopter made a precautionary landing following a technical error. Stunned villagers piled out of their homes towards the field where the chopper engines were raising bedlam.

The aircraft was the much vaunted Apache attack helicopter of the Indian Air Force and had landed in a field in Bhind district, Madhya Pradesh around 9 pm. A video uploaded online shows the villagers gathered around the chopper in the field. All IAF personnel in the Apache were safe.

The IAF tweeted that an Apache AH 64 helicopter had made a cautious landing and the craft and crew were secure. Another Apache had been flown in to help the chopper which had to land. The rectification party had arrived at the location, the tweet said.

The Apache AH-64 is said to be the most sophisticated multi-role combat helicopter in the world. The helicopter is a recent entrant into the Indian Air Force stable when India became the 16^th country in the world to deploy it.

Touted as the best attack helicopter in the world, the Apache saw action in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, it struck out the nodes of the air defence systems ahead of bombing raids by UAF jets. The helicopter has been also a favourite target of opponents with several Apaches being brought down in Iraq during the insurgency following the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Just over a year after the Shradhha Walkar murder in Mehrauli, Delhi has been shocked by the murder of a 16-year-old girl in the city’s Shahbad Dairy area near Rohini.

Police said the victim was a resident of the JJ Colony in Shahbad. She had been walking down the street to visit a friend when she was accosted by the accused and attacked. Police said the couple had had a quarrel on Saturday and the murder is said to be the after-effect of the quarrel.

The victim had been stabbed and bludgeoned dead by her boyfriend, who has since been arrested from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. The murder was caught on CCTV in the densely populated area and bystanders didn’t stop the murder. Reports said she was stabbed several times and the knife got stuck in her abdomen but the man wrenched it out and again stabbed her. The CCTV clip shows the accused slamming a cement slab on the prone girl some five times, picking the slab up each time and throwing it on he over and over again. He then walks away and returns to kick the remains of the now dead minor.

While the murder could have been avoided if anyone passing by had stopped the accused or called the police, the heartlessness of the bystanders brings to mind the December 2016 gangrape when the bus in which the victim was assaulted was driving around South West Delhi. Further, the incidents of couples quarrels’ ending up in murder was also seen in the Shraddha Walkar murder when her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawalla killed her and disposed of her parts over time while the body was kept in a large refrigerator.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal condemned the murder but was quick to point out that law and order was not in his government’s domain and called on Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena to act on ensuring better law and order.

Former AAP MLA Kapil Mishra, who is now in the BJP, called it a shameful incident. He said how many more such murders will be seen. Mishra said the girl was a Hindu and the accused was a Muslim and drew a parallel with the controversial film The Kerala Story and wondered how many such Kerala Stories will happen in each lane of the city. Mishra blamed the judiciary for not hanging Aaftab Poonawalla soon enough. The lack of punishment in the Walkar murder has emboldened criminals, Mishra said.

Continuing ethnic confrontations have claimed 80 lives in Manipur, including a policeman, and 12 others injured, just ahead of Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit.  

After terrorists in Serou and Sugunu region set fire to numerous homes, there were reports of new acts of violence in various areas of the state. Yesterday, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said 40 terrorists, all of them Kukis, had been killed by gunfire in the previous few days.

The CM said the terrorists had been shooting at bystanders with sniper rifles and assault rifles such as the M-16 and AK-47. The army and other security forces had begun to take very aggressive action against them. The Chief Minister said the recent spike in violent attacks against citizens on the fringes of Imphal Valley were well-planned and condemned them.

Earlier, Home Minister Amit Shah had pleaded with the Kukis and Meiteis to not exacerbate violence and seek to restore normalcy. Shah had also met with representatives of the Meitei and Kuki groups as well as other parties to discuss steps taken to bring peace back to the state.

Army chief General Manoj Pande was in Manipur on Saturday to assess the state of law and order.

The Congress has condemned the failure of the Manipur government in curtailing the violence. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will lead the party delegation to meet President Droupadi Murmu on May 30 over the worsening situation in Manipur, said Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in-charge of communication. Ramesh said Manipur was seeing a complete breakdown of law and order.

In elections held last year in Manipur, the BJP won 32 seats in the 60-member Assembly.

The violence spiral hit Manipur after the Manipur High Court had ordered that the government should look at steps to include the Meiteis in the Scheduled Tribes list. The Kukis had protested against the Meitei community which would grant them reservation and access to forest areas, following which violence spread throughout the state. Tension over the displacement of Kuki people from reserve forest area had caused a number of smaller agitations which triggered the violence to break out.