Bollywood actor-director Mahesh Thakur, proprietor of the film production company Kreative Flight Films Pvt Ltd, was duped of Rs5.4 crore, which he had paid to a lawyer from Haryana to bail him out of a property dispute.
Oshiwara police registered an FIR against Mayank Goyal (34) on Tuesday based on a written complaint by Thakur (54).
Goyal, made the actor believe that he had done documentation at the high court and Supreme Court. Goyal made Thakur part with money as his fees, to gain Thakur’s confidence, Goyal through online video conferences showed fake audio and video clips of court arguments and hearings,” said the officer of Oshiwara police station.
The fraud began in August 2021, according to police, when Goyal came in contact with Thakur, assuring him to getting out of the property dispute in the HC, SC and government department.
“On the pretext of helping Goyal he collected money between August 2021 and September 2022, before he went into hiding and switched off his mobile,” said the officer.
The Bombay High Court will on Thursday hear a petition filed by the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena seeking permission to hold its annual Dussehra rally at the iconic Shivaji Park in central Mumbai on October 5.
The petition, seeking urgent hearing, was mentioned before a division bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and Kamal Khata on Wednesday. The bench posted it for hearing on Thursday.
The plea said the party was constrained to approach the HC as the Mumbai civic body was yet to take a decision on their applications submitted in August seeking permission for the rally.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad on Thursday arrested 20 activists of the Popular Front of India (PFI) from the state during a multi-agency operation for allegedly indulging in unlawful activities promoting enmity among communities and waging a war against the country, an official said.
In near simultaneous raids across the length and breadth of the country, a multi-agency operation spearheaded by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday led to the arrest of 106 PFI activists in 11 states for allegedly supporting terror activities in the country, officials said.
A total of 106 Popular Front of India (PFI) cadres were arrested on Thursday in a joint operation conducted by the National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Directorate and state police forces across 11 states in the country’s multiple locations, sources said on Thursday.
Among the states where the raids were conducted include Andhra Pradesh (5), Assam (9), Delhi (3), Karnataka (20), Kerala (22), Madhya Pradesh (4), Maharashtra (20), Puducherry (3), Rajasthan (2), Tamil Nadu (10) and Uttar Pradesh (8).
The searches were conducted at multiple locations in the largest ever investigation process till date. The operation started late in the night around 1 am and learnt to be concluded by 5 am involving over 1,500 personnel of state police, Central Armed Police Forces and officers of NIA and ED.
Several incriminating documents, more than 100 bile phones, laptops and other materials have been seized by the raiding teams. These searches were conducted at the residential and official premises of persons involved in “funding terrorism, organising training camps and radicalising people to join proscribed organisations”.
“In a major action across 10 states, NIA, ED and state police have arrested more than 100 cadres of PFI,” sources told media earlier today. Meanwhile, more than 50 members of the PFI protested against the raids outside the party office in the Dindigul district earlier today.
The PFI and SDPI workers staged a protest in Karnataka’s Mangaluru against the raids, following which they were detained by the state police. PFI workers sat on the road in protest against the NIA raid at the party office in Chennai.
NIA earlier this month also raided 40 places in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh in a PFI case and detained four persons.
The agency had then conducted searches at 38 locations in Telangana (23 in Nizamabad, four in Hyderabad, seven in Jagityal, two in Nirmal, one each in Adilabad and Karimnagar districts) and at two locations in Andhra Pradesh (one each in Kurnool and Nellore districts) in the case relating to Abdul Khader of Nizamabad district in Telangana and 26 other persons.
In the operation, NIA had seized incriminating materials, including digital devices, documents, two daggers and Rs 8,31,500 cash.
As per NIA, the accused were “organizing camps for imparting training to commit terrorist acts and to promote enmity between different groups on the basis of religion”.
The PFI was launched in Kerala in 2006 after merging three Muslim organizations floated after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 – the National Development Front of Kerala, Karnataka Forum for Dignity and Manitha Neethi Pasari of Tamil Nadu.
After the demolition of the Babri mosque, many fringe outfits had surfaced in south India and PFI was formed after merging some of them.
More than two dozen representatives of various taxi and rickshaw unions in the city met the Maharashtra Industry Minister on Tuesday and discussed their demands. After the meeting, the union leadership announced that they decided to postpone the proposed strike. The indefinite auto and taxi strike announced by the unions in Mumbai from September 15 seeking fare hikes has been adjourned after a meeting with the Maharashtra Industry Minister Uday Samant. Over 48,000 taxi drivers and two lakh, autorickshaw drivers in Mumbai were supposed to go on an indefinite strike.
Mohan Tripathi an auto driver said, “My auto rickshaw is on rental; I have to manage fuel and also the rent of my vehicle. Many auto-rickshaw drivers are unable to pay even EMI to the bank due to low fares. Above all Ola and Uber have taken our half of the business, survival has become tough.”
