A court here on Saturday sentenced a 34-year-old man to life imprisonment for abducting and raping the 16-year-old daughter of his landlord two years ago.
Judge Deepak Dubey convicted Nepu alias Sajid (34) under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for the crime that occurred in August 2020, Public Prosecutor Lalit Kumar Sharma said. The POCSO court also imposed a fine of Rs 85000 on the convict, he said.
The culprit’s wife had died and he along with his four-year-old son lived in rented accommodation.The landlord’s minor daughter, a class nine student, would frequently visit his room to play with this son, Sharma said.
The culprit lured the minor girl and took her to Indore, where he repeatedly raped her for two days, he alleged. The girl’s mother lodged a complaint on August 17, 2020 after which the police rescued the minor from Indore.
Based on her statement, the police incorporated sections of rape under IPC and POCSO Act in the FIR against the accused and arrested him. However, he was later released on bail, the public prosecutor said.
The judgement was to be pronounced on Friday but the accused fled from the court premises after the lunch hour following which the judge issued an arrest warrant against him. The police nabbed the culprit from the railway station area hours later and produced him before the judge on Saturday.
Union minister Smriti Irani on Saturday said Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal was peddling “new dreams and lies” during electioneering in Gujarat.
She said women in Gujarat will never vote for Kejriwal for supporting those who had conspired to deprive Gujarat and Gujaratis of Narmada dam water.
Addressing a gathering of workers of BJP’s women wing here, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development said the AAP national convener had felicitated those who had conspired to deprive people of the Narmada water. She accused the AAP of trying to buy BJP workers with money.
Irani alleged Kejriwal is fighting the upcoming elections by spreading lies about the people of Gujarat but he will taste defeat the same way he lost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“He is now in Gujarat to peddle new dreams and lies.. I would like to tell those who are here to contest the election that PM Modi has gifted Gujarat and Gujaratis the gift of Vande Bharat and Ahmedabad metro trains, but your (AAP’s) ugly truth is that you are involved in a scam in the purchase of DTC buses in Delhi,” she said.
Kejriwal has promised a slew of “guarantees” including unemployment allowance for youth and women, free power, healthcare and education, during his campaigning in Gujarat which is mainly centred on the “Delhi model”.
Calling Kejriwal a “dream merchant from Delhi,” Irani said Modi, as the chief minister of Gujarat, had struggled to ensure that women get clean drinking water from the Narmada river in their households and every family get water security.
On the other hand, Kejriwal feted those who had tried to deprive Gujarat and Gujaratis of Narmada water.
Assembly elections are due in Gujarat in December this year.
“He (Kejriwal) is visiting Gujarat with darkness. But he must listen carefully that there is so much light of development in Gujarat that he will go blind. These women are not going to be fooled by him. They will vote for the lotus symbol in the polls and once again bring the BJP to power,” Irani said.
She said 10 crore households got clean drinking water from taps under the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission launched under the prime minister’s leadership.
“On the other hand, 690 slums in Delhi are still deprived of drinking water despite Kejriwal being in power for eight years,” the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said.
Kejriwal on Saturday began his two-day visit to Gujarat accompanied by Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann.
“The person who supports those who conspired to deprive the people of Gujarat of water and also the poor residents of 690 slums (in Delhi) has come to Gujarat with a bag of dreams,” she said.
The Union minister said while the BJP government in Gujarat provided milk to women and children under the Doodh Sanjeevani Yojana- a nutritional scheme, Kejriwal ran a “pink theka” (of liquor), an apparent reference to the alleged Delhi liquor scam.
She accused Kejriwal of “running away” when confronted with a question based on an RTI query “revealing that he never visited a government school in his Assembly constituency and never granted funds for a school there”.
She alleged AAP leaders in Gujarat “dragged PM Modi’s mother in their dirty politics and insulted her”. “But women of Gujarat will respond to this”.
Turning to Congress, Irani said Rahul Gandhi is going everywhere but not visiting Gujarat on the advice of his party members that his presence harms the prospects of Congress.
“Whenever he (Rahul Gandhi) comes here, ask him whether he patted the back of the man who had slaughtered a cow and attended a sabha where ‘Bharat Mata’ was insulted during his (Bharat Jodo) Yatra,” she said.
“I think he will not come (to Gujarat). Even the people of his party have requested him not to come, saying whenever he comes, the votes of the party drop,” she said.
At the Mahila Morcha event, Irani launched BJP’s “Hello Kamal Shakti”- a dedicated phone number for women to dial and reach out to the party. The BJP has set a target of 20 lakh women to call up this number.
