The Evening Wrap: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi killed in helicopter crash

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s Foreign Minister, and others have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash on May 20 after hours-long search through a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported. Raisi was 63. As the sun rose on Monday, rescuers saw the helicopter from a distance of some 2km, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media. He did not elaborate and the officials had been missing at that point by over 12 hours. The incident comes as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shia theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East. Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600km northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, state TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory. With Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash,” but others referred to either a “hard landing” or an “incident.” Early Monday morning, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be wreckage of helicopter.” The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain. Footage released by the IRNA early Monday showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range. Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There it is, we found it.” Shortly after, state TV in an on-screen scrolling text said: “There is no sign of live from people on board.” It did not elaborate, but the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed rescuers using a small drone to fly over the site, with them speaking among themselves saying the same thing. In a subsequent development, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assigned Vice President Mohammad Mokhber to assume interim duties. “In accordance with Article 131 of the constitution, Mokhber is in charge of leading the executive branch,” said Khamenei in a statement, adding that Mokhber will be required to work with the heads of legislative and judicial to prepare for presidential elections “within a maximum period of 50 days”. Mokhber, 68, largely has been in the shadows compared to other politicians in Iran’s Shia theocracy. He is expected to serve as caretaker President for some 50 days before mandatory presidential elections in Iran. Supreme Court dismisses plea challenging new criminal laws The Supreme court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the three criminal laws — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Act. A Vacation Bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal allowed petitioner-advocate Vishal Tiwari to withdraw, saying he narrowly escaped imposition of costs for filing the petition. “Your petition was filed in a casual, cavalier manner,” Justice Mithal told Tiwari. “You have decided to withdraw. If you had argued more, we would have imposed costs on you... The petition is dismissed as withdrawn,” Justice Trivedi said. Justice Trivedi noted the new Acts have not come into force so far. The petition claimed the new laws, meant to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Evidence Act, suffered from “defects and discrepancies”. The Lok Sabha had passed the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bills on December 21 last year. President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Bills on December 25. The petition said the Bills were passed without parliamentary debate as most of the Opposition members were under suspension. The plea had sought directions from the court for the immediate constitution of an expert committee to assess the viability of the three new criminal laws. The three criminal laws to be effective from July 1. “The new criminal laws are far more draconian and establish a police state in reality and violate every provision of fundamental rights of the people of India. If the British laws were considered colonial and draconian, then the Indian laws stand now far more draconian as, in the British period, you could keep a person in police custody for a maximum of 15 days. Extending 15 days to 90 days and more is a shocking provision enabling police torture,” the plea said. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita encompasses offences, such as acts of secession, armed rebellion, subversive activities, separatist activities or endangering the sovereignty or unity of the country, in a new avatar of the sedition law. ICC seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Palestine; charges Hamas chief for October 7 attack The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, on May 20 announced that he will be submitting applications to seek arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in connection with the prevailing situation in Palestine. Khan in his statement said that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for the war crimes and crimes against humanity “committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023”. The prosecutor has also charged Yahya Sinwar (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and Ismail Haniyeh. The ICC has believes them to be “criminally responsible for the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas (in particular its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades) and other armed groups on 7 October 2023 and the taking of at least 245 hostages.” In his statement, Khan said that “Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.” The International Court of Justice, a separate body is also investigating whether Israel has committed acts of genocide in the ongoing war in Gaza, with any ruling expected to take years. Israel has rejected allegations of wrongdoing and accused both international courts of bias. Israel has instead accused Hamas of genocide over its October 7 