News

TOI : PUNE: In a bizarre incident that also put the security system at the Sassoon general hospital here under the scanner, the head of a corpse was found missing at the hospital’s morgue during the early hours of Thursday.

A post-mortem on the dead body was conducted barely half-an-hour before the incident happened.

The body was identified as that of one Natik Nasir Shaikh (26), an autorickshaw driver from the Nigdi Ota scheme.

Sassoon hospital dean Anand Malik said Shaikh had been referred to the hospital by the Aundh Chest hospital on April 1.

“We admitted him on April 1 at 5 pm and started medical investigations as his condition was serious. He was suffering from tuberculosis and had puffiness on the face due to accumulation of water. He passed away at 4 pm on Wednesday,” Malik said.

According to Malik, an emergency post-mortem was ordered as none of Shaikh’s relatives were present. Besides Shaikh’s body, a post-mortem was also conducted on the body of one Anandsingh Khadaksingh Takadia.

After the post-mortem, the doctor went to an adjacent room to prepare his report. “After hearing some movement in the morgue, he returned and saw a person walking out. On entering the morgue, he found the head of Shaikh’s body missing,” Malilk said.

Shaikh’s uncle, Mehtab Rafiq Shaikh, who came to the hospital on Thursday evening, alleged that the hospital had not informed him about the death. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: Former Pakistan cricketer Zaheer Abbas was in city to attend the wedding of the daughter of his friend, Krishnakant Kudale.

While in city Zaheer took a trip down memory line about his association with Kudale, how he had invited him to watch the Test match in Mumbai and kept company with him whenever he was not playing. They were together for all five days of the Test in Mumbai.

“In 1982, Zaheer invited me and my wife to Karachi when India toured Pakistan. We spent ten days with his family,” said Kudale, adding that the cricketer lived in a bungalow in a posh locality of Karachi.

Speaking to TOI, Zaheer said: “I would keep in touch with Krish (Kudale) whenever I came to India. We have exchanged letters and also called up each other.

“Zaheer distinctly remembers the Pune match in 1979. “I remember it well, particularly the way Sandeep Patil batted against us,” he said.

Kudale was fulsome in praise of Zaheer’s batting, while admitting that he knew little of the game before meeting the cricketer. “I relished his elegant batting, the hallmarks of which were his precision and timing. We met on numerous occasions and I always took time out to watch his matches. I am truly indebted that a person of such high calibre has kept in touch,” he said.

More recently, Kudale met Zaheer in New Delhi last year when the cricketer was here during the World Cup as an expert commentator with a news channel.

On Thursday, Zaheer also called on former India captain Chandu Borde and they along with Kudale went out for lunch. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: With one more instance of paper leak coming to the fore, the University of Pune (UoP) was on Thursday forced to go into a damage-control mode by way of announcing a move to revamp the prevailing examination system.

The city police informed a local court on Thursday that one of the accused held in connection with the first-year B.Com maths and statistics paper leak case, had also leaked the question paper of another subject - first-year BA psychology - on March 28. The UoP had since altered the first-year BA psychology paper, which was held as scheduled on Thursday.

However, the second revelation and continuing speculation about “more papers having been leaked” proved a cause enough for the university to go for the revamp.

The university’s board of examination (BoE), which is responsible for the conduct of the 250-odd exams on an annual basis, was scheduled to meet late on Thursday evening to work out various options as part of this revamp.

Prior to this meeting, UoP vice-chancellor (V-C) Narendra Jadhav told reporters that some of the measures to be considered were: extending the task of conducting first- and second-year undergraduate exams to the respective colleges instead of the UoP conducting them; bringing down the number of exam centres by getting students from colleges in the fringe areas to appear at one major centre; and, strengthening the question paper delivery and monitoring mechanism.

Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : …More

TOI : PUNE: The social security cell of the Pune police, lead by inspector Rajendra Bhamre, rescued six minors and eight adult girls from a brothel in Budhwar Peth on Thursday afternoon. The police are also planning to request the district collector to seal the brothel under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, 1956.

In a welcome move, during the raid the girls pleaded with the police to rescue them. Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Anil Kumbhare said they were planning to make the raid a model case by requesting the district collector to seal the brothel.

“A large number of girls have been brought to Pune by promising jobs. Some of them were drugged and brought to the city.

The brothel owners Geeta Sharma (45) and Jannu alias Renu Damai (38), both hailing from Nepal, have been arrested,” Kumbhare said.

Inspector Bhamre said generally girls do not co-operate with the police. “However, in this case, all of them pleaded with the raid team to rescue them. All the girls hail from Kolkata,” he said.

The police team, which raided the Machis building under the guidance of assistant commissioner of police Vinod Satav and inspector Bhamre, comprised sub-inspector Kanchan Jadhav, constables Subhash Kamble, Arvind Kalaskar, Tanaji Nikam, Datta Jadhav, Haridas Bande and Krishna Machre.

The social security cell’s office was full of smiling girls, who were thrilled at the thought of going back home. “I was brought here when I was 15. I do not like this profession but I fear whether my parents will accept me,” said a 17-year-old girl who had been pregnant once due to unprotected sex.

Another 23-year-old is eagerly waiting to meet her four-year-old son. “I was widowed and was in search of a job. I was lured by a man. Here I was sold and forced into prostitution,”…More