At the event, former BJP minister Maya Kodnani, who was acquitted in a 2002 riots case by the Gujarat High Court in 2018, was felicitated along with other senior women leaders.
A 26-year-old person died and three others were injured after two men on a motorcycle allegedly fired at them in suburban Kandivali, police said on Saturday. The incident, which the police say was a fallout of personal enmity, occurred around 11.30 pm on Friday at Laljipada on Link Road.
“The two accused came on a motorcycle and fired four rounds, in which one person was killed and three others injured. The victims were standing in a group when the miscreants fired at them and fled from the spot,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-11) Vishal Thakur said.
"All roads of Mumbai will be concretised in the next 3 years": BMC chief Chahal to HC 5
BMC commissioner and administrator Iqbal Chahal on Friday told Bombay high court that within three years “every inch” of roads, including lanes and bylanes, in Mumbai will be concretised.
He was replying to a query from Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Makarand Karnik at a hearing where he gave a PowerPoint presentation, ‘Towards Pothole-Free Mumbai: An Action Plan’, and explained the difficulties in addressing the problem of potholes.
Starting from 6am there would be traffic restrictions due to the political Dussehra rally. The Mumbai Police have imposed restrictions on vehicular movement.
“Heavy vehicular movement is prohibited for 24 hours from 6 am on Oct 5 during Dussehra & Devi immersion processions in the city. Ambulance, vehicles for essential supplies, govt & semi govt vehicles & vehicles carrying people for Dussehra Rally exempted”, DCP Mumbai Police said.
Uddhav Thackeray said Dussehra gatherings keep happening but there’s only one Shiv Sena Du-ssehra rally which is held at Shivaji Park.
“There is only one Shiv Sena. Such Dussehra gat-herings keep happening. Pankajatai also holds one on Dussehra. But the Shiv Sena’s is the only one at Shivaji Park,” Uddhav said, addressing workers at his Bandra residence.
Striking a buoyant note, Uddhav referred to Banjara community leader Mahant Sunil Maharaj joining his faction on Friday, which some say represents a setback for rebel Sena MLA and FDA minister Sanjay Rathod, who banks on the same constituency.
Maharaj is a popular leader in the community and Thackeray may field him in the assembly polls against Rathod.
Meanwhile, a day after the Shinde faction launched a tea-ser video for its Dussehra rally, the Thackeray camp launched its own teaser.
It opens with a photo of Sena founder Bal Th-ackeray with Uddhav’s voice in the background addressing ‘Hindu brothers, sisters and mothers.’
On Thursday, the Shinde faction released a 20-second video announcing a Dussehra rally at MMRDA grounds.
The teaser posted by Shinde said it was a ‘Shiv Sena’ event. The video tweet by Shinde, with the voice of Bal Thackeray in the background, said the saffron flag of Shivaji, Shiv Sena and Hindutva should continue to flutter.
The Bharatiya Janata Party will conduct a 15-minute silent protest near the statue of Mahatama Gandhi in Patna on Sunday to protest against the “deteriorating law and order conditions in Bihar,” former deputy chief minister of the state Sushil Kumar Modi said.
“The BJP will stage a kind of symbolic protest by holding a 15-minute silence against the increasing crime and deteriorating law and order conditions in the state,” Sushil Modi told media.
The decision came following an attack on BJP leader and contractor Bablu Singh who was shot at by assailants in Friends Colony in Bihar’s Arrah on Friday while he was on a morning walk.
Sushil Modi claimed that such incidents of firing come to the fore regularly. “The law and order situation is regularly deteriorating in Bihar. Five people had lost their lives after a violent scuffle took place between sand mafia at a distance of 30km from the venue of the Investor’s Meet which was held in Patna. The culprits were so strong in themselves that they even took the dead bodies and police have not found them till date,” he said adding that they attacked the police again when they went to conduct a raid in the same area.
Comparing the crime rate in the state, the former Deputy CM said that such attacks never happened under BJP’s governance. “When the BJP was in power in the state, such incidents where criminals attack police personnel and five people are killed in an illegal sand mine. Never had it taken place that the criminals were roaming freely,” he said. He further alleged that people in Bihar are afraid that “Lalu Raj” has returned to the state. “Wherever such criminal offences occur, the members of the party go to meet the victim,” he added. Sushil Modi further said that they have taken all details of the attack on Bablu Singh and to pressurise the government, a symbolic protest will be staged.
