A court in Bangladesh has ordered an investigation into former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s alleged role in the police killing of a man during the deadly protests that led to her ouster, state media reported Tuesday.

Hasina, who fled the country earlier this month following weeks of unrest, is accused, along with other top officials, in the death of a grocery store owner on July 19, according to news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha.

The murder complaint, filed Tuesday in the Dhaka Metropolitan Court, is the first legal case to be filed against Hasina following her deadly crackdown on huge protests against government employment quotas, that erupted across Bangladesh last month.

About 300 people were killed in clashes between students, government supporters and armed police, according to analysis by local media and agencies. At least 32 of those killed were children, according to the United Nations’ children’s agency.

The murder case also names Hasina’s former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, the general secretary of her party, and four former top police officers.

In her first public remarks since leaving Bangladesh, Hasina on Tuesday called for an investigation into the “heinous killings and acts of sabotage” during the protests.

Her statement, posted on X via her son, did not mention the murder case against her, but said acts of “sabotage, arson, and violence” had resulted in “many innocent citizens of our country losing their lives.”

“I demand a thorough investigation to identify and bring to justice those responsible for these heinous killings and acts of sabotage,” Hasina said.

What started as protests against the government’s quota system, which reserves 30% of civil service posts for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, became a nationwide movement to push Hasina out.

The violent response from Hasina’s government only added further fuel to the fire, even as quotas were rolled back.

When the protests escalated, Hasina blamed the opposition for the violence and imposed internet blocks and an indefinite curfew across the country.

In the end, Hasina fled to neighboring India, ending her 15-year rule and prompting jubilation on the streets of Dhaka as crowds stormed her official residence, smashing walls and looting its contents.

The country’s parliament was dissolved, and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is now heading a caretaker government, with elections due to be held within 90 days.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will not run for a second term as leader of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) next month following a series of political scandals that have fueled calls for him to resign.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Kishida said it is necessary to present the LDP as a “changed party.”

“Transparent and open elections and a free and vigorous debate are more important than ever. The most obvious first step, to show that the LDP will change, is for me to step aside,” he said.

“I have made the heavy decision with a strong desire to move forward with political reform, because the people’s trust is what makes politics work.”

The LDP, which has held power almost continuously since its founding in 1955, has in recent months been embroiled in one of Japan’s biggest political scandals in decades.

Two of the most influential factions in the LDP have been accused of failing to properly declare their income and expenditure and, in some instances, allegedly rerouting political funds to lawmakers as kickbacks.

During nearly three years in office, Kishida has vowed to take anti-corruption measures and institute party reforms, including dissolving factions and taking disciplinary action against any corrupt lawmakers.

Concerns about Japan’s economy, including the weakening of the yen against the US dollar, have also undermined confidence in Kishida’s economic policies.

He had previously denied he would step down as party leader despite public criticism and sinking disapproval ratings.

His decision to quit comes a month before LDP elections are slated, with the date in September yet to be announced.

His successor will be tasked to lead the world’s fourth-largest economy at a time of increasing living costs, which has been exacerbated by a weak yen.

Japan has been at the center of US President Joe Biden’s alliance building in the Indo-Pacific. American officials have seen a willing partner in Kishida, who has significantly shifted the country’s defense posture in recent years and provided ongoing support to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

This story has been updated with additional information.

A charity working with homeless people in Auckland, New Zealand unknowingly distributed candies filled with potentially lethal doses of methamphetamine in its food parcels after the sweets were donated by a member of the public.

The Auckland City Mission told reporters on Wednesday that staff had started to contact up to 400 people to track down parcels that could contain the sweets — which were solid blocks of methamphetamine enclosed in candy wrappers. New Zealand’s police have opened a criminal investigation.

The amount of methamphetamine in each candy was up to 300 times the level someone would usually take and could be lethal, according to the New Zealand Drug Foundation — a drug checking and policy organization, which first tested the candies.

Methamphetamine is a powerful, highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. It takes the form of a white, odorless, bitter-tasting crystalline powder that easily dissolves in water or alcohol.

Ben Birks Ang, a foundation spokesperson, said disguising drugs as innocuous goods was a common cross-border smuggling technique and more of the candies might have been distributed throughout New Zealand.

The sweets had a high street value of NZ$ 1,000 ($608) per candy, which suggested the donation by an unknown member of the public was accidental rather than a deliberate attack, Birks Ang said.

The City Missioner, Helen Robinson, said eight families, including at least one child, had reported consuming the contaminated candies since Tuesday. No one was hospitalized and Robinson said the “revolting” taste meant most had immediately spat them out.