Tarannum Shaikh, a maid house assistant by profession said, “We poor people have already suffered the losses, now the fare hike for commuting would be another burden. Bus, train, and now auto fare hike. How much stress can a common man take?”
A L Quadros, General Secretary of Mumbai Taximen’s Union, told Afternoon Voice, “We know the common public cannot afford huge fares but our demand to increase the minimum taxi fare to Rs 35 from the existing Rs 25 taxi and auto drivers are ready to accept whatever hike they are eligible to get on the basis of the state transport control committee’s report. However, if the control committee offers a hike of Rs 28 or Rs 30, we are okay with that too as our main demand is an increase in fare.”
The union was demanding a fare hike and asked the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Transport Authority (MMRTA) to take a decision soon. While the minimum fare for the metered taxis is currently Rs 25, in their written petition to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the taxi union demanded that the fares should be revised to Rs 30. Similarly, rickshaw unions are also demanding a revision in minimum fare from Rs 21 to Rs 23.
In their meeting with minister Samant, the unions also pushed for a 40 per cent subsidy on CNG gas used for auto rickshaws and taxis. Until this demand is met, an interim increase in the fare of rickshaws and taxis based on the recommendation of the Khatuwa Committee should be given, they asked the minister. As per taxi unions, over the last few months, CNG prices have increased by almost 70 per cent but the fares have remained the same making it difficult for auto and taxi drivers to make ends meet. The auto and taxi unions had called for a strike on August 1. However, the decision was deferred after the government assured that the fares would be revised.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday, met with many Muslim intellectuals including Chief Imam, Dr Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi.
As per sources close to RSS, issues like the Hijab controversy, Gyanvapi and maintenance of peace and harmony among religions were discussed in the meeting. Other than Bhagwat, senior RSS members including Dr Krishna Gopal, Indresh Kumar, Ramlal and Karish Kumar also participated in today’s meeting.
Sunil Ambekar, the Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh of RSS told to agencies that the meeting was a part of the ‘Samvad’ process. “RSS Sarsanghachalak meets people from all walks of life. It’s the part of a continuous general “Samvad” process,” Ambekar said.
The controversy over Hijab erupted from Karnataka college and is currently being heard in Supreme Court. It also came up in the findings of intelligence agencies that PFI was behind triggering the controversy.
After the controversy erupted regarding Gyanvapi also, the RSS Chief met with Muslim intellectuals and academicians.
Earlier on Tuesday, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat met with many Muslim intellectuals and discussed recent controversies and ways to strengthen religious inclusivity in the country.
As per the sources close to RSS, the meeting was held for propagating the ideas of Sangh and for promoting the theme of religious inclusivity. Recent incidents like the Gyanvapi controversy, the Hijab controversy, and population control were discussed in the meeting.
The meeting was attended by many intellectuals like former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) S Y Qureshi, former Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung, former Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Lieutenant General Zameer Uddin Shah, former MP Shahid Siddiqui and businessman Saeed Shervani.
Earlier, during the time of Ram Mandir’s judgment as well, RSS had got active. The senior RSS members met with Muslim intellectuals and propagated the message that whatever order comes out, everybody will be accepting it peacefully.
Similarly, Bhagwat’s meeting with Arshad Madani back in 2019 also grabbed eyeballs. RSS has always specified that nationalism should be in everyone’s heart irrespective of one’s religious leaning.
MLA Sada Sarvankar, of the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena, filed an application in the Bombay High Court on Thursday, seeking the court to not hear or decide the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena’s petition for permission to hold their annual Dussehra rally at the Shivaji Park in Mumbai.
Sarvankar said if the HC passes any order on the issue, then it would cause impediment on the ongoing dispute on who represents the “real Shiv Sena”.
The application is likely to be mentioned on Thursday before a division bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and Kamal Khata, which is scheduled to hear the petition filed by Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and its secretary Anil Desai on Wednesday seeking permission to hold the Dussehra rally at the Shivaji Park on October 5.
In his application, Sarvankar, the MLA from Dadar in Mumbai, said he belongs to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction, who is the “Mukyaneta of Shiv Sena”.
He claimed the petition filed by the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena is “misleading and misrepresentation” (of facts) as they do not belong to the real Shiv Sena political party.
“As on date, there exists a dispute on who represents the real Shiv Sena and the issue is pending before the Election Commission of India and also the Supreme Court,” the application said.
Under the garb of the present petition, the petitioners (Thackeray-led Shiv Sena) were trying to lay claim on the Shiv Sena, it said.
Sarvankar said on August 30 he had also filed an application to the Mumbai civic body seeking permission to hold the Shiv Sena’s annual Dussehra rally at the iconic Shivaji Park in central Mumbai.
