Investigators learnt that there are similar cases against the accused in various police stations.

The body of a missing minor girl, suspected to be a victim of rape and murder, was recovered from a field at Basanti in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal on Monday evening.

According to the district police superintendent Palash Chandra Dhali, the minor girl, an eighth-standard student, had been missing since January 9.

The victim’s family members, according to him, registered the missing case three days later, on January 12.

“Now the body has been recovered. The police are investigating the matter on the basis of the complaint of the victim’s parents. The body has been sent for a post-mortem,” he said.

Sources said that since the missing report was registered by the parents of the victim, the cops started looking for her. “Finally, on Monday evening we received information that the victim was hidden somewhere in a field near her residence,” they said.

They added that finally, the body was recovered without clothes after digging out a portion of the field.

The victim’s parents claimed that their daughter went out of the house on the afternoon of January 9 after being called by some local youth.

“She has been missing since then. We suspect that she was gang-raped first and then her body was buried. We demand the culprits be tracked and punished severely,” said a member of the family.

There was tension in the area following the recovery of the body. Local residents also staged protests against the police over the matter after the recovery of the body.

The recovery of the victim’s body came just hours after a special court in Kolkata sentenced Sanjay Roy, the sole accused in the case of ghastly rape and murder of a woman junior doctor of state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital within the hospital premises in August last year, to life imprisonment.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Delhi recorded a slight decline in crimes including murder, robbery, rape, and molestation, last year as compared to 2023, data shared by the Delhi Police said.

According to the data, a total of 504 cases of murder were reported in the national capital – down from 506 in 2023. Incidents of robbery also witnessed a decline from 1,654 to 1,510 in 2024. There were a total of 33 incidents of riots reported in Delhi – at least 10 down from last to last year.

Cases of crimes against women also witnessed a sharp decline last year.

A total of 2,076 incidents of rape were reported in Delhi as compared to the previous year’s 2,141 cases, 2,037 cases of molestation – at least 308 down from 2023, and 362 cases of eve-teasing were reported in 2024 compared to 281 in 2023, the data said.

29 incidents of dacoity were witnessed – the same as the previous year.

However, there was a sharp rise in some incidents such as fatal accidents and burglary. While a total of 1,504 fatal accidents were reported last year – as compared to 1,432 from 2023, at least 29,011 cases of burglary were witnessed – over 400 cases more from the previous year.

Also Read | How Instagram Reels Helped Solve Delhi Man’s Murder

Several incidents of gambling were reported in Delhi last year (3,556 incidents in 2024).

Apart from these, officials said that cases related to the Excise Act saw a sharp rise last year. At least 6,443 cases were reported as compared to 5,951 in 2023. This comes as many Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders, including former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, were arrested in the excise policy cases.

Delhi saw a dip in most crimes in 2024.

Over 100 criminals arrested in 2024: Delhi Police

The Delhi Police arrested a total of 114 hardened criminals in 2024, including 40 parole jumpers and wanted offenders each. The other arrested criminals included 18 interim bail jumpers, nine proclaimed offenders, four carrying a reward on their head, and three non-bailable warrant evaders, officials said.

Additionally, six criminals were on the run for over 10 years, while three had evaded arrest for eight years.

“A year of tireless effort and precision, the Crime Branch adopted a multifaceted approach, combining advanced technological tools and traditional intelligence methods. With the use of technical surveillance, CDR and IPDR analysis, and informant networks, various dedicated teams traced and captured offenders who had evaded arrest for years,” Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Devesh Chandra Srivastava, said.

What is the common thread joining the Bangalore car crash claiming five lives, Blake Lively’s sexual harassment complaint against her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni, and France’s Giséle Pelicot rape trial? The tenuousness of the thread of safety we hang by. It can snap in a snap. It doesn’t matter how solid your car, career, or conjugality is; it may not necessarily keep you safe. Then, what is even the point of doing anything? If the basic need to be safe, both physiologically and emotionally, is too much of an ask, how can anyone stay motivated to achieve anything at either individual or communal level? 

Abraham Maslow surmised at least 80 years ago that safety is one of the five fundamental needs of human beings. According to Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation, the hierarchy of human needs is as follows: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation. Safety, however, needs to be seen as an overarching holdall category. What is anything worth if nothing is safeguarding it? 

What is a long, stable marriage worth if the husband had been inviting strangers to rape the sedated wife?

What is a sturdy car, facilitated by a hefty pay packet, worth if the roads are unsafe?

What are an illustrious career and fame worth if they don’t ensure a safe work environment?

Women And Vulnerability

According to Maslow’s theory, the satisfaction of lower-level needs facilitates satisfying the next higher-level need. Sans safety, no need is ever fully met. The need for safety is also to be understood from a gendered perspective. Are women ever capable of reaching the top of the pyramid and meeting their self-actualisation goals if they have to be constantly watching over their shoulders? Or, have women trained themselves differently to see safety as an elusive, unattainable concept, and they are carrying on regardless? Have women, in other words, self-actualised as essentially vulnerable human beings? Perhaps so. Because this is the only way they are allowed to operate. Accepting their vulnerability and putting up their fences is what they have been getting good at. 

