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TOI : PUNE: A retired army brigadier was allegedly kidnapped on Wednesday afternoon by a group of men for a ransom of Rs 20 lakh. He was, however, freed unconditionally on Thursday evening, his family said. The suspects also allegedly beat him up with sticks before taking him hostage.

The retired brigadier, Shreechand Achtani (63), who lives at Konark Pooram at Kondhwa, was on his way in his car to deliver a lecture at a college on Wednesday afternoon when a Scorpio car blocked his way on the Dehu Road-Katraj bypass, Achtani’s son Siddhartha told TOI. “A group of seven or eight people came out and started beating my father with sticks. They then forced him inside the Scorpio and drove away,” he said.

According to Siddhartha, the suspects started calling up their home and asked for a ransom of Rs 20 lakh. “My father was taken to an unknown destination. We informed the police, who started intercepting the kidnappers’ calls. We think they realised the police were tapping their calls and therefore they dropped my father at the Khed-Shivapur toll junction at 7.30 pm on Thursday. My father called up from there and we brought him home,” he said.

Siddhartha said his father received injuries on the face and other parts of his body. “He has now gone to sleep,” he said, when TOI reached his home on Thursday night.
Though additional commissioner (crime) Rajender Singh was not available for comment, senior crime branch officials, seeking anonymity, confirmed the kidnapping. They also confirmed that Achtani had been released without payment of the ransom.
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TOI : PUNE: In the backdrop of arrests of Lt-Col Prasad Purohit and Rajesh Dhawade by the state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Himani Savarkar, president of Abhinav Bharat, on Thursday announced the formation of the ‘Hindu legal aid firm’, which will provide legal support to those arrested in connection with the Malegaon blasts cases.

Savarkar said that Hindu organisations have taken a pro-active step towards providing assistance to those arrested in connection with the blasts case by establishing the firm. “A separate account has been opened at a bank in New Delhi for carrying out the firm’s transactions,” she added.

Addressing mediapersons, Savarkar clarified that Purohit and Dhawade were not members of Abhinav Bharat. “But, we will provide legal assistance to both of them,” she said, alleging that the accused are being subjected to inhuman treatment in custody. Abhinav Bharat will approach the human rights organisation in this regard. B…More

TOI : Pune: Twelve years after actor Rajiv Raj Kapoor secured a bail in an accident case, a magistrate’s court on Thursday issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against him so that he remains present at the start of the trial. Rajiv is the son of legendary film actor Raj Kapoor.

When the case came up for hearing before the Cantonment court, judicial magistrate first class A M Patankar issued an NBW against the actor after the assistant public prosecutor Rajani Naik submitted that Kapoor has never been present in the court since he was released on bail in 1997.

Naik told TOI that the Cantonment police, which was earlier investigating the case, had served several summons to Kapoor on the address he had furnished, asking the actor to be present before the court at the time of filing of the chargesheet, but Kapoor never turned up. Naik said that the police had then filed a report before the court saying that Kapoor, who was out of the country for a film shoot, was not available at the given address.

“The warrant has been dispatched to the in-charge of Loni Kalbhor police station for securing Kapoor’s presence before the court for the next hearing due on December 3,” she added.

When contacted, Kapoor’s lawyer B S Muzaffar said that he was unaware of the developments and said that he will convey the court’s order to his client. He also said that he will try and get the NBW canceled when the case comes up for hearing in some weeks.

When questioned about Kapoor’s failure to turn up before the court, Muzaffar explained that the case never came up for hearing because the chargesheet was pending along with other criminal cases. He said that the warrant has been issued since the case has now come up for hearing. “I will seek my client’s…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will chart a new course in its allocation of funds by decentralising its annual budget. For the first time ever, the civic body has decided to have separate budgets for each of its 14 wards for the year 2009-10. Accordingly, each ward office will be allocated a fixed budget of Rs 12 crore within which it will have to propose development works. Later, big central projects will be added to the budget and presented to the standing committee.

Speaking to TOI on Thursday, municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi said, “The city is growing and there is a need to decentralise the budget. Presently, the administration prepares the budget based on the suggestions and proposals by ward-level officials. The standing committee then makes changes and presents the budget before the general body. We now want ward offices to prepare their own budgets.”

Pardeshi said the ward budgets would be presented to the standing committee after including central projects like major road works. “If the wards prepare a practical budget, changes may not be effected,” he added.

Meanwhile, the civic body has asked the ward officers to cut the budgetary allocation for 2009-10 by 20 per cent as compared to the allocation for 2008-09. Pardeshi said the cut is being suggested because the civic body wants to complete all works within the financial year 2009-10 and doesn’t want ward offices to suggest works which will be pending with no allocation of funds.

Pardeshi’s decision to ask ward offices to limit their budgets is significant on the backdrop of the civic administration being unable to meet this year’s budgetary revenue targets, thanks to the global financial crisis.

Proposing to cut the budget for development projects by 17 per cent (Rs 127 crore approximately), Pardeshi had recently tabled a statement before the PMC general body which said that…More