attack that triggered the war. Militants stormed through army bases and farming communities across southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. In response, Israel launched a massive air, sea and ground offensive that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas. The military says it has killed over 12,000 militants, without providing evidence. The war has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine. Listing out the articles of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, under which Netanyahu and Gallant will be charged, Khan added that their criminal acts “occurred through the imposition of a total siege over Gaza that involved completely closing the three border crossing points, Rafah, Kerem Shalom and Erez, from 8 October 2023 for extended periods and then by arbitrarily restricting the transfer of essential supplies — including food and medicine — through the border crossings after they were reopened. “The siege also included cutting off cross-border water pipelines from Israel to Gaza – Gazans’ principal source of clean water – for a prolonged period beginning 9 October 2023, and cutting off and hindering electricity supplies from at least 8 October 2023 until today. This took place alongside other attacks on civilians, including those queuing for food; obstruction of aid delivery by humanitarian agencies; and attacks on and killing of aid workers, which forced many agencies to cease or limit their operations in Gaza,” he added. U.K. court allows Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange to appeal extradition The U.K. High Court on May 20 granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a reprieve by allowing him to appeal his extradition to the United States. The 52 year old Australian has been charged on multiple counts for publishing sensitive military and diplomatic cables in 2010 and violating the U.S.’s Espionage Act. The U.S. has argued that lives were put at risk because the leaked documents contained unredacted names. In May the court cleared the extradition conditional on the U.S. providing two assurances: one, the death penalty would not be applied in Assange’s case and two, Assange would be allowed to rely on the First Amendment (i.e., free speech rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution) during his trial. In a short court session on May 20, two judges ruled that the U.S. government had not met the requirements. Specifically, in April, the U.S. government had said Assange “will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon” the First Amendment but whether that would apply to a non-US national would be up to the courts. Last week, his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson had called that a “non-assurance”. A crowd gathered outside the court cheered as it heard the outcome of the legal proceedings. Addressing the crowd, Assange’s wife, Stella, described the U.S. arguments as “trying to paint lipstick on a pig” and the case as an “attack on journalists everywhere”. “How long can this go on for?” she said, making a case for her family to be reunited. Assange has been held at the high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019. Prior to this he had spent approximately seven years in the Ecuador Embassy in London after seeking asylum there in 2012, following charges for sexual offences in Sweden. The charges were dropped in 2017. Pune police to move higher court for permission to try teenager involved in accident as adult Pune Police on May 20 said they will seek a higher court’s permission to try as an adult a 17-year-old boy whose car allegedly knocked down and killed two persons in Kalyani Nagar area in Pune. The accident took place on early on May 19 morning. The Juvenile Justice Board’s decision to grant the youngster bail on the same day while asking him to write an essay on road accidents has drawn criticism. The youngster, son of a real estate developer, was drunk at the time of the accident, police claimed on May 20. A case has been registered against him under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act. A group of friends were returning on motorbikes around 3.15 am on Sunday after a party when a speeding luxury car hit one of the motorcycles at Kalyani Nagar junction. The two riders — Anis Awadhiya and Ashwini Costa — died of their injuries. The youngster who was allegedly driving the car was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board which granted him bail. It also directed him to visit the Regional Transport Office and study all the rules and regulations, and submit a presentation to the Board within 15 days. “The CCL (Child in Conflict with Law) will write an essay of 300 words on the topic of road accidents and their solutions,” the order read. The board also directed the youth to assist RTO officers for 15 days and submit a report. He should be referred to an alcohol de-addiction centre for counselling, it said. “On Sunday itself we had moved an application before the court (board) seeking permission to try the juvenile as an adult and send him to an observation home as the crime is heinous, but the plea was rejected. We are now approaching the sessions court with the same plea,” said Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar. His blood report was yet to be received but preliminary probe showed that the juvenile was drunk at the time of the accident, he said. “The CCTV footage of the bar clearly shows that the juvenile was consuming alcohol. There is no doubt that the juvenile was driving the car after consuming alcohol. We will be submitting all these facts to the court,” commissioner Kumar said. “We have also registered an offence against his father under the Juvenile Justice Act, and against the proprietors of the bar establishment for serving alcohol to an underage