News Analysis India

Tag: Mumbai

  • Cases rising in Maharashtra, mostly in populated places

    By Express News Service

    MUMBAI:  Covid-19 cases have started rising in Maharashtra once again. These are mainly in the populated places like Mumbai, Thane and Pune. There were 943 active cases in the state on Friday. According to Maharashtra health department data, Thane has witnessed a 40.77% surge in cases in the last week and Mumbai 40.77%. Cases have increased by 33% in Raigad district.

    The data revealed that on April 16, there were 624 active cases in Maharashtra. It went up to 762 on April 21 and 916 on April 24. Most of these cases — 549 — are in Mumbai. Pune has 215, Thane 77 and Dhule 19. The districts of Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Satara, Nandurbar, Latur, Osmanabad, Wasim and Wardha reported zero active cases.

    Of the 943 active cases, 37 are admitted to hospitals, 892 are asymptomatic, while 14 are serious. Ten of them are in ICU and four on oxygen support. The data revealed that positivity rate is highest in Dhule (4.83%), followed by Pune (1.53%) and Akola (1.42%). In nine districts, weekly positivity rate is more than the state average of 0.73%.

  • Three coaches of Puducherry Express derail in Mumbai; no report of anyone getting injured

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Three coaches of the Dadar-Puducherry Express (Train no 11005) derailed near Matunga station in Mumbai on Friday night after the engine of the CSMT-Gadag Express dashed it from the rear side, a Central Railway official said.

    So far there were no reports of anyone getting injured in the incident which took place around 9.45 pm. The incident took place a day before the 169th anniversary of the first run of a passenger train in India.

    The Dadar-Puducherry Chalukya Express was entering on DOWN fast line from platform 7 of the Dadar Terminus, when the CSMT-Gadag Express, which departed around 9.30 pm, dashed it from the rear side on a crossing, the official said.

    A video of the incident which went viral on social media showed that the coaches of the two express trains brushed against each other before the derailment. Some passengers can also be heard alerting each other while this happens.

    In coordination with the railway administration, senior GRP Mumbai officials are arranging for assistance for stranded passengers. Passengers are requested to cooperate and in case of emergencies dial 1512: GRP Mumbai pic.twitter.com/PqdK45BFQ9
    — ANI (@ANI) April 15, 2022
    Shivaji Sutar, chief spokesperson of Central Railway, said that relief trains had been sent to the site.

    The traffic on the Up and Down slow line, which was suspended for some time for safety reasons, had been restored, he added.

    Quaiser Khalid, commissioner, Government Railway Police, said in a tweet that there was a “minor collision” between the two down trains and the Puducherry Express was being evacuated. This was the second derailment on the Central Railway section this month.

    Earlier, the Lokmanya Tilak-Jaynagar Express (Pawan Express) had derailed near Nashik in Maharashtra on April 3, 2022.

    The incident took place a day before the 169th anniversary of railway in India. The first passenger train in India (and Asia) ran between Mumbai and Thane on April 16, 1853. The Indian Railway, thus enters into its 170th year of service from Saturday.

  • Alliance Air to operate flights between Gujarat’s Keshod to Mumbai from Saturday

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Centre-run Alliance Air on Friday said it will start operating flights between Gujarat’s Keshod to Mumbai from Saturday.

    This will be the first flight to operate from the Keshod airport, it stated.

    The Mumbai-Keshod-Mumbai flight will operate three times a week on a 70-seater ATR-72 aircraft, the airline’s statement said.

    Keshod is an upcoming tourist destination located in Junagarh District of western Gujarat and is surrounded by the Arabian sea and beautiful forests.

  • Birbhum killings: 4 arrested from Mumbai brought to Kolkata

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: The four people arrested from Mumbai in connection with the Birbhum killings were brought back to Kolkata on Friday morning by the CBI, an official said.

    They were brought back to Kolkata on transit remand, granted by a Mumbai court till April 10, he said. “We will be taking them to Rampurhat later in the day to speed up the investigation. They will be grilled along with other accused arrested there,” the official said.

    The CBI on Thursday arrested the four persons — Bappa, Shabu, Taj Mohammad and Serajul — from Mumbai where they fled to following the massacre in Rampurhat’s Bogtui village on March 21.

    These were the first arrests made by the central agency after taking over the probe. Nine people died of burn injuries after their houses in Bogtui were allegedly firebombed following the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.

