News Analysis India

Tag: Thane

  • Extortion case: Lookout notice issued against ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh in Thane

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The Thane police have issued a lookout notice against senior Maharashtra IPS officer Param Bir Singh in connection with an extortion case, an official said on Thursday.

    The notice was issued in the extortion case registered at the Thane Nagar Police Station against Singh, a former Mumbai Police Commissioner, and 27 others on July 30 on a complaint of businessman Ketan Tanna.

    A lookout notice is issued to prevent a person from leaving the country.

    Besides Singh, who earlier served as the Thane Police Commissioner, the extortion FIR names several other police officers.

    These include the then Deputy Commissioner of Police Dipak Deoraj, Assistant Commissioner of Police Nivrurti Kadam, the then Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) senior Inspector Pradeep Sharma and Inspector Rajkumar Kothmire, the official said.

    In his complaint, Tanna has alleged that when Singh was the Thane Police Commissioner between January 2018 and February 2019, the accused extorted Rs 1.25 crore from him by summoning him to the AEC office and threatening to frame him up in serious criminal cases.

    During investigation, the probe team felt the necessity to issue a lookout notice against Singh, following which a proposal in this regard was sent to authorities concerned, he said.

    Accordingly, the notice has been issued against top cop, he said.

    The notice allows immigration officials at airports to prevent a person wanted by the police or other law enforcement agencies to travel abroad.

    A second case of extortion has been registered against Singh and DCP Parag Manere at the Kopri Police Station in Thane city.

    In this case too, a proposal about issuing lookout notices against Singh and Manere has been sent by the police, the official said.

    “We are waiting for a reply from the office of FRRO (Foreigners Regional Registration Officer) about the lookout notice in the Kopri case,” he said.

  • Maharashtra: Thane Lok Adalat settles 218 cases amounting to Rs 12.40 crore

    By PTI
    THANE: A ‘Lok Adalat’ at the Thane district court in Maharashtra has settled 218 cases and sanctioned compensation to the tune of Rs 12.40 crore for deaths and injuries in various incidents.

    The Lok Adalat was held on Sunday and in one case, there was a settlement worth Rs 95 lakh between a private insurance company and the family of a man who died in a road accident in 2013, Principal District and Sessions Judge Anil Pansare told reporters.

    In 174 cases, the settlement was done online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

  • Maharashtra: Heavy rains in Thane, Palghar; boy drowns, vehicles damaged in wall collapse

    By PTI
    THANE: Heavy rains lashed Maharashtra’s Thane and Palghar districts during the night and on Monday morning, causing flooding at several places and claiming the life of a minor boy, officials said.

    Thane city received 151.33 mm rain between 9.30 p.m on Sunday and 7.30 a.m on Monday, an official from local civic control room said.

    The neighbouring Palghar district also witnessed heavy showers and received 108.67 mm downpour in the same period, authorities said.

    Firemen and disaster cell teams received several calls of tree falls and inundation in both the districts, officials said.

    A four-year-old boy drowned after being swept away in a swollen drain in Thane’s Ulhasnagar township on Sunday, an official at the police control said.

    The body was later fished out and sent to a government hospital for postmortem, he said, adding that a case of accidental death was registered.

    A 40-year-old watchman was severely injured when a tree fell on him at a residential complex on Ghodbunder Road in Thane city on Sunday evening.

    Besides, the wall of a housing complex on Ghodbunder Road collapsed, damaging five cars and as many other vehicles, civic authorities said.

    There were incidents of wall collapse and flooding in some other low-lying areas also, Thane Municipal Corporation’s regional disaster management cell chief Santosh Kadam said.

    In Palghar, several places in Vasai and Nallasopara witnessed heavy rains, leading to water-logging in low-lying areas.

    A four-year-old boy fell in an open drain in Nallasopara and was feared drowned.

    Efforts were on to trace the minor, Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation’s chief fire officer Dilip Palav said.

    In Vasai area of Palghar, at least 80 cooking gas cylinders were washed away in the flood waters, local police said.

