News Analysis India

Tag: Uttar Pradesh

  • Uttar Pradesh: Nine more victims identified as police probe sexual abuse case against expelled BJP functionary

    By PTI
    JALAN: The police here have identified nine more victims, including seven minors, on the basis of data recovered from a laptop and other devices seized from an expelled BJP office-bearer arrested on charges of sexually exploiting two children, an official said on Friday.

    Efforts are on to contact these victims and record their statements, said Station House Officer (SHO), Konch police station, Imran Khan.

    Ram Bihari Rathore, the former vice-president of the BJP’s Konch unit, was arrested on Wednesday on the basis of a complaint lodged by the two children.

    Soon after Rathore’s arrest, his laptop, DVD and hard disc were seized from his house.

    During their examination, nine more victims — seven minors and two women — have been identified, Khan said.

    “Efforts are on to contact these victims and their families. Their statements will be recorded,” he said.

    Their statements will be recorded in connection with the existing FIR against Rathore.

    No fresh case is being lodged as of now, he said.

    In the investigation so far, Khan said, no evidence has been found to suggest that the obscene material was being sold to any porn site or in the market.

    Superintendent of Police Yesh Veer Singh had also inspected Rathore’s house and office, the SHO said.

    The two children who had lodged the complaint against Rathore had alleged that he used to sexually abuse them in his office, he added.

    Explaining how the matter came to light, Khan said a few days ago, Rathore had lodged a complaint with the police that his CCTV and digital video recorder (DVR) had been stolen.

    Later, two minors were apprehended with the equipment and questioned.

    During investigation, obscene material was found on the DVR.

    The children who had stolen the equipment were being blackmailed by Rathore with the obscene videos, he said.

    Khan had on Thursday said 15 to 20 videos were found on Rathore’s laptop, DVD and hard disc in which he is seen sexually exploiting children.

    The accused would lure young children by giving them money and made their obscene videos that he would use to blackmail them, he had said.

  • Four arrested for raping, holding minor captive in Lucknow

    By PTI
    LUCKNOW: A 15 year-old-girl was allegedly held captive for 13 months, raped and forced into prostitution in the state capital, police said.

    Four people including a Nepalese national, who is the main accused and works as a school guard, were arrested on Thursday by the Mahanagar police after the girl escaped from captivity and was found to be five months pregnant.

    The main accused, Upreta Kumar, used to take her to different people on the pretext of getting her a job as a house helper and had been raping her for the past 13 months, police said.

    He also used to hand her over to other people for money, police said, adding that she used to be held captive in a room for 15 days, raped and many times was not given anything to eat.

    The girl managed to escape recently and reached home.

    She was found to be five months pregnant when her mother took her to a doctor after she fell ill, police said, adding that a complaint in this regard was lodged with the Mahanagar police on Wednesday.

    Besides the school guard, the others arrested have been identified as Jitu Kashyap, Varun Tiwari and Ajay Kumar, police said, adding a case under the POCSO Act has been lodged against all of them.

    Investigations are on to identify others involved in the crime, police added.

  • UP woman goes missing, cops lodge case against Karnataka man under anti-conversion law

    By PTI
    GORAKHPUR: Police have lodged a case against a Karnataka man for allegedly kidnapping a 19-year-old woman after befriending her, hiding his religious identity, police said on Thursday.

    A missing report was lodged by the woman’s father on January 5 after she did not return home from college, Station House Officer, Chiluatal police station, Neeraj Kumar Rai said.

    “During an investigation and with the help of call records of the woman’s mobile phone, it was found that she used to frequently talk to the man whose name in the Truecaller app was mentioned as Mehboob and the location as Karnataka,” he said.

    A case was lodged against the man on January 11, following which a three-member police team was sent to Karnataka to trace the man and the kidnapped woman, Rai said.

    On the basis of these inputs, the woman’s father lodged an FIR against the man and accused him of allegedly kidnapping his daughter and hiding his Muslim identity, he said.

    The woman’s father, who is a retired Army man, has mentioned in the FIR that last year the man had befriended his daughter through social media and wooed her on the pretext of providing a job.

    Police said that everything would be clear once the accused and the kidnapped woman are traced.

    The case was lodged under sections 366 (kidnapping, abduction or inducing woman to compel her into marriage ) and 363 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code, besides the new anti-conversion law of the Uttar Pradesh government, the SHO said.

    The recently promulgated Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, nullifies marriages if they are carried out for the sole purpose of religious conversion.

  • Bird flu: Authorities cautious in UP’s Bundelkhand districts

    By PTI
    BANDA: Following the confirmation of avian influenza in Uttar Pradesh with the samples of a couple of dead birds in the Kanpur zoo found positive for the disease, the administration in Hamirpur, Chitrakoot and Banda districts in Bundelkhand are exercising extreme caution.

    Some herons and crows were found dead near the Bharua Sumerpur railway station in Hamirpur.

    Veterinary Officer Pankaj Sachan on Tuesday said the birds possibly died due to excessive cold, but “even then the samples have been sent for examination”.