    The CBI took over the investigation of the case, following an order of the Calcutta High Court. The agency at present has the custody of at least 10 people who were arrested by the police in connection with the killings. Among them is then TMC block president Anarul Hossain.

  • Anil Deshmukh not in good health, CBI should question him in Mumbai: NCP

    Maharashtra NCP chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase contended party leader Anil Deshmukh's shoulder is dislocated and he is not in a good shape health-wise.

  • Mumbai cops probing extortion charges against four ED officers: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Alleging that Enforcement Directorate and some of its officers were acting as an “ATM” for the BJP, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Tuesday said the Mumbai Police were probing “extortion” charges against four officers of the federal anti-money laundering agency and that some of them will go to jail.

    Addressing a news conference here, Raut said a complaint has been lodged with the Mumbai Police to probe “corruption” and the “extortion racket”.

    Separately, the Mumbai Police is probing BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s business relations with Rakesh Wadhwan, one of the accused in the PMC bank scam, Raut said.

    He alleged that whenever Enforcement Directorate raids any company, it has transferred money to firms belonging to one Jitendra Navlani.

    Raut claimed that Navlani was close to many BJP leaders.

    “The ED and some of its officials have become an ATM (automated teller machine) for the BJP,” Raut said, maintaining he has shared details of the same with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

    “The Mumbai Police were probing extortion and corruption charges against four ED officials. The Mumbai Police are capable of that. And mark my words…some ED officials will go to jail,” the Rajya Sabha MP claimed.

    Raut said one former ED official even contested the election on a BJP ticket and also funded the expenses of 50 party candidates.

    He, however, did not share any details on his claim.

    He alleged that ED officials and their “agents” in Mumbai are involved in “intimidating and extorting money” from builders, developers and corporates.

    Raut, however, did not reveal the identities or designations of these ED officials but added that he will name them in his next press conference.

    Elaborating further on Navlani, Raut said the former has seven companies.

    “Whenever there has been an ED probe, Navlani’s company received money from the company which was raided by the central agency. The companies have no office, no staff,” he claimed.

    The Shiv Sena MP also furnished a list of companies, which he claimed, transferred money to Navlani’s firms.

    Attacking Somaiya, who has levelled corruption charges against leaders close to the Thackerays, Raut said the BJP leader and his son will go to jail for alleged financial transactions with the Wadhwans.

    His remarks came on a day when some Shiv Sena office-bearers, including a leader considered close to Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray, were raided by the Income Tax Department.

    Raut said the I-T department’s action comes ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls.

    The BMC – which is controlled by the Sena for more than two and half decades — is the country’s richest civic body with a budget more than many smaller states.

    The actions of Central agencies are also aimed at destabilising the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

    He said 14 main people from the MVA government have been targeted by the central agencies so far.

    “Your (the BJP’s) actions will boomerang,” Raut said.

  • Maharashtra: Cinema halls, restaurants allowed to function at full capacity in 14 districts including Mumbai

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Easing pandemic-related restrictions, the Maharashtra government on Wednesday allowed shopping complexes, restaurants, cinema halls and theaters to operate at 100 per cent capacity in 14 out of 36 districts in the state, including Mumbai.

    These 14 districts are: Mumbai city, Mumbai suburban district, Pune, Bhandara, Sindhudurg, Nagpur, Raigad, Wardha, Ratnagiri, Satara, Sangli, Gondia, Chandrapur and Kolhapur.

    A government notification said that in these districts 90 per cent of the eligible population has taken at least one dose of anti-coronavirus vaccines, and over 70 per cent people are fully vaccinated.

    The positivity rate in these areas is less than 10 per cent and occupancy of oxygen-supported or ICU beds is less than 40 per cent.

    Social, sports, entertainment, academic, cultural, religious, political and festival-linked events including those related to marriages and funerals and other gatherings and congregations are now permitted in these districts with attendance at 50 per cent of the capacity of the venue, the notification said.

    But if a gathering is expected to be of more than 1,000 persons, the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will have to be informed and it may impose reasonable restrictions.

    For other districts, attendance at such events will be capped at 50 per cent of capacity or 200, whichever is less.

    “All shopping complexes, cinema halls, restaurants and bars, sports complexes, gyms, spas, swimming pools, religious places, drama theatres (`natyagrihas’), tourist places, entertainment parks etc are allowed to operate with 100 per cent capacity in these (14) districts,” the notification said.