    Later, the police with the help of firemen shifted the cylinders to a safe place, they said.

  • Thane man receives call from municipal corporation to collect own death certificate

    By PTI
    THANE: A 55-year-old school teacher here got a shock of his life when he received a call earlier this week from the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) that his death certificate was ready and he should come and collect it.

    When Chandrashekar Joshi, a city resident, went to the TMC office, he was allegedly told by an official that as per the data received from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), he had `died’ on April 22, 2021.

    The death certificate mentioned that he was a Covid patient ten months ago.

    A bewildered Joshi told reporters here on Thursday that he had indeed tested positive for the viral infection in October 2020, but he isolated himself and recovered.

    Civic officials were not available to comment on the goof-up despite several calls.

  • Maharashtra tightens curbs amid fear of 3rd wave, flags Delta plus as ‘variant of concern’

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Amid fears of a third wave of coronavirus and cases of its highly infectious ‘Delta Plus’ variant emerging in Maharashtra, the state tightened restrictions with effect from Monday, with essential shops allowed to remain open only till 4 pm on all days.

    Non-essential shops and establishments can remain open till 4 pm only on weekdays, as per a Maharashtra government notification issued last week which said the entire state will have ‘level 3’ restrictions.

    Restaurants are allowed to operate dine-in facility with 50 per cent capacity till 4 pm on weekdays and takeaways and home deliveries after that, according to the order.

    The suburban trains will operate only for medical staff and personnel engaged in essential services, while gyms and salons are allowed to remain open till 4 pm at 50 per cent capacity.

    The new order will impact cities like Nagpur, Thane and Pune as they had seen more relaxations than Mumbai, which continued to be under ‘level 3’ restrictions, despite qualifying for ‘level 1’ where all curbs are allowed to be lifted.

    The state government on Friday announced a ‘state-level trigger’ for imposing restrictions in administrative units irrespective of the weekly positivity rate and oxygen bed occupancy percentage.

    The weekly positivity rate regarding levels of restrictions will be determined on the basis of RT-PCR tests, and not rapid antigen or other tests, the state government had said while describing the ‘Delta Plus’ as a variant of concern.

    Restrictions in administrative units will remain at a level not below 3, the government had said, and also called for pushing for 70 per cent vaccination of eligible population in the state.

    Earlier this month, the state government had introduced a graded system of easing the lockdown-like curbs in each district, considering the COVID-19 weekly positivity rate and occupancy of oxygen beds.

    Districts and municipal corporations were then classified under levels 1 to 5.

    Accordingly, some cities and districts in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions had lifted restrictions and some were in ‘level 2’.

    However, last week, the Maharashtra government modified the graded system and said the entire state will have ‘level 3’ restrictions.

    District administrations have been asked to take various steps, including testing, vaccination and enforcement of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and penalty for violators.

    If there is an upward trend in the number of coronavirus positive cases, the district disaster management authority will impose a higher level of restrictions, the order said.

    Attempts must be made to achieve 70 per cent vaccination of the eligible population, and focus should be on testing, tracking and treating methodology to contain the spread of COVID-19, it had said.

  • COVID-19 death toll crosses 10,000-mark in Maharashtra’s Thane district

    By PTI
    THANE: The COVID-19 death toll in Thane district of Maharashtra has crossed the 10,000-mark as 65 more patients succumbed to the infection, an official said on Friday.

    These deaths were reported on Thursday.

    The district’s fatality count now stood at 10,056.

    The infection tally in the district has reached 5,23,497 with the addition of 498 cases, he said.

    The COVID-19 mortality rate of Thane is 1.92 per cent, the official said.

    In neighboring Palghar district, the coronavirus case count has gone up to 1,12,900, while the death toll is 2,220, another official said.

  • Thane cops nab 50-year-old man wanted for bomb explosion in West Bengal

    By PTI
    THANE: The police in Maharashtra’s Thane city on Friday arrested a 50-year-old man allegedly involved in a bomb explosion in West Bengal, an official said.