He claimed the majority support from the Shiv Sena is for Eknath Shinde, and Uddhav Thackeray has no support within the party.
“In the past, this applicant (Sarvankar) was the one who used to file application to the BMC seeking permission to hold the rally at Shivaji Park,” Sarvankar said in the plea.
It sought the HC to stay the hearing on the petition filed by Thackeray led Sena till the ECI and the Supreme Court hear and finally decide on the dispute.
In a related development, Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal told PTI on Thursday that the civic administration has denied permission to both the Shiv Sena factions for holding the rally at the Shivaji Park.
The permission has been denied on the basis of law and order issue raised by Mumbai Police, according to civic officials.
In a major crackdown on the Popular Front of India (PFI), the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids at eight places in Tamil Nadu in the early hours on Thursday.
NIA conducted searches at in the Madurai city area including Villapuram, Gomatipuram, and Kulamangalam.
More than 50 members of the PFI are protesting against the raids outside the party office in the Dindigul district.
The raids are also being conducted against the PFI across 10 states in the country by the NIA and the ED, in which over 100 leaders were arrested, according to the sources on Thursday.
The searches are being conducted at multiple locations in the largest ever investigation process till date including Purnia in Bihar, and several locations linked to PFI across Maharashtra.
The PFI and SDPI workers staged a protest in Karnataka’s Mangaluru against the raids, following which they were detained by the state police.
PFI workers sat on the road in protest against the NIA raid at the party office in Chennai.
These searches are being conducted at the residential and official premises of persons involved in “funding terrorism, organising training camps and radicalising people to join proscribed organisations”.
“In a major action across 10 states, NIA, ED and state police have arrested more than 100 cadres of PFI,” sources told media.
The raids were conducted in Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and many more states, said sources.
NIA earlier this month also raided 40 places in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh in a PFI case and detained four persons. The agency had then conducted searches at 38 locations in Telangana (23 in Nizamabad, four in Hyderabad, seven in Jagityal, two in Nirmal, one each in Adilabad and Karimnagar districts) and at two locations in Andhra Pradesh (one each in Kurnool and Nellore districts) in the case relating to Abdul Khader of Nizamabad district in Telangana and 26 other persons.
In the operation, NIA had seized incriminating materials, including digital devices, documents, two daggers and Rs 8,31,500 cash.
As per NIA, the accused were “organizing camps for imparting training to commit terrorist acts and to promote enmity between different groups on the basis of religion”.
The PFI was launched in Kerala in 2006 after merging three Muslim organizations floated after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 – the National Development Front of Kerala, Karnataka Forum for Dignity and Manitha Neethi Pasari of Tamil Nadu.
After the demolition of the Babri mosque, many fringe outfits had surfaced in south India and PFI was formed after merging some of them.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has said that there is no evidence of involvement of Republic TV and R Bharat in the case of manipulation of Television Rating Points (TRP).
The central agency said that its findings were at “variance” with the investigation carried out by the Mumbai Police.
It was alleged in October 2020 that Arnab Goswami-owned Republic TV and R Bharat were manipulating the TRP numbers. Earlier on September 15, the ED had filed a chargesheet in a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The chargesheet was filed after the central agency filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in November 2020.
In November 2020, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch filed a chargesheet which suggested that Republic TV had tampered with the TRP ratings of television channels thus benefitting from the alleged scam and generating better advertisement revenue.
The Crime Branch had charge-sheeted Arnab Goswami who is the Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV in June 2021, as an accused.
However, the ED disclosed that there is a variance between the investigation being conducted by the Mumbai Police and its own probe in this case. The ED said that it had not got any evidence, be it digital or a statement, that Republic TV had manipulated the TRP numbers.
ED claimed that the forensic audit report that the Mumbai Police relied upon in the TRP case is “superficial” and is based on limited points only. In addition, the central agency said that there is evidence of a few regional and entertainment channels that have indulged in the rigging of TRPs.
The ED also added that the investigation against two other news channels- News Nation and India Today has not yet concluded. The ED’s ECIR (FIR) was filed on the basis of an FIR filed by the Mumbai Police in November 2020 in the TRP case.
Asserting that the bond between the Shiv Sena and Mumbai was unbreakable, party president Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday dared the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) to hold Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections and Maharashtra Assembly polls in a month and defeat his outfit.
Accusing the BJP, which is part of the state government, of speaking “blatant lies” on the Rs 1.54 lakh crore Vedanta-Foxconn semiconductor plan coming up in Gujarat, Thackeray attacked Chief Minister Eknath Shinde for sitting quiet over Maharashtra losing out on the project and “prostrating” before Delhi.
The former chief minister, addressing party workers at suburban Goregaon, said the Centre is giving huge incentives to the project after it was moved to the adjoining BJP-ruled state.