    “For other administrative units (remaining 22 districts of the state) excluded from this list, these shall operate at 50 per cent of the capacity,” the notification added.

    Based on inputs of the state health department as well as the government’s COVID Task Force and considering the present pandemic sitution, the State Executive Committee (SEC) has decided to ease the norms, it added.

    There has been steady decline in new daily coronavirus cases in Maharashtra.

    On January 31, the state government had eased some restrictions.

    The January 31 guidelines had said that swimming pools, water-parks, theatres and restaurants can operate with 50 per cent capacity, subject to permission of the competent authority, in the districts of Mumbai, Pune, Bhandara, Sindhudurg, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Satara, Sangli, Gondia, Kolhapur and Chandrapur.

  • First AI flight carrying 219 Indian evacuees from Ukraine lands in Mumbai

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The first Air India flight carrying 219 Indian evacuees from Ukraine landed at the Mumbai airport from Bucharest, Romania, on Saturday evening, ATC sources said.

    Operated with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane, Air India flight AI-1944 touched down the runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) here at 7.50 pm, they said.

    Union Minister Piyush Goyal was at the airport to receive the Indian nationals returning from war-hit Ukraine on their arrival.

    The Air India flight had left from Mumbai for Bucharest at 3.38 am Saturday and landed there at around 10.45 am (Indian Standard Time). It departed for Mumbai at 1.55 pm (IST).

    #WATCH | Union Minister Piyush Goyal welcomes the Indian nationals safely evacuated from Ukraine at Mumbai airport pic.twitter.com/JGKReJE1ct
    — ANI (@ANI) February 26, 2022
    The Ukrainian airspace has been closed for civil aircraft operations since the morning of February 24 and therefore, the evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest.

    Indian nationals who reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road have been taken to Bucharest by Indian government officials so that they can be evacuated in the Air India flights.

    Around 16,000 Indians, mainly students, were stranded in Ukraine, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had said on February 24.

    The distance between Kyiv and the Romanian border checkpoint is approximately 600 km and it takes anywhere between eight hours to 11 hours to cover it by road.

    The Indian embassy in Ukraine on Friday said it was working to establish evacuation routes from Romania and Hungary.

    External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had earlier in the day said on Twitter that AI1944 with “219 Indian nationals has taken off from Romania”.

    “Regarding evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine, we are making progress. Our teams are working on the ground round the clock. I am personally monitoring,” he added.

    Air India will operate more flights on Saturday to Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest to evacuate Indians stranded in Ukraine.

    Prior to the closure of the Ukrainian airspace, Air India had operated a flight to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on February 22 that brought 240 people back. It had planned to operate two more flights on February 24 and February 26 but could not as the Russian offensive began on February 24 and the Ukrainian airspace was consequently shut down.

  • Mumbai sees 135 COVID-19 cases, 2 deaths; active tally now 1,315

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: A day after reporting less than 100 COVID-19 cases, Mumbai on Tuesday added 135 patients to its tally and recorded two fresh fatalities due to the infection, a civic official said.

    The caseload in the metropolis now stands at 10,55,792 and the COVID-19 death toll is 16,690.

    With 233 being discharged after treatment, the count of recoveries went up to 10,34,914 in Mumbai, which was 98 per cent of the tally, he said.

    Some 85 per cent, or 115 cases, of the 135 detected during the day were asymptomatic, with just 20 patients requiring hospital admission and eight needing oxygen support in the last 24 hours, he said.

    The active tally in the city stood at 1,315 and just 781 of the 36,248 beds earmarked for COVID-19 treatment are currently occupied, the official said.

    Tuesday was the third day in a row when the addition to the tally was less than 200, with Monday’s 96 being the lowest since April, 2020, just a month after the pandemic began nationwide.

    The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) data showed 20,889 tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, some 4,000 more than those conducted on the previous day, taking the overall number of tests here to 1,60,66,326.

    It also showed the positivity rate was 0.64 per cent, and that there was no sealed building or containment zone currently in the country’s financial capital.

    The caseload doubling time stood 3,512 days, while the growth rate in cases stood at 0.02 per cent between February 15 and 21, civic data revealed.

    Mumbai had reported a record 20,971 cases on January 7 this year amid the third wave of the pandemic.

