A three-year-old girl was mauled to death by a leopard at a village near Kasara in Thane district in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said.

The victim, Deepali Bhagat, was sleeping beside her mother in their thatched hut at Doipada village under Sahapur taluka near Kasara when the leopard dragged away the child at around 5AM, according to the police statement.

Later, the villagers found her mauled body in a nearby forest.

The Kasara police went to the spot and sent the body for postmortem.

Sahapur MLA Pandurang Barora said forest officials were summoned to the spot along with the medical officers and policemen.

Barora said an immediate relief of Rs 20,000 has been given to the family. An additional assistance of Rs 5 lakh would be given to them within a couple of days by the forest department, he added.

A mentally challenged teenaged girl was allegedly raped repeatedly by a 50-year-old man at a village in the district, police said on Sunday.

The accused Yeshwant Rayat used to stalk the girl, who lived in his neighbourhood in Kamdipada village of Sahapur taluka, when she would go out for grazing the cattle, Assistant Police Inspector N D Gaikwad said.

He had been following the girl for last three months and allegedly raped her several times her by dragging her to a secluded place in a forest where she used to take cattle for grazing, he said.

Fed up with the frequent sexual harassment, the girl informed her mother about it on Saturday following which the duo registered a complaint with Sahapur police station.

Offences have been registered under section 376 (rape) of IPC and sections 4 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Gaikwad said, adding that efforts were on to nab the accused.

Observing that investors who have put in their life savings in a company cannot be made to wait indefinitely to get their deposits, the Bombay High Court has refused to grant extension to Elder Pharmaceuticals Ltd to repay money to the tune of Rs 155 crore to various investors.

Justice S C Gupte last week rejected an appeal filed by the company challenging an order passed by the Company Law Board (CLB) refusing to grant further time to repay the deposits.
Elder Pharmaceuticals sought further time on the ground that it had opened talks with financiers to infuse fresh equity of Rs 170 crore into the ailing company.

Justice Gupte noted that while the company has been talking of this new deal for a long time, it will not help it pay the deposit holders because of an existing commitment to pay a clutch of debenture holders Rs. 263 crore first.
“Many of the depositors are small-time investors and individuals who have invested their life’s savings in the company to fund their retirements as children’s education. These investors cannot be asked to wait indefinitely till the company executes an agreement with a financier and the financier, in turn, brings in the finance.” the court said.

HC also admitted 24 winding up petitions against the company, run by TV actor Anuj Saxena, who is the COO, and his brother Alok, who is the COO, and his brother Alok, who is the firm’s CEO.

Poet and critic Adil Jussawalla, who received the Sahitya Akademi honour for his work in 2014, today urged the literary body to condemn the “unacceptable censoring” of writers by “violently intolerant groups.”

In a letter to Sahitya Akademi president Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, Jussawalla, while referring to the murder of Kannada writer M M Kalburgi and the killings of rationalists Narendra Dhabolkar and Govind Pansare, urged the body to speak up and issue a statement condemning the state of affairs.

“I realise that the Akademi has rules and regulations but I do feel that it should condemn what is happening to the writing community. What I don’t understand is the lack of urgency. Instead of waiting for December when the Akademi convenes for its executive meeting, it should expedite the matter urgently,” said Jussawalla.

The poet, who is based in Mumbai, said he “believed this is the time for it to boldly state that it unequivocally supports the rights of this nation’s writers and condemns the violence used to suppress or destroy those rights.”

“The murder of writers M. M. Kalburgi, Narendra Dhabolkar and Govind Pansare and the unacceptable censoring of many other writers by violently intolerant groups must be condemned,” he said.

Earlier, Tiwari in a statement had said that though he was pained by the reports of writers’ protests, the Akademi can express its views only after getting requisite approval from the Executive Board when it meets next.

Jussawallah said the Akademi “cannot take cover under the pretext of being an autonomous institution”.

“It has a duty to speak up for all writers not only those that have received awards but also for those who are butchered and silenced by killings.” he told.

A delegation of leaders from BJP, Shiv Sena along with builders from Thane and Mumbai met Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demanded strict action in connection with alleged suicide of a city-based builder.

A delegation comprising Thane Guardian Minister Eknath Shinde, MLAs Pratap Sarnaik and Mangalprabhat Lodha and around 30 builders from Thane and Mumbai met Fadnavis last night in connection with the case.

Sarnaik told a section of media that Fadnavis has taken a serious note of problems faced by builders.

“We have demanded strict action in the suicide case of Sooraj Parmar and appraised him on his suicide and also explained him the circumstances in which Parmar had to take the extreme step,” he said.

“He (the Chief Minister) has said that no one will be spared in connection with Parmar’s suicide case,” the Shiv Sena MLA said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry Thane unit will hold a protest march on September 13 demanding strict inquiry into the case.

On October 7, Parmar allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself apparently because he was fed up with government’s regulations and faced problems by realty developers.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the public transport system in the country’s financial capital must be integrated to turn it into a smart city and an international financial hub.

“If Mumbai has to become a smart city and international financial hub, its public transport should be smart,” Fadnavis said.

He was speaking at an event where the Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of two Metro corridors– Andheri East-Dahisar East and Dahisar-DN Nagar.

Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and Santosh Gangwar, RPI chief Ramdas Athawle, Governor Vidyasagar Rao, state planning body MMRDA commissioner UPS Madan were also present.

“Today nearly one crore population of Mumbai is using the public transport. In the last 10 years, due to the lack of transport facilities, use of private vehicles increased by 10 per cent, so the congestion increased….Our government intends to create a strong network of public transport,” Fadnavis said.

The government intends to create a Metro network of 108 km by 2019, he said. “Apart from Metro, we have also got the MUTP phase 3 for increasing the suburban railway network, which has been sanctioned by the Centre. We are also creating elevated corridors and all these will be integrated,” he said.

The Chief Minister also said the Metros, monorails, railways, coastal road and bus transport will all be integrated in a way that commutation in Mumbai and the surrounding Mumbai Metropolitan Region will be hassle-free and can be done in one hour between two points.

A single-ticket system would be introduced, he said.