The charity’s food bank only accepts donations of commercially produced food in sealed packaging, Robinson said. The pineapple candies, stamped with the label of Malaysian brand Rinda, “appeared as such when they were donated,” arriving in a retail-sized bag, she added.

Auckland City Mission was alerted Tuesday by a food bank client who reported “funny-tasting” candy. Staff tasted some of the remaining candies and immediately contacted the authorities.

The candies had been donated sometime in the past six weeks, Robinson said. It was not clear how many had been distributed in that time and how many were made of methamphetamine.

Some of those who had received the food parcels were clients of the charity’s addiction service and the news that drugs had been distributed had provoked distress.

“To say that we are devastated in an understatement,” Robinson said.

Rinda did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

While it is too early to determine with any certainty what caused a devastating airplane crash in Brazil last week, air disaster experts say the incident bears similarity to a landmark crash 30 years ago that triggered major safety reforms.

Friday’s Voepass 2283 flight from Cascavel, near Brazil’s border with Paraguay, to Guarulhos in São Paulo state, crashed after flying through an area where “severe icing” was forecast between 12,000 and 21,000 feet, according to a publicly available alert to pilots.

The flight was cruising at 17,000 feet, according to data from FlightAware, when the pilots appeared to lose control.

Numerous videos posted on social media show the turboprop ATR 72 in an apparent flat spin as it spiraled toward the ground with no visible forward movement. All 62 passengers and the crew were killed when the plane crashed near Vinhedo, making it 2024’s deadliest crash of a commercial airliner.

In-flight icing can “distort the flow of air over the wing and adversely affect handling qualities,” according to Federal Aviation Administration documents, triggering an airplane to “roll or pitch uncontrollably, and recovery may be impossible.”

“Icing is perhaps the leading theory,” said former NTSB co-chair Bruce Landsberg. “As we progress through the investigation, things will start to solidify.”

A crash in 1994

The French-Italian ATR 72 has “checkered record” Goelz said. On October 31, 1994, an ATR 72 crashed in Roselawn, Indiana; the American Eagle flight 4184 had encountered severe, in-flight icing from freezing drizzle.

All 68 people on board were killed.

Significant testing followed that crash, and the Federal Aviation Administration mandated a modification to the deicing system on the front edge of ATR 72 wings as well as more training for pilots on severe ice encounters.

Today, and in the light of the Voepass incident, Goelz says, “I think the question of whether this plane is safe in icing is worth a serious revisit.”

There are roughly 800 ATR 72s flying worldwide today, according to Goelz. But no major airlines in the United States currently operate the ATR 72, meaning travelers in the US are unlikely to encounter them domestically, but could very well fly in one while traveling abroad.

The ATR 72 utilizes deicing “boots,” designed to expand and physically break apart ice that accumulates on wings. Jet airliners often use heat ducted from the engines to melt ice on the wings, known as bleed air.

“Turboprop aircraft don’t do as well as jet aircraft in severe weather conditions,” said Landsberg, who is writing a book on aviation safety including the Roselawn crash. “A jet likely would not have been at that altitude.”

Following reports of Friday’s crash, ATR said it was aware of an accident and is working to support investigators.

“Our first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this event. The ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer,” the statement said.

Until investigators from Brazil and France begin to seriously dig into the crash, the cause will remain a mystery, Landsberg says. “Aviation safety doesn’t lend itself to quick answers.”

Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan quivered and gasped in disbelief. His eyes glazed over before he fell limp in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.

“I beg you. I beg you. Let me see them,” he cried out to health officials at the medical facility on Tuesday.

“She just gave birth. Please let me see her.”

Hours earlier, the Palestinian father-of-two left his apartment in Deir al-Balah to collect birth certificates for his three-day-old twins – Aysal and Aser, a boy and a girl. But while he was out, he said, he received a phone call that an Israeli strike had hit his home, killing the two babies, along with his wife, Jumana.

In another scene, Al Qumsan can be seen kneeling beside the shrouded bodies of the deceased, before performing Islamic funeral prayers with rows of worshippers. His wife, a pharmacist, and the twins were among at least 23 people, including a nine-month-old baby, killed in several Israeli strikes in the area, according to hospital officials.

“May God unite you together in paradise my dear,” said one imam. “I swear to God you will be reunited with them in paradise and be with them forever.”

Just days earlier, Jumana had published a post on Facebook celebrating the birth of her twin babies, describing them as a “miracle.” The couple were married last summer, before the Israel-Hamas war began.

