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TOI : PUNE: The head of a human corpse, which was stolen by unidentified miscreants from the Sassoon hospital on April 3, was recovered by the police from a canal at Hadapsar on the eastern outskirts of the city early on Sunday morning.

Natik Nasir Shaikh (25), a tuberculosis patient, had passed away at the hospital on April 2. His body was shifted to the Sassoon morgue for post-mortem. However, soon after the post-mortem was conducted and the doctor was preparing his report in an adjacent room, the head of the corpse was cut off and taken from the morgue.

Early on Sunday morning, residents of the Mahatma Phule slum at Hadapsar saw a human head floating in the nearby canal. One of them, Bachhusingh Tak and his 13-year-old nephew, Yuvrajsingh, recovered the head from the canal and informed the Hadapsar police.

“The head was clearly visible as the water level of the canal was less. Some women noticed it and raised an alarm,” said Tak.

A team from the Hadapsar police led by sub inspector Babasaheb Chavan packed the head in a plastic bag and handed it over to the Bund Garden police for conducting further investigations after performing a panchnama .

Additional Commissioner of Police (south region) Vivek Phansalkar said the head may not have been used for black magic as it contained stitches on the skull that were left after the post-mortem procedures. He said it was likely that mischief had been played to embarrass the hospital authorities. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : NEW DELHI: Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Surat have been awarded top marks in an ongoing credit rating exercise of municipal bodies commissioned by the Urban Development (UD) Ministry. This will enable local bodies to approach the financial market for funds to improve living conditions in cities and augment infrastructure.

Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai municipal corporations have been assigned AA rating while Nashik, Pune and Surat have been awarded AA-, according to draft ratings being finalised by the ministry. Kolkata and Chennai have been rated A+ and BBB+ respectively.

The ministry has given the task to rate 63 cities included under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to independent agencies and has covered 42 so far. Rating of the remaining cities, which include Delhi, will be taken up in the next phase, an official said.

An AA rating means a borrower is considered as high safety; the rating is fourth on an 18-point scale. The top rating is AAA+ and the bottom one is B-Cities with high ratings will find it easier and cheaper to raise credit and the country’s best-rated cities may enter the bond market once the credit rating exercise gets completed, a UD ministry official said, adding that it would be easier for local bodies receiving good ratings to adopt the bond route to raise money from the market.

The highest rating is of AAA+, which no city has achieved till now. According to draft ratings available with TOI , the cities with A+ ratings are Kolkata, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, while Nagpur and Kalyan-Dombivili have been awarded A and Vadodara, Rajkot and Mira-Bhayandar civic agencies have got A- rating. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: Three employees of a call centre at Fatimanagar were feared drowned at Bhatgar dam reservoir in Bhor around 7 pm on Sunday. Even though the police had launched a search, the three were untraceable till late Sunday night.

The missing were identified as Akshay Ganesh Ramgude (17) of Sukhsagarnagar, Rahul Gulab Jhamlani (21) of Bibvewadi and Himanshu Chandrakant Jadhav (20) of Todkar colony.

According to the police, the trio along with a friend, Aditya Shivaji Mane, had come to the dam to celebrate their holiday on the occasion of Gudi Padwa.

They went for a swim while Aditya waited outside.

Soon, Aditya realised that the three were drowning. He ran away and alerted Akshay’s father Ganesh
Ramgude after reaching Pune. Ramgude later alerted the police.

Meanwhile, the security guard of the reservoir noticed the clothes of the boys and alerted the police.
Inspector Bhupal Rawal and 15 fishermen joined in the search for the youths but to no avail. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: The fee fixation panel assigned by the Supreme Court has facilitated a thaw in the dispute between students and management of the Sinhagad Dental College (SDC) on the issue of revised fee structure.

Upon the Shikshan Shulka Samiti’s directive, the college management agreed to issue university examination forms to the 150-odd first- and second-year students, from April 7. In return, the students suspended their indefinite protest against the college’s move to withhold exam forms on the grounds that they should pay the differential money (ranging between Rs 1.45 lakh and Rs 2.90 lakh) towards the revised fee.

On April 4, former high court judge P.S. Patankar, who is heading the fee panel, heard a revision plea filed by the students seeking reconsideration of the revised fee. The SDC was represented by its principal Vikas Vartak, director S M Joshi and its financial advisor.

Patankar asked the representatives of the college management to keep aside the fee issue for the time-being and let the students appear for the university exam. He also asked the management to make written submission by April 21 on the issues raised by students against the revised fee. A final hearing is scheduled for April 24. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pune Police crime branch has revealed that a three-member gang, owing allegiance to gangster Ravi Pujari, had demanded extortion money from two Navi Mumbai-based builders in 2006. It may be remembered that the gang was caught by the police while attempting to gun down a Mumbai-based builder at NIBM road on March 25.

Inspector Ram Pathare of the crime branch told TOI that the suspects, Asif Khan, Kiran Salvi and Ravindra Helkar, confessed to this during interrogation.

The accused confessed that Pujari, who is reportedly operating from Malaysia, had issued the threats to the builders. Pujari had then hired the trio through Lonavala-based criminal Sajid Bangali.

One of the suspects, Asif Khan, had visited the builders to threaten them. The police refused to disclose the builders’ names as the investigations are at a crucial stage. Pathare said a police team will be sent to Navi Mumbai for further investigations.

As regards to the NIBM road case, Pathare said the gang has admitted to the receipt of Rs 20,000 for the murder of the Mumbai-based builder.

The builder, who visits Pune twice a week to inspect the construction work of a building project at NIBM road,
has not made any statement to the police, despite repeated requests.

Meanwhile, the police are after Bangali, who has gone missing. The police have booked both Bangali and Pujari in the NIBM road case.

The suspects were remanded to magisterial custody on Saturday.
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