person. We have transferred the probe of these cases to the crime branch,” he further said. Police displayed professionalism while dealing with the case, Kumar claimed. “The case was transferred to an ACP-level officer and it is our endeavour to make a watertight case. We will appoint a special counsel in this case,” he added. Poll roundup: The fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections for 49 parliamentary constituencies saw a cumulative voter turnout of 56.68% till 5 p.m., as per the data shared by the Election Commission. West Bengal recorded the highest voter turnout at 73%, followed by Ladakh (67.15%), Jharkhand (61.90%), Odisha (60.55%), Uttar Pradesh (55.80%), Jammu and Kashmir (54.21%), Bihar (52.35%) and Maharashtra (48.66%). Terming the defacing of posters of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in front of the party’s State headquarters in Kolkata an act of “gross indiscipline,” the Congress on Monday asked the in-charge of West Bengal to submit a report on the incident. As subsequent developments threatened to become a political crisis, Kharge, in an interview to PTI on Monday, described his colleague from Bengal (West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury) as a “fighter” of his party and asserted that the Congress is in an alliance with the Left in Bengal. On Sunday, several posters and hoardings of Kharge were defaced with ink and “agent of Trinamool Congress” written over the posters after Chowdhury was snubbed by Kharge for questioning Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee’s loyalty to the INDIA bloc. In Brief:Excise scam: ED seeks judicial custody for Arvind Kejriwal after he surrenders on June 2 The ED on May 20 sought extension of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s judicial custody after he surrenders on June 2 in an excise policy-linked money-laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved the application before Special Judge for ED and CBI Kaveri Baweja, seeking 14-day judicial custody for Kejriwal when he surrenders on June 2, claiming that the period of judicial custody granted earlier ends on Monday. Two get death for raping, burning alive minor girl in Bhilwara A POCSO court in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district on May 20 awarded death sentence to two men for raping and burning alive a minor girl in a coal furnace last year. “Kalu and Kanha were awarded death penalty by the court,” Special Public Prosecutor Mahaveer Singh Kishnawat said. The court on May 18 had convicted Kalu and Kanha for the crime that took place in August last year. Seven others accused of destroying evidence were acquitted by the court. Kishnawat said the acquittal will be challenged in the High Court. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 20 May 2024 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [View in browser]( [More newsletters]( Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi killed in helicopter crash [Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi]( the country’s Foreign Minister, and others have been [found dead at the site of a helicopter crash]( on May 20 after hours-long search through a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported. Raisi was 63. As the sun rose on Monday, [rescuers saw the helicopter from a distance of some 2km]( the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media. He did not elaborate and the officials had been missing at that point by over 12 hours. The incident comes as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shia theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East. Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600km northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, state TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory. With Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash,” but others referred to either a “hard landing” or an “incident.” Early Monday morning, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be wreckage of helicopter.” The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain. Footage released by the IRNA early Monday showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range. Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There it is, we found it.” Shortly after, state TV in an on-screen scrolling text said: “There is no sign of live from people on board.” It did not elaborate, but the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed rescuers using a small drone to fly over the site, with them speaking among themselves saying the same thing. In a subsequent development, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assigned [Vice President Mohammad Mokhber]( to assume interim duties. “In accordance with Article 131 of the constitution, Mokhber is in charge of leading the executive branch,” said Khamenei in a statement, adding that Mokhber will be required to work with the heads of legislative and judicial to prepare for presidential elections “within a maximum period of 50 days”. Mokhber, 68, largely has been in the shadows compared to other politicians in Iran’s Shia theocracy. He is expected to serve as caretaker President for some 50 days before mandatory presidential elections in Iran. Supreme Court dismisses plea challenging new criminal laws The [Supreme court on Monday dismissed a petition challenging the three criminal laws]( — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Act. A Vacation Bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal allowed petitioner-advocate Vishal Tiwari to withdraw, saying he narrowly escaped imposition of costs for filing the petition. “Your petition was filed in a casual, cavalier manner,” Justice Mithal told Tiwari. “You have decided to withdraw. If you had argued more, we would have imposed costs on you... The