Year Ender 2022: From Shraddha Walkar Murder to South Korea Stampede and Indonesia Earthquake, Harrowing Crimes and Natural Calamities That Shook India and World

Mumbai, December 20: Like every year, 2022 had its own share of good and bad. In spite of some resilience built in after the pandemic, many events shook the world this year be it the war, assassinations, floods, earthquakes, tragedies, grisly murders, civic unrest, and more. Incidents that rocked the world this year were floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, Earthquakes in Afghanistan and Indonesia, Shinzo Abe Assassination, the Sharddha Walkar murder case, Morbi Bridge Tragedy, to name a few.

To be fair, 2022 was not easy on anyone. Nation after nation, including India, was deluged by the worst happenings. As we pass through another pandemic year, more or less, several happenings in India and around the world made headlines and sent chills down our spine. With the new year 2023 around the corner, let's recall some of the news that shook India and the world in the year 2022. Take a look back at the year that was 2022. Year Ender 2022: From Queen Elizabeth II’s Death to Russia-Ukraine War and Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover, List of Major Global News and Events of the Year.

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Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and Subsequent War:

The Russo-Ukrainian War, as we call it now, has been ongoing tussle between Russia and Ukraine since February 2014.[d] Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists in the war in Donbas against Ukrainian government forces. In February 2022, the conflict saw a major escalation as Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Year Ender 2022: From Zombie Virus Discovery to Elon Musk Twitter Takeover and Creation of Artificial Sun, List of Mega Events of Tech and Science World.

Sharddha Walkar Killing and Similar Murders:

India was left in shock after the sordid details of a gruesome murder made headlines. A man, Aaftab Amin Poonawala, killed his live-in partner Sharddha and then chopped her body before scattering the pieces in a forest. Aaftab was in a live-in relationship with the victim, Shraddha. Aftab had strangled his girlfriend to death, then cut her body into 35 pieces, and dumped them in the Mehrauli forest.

Since then, similar murders have come to the fore from across the country. In one case, in the national capital, a woman and her son killed a man. Cases with a striking resemblance with the Delhi murder have been reported from UP's Azamgarh, and Sitapur, Karnataka's Kalaburagi, Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam, and most recently, in Rajasthan's Jaipur where a nephew killed him aunt and chopped her body.

Kanhaiya Lal Killing:

Kanhaiya Lal Teli, a Hindu tailor, was murdered by two Muslim assailants on June 28, 2022, in Udaipur, Rajasthan. The assailants recorded the attack on camera and bragged about avenging an insult to Islam. Lal was killed for allegedly sharing a social media post in support of suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, whose comments led to the 2022 Prophet Muhammad remarks controversy. Videos of the grisly murder were posted on the internet, with two alleged assailants holding butcher knives and claiming responsibility for the murder. The assaulters were later identified as Gos Mohammad and Riyaz, and were arrested.

Kerala Human Sacrifice Case:

Another murder that shocked India to the core took place in Kerala. Two women were sacrificed in the Elanthoor village of the Pathanamthitta district and their body parts were reportedly cooked and consumed by the accused. The three conspirators in the case - Mohammed Shafi, Bhagaval Singh, and his wife Laila were arrested.  Shafi, posing as a 'tantrik', trapped the couple who made these sacrifices to be wealthy and prosperous. The women in the shocking human sacrifice case in Kerala had undergone gruesome torture as the breasts of one of them had been chopped off and the body of the other was cut into 56 pieces by the accused. Reportedly, Shafi also had sex with Laila in front of Singh on the pretext of a ritual.

South Korea Stampede:

A crowd of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities in Seoul became trapped and crushed as the crowd surged into a narrow alley. In what could be South Korea’s worst disaster in years, at least 149 people were killed and 150 others were injured.

Shinzo Abe Assasination:

The former prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe died in hospital after he was shot at a political campaign event. Abe was shot at twice while he was giving a speech on a street in the city of Nara. Security officials at the scene tackled the gunman and a 41-year-old suspect was taken in police custody. The suspect, named as Tetsuya Yamagami, admitted shooting Abe with a homemade gun, and said he had a grudge against a "specific organisation", police said.

Sidhu Moose Wala Shot Dead:

Sidhu Moosewala was driving his Thar when he was shot dead by a group of assailants on May 29 in the Mansa district of Punjab. The rapper was murdered in Jahwarke village of Mansa, a day after the state government pruned his security. Police made a breakthrough in the case when they arrested two men suspected of being the "two main shooters" and another suspect from the western state of Gujarat. Multiple arrests were made in connection with the case since then. The murder of the rapper reportedly had an international link.

Earthquakes in Indonesia and Afghanistan:

While earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia, a magnitude-5.6 quake shook the town of Cianjur in the western part of the nation on November 21, killing at least 334 people. In Another deadly quake, on June 21, a magnitude-5.9 earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan, causing landslides, destroying thousands of homes, and killing an estimated 1,036 people. The earthquake has been dubbed the deadliest in decades in Afghanistan.

Floods in Assam, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil:

Floods have been one of the biggest villain of the year 2022. The natural calamaty claimed multiple lives and disrupted day-to-day livings of humans and animals as well. The flooding in India's Assam took at least 192 Lives between June to September. From June to October, record-breaking flooding washed away thousands of homes in Pakistan and took the lives of at least 1,739 people.

Floods in Nigeria caused at least 612 deaths across the nation and displaced a further 1.4 million people, the UN reported. Heavy rain spells in South Africa’s Eastern Cape – including parts of Durban, caused flooding and landslides. The floods killed an estimated 461 people. The floods in Brazil happened from February to March that killed nearly 233 lives.

The year 2022, like every other year, saw a few ups and downs that changed or altered the order. As we step into the new beginning, here's hoping for a pleasant new year.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 20, 2022 02:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).