Indian journalist’s death stirs protests
NEW DELHI — The killing of an Indian journalist provoked anger and anguish across India on Wednesday, with thousands of people protesting what they saw as an effort to silence a critic of the country’s ruling Hindu nationalist party.
Even as police promised to hunt down the assailants who gunned down Gauri Lankesh outside her Bangalore home Tuesday night, many said they feared that the perpetrators of the attack — like so many others — would get away with impunity.
Spontaneous rallies broke out in several cities and towns. Protesters demanded that the government do more to protect free speech in the secular, South Asian democracy.
In the southern city of Bangalore, thousands gathered for a public vigil and viewing of Lankesh’s body at Town Hall.
Weeping, they filed slowly past her glass-covered coffin. Some carried placards that read “I am also Gauri.”
Lankesh, 55, was the editor of the independent Kannada-language magazine Lankesh Patrike. In November, she was found guilty of defaming lawmakers from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party in a 2008 article.
Explosive found in home, 2 people held
PARIS — A peroxide-based explosive that has been employed by Islamic extremists was found Wednesday in an apartment outside Paris that authorities suspect might have been used as a lab for possible attacks, two French officials said.
A police official said about 100 grams of usable triacetone triperoxide, better known as TATP, were found in the apartment in Villejuif where a police operation was carried out earlier in the day, leading to the arrests of two people.
A judicial official confirmed that TATP, an explosive used by Islamic State extremist group militants in the past, was found in the apartment.
A tip from a repairman doing a job in the Villejuif building led police to the apartment Wednesday morning, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a statement.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said its counterterrorism section has opened an investigation.
A bomb-disposal operation was carried out in the apartment, three police officials said.
Police thwart suicide blast in Turkey
ANKARA, Turkey — Police on Wednesday fatally shot a suspected suicide bomber — believed to be an Islamic State militant — who was preparing to attack a police station in southern Turkey, officials said.
The man was acting suspiciously near the police station in the southern city of Mersin and was shot after he ignored police calls to stop, continued walking toward the complex and appeared to be reaching for a cable dangling from his shoulder, the Mersin governor’s office said in a statement.
Mustafa Ercan, the chief prosecutor for Mersin province, said the suspect was wearing a suicide vest, which was later defused by police.
Ercan said authorities suspect that the man was an Islamic State militant but did not provide details on his identity.
Turkey has been rocked by a wave of deadly attacks since 2015 carried out by the Islamic State or Kurdish militants.
Uganda parliament goes idle over killings
KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s parliament said it will stop meeting until the government presents a report into a string of murders of women near the capital, Kampala.
A parliamentary session Tuesday decided to suspend further meetings indefinitely after senior government officials failed to present an explanation for the killings of women.
At least 20 women have been killed since June in the metropolitan area surrounding Kampala, police said. The killings have unsettled the normally peaceful East African country.
Police spokesman Asan Kasingye said Wednesday that the killings are unrelated, and there is no evidence of a serial killer. But, he said, police are still investigating.
Local media have reported that many of the women were sexually assaulted before being killed. Many were strangled.
On Monday, a woman’s body was found dumped at a car-washing bay in a Kampala suburb, raising to 20 the number of women killed. Police announced Tuesday that they had arrested a suspect in that case, a man found hiding at a traditional healer’s shrine.
On Tuesday, after the country’s ministers in charge of security and internal affairs failed to present a report on the killings, an opposition lawmaker with bipartisan support introduced a motion to suspend parliamentary sessions indefinitely.