    The carcasses of the birds were burnt and buried.

    He also informed that serum samples of hens from farms have been sent to the (IVRI) in Bareilly for testing.

    People consuming eggs and chicken have been advised to cook the food at a temperature of at least 70 degrees Celsius.

    In Chitrakoot, four teams have been formed to tackle bird flu.

    Around 200 hens in different farms of Bargarh and Ahmadganj were culled on Monday.

    Additional Superintendent of Police of Banda Mahendra Pratap Chauhan said the police stations located along the border with Madhya Pradesh — Mataundh, Girwa, Naraini, Fatehganj and Kalinjar — have been alerted so that eggs and chicken from outside are not brought into the district.

     

  • UP teacher forges documents to secure job, suspended

    By PTI
    GHAZIPUR: An assistant teacher has been suspended here for allegedly furnishing a fake freedom fighter dependent certificate to secure the job, officials said on Tuesday.

    Basic Shiksha Adhikari (Basic Education Officer) Shravan Gupta on Tuesday said that Munna Kumar Pal got recruited in Ballia in 2010.

    Pal, who was transferred here in 2016 as an assistant teacher, was served notice a number of times over furnishing of fake documents, but he did not reply.

    “The teacher was suspended on Monday.

    The salary paid to him will be recovered,” Gupta said.

     

  • Rape survivor who was 7-month pregnant dies in Uttar Pradesh

    By PTI
    BAREILLY: A 15-year-old rape survivor who was seven months pregnant died of pregnancy-related complications at the district hospital here, police said on Sunday.

    She was admitted to the hospital on Saturday night and passed away on Thursday night, they said.

    Additional Director and Superintendent In-Charge of the hospital Dr Subodh Sharma said the girl was brought to the hospital in serious condition and her health deteriorated further.

    Despite best efforts by the doctors, she could not be saved, he added.

    Senior Superintendent of Police, Bareilly, Rohit Singh Sajwan said, “The post-mortem report says that the death took place due to infection.”

    “The viscera of the victim has been preserved,” he added.

    The father of the girl, who was mentally unsound, said the family came to know about their daughter being six-month pregnant on December 6.

    He said she was raped allegedly by a 30-year-old man in a sugarcane field in June last year when she had gone out of the house for some work.

    The accused had threatened her that he will kill her family members if she revealed the incident to them.

    The victim’s father filed a complaint at Fatehganj West police station regarding the rape of his daughter on December 4, following which a case under the POCSO Act and the IPC was registered against the accused, police said.

    The accused was arrested on December 6, they added.

    Station House Officer of Fatehganj West police station Ashwani Kumar said a charge-sheet has been filed in the case.

    The girl’s father had sought permission from the district administration to abort her baby but the permission was denied as doctors cited the pregnancy was of many days and a police case was on.

  • Uttar Pradesh: SDM ‘caught’ on tape misbehaving with woman during public meet

    By PTI
    GORAKHPUR: In a video that surfaced on social media, an SDM was allegedly seen misbehaving with a woman during a public meet in Uttar Pradesh’s Maharajganj district.

    Nichloul SDM Ram Sajeevan Maurya allegedly misbehaved with the woman of Lahrouli village on Thursday, pushing her away in the presence of a crowd of villagers.

    The woman alleged that the SDM was trying to give possession of a piece of common land to some farmers and when she objected to it, he started misbehaving.

    The villagers, along with the woman, submitted a memorandum to the DM in this regard.

    Maurya was in Lahrouli village during a “chaupal” when a dispute over a piece of land came up.

    When Ria Patel tried to show him some documents related to the land, he misbehaved.

    She claimed, “When I tried to show the SDM a document related to the land and said it belongs to everyone, he didn’t look at the paper and started shouting and slapped me. He also tried to slap my mother.”

    “I asked my younger brother to make a video clip with my mobile phone and when he saw my brother doing so, police started chasing him. They also took away my father, though they set him free after some time,” she claimed.

    The district magistrate and the SDM could not be reached for comments despite repeated efforts but local MP Pankaj Chowdhary said the incident will be probed and strict action will be taken against the culprit.

  • UP: Teachers to get psychology tips to help parents deal with kids post-pandemic

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: The Bureau of Psychology in the UP State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) will give tips first to the teachers and with their help to the parents on the way the children should be dealt with in the changing environment and emergent stresses in the changed post-pandemic scenario.

    According to the sources in the bureau, the experts feel that to cope with the emerging new normals related to both the lifestyle and studies owing to the pandemic, counselling of parents is a must to help them understand the challenges being faced by their children and enlighten them accordingly.

    Keeping these factors in mind, the Bureau of Psychology is readying the guidelines for the parents besides preparing training modules for basic and secondary level school teachers.

    As per the scheme of things, first, the teachers would be trained and then they would be roped in to help counsel parents so that they could deal with the kids in this new digital age, said a senior psychologist at the bureau.