  • Mumbai sees rise in criminal cases in 2021 due to enforcement of COVID-19 norms

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: As many as 64,656 criminal cases were registered in Mumbai in 2021, a jump of 26 per cent from 2020, mainly due to a rise in offences related to violation of COVID-19 measures, while incidents of crime against women stood at 5,496 last year, up from 4,539 in the year before that, police commissioner Hemant Nagrale said on Tuesday.

    He said the increase in criminal cases was mainly due to registration of a large number of offences under the IPC section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), which was invoked against those not following COVID-19-related protocols and violating curbs put in place to stem the spread of the infection.

    Section 188 IPC deals with people disobeying orders passed by a public servant, and provides for jail terms ranging from one to six months.

    For those violating orders passed under the Epidemic Diseases Act, which was invoked when the coronavirus pandemic hit India in 2020, section 188 the IPC is the provision under which punishment is given by courts.

    Nagrale was speaking to reporters at an event organised for the publication of ‘Annual Report-2021’. Such a report was last published in 2006, an official said.

    Briefing the media about crime statistics in the financial capital, the senior IPS officer said 51,068 criminal cases were registered in 2020 (as compared to 64,656 in 2021) and in 2019 this figure was 41,931.

    A total of 30,843 cases were registered under the IPC section 188 in Mumbai in 2021 as compared to 22,824 in 2020, he said.

    The overall crime detection rate in 2021 was 82 per cent, up from 79 per cent in 2020, the police commissioner stated.

    According to the report, 177 offences were registered per day in 2021 and the number of murder cases increased by 3 per cent compared to 2020.

    There was a 20 per cent increase in property-related offences in 2021 at 10,418 from 8,646 in 2020, it said.

    Last year, the Mumbai police focused on tackling crimes against women and those happening in the cyber world, Nagrale said.

    Crimes against women included rape, kidnapping, molestation, eve teasing, harassment under IPC section 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) murder, suicide, mental and physical harassment due to other reasons.

    Overall, crime against women in 2021 has decreased by 942 when compared to 2019, but when compared to 2020, the cases have increased by 957, he said.

    Mumbai saw registration of 5,496 cases under this category in 2021, 4,539 in 2020 and 6,438 in 2019.

    The overall detection rate of crime against women in 2021 was 79 per cent, down from 83 per cent in 2020, he said.

    Most of the undetected cases related to live-in relationships or marriage promises not fulfilled, he said.

    According to the report, there was a 21 per cent increase in crimes related to women in 2021.

    There was a 15 per cent increase in rape cases in 2021 (888) as compared to the year before that (776). This figure was 1,015 in 2019.

    Speaking about rape cases, he said ‘friends’ and ‘social media friends’ formed the category for the highest number of accused in such instances.

    Known accused category (where victims were acquainted with the accused) accounted for the second highest number of offenders, he said.

    Rape incidents where minors were victims and were committed by neighbours were down in 2021 as compared to 2019.

    Speaking about instances of kidnapping and missing persons between 2014 and 2021, Nagrale said a total of 76,467 victims in such cases were traced out of 86,349.

    As many as 4,465 kidnapped boys were traced out of 4786 cases, whereas 8,596 abducted girls were traced out of 9,124 cases, he said.

    In 2021, 4,185 kg of drugs and narcotics substances were seized under the NDPS Act (called ‘NDPS property’ in the report) as compared to 1,127 kg in 2020 and 1,276 kg in 2019, he said.

    In terms of value, the recovery in 2021 was worth Rs 151,40,96,851 and Rs 28,83,78,669 in 2020, the police commissioner said.

    On economic offences, the IPS officer said in 2021, Rs 62.84 crore of assets and other items were seized in such cases out of which Rs 39.84 crore worth of property was returned to complainants and investors.

    A total of 21,81,628 ‘challans’ (fine receipts) were issued by the Mumbai traffic police in 2021 for violation of rules and more than Rs 56 crore was recovered from offenders, he said.

    As many as 8.06 lakh cases of two-wheeler riders driving without helmets were detected, Nagrale said.

    Speaking about disciplinary actions against erring law enforcement personnel, Nagrale said 81 police officers were suspended in 2021.

    There were 2,437 police officers and other personnel who were punished on various grounds, while 32 officials were dismissed from service, he said.

    Police personnel were at the forefront of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in Mumbai and 126 such personnel, including 87 constables, died while performing various duties, the IPS officer said.