Two senior Zee journalists arrested on extortion charges

Two senior journalists of Zeenews channel were arrested here on Tuesday on charges of trying to extort Rs 100 crore from Congress MP Naveen Jindal's group for not doing news reports on coal scam linking his firm.

The arrests on charges of extortion came following the registration of a case about 45 days ago on a complaint filed by Jindal's company with Delhi Police's Crime Branch.

Sudhir Chaudhary, the head of Zee News, and Samir Ahluwalia, head of Zee Business, have been arrested, a senior police official said.

Jindal had last month released a CD in which purportedly showed footage in which the Zee journalists were trying to strike a deal with his company officials, telling them that their channel will not air negative stories of Jindal Group if the money is paid to them.

Chaudhary had rubbished the allegations as ‘fabrication’ and described it as ‘pressure tactics’ to prevent the channel from doing such stories.

"We have done a series of stories on coal scam based on official papers. This is a retaliation to our relentless campaign against corruption," he had said.

Jindal Power and Steel Ltd (JPSL) Chairman Naveen Jindal had earlier claimed that the Zee executives had demanded Rs 20 crore for four years and they secretly filmed the meetings.
They later raised the demand to Rs 100 crore for not broadcasting stories against the company in relation to allocation of coal blocks, he claimed.

JSPL is among the companies named in the CAG report as one of the beneficiaries of the controversial coal block allocations.

In a retaliatory move, Zee News had last month sent a Rs 150 crore defamation notice to the Congress MP, who too had filed a Rs 200 crore case against the media conglomerate claiming the TV channel had tried to extort money from his company.

READ MORE - Two senior Zee journalists arrested on extortion charges

SP suspended for Facebook arrests, magistrate shunted

Nearly a week after two Palghar girls were arrested for an innocuous facebook post, the govt is suspending the superintendent of police (Thane rural) Ravindra Sengaonkar.

MUMBAI: Nearly a week after two Palghar girls were unnecessarily summoned to the police station and arrested for an innocuous Facebook post, the government is suspending the superintendent of police (Thane rural) Ravindra Sengaonkar. In a separate development, the Bombay high court on Monday transferred Ramchandra Bagade, the first-class judicial magistrate at Palghar who had given the girls bail of Rs 15,000 each.

Government officials said Palghar senior police inspector Shrikant Pingle would also be suspended and additional superintendent of police (Thane rural) Sangram Nishandar would escape with a strong warning. The action against the cops comes after a sustained campaign in TOI against the arrests of Shaheen Dhada and Rinu Shrinivasan, both 21. Sources said this is the biggest action against high-ranking police officers in Maharashtra in the recent past.

Dhada had lamented in a facebook post the November 18 shutdown due to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's funeral. Shrinivasan had 'liked' the post. Though Dhada didn't name Thackeray,the local Sena chief complained against the girls and the cops arrested the duo on November 19, which kicked off a nationwide furore over the attack on freedom of speech. Moreover, only on November 20 did cops arrest the vandals who caused Rs 20 lakh worth of damage at Shaheen's uncle's hospital on November 18, despite her taking down her post and apologizing that day itself.

The actions of Bagade had been recently questioned by former chief information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi, who asked why the magistrate hadn't seen the absurdity of the charges against the girls and thrown out the case. Bagade, who had also given bail of Rs 7,500 each to 10 hospital vandals, has been transferred to Jalgaon with immediate effect.

Sengaonkar's suspension comes after the government spent days dithering on taking action against the cops. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and home minister R R Patil had promised action on Thursday, but an inquiry report by special inspector general (Konkan) Sukhwinder Singh was ready only on Friday. It indicted the three cops for not taking action at the appropriate time and called for appropriate administrative action against the police officials who handled the case ineptly. However, Singh's factual report didn't specify the action. Additional chief secretary (home) Amitabh Rajan recommended suspending Sengaonkar and Pingle and warning Nishandar.

On Monday, government officials blamed the delay in taking action on the statewide alert that had been issued due to the anniversary of the 26/11 attacks.

Singh's report, which was submitted to the DGP, confirmed that there was absolutely no justification for arresting the two young women under either sections 295A or 505-2 of the IPC and Section 66A of the IT Act. The two girls were first booked under 295-A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) and IT Act section 66A (sending a grossly offensive message through a communication device). Later, 295A was dropped and replaced with 505-2 (promoting enmity, hatred or ill will).

After the arrests, DGP Sanjeev Dayal immediately submitted a preliminary report to Rajan saying there appeared to be high-handedness on the part of the police and the arrests appeared unwarranted. Union telecom and IT minister Kapil Sibal and minister of state for communications and IT Milind Deora also condemned the arrests.

Chavan appointed Singh to probe the episode on November 19. All along, both Chavan and home minister R R Patil, while admitting that the Palghar police had exceeded their brief, maintained that once the IG's report was received stern action would be taken against the erring officials. "We have taken the arrests of the two women very seriously. We will take stern action against the erring police officials. We will take such action that they will remember for life," Patil said.