    According to the psychologists, parents often come across unusual behaviour of their child who fails to put enough efforts to score good marks in tests. “Lack of concentration due to distractions at home and related distress could be the reason for their poor and ‘not up to the mark’ performance in various walks of life,” says a noted psychologist Pallavi Bhatnagar.

    “This calls for the counselling of the children but usually parents are hesitant to take them to a psychologist despite clear signs of distress, lack of focus and lack of confidence,” says a senior psychologist of the bureau.

    Often parents expect their children to achieve what they had once aspired for. In such a situation, parents exert undue pressure on children and often set the goals for their life contrary to their area of interest and aptitude, says Bhatnagar. This attitude of the parents leads to various complications for thechildren who keep on striving to fulfil the dreams of their parents often slipping into depression and other behavioural manifestations.

    “This retards the growth of the children and they fail to give their maximum in whatever they are doing,” she adds.

    Meanwhile, the bureau is designing counselling and training modules for teachers through whom parents would be counselled. The design includes the parents of mentally-retarded and handicapped children too, said another senior psychologist of the bureau.

    He added that the teachers of government-run primary, upper primary and secondary schools of the state using these guidelines and lessons could prepare parents to better handle their children. This can be done in the meetings of the School Management Committee (SMC) and the Parents Teacher Meetings (PTMs).

  • Badaun rape case: Accused priest nabbed from disciple’s house, grilled

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: Baba Satyanarain Das, the main accused of the Badaun gangrape and murder case, was arrested by the police during a raid on the house of one of his disciples at a village where he was hiding, on Thursday night. 

    The other two men, said to be his disciples, were arrested on Tuesday.

    A 50-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and murdered by the priest and his two accomplices — Ved Ram and Yashpal — in Badaun district on Sunday. The victim had left home for the temple at around 6 pm on that day. When she did not return for two-three hours, her family went to the police station but were turned back. Later that night, at around 11:30 pm, three men dumped the half-naked body, profusely bleeding and badly bruised outside her home and fled. 

    According to the victim’s family, the three men were temple priest Baba Satyanarain Das and two of his accomplices Ved Ram and driver Yashpal. The deceased, a mother of five, was the sole earning member of her family.

    The main accused, who had been carrying a cash reward of Rs 50,000 on his arrest, had fled the temple premises where the crime was committed. The district police had set up four teams to nab Satyanarain and the raids were conducted at his different possible hideouts in Uttarakhand, Bareilly, Chandausi and Kasganj in western UP. However, he was found hiding in the village adjacent to the temple.

    “On Thursday midnight, that ‘mahant’ (priest) Satyanarain was hiding in the house of his follower in a village under Ughaiti police station from where he was picked up,” said District Magistrate Kumar Prashant.

    He was immediately arrested and interrogated by a police team, added the DM. Based on complaints from the family members and the post-mortem report, a case has been registered under sections 376D (gang-rape) and 302 (punishment for murder) of the IPC.

    The FIR was registered on Tuesday after an autopsy confirmed rape.

    Meanwhile, a case was lodged against the suspended Ughaiti police station SHO Ravindra Pratap Singh and beat Inspector Amarjeet on Thursday night for their supine attitude and laxity in handling the case. Both the cops are accused of failing to reach the crime spot despite having the information of the gangrape and murder.

    Following the directives of the SSP Sankalp Sharma, both the cops were booked under Section 166A of IPC (police responsible for delays in registering an FIR  after a victim makes a complaint). The punishment under the section ranges from six months’ to two years’ imprisonment.

    They had informed senior officials about the incident 17 hours after the incident, the SSP said.

    According to ADG zone, Avinash Chandra, a four-member team was set up to probe into the incident. The ADG confirmed that a case was lodged against the erring cops.

    However, if the local sources are to be believed, Satyanarain used to perform exorcism and he used to treat mental ailments as well. The victim used to frequent the temple and often the priest would also visit her house.

    Sources said that the victim’s husband has been mentally retarded. The children of the victim also confirmed this.

  • Don’t want to live with husband as he refused to accept Islam: UP woman to magistrate

    By PTI
    AURAIYA: A 21-year-old Muslim woman who had married a Hindu man last month against wishes of her family appeared before a magistrate here and said she doesn’t want to live with her husband as he refused to accept Islam, police said on Thursday.

    According to a marriage certificate produced by Nazra, a resident of Senganpur village here, she had married Akash of Kulgaon village at an Arya Samaj temple on December 21 after changing her name to Neha, Bamaen police post incharge Devi Sah Verma said on Thursday.

    As her husband Akash did not accept Islam, she gave a statement before the magistrate on Wednesday that she does not want to live with him.

    She was sent with her parents, Verma said.

    Both Nazra and Akash were in a relationship, which was opposed by their families.

    On October 12, both had left their home, Verma said.

    Two days after, the woman’s father Allahudin lodged a case against Akash and one other Raj Kumar for luring his daughter, Verma said.

    He alleged that she took away Rs 80,000 cash and ornaments worth lakhs of rupees.

    Police said the woman’s statement has been recorded and her medical examination has also been done.