India

The boy was travelling with a 40-member group from Uttar Pradesh currently settled in Mumbai. The tragedy unfolded when four boys from the group stepped into the river even as the women in their party moved aside to change clothes.

What makes this crash harder to file away as "just another highway accident" is the setting it occurred in. The stretch was mid-construction — NH-66 is undergoing road-widening work through that section.

At around 7 pm, the woman and her son were pushed into an autorickshaw and driven to another house. She was told there she would have to work as a sex worker to clear her debt.

Swatantra Bharadwaj, a 21-year-old Hindutva influencer, was heard saying in a podcast that he was not arrested despite his murderous attack on CJP protester Nishu Azad’s father. “I was not even jailed. The world should know this. I was out and about through the night,” he said.

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee says it was BJP workers who attacked and vandalised the party's Camac Street office. Party MP Mahua Moitra alleged Kolkata Police did not respond to calls for help.