    Based on a tip-off, a team from the Thane police’s crime branch nabbed Malik Fakir Mir alias Neya near Thane city railway station in the morning, the official said.

    Mir was allegedly involved in a case of bomb explosion registered with the Basanti police station in Baruipur of West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district, assistant commissioner of police (Crime) A T Kadam said.

    An offence under section 307 (attempt to murder) and other relevant provisions of the IPC and Arms Act was registered with the local police last year, he said.

    The police have informed the Basanti police about the arrest and also obtained a transit remand for the accused, he added.

  • Over 400 fake voter ID cards seized from flat in Maharashtra town

    By PTI
    THANE: Over 400 fake voter ID cards were seized from a flat in Kalyan town in Maharashtra’s Thane district, police said on Wednesday.

    Acting on a tip-off, local revenue department officials raided the flat on Tuesday and found the fake voter ID cards in the premises, they said.

    An offence under relevant section of the IPC has been registered against the flat owner, Kamlesh More, at the Khadakpada police station, the police said.

    No arrest has been made so far and further probe was underway, they added.

  • Death toll in slabs collapse incident at Maharashtra’s Ulhasnagar rises to seven

    By PTI
    THANE: The death toll in the slabs collapse incident that occurred at a building in Ulhasnagar town of Maharashtra’s Thane district rose to seven with the recovery of one more body, an official said on Saturday.

    Thane district guardian minister Ekanth Shinde said the state government would provide financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of each deceased, who include three women and one teenage boy. The slabs of five flats in Sai Shakti building, a ground-plus-five-storey structure located at Nehru Chowk, collapsed on Friday night.

    As per the information given by the authorities late last night, six persons had died in the incident and four to five others were feared trapped under the debris. “With the recovery of one more body from the debris, the fatality count in the incident has now gone up to seven. Three women, as many number of men and one boy died in the mishap,” Santosh Kadam, chief of the Regional Disaster Management Cell of Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) said.

    Kadam said that the deceased belonged to two families residing in the building, he said. There were 29 flats in this 26-year-old building. “Around 9 pm, the drawing room slabs of five flats – right from the top floor up to the bottom one – caved in. On being alerted, the personnel of the RDMC and the Thane Disaster Response Force (TDRF) rushed to the scene and launched a search and rescue operation,” he said.

    The operation was called off at 12.46 am on Saturday following the recovery of the seventh body, the official said. The deceased were identified as Punit Bajomal Panjwani (17), Dinesh Bajomal Panjwani (40), Deepak Bajomal Panjwani (42), Mohini Bajomal Panjwani (65), Krishna Induchand Bajaj (24), Amruta Induchand Bajaj (54) and Lovely Bajaj (20), he added.

    Minister Ekanth Shinde rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation. Talking to reporters in the wee hours of Saturday, Shinde said he has informed about the incident to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. “The state government would give Rs 5 lakh to the kin of each deceased,” he said, adding that this is the second such incident in the area in the recent past.

    “In 1994-95, the local civic body had demolished some of the unauthorised buildings by pulling down their slabs, pillars and rods. However, it has been observed that some developers welded the iron rods, recast the slabs and reconstructed the buildings. Such structures are now crashing down and claiming innocent lives,” he said.

    He directed Ulhasnagar municipal commissioner Raja Dayanidi to shift the occupants of such precarious buildings to safer places on war footing and also initiate strict action against such builders.

  • Petrol at Rs 100: Thane NCP puts up ‘celebratory’ hoardings

    By PTI
    THANE: The Thane unit of the NCP on Friday put up billboards across the city “celebrating” the cost of petrol hitting the century mark, and took a swipe at the Narendra Modi government by telling people such price rise was the Centre’s idea of “achche din”.

    Thane NCP president Anand Paranjpe said fuel prices were rising over the past fortnight and petrol was retailing at Rs 100 in the city.

    Petrol price had, on Thursday, crossed the Rs 100-a- litre mark here after the price of petrol was increased by 24 paise per litre and diesel by 29 paise a litre.

    The increase – 14th this month – took petrol and diesel prices to an all-time high across the country.