petition is dismissed as withdrawn,” Justice Trivedi said. Justice Trivedi noted the new Acts have not come into force so far. The petition claimed the new laws, meant to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Evidence Act, suffered from “defects and discrepancies”. The Lok Sabha had passed the Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bills on December 21 last year. President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Bills on December 25. The petition said the Bills were passed without parliamentary debate as most of the Opposition members were under suspension. The plea had sought directions from the court for the immediate constitution of an expert committee to assess the viability of the three new criminal laws. The three criminal laws to be effective from July 1. “The new criminal laws are far more draconian and establish a police state in reality and violate every provision of fundamental rights of the people of India. If the British laws were considered colonial and draconian, then the Indian laws stand now far more draconian as, in the British period, you could keep a person in police custody for a maximum of 15 days. Extending 15 days to 90 days and more is a shocking provision enabling police torture,” the plea said. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita encompasses offences, such as acts of secession, armed rebellion, subversive activities, separatist activities or endangering the sovereignty or unity of the country, in a new avatar of the sedition law. ICC seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Palestine; charges Hamas chief for October 7 attack The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, on May 20 announced that he will be submitting applications to seek [arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu]( and the country Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in connection with the prevailing situation in Palestine. Khan in his statement said that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for the war crimes and crimes against humanity “committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023”. The prosecutor has also charged Yahya Sinwar (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and Ismail Haniyeh. The ICC has believes them to be “criminally responsible for the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas (in particular its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades) and other armed groups on 7 October 2023 and the taking of at least 245 hostages.” In his statement, Khan said that “Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.” The International Court of Justice, a separate body is also investigating whether Israel has committed acts of genocide in the ongoing war in Gaza, with any ruling expected to take years. Israel has rejected allegations of wrongdoing and accused both international courts of bias. Israel has instead accused Hamas of genocide over its October 7 attack that triggered the war. Militants stormed through army bases and farming communities across southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. In response, Israel launched a massive air, sea and ground offensive that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas. The military says it has killed over 12,000 militants, without providing evidence. The war has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine. Listing out the articles of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, under which Netanyahu and Gallant will be charged, Khan added that their criminal acts “occurred through the imposition of a total siege over Gaza that involved completely closing the three border crossing points, Rafah, Kerem Shalom and Erez, from 8 October 2023 for extended periods and then by arbitrarily restricting the transfer of essential supplies — including food and medicine — through the border crossings after they were reopened. “The siege also included cutting off cross-border water pipelines from Israel to Gaza – Gazans’ principal source of clean water – for a prolonged period beginning 9 October 2023, and cutting off and hindering electricity supplies from at least 8 October 2023 until today. This took place alongside other attacks on civilians, including those queuing for food; obstruction of aid delivery by humanitarian agencies; and attacks on and killing of aid workers, which forced many agencies to cease or limit their operations in Gaza,” he added. U.K. court allows Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange to appeal extradition The [U.K. High Court on May 20 granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a reprieve]( by allowing him to appeal his extradition to the United States. The 52 year old Australian has been charged on multiple counts for publishing sensitive military and diplomatic cables in 2010 and violating the U.S.’s Espionage Act. The U.S. has argued that lives were put at risk because the leaked documents contained unredacted names. In May the court cleared the extradition conditional on the U.S. providing two assurances : one, the death penalty would not be applied in Assange’s case and two, Assange would be allowed to rely on the First Amendment (i.e., free speech rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution) during his trial. In a short court session on May 20, two judges ruled that the U.S. government had not met the requirements. Specifically, in April, the U.S. government had said Assange “will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon” the First Amendment but whether that would apply to a non-US national would be up to the courts. Last week, his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson had called that a “non-assurance”. A crowd gathered outside the court cheered as it heard the outcome of the legal