“Together forever,” she wrote in an earlier social media post announcing their wedding, in July 2023.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Since then, Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians – including more than 16,400 children, 115 of them newborns – and wounded more than 92,000, according to the Ministry of Health there.

‘Unrelenting’ war on children

Al Qumsan is one of hundreds of thousands of survivors who have no time to mourn their loved ones against the backdrop of a 10-month Israeli offensive that has killed entire families, deepened a humanitarian crisis, and turned cities into wastelands.

At least 1.9 million people have been displaced, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The entire population of more than 2.2 million people have been exposed to the risk of famine and disease.

The UN’s children’s agency, UNICEF, warned the “unrelenting” war in Gaza “continues to inflict horrors on thousands of children,” having estimated that there are at least 17,000 unaccompanied or separated children in Gaza.

“I was shocked by the depth of suffering, destruction and widespread displacement in Gaza,” said Salim Oweis, a communications offer for UNICEF, said Friday. “The footage the world sees on television gives an important peek into the living hell people are enduring for over 10 months.

“What it does not fully show is how behind the crumbled buildings – whole neighbourhoods, livelihoods and dreams have been levelled to the ground.”

Where just hours ago there were thick rows of trees, now stumps protrude and smoke still rises from scorched soil. On one road in Chalandri, a hilltop village above Athens, a family returns to see their house charred, with bedsheets – left on the line to dry in the sun – now blackened. The teenage son is in tears.

Next door, inside the office of an events company, firefighters found the burned body of the first person to be killed in the blaze. The unnamed woman who perished had worked at the company for 20 years, and had shut herself in the bathroom as the fire swept through the village. Outside, the ground is strewn with roses, now burned, which would have been used to decorate this summer’s weddings and baptisms organized by the company.

Greece’s worst wildfire of the year has eased for now, but firefighters are still working to put out the last of the blaze. After the fire started over the weekend, it tore through more than 156 square miles (400 square kilometers) of forests in the Attica region and up to the suburbs of Athens. Thousands of residents were evaucated.

Although wildfires have become an annual occurrence in Greece, none have reached so close to Athens, a city of more than 3 million people. Residents in nearby villages said they were shocked by how fast the fire had spread.

Another resident said she couldn’t understand how a fire which began more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) away reached the village so quickly. Her car, like scores of others lining the roads that climb out of Athens, was burned. The rubber of the tires, the glass of the windows and fabric of the seating was scorched away, leaving just a carcass of blistered metal.

Emergency crews worked through the night to try to extinguish the fire, which began Sunday afternoon near the town of Varnavas. More than 700 firefighters, nearly 200 vehicles and 35 water-bombing aircraft were deployed to battle the blaze, Greek public broadcaster ERT reported.

Despite the efforts of fire crews, they were hugely aided by the dying down of the wind on Tuesday, which had reached up to 40 mph (65 kph) over the weekend. The fire hazard threat level was set to level 4 out of 5 on Tuesday, and is forecast to fall to a level 3 on Wednesday for the Athens region, according to the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection in Greece. Winds are, however, expected to pick up again on Thursday.

Once the winds and the worst of the blaze abated, residents in Chalandri returned to inspect the damage. A woman named Sophia, whose house was mostly spared but whose awnings were burned, despaired: “This was our land. This was our air and our breath. And it’s completely gone.”

Although wildfires are common in Greek summers, climate scientists say that unusually hot and dry weather linked to global warming make the blazes fiercer and more common. Greek authorities have battled dozens of blazes already this summer after enduring its hottest June and July on record.

“In the next year we will have many incidents like this one, and we must find solutions in the way of evacuating,” said Xypolitas, the mayor.

The family in Chalandri whose house was burned said the government was providing emergency accommodation for two nights, but then they would be left to their own devices.

Mediators in talks for a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel are making a last-ditch effort to revive stalled negotiations as the Middle East braces for an Iranian attack on Israel.

The high-stakes meeting set to take place on Thursday will have Qatar, Egypt and the United States present a plan to implement a ceasefire-hostage deal proposed by US President Joe Biden in May – but unresolved differences over last-minute demands presented by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a looming military escalation threaten to derail the process.

Here’s what we know about the status of the talks so far.

What is Biden’s proposal?

In May, Biden laid out a three-phase proposal the administration said was submitted by Israel that would pair a release of hostages from Gaza with a “full and complete ceasefire” and a release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

The first phase would last six weeks and include the “withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza” and the “release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, the wounded in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners” and the implementation of a temporary truce.