A blame-game erupted in Maharashtra following the announcement last week that the joint venture semiconductor project of Indian conglomerate Vedanta and Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, proposed to be set up near Pune city earlier, will come up in Gujarat now.
At the rally attended by his wife Rashmi and second son Tejas, Thackeray asserted that his party’s annual Dussehra rally will take place at its traditional venue, Mumbai’s Shivaji Park.
The party is yet to get permission from the BMC top hold its annual rally at the iconic park.
“Union Home Minister Amit Shah has asked his party (BJP) to show the Shiv Sena its place in the Mumbai civic polls. I dare you to try it. Shiv Sena’s relationship with the city was unbreakable and the party was deeply connected with the day-to-day life of ordinary Mumbaikars, rushing to their help whenever required,” he said.
The Sena leader be it natural calamities or terror attacks, it is the Shiv Sainik who responds to them first and comes to the aid of people, and not the BJP.
“I challenge Amit Shah that if you have guts, hold the BMC polls in a month and also state Assembly elections,” he said.
Earlier this month, Shah, during a visit to Mumbai, had asked BJP leaders and workers to inflict a “deeper wound” on the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena on its home turf.
Shah, a former BJP president, had slammed Thackeray, saying he compromised on everything to become the CM with the support of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress despite seeking votes in the 2019 polls in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis.
The Shiv Sena has been ruling the Mumbai civic body for almost 30 years. Currently, the BMC is run by an administrator as the five-year term of the civic body had ended and elections are awaited.
“If you hit a person at any place, it does hurt. When you hit a person on his home ground, the pain is deeper. Now it is the time to inflict a deeper wound to Sena,” Shah had told a meeting of BJP leaders.
Speaking at the rally, Thackeray elaborated on the deep bond between his party and Mumbai residents.
“Why is the bond between Mumbai and the Shiv Sena strong? Because its shakas (party branches) are open all the time. So be it blood donations, admission in hospitals and schools or employment, the party is there to help people,” he said.
“Have you (the BJP) even understood Mumbai before thinking of winning it? Before winning the civic body, win the hearts of Mumbaikars which the Shiv Sena has,” said the former CM.
Thackeray said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Shah, central agencies and the “traitors” (a reference to rebel Sena MLAs led by Chief Minister Shinde), will attack the Shiv Sena from all sides.
“Fight this (BMC) election as your (party workers) first election. Assume that we do not have anything…the civic body, corporators. Consider that the MLAs, MPs who left us lost the polls in the last elections and we have to again wage a new fight,” the Sena leader said.
Thackeray asked the BJP, his former ally, to tell people what was its contribution in building the metropolis apart from considering it just a piece of real estate and asked what is the relation between “Kamlabai” (BJP) and Mumbai? “Vultures are hovering over Mumbai and they want to swallow Mumbai. You remember Mumbai when elections are round the corner. Where are these vultures when Mumbai is in trouble? Mumbai could be just a saleable property for you, but for me it is my motherland. This is our mother and those who come to attack us, we will disembowel them in this political wrestling,” he warned.
In a stinging attack on rebel Shiv Sena MLAs, whose revolt in June brought down the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, he dubbed them as “children who swallow their mother”.
Hitting out at the BJP for targeting him on dynastic politics, the former Chief Minister said, “I am proud of my family who took part in the Samyukta (united) Maharashtra movement.” He said the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJP’s forerunner) was never a part of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement. When the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti was formed, the Jan Sangh engineered a split in it and broke the unity Marathi manoos. “They (BJP) are their children,” the Sena leader said.
Thackeray also listed the work done by the erstwhile MVA government headed by him while handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If saving lives is corruption, we have done it,” he said, referring to BJP’s allegations of corruption during the pandemic when the Shiv Sena-led ruling coalition was at the helm in the state.
The former CM said during the COVID-19 pandemic, he saved lives without discriminating people on the lines of religion or language.
Taking a dig at Modi, the Sena leader said cheetahs were brought to the country after 70 years and publicity was how they “roar”.
“They (cheetahs) meow…because they never roar,” said Thackeray, an ace wildlife photographer.
“I proudly say that we brought penguins (in Mumbai zoo when Sena was ruling BMC), but I have never clicked pictures of penguins despite being a photographer,” he said.
A pet project of Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray, introducing penguins in the Mumbai zoo had faced criticism from the BJP and even the Congress for high cost of maintenance of the flightless birds.
State BJP leaders call the Shiv Sena as “Penguin Sena” in response to their Sena counterparts dubbing the BJP as “Kamlabai” (a dig on the party’s lotus symbol).
The Sena president said although schools in the Aam Aadmi Party-ruled Delhi are good, his political outfit, which controlled the BMC for nearly 25 years, improved the quality of education in civic-run schools and introduced virtual classes some 15 years back.
