Taleban kill 18
Congress party workers standing on police barricades shout slogans against India’s Junior External Affairs Minister M.J.
Akbar during a protest in New Delhi, India. (AP)
as “false, baseless and wild.” (AP)
Indian bishop granted bail:
An Indian bishop accused of raping a nun was granted bail Monday in a case that has triggered rare dissent within the country’s Catholic Church.
Bishop Franco Mulakkal was arrested on Sept 21 in the southern state of Kerala on suspicion of raping the nun 13 times between 2014 and 2016.
Pope Francis suspended him the day before his arrest, appointing another bishop in his place.
Mulakkal, 53, who headed the diocese of Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab, has denied the allegations and has called the scandal a conspiracy against the church.
The nun first made the allegations in June but police only started formal questioning in September as fury over the case mounted. (AFP)
Air hostess falls out of plane:
A flight attendant fell out of an Air India plane while trying to close its door on Monday, the airline said, reportedly breaking her leg when she landed on the tarmac.
The accident occurred at Mumbai’s international airport as the crew were getting ready to welcome passengers aboard the New Delhi-bound flight.
Mulakkal
Akbar
“The cabin crew member fell off while closing the back door of the Boeing 777 and sustained injuries on Monday morning,” Pravin Bhatnagar, a senior manager at Air India, told AFP. “She is receiving treatment in hospital. An investigation will be carried out to determine the exact cause of the incident.” (AFP)
Famed S. Korean among dead:
The nine climbers who died during the worst disaster on a Nepal mountain in recent years included the first South Korean to summit all 14 Himalayan peaks over 8,000 meters without using supplemental oxygen.
An official from the South Korea’s Corean Alpine Club said the bodies of Kim Chang-ho and four other South Koreans who were killed will arrive in South Korea on Wednesday. Four Nepalese guides also were killed when a storm swept the climbers’ base camp on Gurja Himal mountain Friday.
Rescuers had retrieved the climbers’ bodies on Sunday after weather cleared. The body of one of the guides was taken to his village, while the eight others were flown to Kathmandu. (AP)
Afghan soldiers:
At least 18 soldiers were killed in Taleban raids on two military posts in western Afghanistan, officials said Sunday, as militants step up attacks ahead of parliamentary elections.
Poll-related violence killed or wounded dozens of civilians on Saturday, a week before voters cast their ballots across the war-torn country.
Another 15 soldiers were captured and five wounded during the overnight attacks involving “a large number of Taleban” in Pusht-a-Rud district of Farah province, provincial council chief Farid Bakhtawar told AFP. (AFP)