Phase 2 would allow for the “exchange for the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers” and a permanent end to the fighting.

In Phase 3, a “major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence and any final remains of hostages who’ve been killed will be returned to their families,” the US president said.

It is unclear how many of the original hostages set for release are still alive.

What are the key remaining sticking points to Biden’s proposal?

Despite an initial positive reaction from Hamas and Israel, both sides failed to agree on the implementation of the finer details of the proposal including the sequencing of the hostage-prisoner exchange, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and how far back Israeli forces should withdraw in Gaza.

Netanyahu has repeatedly stymied the deal as far-right members of his ruling coalition threaten to collapse the government despite pressure from the US and families of hostages.

Ahead of a meeting in Rome last month, the Israeli prime minister presented 11th-hour demands, asking for a mechanism to bar armed men from entering northern Gaza from the south, and the continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a strip of territory on the Gaza-Egypt border.

A senior US administration official, speaking to reporters this week, said the “bulk of the work” has been done for the deal, but it’s unlikely that it will be signed at Thursday’s meeting as both sides still have positions on “four or five issues.”

The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Why have the talks stalled?

US officials had said that talks had reached an advanced stage until Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran in late July in an explosion Iran blamed on Israel. Israel hasn’t confirmed or denied responsibility, but Iran has vowed vengeance.

There were concerns that the assassination would throw a wrench in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas. The militant group replaced Haniyeh with Yahya Sinwar, the hardline Hamas leader in Gaza who is one of Israel’s most wanted men. While Haniyeh, a relative moderate, lived in Qatar and was susceptible to pressure from his host country, Sinwar is believed to be deep underground in a tunnel in Gaza and is hard to reach.

Why are Thursday’s talks so important?

Thursday’s ceasefire talks are the result of a major diplomatic effort by mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US to push for a last-ditch effort to end the war and free the hostages as Iran prepares to attack Israel.

The urgency of the talks was highlighted by the three mediators, who issued a rare joint statement last week calling on the warring parties to return to negotiations and offered what they called a “final bridge proposal” to overcome the remaining sticking points. The details of that proposal have not been made public.

Israel has agreed to send a delegation to the talks, and Hamas has indicated that it is still interested in a deal, requesting a plan to implement the offer proposed by Biden in July, instead of engaging in additional negotiations.

In parallel, US and Middle East diplomats have been mobilizing to dissuade Iran from launching an attack on Israel that could lead to a wider regional war. Both Iran and the US have said that that lines of communication between them are open through intermediaries.

There have been some indications that Iran may abandon plans to attack Israel if a ceasefire deal is reached. But the country’s mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that Tehran’s retaliation is “totally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire.”

The lack of clarity on whether the Israeli prime minister will adhere to Biden’s May proposal, the source added, suggests time is running out to strike a deal before an Iranian attack. Qatar and Egypt, the source said, may not have enough influence to push Hamas to compromise.

It is another coin-flip in a conflict punctuated with at least annual reminders of how frail Vladimir Putin’s Russia truly is.

Two months ago, as Russian troops poured into Kharkiv region, Kyiv was eyeing its borders, concerned at where else Russia might find vulnerabilities. Yet instead, Ukraine appears to have looked at the map, decided Russia was equally exposed, and turned Moscow’s gambit on its head.

A week in, and whatever the final outcome of Ukraine’s invasion of Russia, Kyiv’s initially perplexing, perhaps even rash, decision to send thousands of troops into the Kursk region and beyond is paying stark dividends. For the second time in just over a year, the Kremlin has a hostile force marching in its south, and very little it can do about it. Last June, it was the homegrown rogue mercenaries of Wagner, headed to Rostov and on, to decapitate Russia’s top brass. Now, it is Ukraine’s own military, scything off what they claim is 1,000 square kilometers of border territory.

Some analysis at the weekend put the figure at about a third of that. Nevertheless, the ability of Ukraine’s commander Oleksandr Syrskyi to even float this claim is a remarkable win in the information war for Kyiv, even if Moscow severely limits what information Russians are exposed to.

“Bold, brilliant, beautiful,” was what veteran US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called Ukraine’s cross-border operation during a visit to Kyiv Monday. Meanwhile, US Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal called it “historic” and a “seismic breakthrough.”