It involves a process of becoming a less-than-human entity. A focus on women’s bodies leads to “women to be perceived, and to behave, more like object and less like a human,” psychologists Nathan A. Heflick and Jamie L. Goldenberg concluded in their study of literal objectification. The most damning indictment of the gender status quo of our world comes as follows: “Women themselves also behave more like objects (by, e.g., speaking less) when they are aware of this focus by others”. 

When The ‘Code’ Is Broken

Women’s need for safety has been marginalised, unless it is fetishised, for so long that anyone asserting it makes the headlines. It is seen as something radical and, ironically, destructive. Women’s need for safety hurts men’s need to always be in control. By not continuing to be objects, women break the code. 

During the historical Giséle Pelicot rape trial, Dominique Pelicot stated that the trial had ruined his life and family. Coming from a man pronounced guilty of programming an elaborate rape-my-drugged-wife activity for almost a decade, the sentiment is dark and sinister.

Similarly, in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni case, the demand for a safe workplace environment was touted as a problem that needed to be addressed only by destroying Lively’s reputation. Women are not supposed to ask for safeguards, even from men who claim to be safeguarding women—Baldoni received the Voices of Solidarity Award on 9 December from the Vital Voices Global Partnership for his commitment to women’s empowerment. What does it tell us about the dispensability of women’s equal rights when even an ‘ally’ finds it difficult to stop being a garden variety workplace harasser?

Sometimes, it feels that only women are not allowed to feel safe. It’s as if almost everyone, including many women, has accepted it, too. When an accident happens on the road, a process of accountability assignation kickstarts. Who’s at fault may come later, but at least there is no quest for the perfect victim. Women’s lives are shattered by multiple metaphorical car crashes, and they mostly go unnoticed. If women demand safety, they are labelled as destructive, difficult, delusional or deranged, depending on what the flavour of the month is.   

It does not make sense anymore. 

(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Luke Ford, 35, an actor from Stirling, Scotland, has been given a 16-year sentence for a series of sexual and physical offences against women. Ford was found guilty of 19 charges that included violence, sexual assault, threats, and abusive behaviour.

Ford, who said he was a body double for Brad Pitt in the 2013 filming of World War Z in Glasgow, used this claim to gain the trust of his victims. The case marks Scotland’s first prosecution of its kind, and it highlights a disturbing campaign of abuse.

According to The Independent, one of the seven rape charges he was convicted of involved behaviour referred to as “stealthing,” which is defined as failing to use a condom without a partner’s knowledge or consent. Ford was found to have deliberately had unprotected sex despite the woman only agreeing to sex with a condom.

He was given a 21-year extended sentence with 16 years in custody at the High Court in Edinburgh on Wednesday, the Crown Office said.

The court heard Ford targeted nine female victims over a 12-year campaign of offending that lasted from 2008 to 2020.Non-harassment orders were also granted, banning Ford from contacting or attempting to contact the women.

Detective Inspector Steven Gray said in a statement: “Ford is a dangerous and manipulative sexual predator. I would like to acknowledge how hard this has been for those involved and to also tell them that their testimonies vastly contributed to Ford being convicted. I hope that knowing he is now behind bars for his crimes helps them continue to move forward with their lives.

“Anyone who has been a victim of sexual assault or abuse should contact us. Please be assured that we will do everything we can to ensure we arrest the perpetrators of such crimes.”

A new lawsuit accusing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of drugging and raping a man at a Miami house party has been filed in Manhattan. According to the lawsuit, the victim, identified only as “John Doe,” was drugged at the event and he lost consciousness. When he woke up, he found himself in severe pain and realised he had been assaulted, according to a report in The New York Post.

According to the court filing, the alleged attack took place in front of a group of people in a bedroom. The victim says he woke up to find Combs standing naked behind him, continuing the assault. He further alleged that throughout the ordeal, Combs was speaking “dirty” and wearing a “disturbing smile.” Due to the effects of the drugs, the victim was unable to resist or fight back and eventually passed out again.

The lawsuit, according to The New York Post, alleged, “Plaintiff heard Combs ‘talk dirty’ to him and the others in the bedroom and Plaintiff recalls Combs telling him ‘[t]his is what you want,’ all while wearing a disturbing smile. The drugs prevented Plaintiff from fighting back or otherwise resisting Combs’ assault. Plaintiff eventually slipped back into unconsciousness.”

The man also claimed he was left alone in the room the following morning, where a member of Combs’ security allegedly handed him his clothes and told him to leave.

This lawsuit is part of a larger legal battle for Combs, who is facing multiple civil lawsuits. One of these, filed by a woman known as “Jane Doe,” alleges that Combs sexually assaulted her in 2001 in a black SUV limousine outside a New York City nightclub. The woman claims she was given a spiked drink before being forced to engage in sexual acts with Combs and his security team.

