News Analysis India

Tag: Mumbai Police

  • Congress demands judicial inquiry into death of Dadra and Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday demanded a judicial inquiry into the alleged suicide of Dadra and Nagar Haveli MP Mohan Delkar in Mumbai earlier this week and asked why the Centre had not acted when he repeatedly raised the issue of “harassment” by the union territory’s administrator.

    The Opposition party claimed the seven-time MP, who was found dead in a hotel room, had named the administrator, Praful Khoda Patel, and other officials of the union territory in his purported suicide note.

    According to Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, Delkar had in the past written letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders, flagging the “harassment” he was facing at the hands of the administrator and other officials of Dadra and Nagra Haveli.

    “He (Delkar) had enumerated the manner in which he was being humiliated and harassed ever since he won the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 as an independent candidate,” Khera said at a press conference here.

    “This is a set template of the government in power (at the Centre). If you lose elections, you try and harass, you try and intimidate through agencies, governors, lieutenant governors and administrators. They try and browbeat the person, try and control him or her. If they agree with you (government), make them join you, if not then these are the tragic results,” Khera alleged.

    The Congress spokesperson also said Patel had been a BJP MLA and a minister in Gujarat, and claimed that he had close links with the top BJP leadership. Khera said that the Congress demands that Patel be immediately relieved of his duties and cases be filed against him for murder and abetment to suicide.

    He added that there should be an immediate judicial inquiry into the entire matter so that Delkar can get justice at least after his death. The body of Delkar (58), an Independent MP, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his hotel room in the Marine Drive area of south Mumbai on Monday.

    Besides being a seven-term Lok Sabha member from the union territory, he was also a member of the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice and the Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs, of the Lower House.

    Delkar is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

  • Mumbai police seize 1,800 kg ganja smuggled from Odisha, 2 held

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: The Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) of the Mumbai crime branch has seized 1,800 kg ganja worth Rs 3.5 crore which was being brought from Odisha and arrested two persons in the biggest such operation in recent past, an official said on Saturday.

    On a tip-off, police intercepted a truck at a Foot Over Bridge (FOB) on the Eastern Express highway in suburban Vikhroli on Friday evening and found ganja, he said.

    The contraband was being smuggled in Mumbai from Odisha in the truck, the official said, adding that Akash Yadav (25) and Dineshkumar Saroj (26) were arrested.

    The kingpin of the inter-state smuggling racket is identified as Laxmikant Pradhan, a resident of Ganjam district in Odisha, the official said.

    “Members of this racket used to bring 5 tonnes of ganja in Maharashtra every month and around 3 to 4 tonnes of it was distributed in Mumbai and neighbouring districts,” he said.

    Milind Bharambe, Joint Commissioner of Police (crime), told reporters that the gang used to hire trucks from Mumbai under the guise of importing coconuts, but would actually smuggle in ganja.

    “The empty trucks (from Maharashtra) used to taken up to a town located on the borders of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, where another set of drivers and cleaners used to take charge.

    These trucks used to proceed to Ganjam to bring ganja. Meanwhile, the first set of drivers and cleaners used to rest in a hotel.

    Their mobile phones kept switched off until the new set of drivers replaced them,” Bharambe said.

    “(On return journey from Ganjam) the trucks used to reach Mumbai via Hyderabad, Solapur and Pune.

    Some consignment of ganja used to be unloaded in Solapur and Pune,” the police officer said.

    He said the gang used to unload the smuggled ganja at a godown in Bhiwandi in Thane district neighbouring Mumbai.

    “The contraband used to be supplied from this godown to Mumbai and suburbs, Thane, Palghar, Vasai, Virar, and Surat,” he said.

    Bharambe said at least 2.5 tonnes of marijuana used to be smuggled to Maharashtra every 15 days.

    The man responsible for distribution of the contraband in Mumbai and neighbouring areas has been identified as Sabdeep Satpute, he said, adding that money was moved either through hawala or in the form of cash.

    A hunt is launched for Pradhan, Satpute and other members of the gang, said another official.

    He said the ANC had seized various narcotics worth Rs 15 crore in the last four months in 32 cases and arrested 65 people.

  • Over 10 booked for ordering social boycott of family over marriage

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Police have registered an offence against at least 12 persons for allegedly ordering social boycott of a 23-year-old man and his family in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra after he married a woman belonging to his caste from his own hamlet, an official said on Thursday.