The events are remarkably similar in how they expose the gulf between the veneer of impregnability the Kremlin tries to portray, and the ramshackle reality of its power. And while Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow fell apart when the former chef finally seemed to realize he was on his own – and had enraged Putin, rather than gaining his approval for tackling the failing top brass head-on – Ukraine’s forces seem to have little but their own supply lines and ambition holding them back.

Ukraine’s lightning advance is another example of their forces’ dexterity and mobility in warfare, over Moscow’s preference for slow, months-long grinding attacks on the same place. It is purposefully unclear exactly where Ukraine’s forces are. Videos pop up from towns far inside Russia, but without context. One overnight emerged from Lgov, about 26 miles from the border, with a soldier saying he promised his mother he would not go far.

It is also unclear where Ukrainian forces are digging in and where they are just racing through. The lack of transparency in the Russian system – where mistakes and problems are hidden rather than addressed head-on – works in Kyiv’s favor. It is unlikely Moscow, or even Kursk’s governor, knows the full picture of the mess they are in.

And the news the Kremlin is getting is uncharacteristically dire. When Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov told Putin on state TV on Monday that 28 settlements were under Ukrainian control, with 2,000 people’s fate unclear, and 121,000 residents evacuated, it’s likely the moment was staged and pre-recorded, like most of Putin’s televised meetings.

But to what avail? Putin turned the question towards his military chiefs, who he’s slowly decimated over the 30 months of this war’s ebb and flow. They clearly do not have the solution yet. But still Putin tries to play the role of the tsar adjudicating between chaotic and failing departments, despite on Wednesday being assured by his chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, that the Ukrainian advance had been halted. The last time this sort of invasion of Russia happened, Joseph Stalin was in charge, and he did something other than televise his failing leadership.

Two questions remain. The first regards the ultimate fate of Ukraine’s incursion. Do they intend to try and hold even the smallest amount of terrain? Do they intend to keep raging across undefended spaces? And how much firepower, manpower, and precious Western-supplied equipment is Ukraine happy to indulge this effort with? The merits of the assault are less in doubt than a week ago when it was first launched. Putin has a bloody nose. But the Ukrainian endgame needs to be as carefully engineered as the invasion to capitalize on Kyiv’s success.

The second is what impact does this have on Ukraine’s more challenged frontline in Donbas? During the past week, the successes of Kursk region have been peppered with worse news from Toretsk, or near Pokrovsk, as Russian forces continue their costly, bloody, yet inexorable advance. No matter how small the village, Moscow just keeps attacking.

So far, Ukraine’s hope the Kursk operation would lead better units to be withdrawn from Donbas to support Russia’s borders has yet to bear major fruit. As images continue to pour in of poorly trained Chechen troops being taken prisoner en masse by advancing Ukrainians in Kursk, it is clear Russia has sent its less effective units into the fight. They may choose to change that approach. Putin has also entrusted the operation to the FSB, the internal security service that also controls the border guard, which has instituted a “counter-terror operation.” This has previously been used to tackle Islamist insurgencies, not columns of Ukrainian armor. That, too, may have been very short-sighted.

Manpower crunch

But soon the crunch for Kyiv emerges. Where does this leave its forces a month from now? Has the talk of a manpower crunch over the past months been because they were secretly holding forces in reserve for this assault? Do they extract a strategic advantage great enough from these advances that Moscow’s view of them as a defeated adversary changes? Does the advance make their Western supporters decide the support is truly paying off?

Regardless of how efficiently Ukraine answers these questions, Russia has for the second time in 15 months been rudely humiliated. Firstly it was by Putin’s own loyalists, egotistically turning on corruption and mismanagement. This time it is Putin’s own FSB, who couldn’t keep control of the borders, in Putin’s war of choice. This falling tree may not make a sound in the heavily managed forest of Russia’s political space. Yet it probably hit others as it fell.

One fact endures however. Both Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Putin have referenced the incursion in terms of its role in talks. Putin said Ukraine was trying to improve its position ahead of talks – talks that still appear to lack an agenda, or a date, or any sense of trust between parties.

For his part, Zelensky said on Monday: “How useful this [incursion] can be for bringing peace closer.” He added: “Russia must be forced into peace if Putin wants to continue waging war so badly.” Kyiv knows it cannot enter talks with Russia without a strong hand, as the wildly deceptive negotiating style of the Kremlin has proven they simply stall for time unless they urgently need something from their interlocutor.

Still, even if Syrskyi only has half of the 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) he claims, a change in season to fall is no more than six weeks away, and with it the sludgy slowing of motion on the battlefield. Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer has been eclipsed by the sudden success of this August incursion.