However, till Monday there was no sign of any action being taken. The Union home ministry stepped in on Friday, with a joint secretary in the ministry asking the state home department to immediately submit the inquiry report and details of the action taken against erring police officials.

Singh recommended dropping the charges against the girls. His report was processed by Rajan and submitted to Patil on Saturday. "Amitabh Rajan endorsed the views expressed by Sukhwinder Singh and has recommended stringent action against the police officials indicted in the report," a senior home department bureaucrat said on Monday.

Commenting on the suspension, senior counsel Amit Desai said, "Whilst the suspension is certainly welcome, what would be appreciated is that, before the issue becomes stale in the public's mind, final action is also taken. Since it is only a proper stringent action taken by the state that alone will send a message to other officers not to act in haste in matters of registration of such FIRs or makes such incorrect arrests. Final action should be quick and strong so that the message goes out that police too must face consequences for their hasty and unjustifiable acts.

READ MORE - SP suspended for Facebook arrests, magistrate shunted

Dad, brother, uncle rape Kerala minor

The police is investigating the alleged tampering of the dying declaration of a girl, whose sister has disclosed that both were serially abused by their father, brother and other relatives.

On Saturday, the police arrested Arun Kumar, 45, a native of Andaloor near Dharmadam in Kannur district and his son for abusing his 13-year old daughter after she confided the incest to her teachers.

The girl, whose mother was dead, said in her complaint that two years ago her sister committed suicide as she had been subjected to brutal sexual abuse by the father, who was a drug addict.

It’s also alleged that the police tampered with the victim’s dying declaration to save some political leaders, who were involved in the case. The police has nabbed an uncle of the girl, a CPM leader, in connection with the serial abuse. Dharmadam circle inspector M.P. Vinod told DC on Monday that police was investigating the allegations and proper action would be initiated if tampering was detected.

“We had a preliminary verification of the dying statement and no such tampering is visible”, he added.

The police was also perusing other documents related to the suicide.

Police said the father and son were addicted to drugs and alcohol. The elder sister was admitted with fatal, third degree burns at Medical College here in August 2010.

The younger sibling recently disclosed the torture to her teachers.

She was then subjected to a medical examination at Thalassery general hospital to confirm the abuse.
Following this, Dharmadam police arrested the father and the son.

READ MORE - Dad, brother, uncle rape Kerala minor

Huge haul of banned drugs

Pseudoephedrine bound for Myanmar

The pseudoephedrine tablets that were seized from a godown in Guwahati on Sunday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, Nov 13 : A huge quantity of pseudoephedrine meant to be smuggled into Myanmar and estimated to be worth over Rs 1.2 crore was seized and two persons were arrested in this connection by Customs officials yesterday.

Acting on a tip-off, the anti-smuggling unit of the Guwahati customs division seized 1,00,17,000 tablets and 101.56 kg of powdered pseudoephedrine from a private godown at the Pub Boragaon area of the city, an official source today said.

Pseudoephedrine is a precursor chemical used for manufacturing party drugs such as Speed, Ecstasy and Ice. It is used for treating nasal and sinus congestion and was declared as a controlled substance under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Regulation of Controlled Substances) Order, 1993.

“Preliminary investigation has revealed that these drugs — packed in 58 cartons — were sent from Delhi to Guwahati through a private transport company. From here it would have been sent to Mizoram and then smuggled into Myanmar where several illegal factories for producing party drugs are located,” the source said.

“So far, two persons have been arrested and one truck has been seized in this connection,” he added.

Two persons — Raju Sen, 28, and Lalthanpuia, 38 have been arrested for their involvement. “They would have transported the drugs from Guwahati to Mizoram. They could not produce any of the documents required for transportation of pseudoephedrine,” the source said.

A case has been registered against them under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

The accused duo was produced in the court of chief judicial magistrate, Kamrup, here today and remanded to judicial custody.

“It appears that a huge interstate racket is involved in smuggling tablets containing pseudoephedrine from India to Myanmar and more arrests are likely to be made in this case,” he said.

READ MORE - Huge haul of banned drugs

Rs 4.50 lakh looted from Arunachal Rural Bank

ITANAGAR, Nov 9 – In a broad daylight robbery, armed miscreants today looted Rs 4.50 lakh from the Itanagar branch of Arunachal Pradesh Rural Bank.

According to police, a group of three miscreants armed with small firearms entered the bank branch located at a busy area near Ramakrishna Mission Hospital here around 12.15 pm and looted the amount at gun point.

While two of them stood guard at the gate of the bank branch, one entered the branch and opened fire in the air. The miscreant threatened the bank staff with dire consequence if an alarm was raised and then decamped with the booty.

A case has been registered at the Itanagar police station in this connection, informed the Superintendent of Police, Capital Complex, Surender Kumar, adding that a manhunt was on to nab the miscreants.

READ MORE - Rs 4.50 lakh looted from Arunachal Rural Bank