    The man recently lodged a complaint at Devrukh police station in Ratnagiri’s Sangmeshwar tehsil, alleging humiliation by the group of villagers, who opposed his marriage within the local fraternity, the official said.

    “The complainant and the accused belong to the same caste (Scheduled Caste). He hails from Patgaon Bouddhawadi at Devrukh. He currently works with a leading private broadcast satellite service provider as an engineer and currently stays at Vasai in Palghar district,” the police official said.

    He married a 20-year-old woman he was in love with at Khar in Mumbai last year.

    The woman was also from his hamlet and belonged to the same caste.

    She resided in Kopar Khairane in Navi Mumbai and worked in another department of his company, he said.

    “After the marriage, the members of their community from the hamlet decided to boycott the complainant’s family as he married a woman, who belonged to the same place. According to them, such marriages were not permitted as they considered the hamlet as one fraternity,” the official said.

    The community members also told them that the marriage was not acceptable to them.

    The decision to boycott the complainant and his family was taken in a meeting held on March 15 last year in Patgaon and it mentioned the same in the meeting book, he added.

    After the meeting, the complainant’s family was not allowed to speak to any person belonging to their community or attend any functions or celebrations of the community members at the hamlet.

    Besides, the family was also not allowed to enter the village, he said.

    The complainant’s family was also not allowed to inform about the death of the complainant’s grandmother and his uncle was not not given permission to attend the death rituals, he said.

    “Based on the man’s complaint, an offence was registered against the accused under sections of the MaharashtraProhibition of People fromSocial Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal)Act,2016, and under various IPC sections including 120 B, 143 and 153,” the official said.

    “Notices have been issued to the accused in this connection.

    The father of the complanant’s wife is one of the accused in the case,” he said.

    Investigation into the case is on, he said.

  • TRP scam accused Maha Movie channel CEO Sanjay Verma held in copyright violation case

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Mumbai Police on Tuesday arrested Maha Movie television channel’s CEO Sanjay Verma in an alleged copyright violation case, a police official said.

    He is also a wanted accused in the alleged Television Rating Points (TRP) rigging scam.

    Verma was apprehended by the Mumbai Police’s Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), the official said.

    A case of copyright violation was registered at Juhu police station here and the investigation into it was transferred to the CIU, he said.

    During a probe into the case, Verma’s alleged role came to light, following which he was questioned by a team led by CIU in-charge assistant police inspector Sachin Waze and subsequently placed under arrest, the official said.

    During his interrogation, Verma told crime branch officials that Maha Movie channel had illegally broadcast movies such as “Zanjeer”, “Lawaris”, “Jadugar”, “Mohabbat Ke Dushman”, “Muqaddar Ka Sikandar” between June 10 to November 10, 2020, he said.

    Copyrights of these movies are with Punit Mehra’s company, who is the son of legendary film producer Prakash Mehra, the official said, adding that Mehra never sold those rights to any other company or individuals.

    Earlier, the crime branch had arrested Mohammed Bilal Shaikh alias Raju Khan (42) and Ghanshyam Giri (42) in the case, he said.

    The official said nine more persons are wanted in the case, including the proprietor of Zoya Films, a proprietor of Sonam music company, a proprietor of VIP Films, directors of Tele-One Consumers Pvt Ltd, DV Media Entertainment Ltd and Darvi Media Entertainment Ltd.

    Notably, in a charge sheet filed recently in the TRP rigging case, the police alleged that an official of Hansa Research Agency paid money to sample households to tune into Maha Movie, Box Cinema, Fakt Marathi and Republic TV channels.

    TRP, measured by recording viewership data at sample households, is crucial for attracting advertisers.

    The Republic TV and others have denied any wrongdoing.

  • Can Arnab be arrested under Official Secrets Act? Uddhav govt seeking legal opinion

    By Express News Service
    MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has decided to seek legal opinion whether Republic TV owner and editor-in-chief can be charged under Official Secrets Act for his revelations about the Balakot airstrike three days in advance through his purported WhatsApp chat with BARC former-CEO Partho Dasgupta.