The dismal fortunes of last winter are not behind them yet, but they may approach the next with a better hand, and at the very least the idea of the Kremlin’s invulnerability – first broken in their failed initial invasion – shattered for at least the third time in this war.

Thousands of doctors have gone on strike across India to demand better protection for health workers after a trainee medic was raped and murdered in eastern West Bengal state.

The resident doctor’s body was found last Friday with multiple injuries and signs of sexual assault in a seminar hall at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the city of Kolkata, local police said. One suspect has been arrested.

On Monday, medical associations in multiple states urged doctors at government hospitals to stop providing all elective services indefinitely as they called for the case to be fast-tracked through the courts and for the establishment of a protective committee for health workers.

“Around 300,000 doctors across the country have joined the protest and tomorrow we expect more to join,” said Dr. Sarvesh Pandey, general secretary of the Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA).

Images showed doctors in Kolkata and the capital Delhi holding signs reading: “Save our doctors, save our future.” In the southern city of Hyderabad, doctors held a candlelight vigil.

Many of the doctors also highlighted incidents of violence toward health workers and threats of physical abuse by angry patients or their family members.

A survey in 2015 by the Indian Medical Association found 75% of doctors in India had faced some form of violence, local media reported at the time.

“The murder of this young lady doctor is not the first, neither it would be the last if corrective measures are not taken,” the association said in a letter to the health minister, posted on X on Tuesday, as it called for an enquiry into doctors’ working conditions and an impartial investigation of the brutal murder case.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she was shocked to learn the trainee doctor had been killed in the hospital and backed protesters’ calls for the case to be fast tracked.

India has struggled for years to tackle high rates of violence against women, with a number of high-profile rape cases drawing international attention to the issue.

According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 31,516 rape cases were recorded in 2022, an average of 86 cases per day.

And experts warn that the number of cases recorded are just a small fraction of what may be the real number, in a deeply patriarchal country where shame and stigma surround rape victims and their families.

Perhaps India’s most infamous case in recent years was the 2012 gang-rape of a medical student who was beaten, tortured and left to die following a brutal attack on a public bus in New Delhi.

The case and ensuing nationwide protests drew international media scrutiny – and prompted authorities to enact legal reforms. The rape law was amended in 2013 to broaden the definition of the crime and set strict punishments not only for rape but also for sexual assault, voyeurism, and stalking.

Despite these changes, rape cases remain prevalent in the country – with victims and advocates saying the government is still not doing enough to protect women and punish attackers.

The pilot killed when a helicopter crashed into the roof of a luxury hotel in Cairns, Australia, on Monday was an employee of the charter company that owned the aircraft, but wasn’t authorized to fly, the group confirmed in a statement.

Nautilus Aviation said Tuesday that the pilot had been with the company for four months and had attended a party the night before the crash to celebrate their promotion to another ground crew job with the firm at another base.

“This was not a work event and was coordinated by friends,” the statement said.

Hundreds of guests and staff of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel were evacuated when the helicopter crashed into the building near the Cairns Esplanade, a waterfront boardwalk popular with travelers in the north Queensland city, in the early hours of Monday.

Flames leaped into the night sky after the aircraft burst into flames, spilling fuel across the top of the hotel, damaging some upper windows of the seven-story building.

Two holidaymakers who had been sleeping on the top floor of the hotel were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Queensland Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Shane Holmes said Monday the pilot had made “an unauthorized flight,” but declined to comment on whether the helicopter had been stolen or whether the crash was deliberate, saying all lines of inquiry remained open.

Angus Mitchell, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), said investigators believe the helicopter took off from the general aviation hangar at Cairns Airport, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the hotel.

“We know that visibility was down at the time and there was possible rain,” he said.

“We want to understand what the helicopter was equipped with, but also potentially what the helicopter was doing at the time and any nature of the flight.”

Witness Veronica Knight, who was visiting Cairns from Sydney, was sitting on the esplanade, talking on the phone after midnight, when she saw a helicopter fly by very low over the water.

Seconds later, it hit the roof of the hotel, just before 2 a.m.

Knight’s videos show the orange glow of flames and smoke coming from the top of the hotel, while sirens wail in the distance.

She said the helicopter had passed over trees and another taller building before hitting the roof of the hotel.

“[The pilot] would have known those buildings were there,” said Knight.

Other investigators include the forensic crash unit and the ATSB, which sent a team to the crash site on Monday to gather evidence and conduct interviews.

The bureau asked witnesses with any photos or videos of the helicopter to contact authorities through its website.