Two missing children were reunited with their parents by the Child Protection Unit of Thane Crime Branch, a police official said on Saturday.
A 15-year-old boy who had gone missing from Neral in Raigad district was found loitering at Matunga railway station in Mumbai, while a 10-year-old boy missing from Malegaon in Nashik was also traced, he said.
“The children were lodged in remand homes in Matunga and Kurla in Mumbai by local police teams that had found them. We contacted authorities and reunited them with their parents,” he said.
“We have reunited 28 missing children with their parents since April this year. These children hail from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh,” Sub Inspector Sandeep Khade of CPU said.
On Saturday police officials said a one-day-old girl died as she was abandoned and thrown in the bushes on the road of Kalyan in the Thane district.
The deceased newborn baby was found by a woman on Friday around 5:30 pm after which it was informed to the police. The details of the report was been shared by ‘Kolsewadi Police Station’
When police got to the know about the newborn baby thrown in the bushes they quickly reached the place and rushed to the hospital after the arrival of the infant at the hospital doctors declared her dead.
Police have registered a case and an investigation is still taking place. Police will soon nab the people who have abandoned her and thrown in the bushes.
In a bid to curb vehicular pollution, the AAP government has decided that petrol and diesel will not be provided without PUC (pollution under control) certificate at petrol pumps in the national capital from October 25, Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said on Saturday.
He said that a notification in this regard will also be issued soon. A meeting of officials from environment, transport and traffic departments was convened on September 29 to discuss the implementation and modalities where it was decided to go ahead with the plan from October 25, the minister said.
“Vehicular emission is one of the key contributors to rising pollution in Delhi. It is imperative to reduce it so it has been decided that from October 25 petrol, diesel will not be provided at petrol pumps without PUC certificate of the vehicle,” Rai said in a press conference here.
He also said that the Delhi government will launch its 24X7 war room on October 3 to combat pollution and ensure effective and serious implementation of amended Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
The minister said that anti-dust campaign will also be launched in Delhi from October 6, where sudden inspections will be conducted at construction sites to check the dust pollution.
China’s President Xi Jinping aims to seize on the control over the internet to curb holding of it as it might Chinese Communist Party’s regime.
The president said he is moving toward “smart governance” which can also mean that it needs social and political control and it also stated that smart governance is important to function in cyberspace it would be using Artificial Intelligence, big data, and cloud computing in the increased numbers.
Vinu Dharunesh, associate research fellow writing in Indo-pacific Center for Strategic communications said that the largest military conglomerates in the world are seizing control of cyber security to eliminate threats
Chinese Electronics Technology Group (CETC), a state-owned military conglomerate deployed military-style surveillance — using the Hikvision Digital Technology, and command of networks across China that includes a facial recognition system that is capable of automatically identifying people, also run ethical profiling on them and tracking almost every being in sight of the cameras.
This step taken by CETC is to strengthen ‘national security as they say it. However, it’s still quite unsure how widely specific patent-registered technologies have been used in practice — in this article, we’ll dive into how they would use technologies to monitor cyberspace, said Vinu Dharunesh J.
The Chinese state’s priorities are to harness methods in policing online activity and ‘somewhat…’ quite undetected, naturally, influencing and guiding public opinions. Why? This is to eliminate any sorts of rising risks against CCP’s regime. Controlling public opinions is basically removing direct political blowups — anything that could make the world raise fingers at China or Chinese citizens protesting.
According to a report by the Jamestown Foundation, CETC openly declares that its purpose is “leveraging civilian electronics” to gain the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
There are concerns raised against CETC’s military links to its work with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in the past, reported IPCSC.
CETC is allegedly involved in human rights abuses which prompted US sanctions on some of its research institutes and subsidiaries, including Hikvision Digital Technology.
The company is the largest manufacturer of surveillance equipment. Information gathered from multiple sources cites that they’re responsible for supporting massive human rights violations against ethnic and religious minorities in China.
Moreover, the Hikvision cameras and monitoring services are regularly used by CCP to spy on Uyghurs. Similarly, internet-connected devices are manufactured by Tuya, a Chinese company backed by state-owned Tencent.
Tuya’s hardware, software, and cloud services power more than 100 million “smart” devices — including consumer products, surveillance equipment, manufacturing, and supply chain applications that are proliferating across the world, said Vinu Dharunesh J. Meanwhile, Beijing stated that it is the “new era” where they are focusing on military technologies, skills and training, and a shift towards “intelligentisation.”