    Maharashtra Home minister Anil Deshmukh said they have taken a serious note of Arnab Goswami’s WhatsApp chat on the classified military information. “We have decided to seek the legal and senior officials’ opinion whether Arnab Goswami can be charged and arrested under the Official Secrets Act for sharing the classified military information.

    “We cannot comprise our security services. We have to find out with whom he had shared this information three days before the Balakot airstrike by the Indian Air force. Besides, we need to find out who had provided this crucial information and whether this information was limited to Arnab and Partho Dasgupta,” Deshmukh said.

    Deshmukh further said that the Mumbai Police is probing the TRP scam and as a part of that this the WhatsApp chat between Arnab Goswami and Partho Dasgupta came out. “We will do whatever is possible as a state government in this case. The security of the state and nation is of utmost importance for us,” Deshmukh added.

    Earlier in the day, the Maharashtra Congress delegation met the Home minister Anil Deshmukh demanding the arrest of Arnab Goswami. Maharashtra Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that the WhatsApp chat between Goswami and Dasgupta has brought out some serious revelations. 

    “Arnab Goswami was aware of the Balakot airstrike three days before the incident. The conversation between Goswami and Dasgupta is being discussed in the mainstream and social media. Questions are raised about how Goswami got this highly confidential and sensitive information. This amounts to treason and Goswami should be arrested immediately,” demanded Sachin Sawant.

    The Congress leader further said that Arnab Goswami himself admitted that the source of his information was “a big person in the Modi government”. 

  • Maharashtra film channel CEO held in copyright violation case

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Mumbai Police on Tuesday arrested Maha Movie television channel’s CEO Sanjay Verma in an alleged copyright violation case, a police official said.

    He is also a wanted accused in the alleged Television Rating Points (TRP) rigging scam.

    Verma was apprehended by the Mumbai Police’s Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), the official said.

    A case of copyright violation was registered at Juhu police station here and the investigation into it was transferred to the CIU, he said.

    During a probe into the case, Verma’s alleged role came to light, following which he was questioned by a team led by CIU in-charge assistant police inspector Sachin Waze and subsequently placed under arrest, the official said.

    He will be produced in a court later in the day, the official said.

    Notably, in a charge sheet filed recently in the TRP rigging case, the police alleged that an official of Hansa Research Agency paid money to sample households to tune into Maha Movie, Box Cinema, Fakt Marathi and Republic TV channels.

    TRP, measured by recording viewership data at sample households, is crucial for attracting advertisers.

    The Republic TV and others have denied any wrongdoing.

  • TRP scam: Ex-CEO of BARC hospitalised

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Former CEO of ratings agency BARC, Partho Dasgupta, who was arrestedin the alleged fake Television Ratings Point (TRP) case, has been admitted in the ICU of state-run JJ hospital in central Mumbai, an official said on Saturday.

    Dasgupta, a diabetic, was rushed to the hospital from the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai in the early hours of Saturday after his blood sugar levels went up on Friday midnight.

    Dasgupta was admitted to the ICU of JJ hospital and is on Oxygen support, he said.

    Dasgupta was arrested in the alleged TRP rigging scam by crime branch of the Mumbai Police on December 24 last year.

    A Mumbai court had earlier this month rejected the bail plea of Dasgupta, stating that he played a vital role in the scam.

    The Mumbai Police had earlier told the court that Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami had allegedly bribed Dasgupta with “lakhs of rupees” to ramp up the news channels viewership.

  • No coercive action against Arnab Goswami till January 29 in TRP case: Mumbai Police

    By PTI
    Mumbai, Jan 15 (PTI) The Mumbai police told the Bombay High Court on Friday that it will not take any coercive action till January 29 against Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and other employees of ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd in the alleged fake TRP scam case.

    ARG is the parent company that runs all Republic TV channels.

    A division bench of Justices S S Shinde and Manish Pitale also extended till January 29, the interim relief for employees of the complainant company in the case, Hansa Research Group, by directing the police to ensure they are called for inquiry for not more than two days a week.

    The bench also took on record the status report filed by the Mumbai police in its investigation in the alleged scam which came to light late last year.

    ARG media had approached the HC last year seeking, among other things, that the police be restrained from taking coercive action against its employees.

    On Friday, ARG’s counsel senior advocate Harish Salve told the court that the allegations of the Mumbai police that Goswami paid bribes to rig TRP numbers was “nonsensical.”