proceedings. Addressing the crowd, Assange’s wife, Stella, described the U.S. arguments as “trying to paint lipstick on a pig” and the case as an “attack on journalists everywhere”. “How long can this go on for?” she said, making a case for her family to be reunited. Assange has been held at the high-security Belmarsh prison since 2019. Prior to this he had spent approximately seven years in the Ecuador Embassy in London after seeking asylum there in 2012, following charges for sexual offences in Sweden. The charges were dropped in 2017. Pune police to move higher court for permission to try teenager involved in accident as adult Pune Police on May 20 said they will [seek a higher court’s permission]( to try as an adult a 17-year-old boy whose car allegedly knocked down and killed two persons in Kalyani Nagar area in Pune. The accident took place on early on May 19 morning. The Juvenile Justice Board’s decision to grant the youngster bail on the same day while asking him to write an essay on road accidents has drawn criticism. The youngster, son of a real estate developer, was drunk at the time of the accident, police claimed on May 20. A case has been registered against him under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act. A group of friends were returning on motorbikes around 3.15 am on Sunday after a party when a speeding luxury car hit one of the motorcycles at Kalyani Nagar junction. The two riders — Anis Awadhiya and Ashwini Costa — died of their injuries. The youngster who was allegedly driving the car was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board which granted him bail. It also directed him to visit the Regional Transport Office and study all the rules and regulations, and submit a presentation to the Board within 15 days. “The CCL (Child in Conflict with Law) will write an essay of 300 words on the topic of road accidents and their solutions,” the order read. The board also directed the youth to assist RTO officers for 15 days and submit a report. He should be referred to an alcohol de-addiction centre for counselling, it said. “On Sunday itself we had moved an application before the court (board) seeking permission to try the juvenile as an adult and send him to an observation home as the crime is heinous, but the plea was rejected. We are now approaching the sessions court with the same plea,” said Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar. His blood report was yet to be received but preliminary probe showed that the juvenile was drunk at the time of the accident, he said. “The CCTV footage of the bar clearly shows that the juvenile was consuming alcohol. There is no doubt that the juvenile was driving the car after consuming alcohol. We will be submitting all these facts to the court,” commissioner Kumar said. “We have also registered an offence against his father under the Juvenile Justice Act, and against the proprietors of the bar establishment for serving alcohol to an underage person. We have transferred the probe of these cases to the crime branch,” he further said. Police displayed professionalism while dealing with the case, Kumar claimed. “The case was transferred to an ACP-level officer and it is our endeavour to make a watertight case. We will appoint a special counsel in this case,” he added. Poll roundup: - The fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections for 49 parliamentary constituencies saw a [cumulative voter turnout of 56.68% till 5 p.m]( as per the data shared by the Election Commission. West Bengal recorded the highest voter turnout at 73%, followed by Ladakh (67.15%), Jharkhand (61.90%), Odisha (60.55%), Uttar Pradesh (55.80%), Jammu and Kashmir (54.21%), Bihar (52.35%) and Maharashtra (48.66%). - Terming the [defacing of posters of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge]( in front of the party’s State headquarters in Kolkata an act of “gross indiscipline,” the Congress on Monday asked the in-charge of West Bengal to submit a report on the incident. As subsequent developments threatened to become a political crisis, Kharge, in an interview to PTI on Monday, described his colleague from Bengal (West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury) as a “fighter” of his party and asserted that the Congress is in an alliance with the Left in Bengal. On Sunday, several posters and hoardings of Kharge were defaced with ink and “agent of Trinamool Congress” written over the posters after Chowdhury was snubbed by Kharge for questioning Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee’s loyalty to the INDIA bloc. In Brief: Excise scam: ED seeks judicial custody for Arvind Kejriwal after he surrenders on June 2 The ED on May 20 sought [extension of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s judicial custody]( after he surrenders on June 2 in an excise policy-linked money-laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved the application before Special Judge for ED and CBI Kaveri Baweja, seeking 14-day judicial custody for Kejriwal when he surrenders on June 2, claiming that the period of judicial custody granted earlier ends on Monday. Two get death for raping, burning alive minor girl in Bhilwara A POCSO court in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district on May 20 awarded [death sentence to two men for raping and burning alive a minor girl]( in a coal furnace last year. “Kalu and Kanha were awarded death penalty by the court,” Special Public Prosecutor Mahaveer Singh Kishnawat said. The court on May 18 had convicted Kalu and Kanha for the crime that took place in August last year. Seven others accused of destroying evidence were acquitted by the court. Kishnawat said the acquittal will be challenged in the High Court. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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