Combs’ legal representatives have denied all accusations, dismissing the lawsuits as “shameless publicity stunts.” They told the New York Post in a statement, “Mr Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process,” asserting that “the truth will prevail” in court, and that Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone.

Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has been arrested on suspicion of rape. He was taken into custody on Monday in Oslo on a preliminary charge of having sexual intercourse with someone unconscious or unable to resist the act, CNN reported. Police specified that he is accused of carrying out a “sexual act without intercourse” on a victim “said to have been unable to resist the act.” Authorities have not disclosed when the alleged rape took place. 

The alleged victim, a woman in her 20s, didn’t know Marius Hoiby before meeting him on the day of the incident, according to her lawyer, Hege Salomon. She also wasn’t in a romantic relationship with Hoiby.

Hoiby pleaded not guilty to the charge, and was cooperating with the police and wanted to explain himself, his defence attorney Oyvind Bratlien told Norwegian state broadcaster NRK on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the alleged victim’s lawyer, Hege Salomon, said that the woman “is having a hard time” and said that police had brought the case, not her client.

“We do not have a comment on this case and direct all questions to police and attorney for Marius Borg Hoiby,” Simen Sund, Communications Advisor for the Royal Palace, told NBC News.

This isn’t Hoiby’s first run-in with the law as he was previously detained in August for bodily harm and criminal damage. He was arrested again in September for allegedly violating a restraining order.

In August, he issued a statement saying he had “struggled with substance abuse for a long time”. He said he would “resume” treatment for the problem and “take it very seriously”.

Notably, Hoiby was born in 1997 from a relationship prior to Mette-Marit’s 2001 marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne. He and his step-siblings — Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20 and Prince Sverre Magnus, 18 — were raised together by Mette-Marit and Haakon.

A French court sentenced a graphic artist who worked on beloved animated feature films for Pixar and Disney to 25 years in jail for ordering the livestreamed rape of preteen girls in the Philippines.

The Paris court late Thursday found Bouhalem Bouchiba guilty of complicity in the rape of hundreds of girls and in human trafficking and of viewing child pornography online.

Bouchiba, 59, had confessed to the charges during the four-day trial.

“I am aware of everything I did. I ask the victims’ forgiveness,” he told the court.

Bouchiba worked at the Pixar and Disney animation studios, contributing to blockbusters like 2004 hit “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille”, released in 2007.

“One the one hand you have a graphic artist who delighted children,” said state prosecutor Philippe Courroye.

“On the other, Bouhalem Bouchiba was a paedophile film maker who staged his own horror movies.”

He was convicted of paying women in the Philippines between 2012 and 2021 to rape and sexually assault girls aged between five and 10 in front of a camera while he watched via livestream and issued instructions.

Bouchiba admitted during his testimony that the violence resembled “torture”.

Each show cost between 50 and 100 euros ($54-$108), with the total Bouchiba spent on the performances coming to just over 50,000 euros.

Police became interested in Bouchiba when Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, sent out an alert about suspicious money transfers to the Philippines.

On October 4, 2021, Bouchiba — who was living in the United States at the time — was arrested at San Francisco’s airport and extradited to France.

The suspect was already known to police, having been found guilty in 2009 of the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Bhadohi (UP):

A 21-year-old man was arrested on Monday for allegedly kidnapping a girl in August and raping her multiple times over two months, police said.

Police said the accused, Vishal Prajapati (21), was arrested late Sunday evening from Bhadohi railway station while attempting to flee by train.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Meenakshi Katyayan said a complaint was filed on August 20 by a youth residing in the Kotwali area, alleging that his sister had gone out of the house on the evening of July 30 and had not returned.

“After a thorough search, it was found that she was last seen with Prajapati. Following this, a kidnapping case was registered and an investigation was initiated,” she said.

Based on a tip-off on Sunday, Vishal was arrested from the railway station and upon intense interrogation, he told the police about the girl’s whereabouts. She was also rescued.

The accused was produced in a court and was sent to jail on Monday, Ms Katyayan said.

Based on the girl’s medical report and statement, charges under the ‘Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act will be added to the case, Katyayan said. PTI COR KIS HIG HIG

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

Shahjahanpur:

A man has been arrested for raping a 12-year-old girl in his home here, police said on Saturday.

Superintendent of Police Rajesh S said the girl was called to the house of her neighbour, Rishabh Kumar (27), who lives in the same colony, on Friday.

When she reached his house, the accused locked her in a room and raped her, the police officer said, adding the girl later managed to escape.

She reached home and informed her family, following which a complaint was lodged against the accused on Friday evening, the SP said.

The accused has been arrested, and a case registered under Section 65/2 (punishment for rape in certain cases) of the BNS and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

The police officer said the girl has been taken to a hospital for medical examination. 

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