    Salve said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered a money laundering case related to the alleged TRP scam and was probing the same.

    He said the HC must call for a status report from the ED, too, and if the contents of the status reports filed by the Mumbai police and the central agency differed much, the court would realise the case against ARG was malafide.

    The ED’s counsel, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, told the bench that the central agency had readied its status report and the court must accept it in a sealed cover.

    The Mumbai police’s counsel, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, however, opposed the ED’s submissions.

    Sibal raised questions on the ED’s locus standi in the matter.

    He also reminded the court that the financial probe agency was not a party in the case before the HC.

    Salve, however, told the HC that ARG had amended its plea and sought that the ED be impleaded as a party.

    The court then directed Sibal to file his reply to the amended plea and the ED being impleaded, by the next date of hearing.

    While opposing the ED being joined as a party, Sibal went on to question the central agency’s “enthusiasm” to file its status report even before it was impleaded as a party.

    “I have strong objections to the ED appearing in this matter. Why is this enthusiasm….,” Sibal said.

    Salve, however, argued that the police must not have any opposition to the court going through the ED’s report.

    “I dont understand how the State agency is trying to stop a Union agency from filing a report,” Salve said.

    The court, though, refused to take the ED’s status report on record on Friday and said it will consider the same on the next date of hearing.

    On January 6, Sibal had told HC that the Mumbai police will not take any coercive action against Goswami and employees of ARG till January 15.

    On Friday, as the HC granted the police time to file its reply to the amended petition and adjourned the hearing to January 29, Sibal submitted that he had no objection to such protection being extended till then.

    The HC accepted Sibal’s submission.

    ARG Media has filed several pleas and interim applications in the HC urging the court to transfer the probe in the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or any other independent agency.

    The pleas also urge the court to stay in the meanwhile, any further investigation in the case, and to restrain the police from taking any coercive action against the petitioners, their employees, or investors.

    The alleged racket was uncovered in October last year when the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a complaint claiming certain television channels were rigging TRP numbers.

  • Woman accuses Maharashtra social justice minister Dhananjay Munde of rape

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: A woman has accused Maharashtra Social Justice Minister Dhananjay Munde of rape and claimed the Mumbai police ignored her complaint.

    The NCP leader denied the allegations, claiming he is being blackmailed by the complainant and her sister.

    Munde said he had been in a relationship with the complainant’s sister and sired two children.

    The 37-year-old woman, an aspiring singer, said she wrote to Mumbai police commissioner on January 10, stating that Munde repeatedly raped her in 2006. She also claimed that she approached Oshiwara police here earlier but her complaint was not accepted.

    ALSO READ | Maharashtra social justice minister Dhananjay Munde refutes rape allegation, terms it blackmail

    Munde (45) said the woman’s claims were part of a conspiracy to blackmail him. He, however, acknowledged that he was in a relationship with the complainants sister and has two children with her.

    In a statement issued on Tuesday, Munde said his wife, family and friends were aware of this relationship, adding the two kids have been accepted by his family.

    He said the woman with whom he was in a relationship had been blackmailing him since 2019 and he had filed a police complaint and also moved the Bombay High Court seeking a stay on the distribution of defamatory content against him.

  • Mumbai Police busts ‘fake TRPs’ scam; Republic TV, other channels under scanner,

    The police said they used to ask people to keep particular channels on. There were deals with some people who didn’t know English to keep English channels on.

    The Mumbai Police on Thursday claimed to have busted a “scam” where TRPs of certain channels, incuding Republic TV, were being illegally increased. The police said they have arrested owners of two such channels and have sent a notice to Republic TV.

    The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which measures TRPs, has installed over 2,000 barometers in Mumbai for measuring the data. The locations where these barometers are installed are confidential.

    “During investigation, we found that ex-employees of the firm that BARC has contracted for installing these barometers were influencing it,” Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said.

    Singh said these they used to ask people to keep particular channels on. He added that there were deals with some people who didn’t know English to keep English channels on.

    Certain news channels such as Republic, Fakt Marathi, and Box Cinema are under the scanner. “Owners of two news channels have been arrested already. Summons have been sent to Republic news channel,” Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said.

    The police further said that ads earned by channels using these spiked TRPs will be considered as proceeds of crime.