Fake currency seized in Assam

Dhubri: A Bangladeshi national was on Tuesday nabbed by the BSF in Dhubri district and fake Indian currency with a face value of Rs 2.98 lakh was seized from his possession.

During a special operation by the BSF, the foreigner was caught when he was attempting to cross over to India at Khagrachar, BSF sources said. He was identified as one Gulam Mustafa of Saibaralga, in Kurigram district of Bangladesh, the sources said.

The seizure included 199 fake notes of Rs 1000 denomination and 198 pieces of Rs 500 denomination.

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Manipur Drug Haul: 7 Held Sent to Custody Till March 22

Seven persons, including former defence PRO Colonel Ajay Choudhury, who were arrested in connection with illegal drug trafficking, have been remanded in judicial custody till March 22.

The seven were produced before the special Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) court yesterday at Lamphelpat which remanded them in judicial custody.

Six persons including assistant manager of Indigo airlines Ngairangbam Brojendro, an assistant of former defence PRO R K Babalu, Haopu Haokip, Minlin Haokip and Minthang Doungel were arrested while they were allegedly carrying illegal Pseudoephedrine tablets worth about Rs 24 crores in Thoubal district for smuggling it to neighbouring Myanmar.

Following their interrogation, police arrested Seikholet Haokip, son of Congress MLA T N Haokip, on February 26 last along with a large number of illegal tablets worth lakhs of rupees from his house at Deulaland area here.

All the seven would remain in Manipur jail here till March 22.

No counsel on behalf of the accused appeared before the NDPS court yesterday.

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Brick kiln worker rapes 16-yr-old girl in Manipur

IMPHAL: A 16-year-old girl, who is appearing for the ongoing Class XI final examination, was allegedly raped by a brick kiln worker on Saturday night near her Irengband village residence in Thoubal district. An angry mob destroyed the house of the accused on Sunday.

The girl's family alleged that accused Huidrom Sanjoy (28), who stays in the same locality, taking advantage of the fact that the girl was alone at home, raped the minor at around 11pm on Saturday night.

Manipur has been witnessing spiralling crime against women in the last few years, prompting hordes of women's bodies to intensify their campaign against the menace. According to Imphal-based Women Action for Development (WAD), over 300 cases of violence against women - including rape, rape and murder, molestation, trafficking, brutal physical assault, abduction, intimidation, abandonment and immolation - took place in the state last year.

Locals said Sanjoy, who worked at the medium-scale brick farm owned by the victim's family, was well acquainted with the family. He is married and has two children.

Quoting the girl, her mother said that Sanjoy called the former on her mobile phone on Saturday night around 10pm asking her to step out of the house and later raped her at a deserted place nearby.

The family members came to know the incident on Sunday morning when the victim narrated her ordeal to them. As news of the rape spread across the village, irate locals caught Sanjoy and began quizzing him about the incident, but he managed to flee. A manhunt was immediately launched and Sanjoy was found hiding in a nearby drain. He was pulled up by a team of policemen that arrived at the spot.

The police had to disperse the mob by firing teargas canisters and mock bombs. Thereafter, the mob destroyed Sanjoy's house but the situation was brought under control after the arrival of a police reinforcement team.

The police, who registered an FIR case against Sanjoy, took the victim and the accused to the Imphal-based Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for medical examination. Sanjoy was produced before the chief judicial magistrate (Thoubal), who remanded him in police custody till Thursday, enabling the cops to interrogate him.

The irate locals, meanwhile, formed a joint action committee (JAC) to ensure justice to the girl.

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Muslim youth arrested with drugs and pistol in Manipur

IMPHAL: Security forces seized a large quantity of contraband drugs from two different places in Thoubal district of Manipur in a large-scale operation conducted since Saturday.

A combined team of Assam Rifles and police on Saturday seized drugs worth Rs 30 lakh and a country-made pistol from a Muslim youth at Lilong area in the district. Thoubal police commandos confiscated a another consignment of drugs on Sunday.

On February 24, police commandos had seized pseudoephedrine hydrochloride worth over Rs 20 crore from six people including defence spokesman Colonel Ajay Chowdhry on the way to the border town of Moreh.

During a special drive on Saturday morning, Assam Rifles soldiers and the police seized over 8,000 Spasmo Proxyvon (SP) and Nitrosun 10 tablets packed in seven packets, two mobile phones and a pistol from the house of Md Wahidur Rahaman (24), police sources said.

The seized drugs were smuggled from Guwahati and a case has been registered against the accused, the sources added.

A police commando team on Sunday morning seized 160 SP tablets, three grams of heroin power, two syringes and a camouflage uniform with three-star shoulder tags from three persons including a tribal youth claiming to be a self-styled captain of a Naga rebel group.

The state cabinet, which has taken serious note of drug trafficking, has already decided to hand over the February 24 drug haul case to the CBI even as a large number of civil bodies and anti-drug organizations continued to protest against the growing drug menace gripping the state.

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Delhi gang-rape case: main accused Ram Singh commits suicide in Tihar Jail

New Delhi: Ram Singh, the key accused in the Delhi gang-rape case, has committed suicide inside the Tihar Jail premises where he was lodged.

Tihar Jail officials said Ram Singh hanged himself at Jail Number 3, at around 5 am this morning. His body has been taken to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital in Delhi.

Ram Singh was the driver of the bus in which six men inflicted horrific assault on 23-year-old medical student in Delhi and was the main accused. Besides Ram Singh and his brother Mukesh, three other adult accused are facing trial in the case. The sixth accused is a minor and is being tried separately by the Juvenile Justice Board.

Authorities in the Tihar Central Jail had said that all the five accused are under "suicide watch" after they stopped interacting with other jail inmates and amongst themselves.

Ram Singh's lawyer, VK Anand, had petitioned the Supreme Court in January to shift the case as he believes his client will not receive a fair trial in Delhi. Mr Anand had sought that the trial be moved to anywhere else in the country except Uttar Pradesh, where the girl came from.

The men are accused of gang-raping and brutally assaulting Amanat (NOT her real name) on December 16 last year and then throwing her out of the bus. The incident sparked outrage in the country and people took to the streets to demand the most stringent punishment for the accused. The young woman fought a valiant battle for her life in hospital for 13 days, but her injuries were too severe and she died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

All the accused were arrested within days of the horrific assault.

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Rs 5 crore worth drugs seized

KOHIMA, March 7  – Personnel of the Dimapur railway police and Excise department, Nagaland seized a huge quantity of banned drugs worth Rs 5.05 crore.

Sources said that the GRP personnel seized 1,15,200 strips of banned Cetirizine HCI & Pseudoephedrine HCI tablets worth more than Rs 5 crore in the international drugs market from Dimapur railway station last night.

The contraband, packed in six boxes, were to be delivered in Dimapur yesterday morning. A case has been registered under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

In a separate incident, Excise Narcotic Cell staff seized 17,280 capsules of Spasmo Proxyvon worth around Rs 4,32,000 in the local market at Khuzama check gate, Kohima on Monday.

The sources said the drugs were seized from a passenger who was traveling in a public transport vehicle heading towards Manipur.

The accused has been identified as Md Adawar Rahman from Imphal East.

The accused in his statement has reportedly confessed to have smuggled the drugs from Kolkata to Dimapur by train.

Meanwhile, three persons were arrested after illegal drugs with a street value of Rs 24 lakh were allegedly seized from their possession in Manipur’s Thoubal district today.

The three were arrested at Lilong, Sora and Moijing areas in the district for allegedly possessing pseudoephedrine tablets and heroin, officials said.

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