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TOI : PUNE: The city crime branch on Thursday night arrested Altaf Yunus Shaikh (37), an autorickshaw driver from Bhendi Bazaar in Mumbai, for allegedly purchasing goods costing more than Rs 2.37 lakh from nearly 13 shops in Mumbai with a fake credit card.

ICICI bank area manager Omkar Shrirang Kalamkar (26), a resident of Baner, had registered a case against unidentified person with the Bund Garden police station in the matter. The bank’s original credit card, having a limit of Rs 1.5 lakh, was issued to a software engineer, Vaibhav Jha.

Inspector Sunil Pawar of the crime branch unit IV, who is now probing the case, said Jha had dined at the Pizza Hut cafeteria of SGS Mall in Pune Camp around 10.30 pm on August 30, where he had used the credit card to pay the bill. Jha suspects that the data on the credit card was copied by someone at the hotel on a skimmer and later downloaded on an empty credit card, which was misused between August 30 and September 7.

The fraud came to light after Jha approached the bank after it blocked payments of his card for exceeding the limit. The bank registered a case with the police when Jha convinced the bank authorities that somebody was misusing his card.

A police team which visited Mumbai found that Shaikh had given his photographs and address at many shops while making the purchases. Shaikh has told the police that he had only made the purchases, but the card was given to him by someone else. The police are now on the look out for the person who gave the card to Shaikh. Shaikh was remanded to police custody till November 21. B…More

TOI : PUNE: A 20 year old Niraj Mukund Mormare from Warje was hacked to death by two unidentified people on Dhayri road on Friday around 1.30 pm.

According to inspector Satish Patil of Haweli police station, Niraj had gone to meet his friend at Dhayri. While he was returning home, two people blocked his way and assaulted him with sharp weapons. Niraj died on the spot.

Patil added, “Last week Niraj had entered into a brawl with two people and beaten up one of them. We are suspecting their involvement in the murder,” Patil said.

Meanwhile, Ranjana Mormare, mother of Niraj filed a complaint with Haweli police station. B…More

TOI : PUNE: The city police have registered two separate cases in connection with the recovery of two dead newborn babies, who were found abandoned at the Gultekdi Market Yard and Somwar Peth.

The Swargate police recovered the body of a dead baby girl from a compound near the PMPML depot at Marketyard on Wednesday afternoon.

Sub-inspector V E Shinde said a PMPML security guard alerted the police after he found the one-day old girl abandoned. The police suspect that the baby may be born out of wedlock, and a passenger travelling by a PMPML bus might have left her there.

The police said they searched several hospitals and societies in the vicinity to find out whether any women has aborted or given birth to a girl.

In the other case, the Samarth police have recovered the dead body of a baby girl from a manhole at the Siddhi Vinayak Kesar building at Somwar Peth on Wednesday evening.

Sub-inspector S D Ghanvat said labourers working at the building discovered the prematured baby lying in the open manhole, and alerted the police.

The police have registered cases against unknown men or women for abandoning babies under section 318 (concealment of birth by secret disposal of dead bodies) of the Indian penal code in both the cases. B…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pune civic administration is likely to appoint an agency for third-party checking and monitoring of projects to ensure quality and timely completion.

Municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi told TOI on Wednesday that the PMC plans to appoint College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) for the task. The civic body will finalise the COEP’s appointment after corporators clear the proposal.

Pardeshi said the civic administration wants to speed up implementation of development works, like water and roads projects. The commissioner plans to include some major works in the next financial budget and complete them in time, unlike ongoing projects.

COEP director A D Sahasrabudhe said the civic body has not yet discussed the plan with the engineering college. “We will ensure that the quality of works is maintained and that work assigned to us is done judiciously,” he said. He added that the workforce needed would be figured out only after the scope of the work is decided.

Citizens groups have been repeatedly demanding appointment of third-party consultants for monitoring PMC works, especially for the infrastructure projects undertaken under the JNNURM for the Commonwealth Youth Games.

“There is no quality check on any work done by contractors, who are usually not qualified for the task. Most projects are assigned to contractors who are either relatives of politicians or have formed a ring to corner civil works,” alleged civic activist Vijay Kumbhar, president of Surajya Sangharsh Samiti.

Kumbhar added that civic engineers should also shoulder quality-control responsibilities. “If the PMC gets work done by contractors and a third party monitors them, what work are its engineers left with?” Kumbhar asked. B…More

TOI : PUNE: The Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) have ended and valid concerns are again being thrown up about the likely use (or the lack of it) of the venue — the Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex at Balewadi. For, it may be recalled, the complex was virtually unused and various sporting facilities were in a state of disrepair for long after the 1994 National Games, for which the complex came up in the first place.

This time, though, the directorate of sports has major plans to utilise the Rs 355-crore sporting venue to the hilt. On the cards are tournaments, sports coaching academies, sports tourism, a clubhouse where corporates can avail of membership and, ultimately, a sports university.

“We are ready with the plans and are positive they will work out. We have a meeting with the sports secretary and other officials in Mumbai next week, where we will table our proposals,” director of sports Laxmikant Deshmukh told TOI.

A series of tournaments has been scheduled at Balewadi. “We recently conducted the world junior badminton championships after the CYG. From next month, we will conduct the Asia Cup tennis tournament, the LIC national championship, the central revenue services tournament, Indian railways championship and world railways championship,” Deshmukh said.

Speaking about other plans, Deshmukh said there were two aspects of the issue that were being looked into — maintenance of the infrastructure as per international standards and the optimum use of the complex. B…More