News

TOI : PUNE: The police have arrested a sweeper for selling a rare specie of tortoise on Tuesday night.

According to the police, Sanjay Waghela (44), a resident of Wanworie, was caught red-handed while selling this tortoise for Rs 2.5 lakh at Vimannagar.

A team from the anti-extortion cell of Pune police was on a search duty in Vimannagar, when they received a tip-off about a man selling a very rare specie of tortoise in the area.

“Senior police officials received a tip off about the transaction being done in Vimannagar. We laid a trap at the Vimannagar chowk on Tuesday night at around 9 pm,” police inspector Ram Jadhav told TOI.

He added that as per their information Waghela came to the spot with the tortoise, and offered to sell it for Rs 2.5 lakh. He said that he had brought it from Mumbai. Waghela was caught while he was sealing the deal.

When asked about the tortoise, Jadhav said that it will be kept under observation of experts and doctors, who will determine what specie is the tortoise. The one-and-a-half-year-old animal will be moved to the Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park in Katraj. B…More

TOI : PUNE: Autorickshaw driver Atique Memon (42) of Rasta Peth was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly attempting to sexually abuse a minor boy. The boy is studying in the fourth standard at a school near Quartergate.

According to the police, the auto driver was caught by a police patrol team in Wanowrie. The police noticed a man and a boy in suspicious conditions in the bush near Shivarkar chowk around 5 pm. When the police shouted at them the man started running away. Suspecting something wrong, the police chased and nabbed him.

The police said, when they questioned the boy he said that the man was an autorickshaw driver, who had forcefully taken him in the rickshaw.

According to the police, the boy was waiting for the rickshaw of a rickshaw service that he has hired for commuting to school daily. Meanwhile, the suspect who had been passing by, offered to drop him home. Though the boy refused, the driver forced him into the rickshaw and drove towards Wanowrie.

The police said, after reaching the Shivarkar chowk the driver took the boy to the bush. He asked the boy to undress and also slapped him. While the driver was attempting an un-natural offence, the police patrol team noticed them and the boy was rescued.

The man has been charged with kidnapping and unnatural offence under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. A local court on Wednesday remanded the suspect to police custody till Saturday. B…More

TOI : PUNE: Power supply to industrial and residential areas in Shirur taluka in Pune district will be closed from 7 am to 6 pm on Thursday to facilitate laying of power supply cables to Fiat’s manufacturing unit in Ranjangaon.

A statement issued by the Maharashtra state power transmission company said that the cable will be laid from the 220 KV Ranjangaon sub-station to the Fiat unit. Hence, power supply from 220 KV Babhaleshwar Ranjangaon, 220 KV Ranjangaon Lonikand will be closed. Since power supply from Ranjangaon sub-station will also be shut, supply to 132 KV Shirur, Kuruli, Whirlpool and Indian Smelting sub-stations will also be shut.

The statement further said that power supply to industrial and residential areas in Shirur taluka will be shut till completion of the cable laying work. Supply will be restored once the work is done. B…More

TOI : District and sessions judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi decided to conduct the cross examination of the witnesses in the Deepak Mahajan murder case on November 26. The witnesses will be also examined on November 28, December 1 and 3. Deputy superintendent of police B.R. Patil was also present in the court for finalising the dates.

Additional public prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar has submitted a list of witnesses to be cross examined on November 26. And defence lawyer Vidhyadhar Koshe has completed the inspection of the documents in the murder case.

Meanwhile, lawyer Manoj Bidkar has filed a vakalatnama’ for defending accused Leena Devasthali. B…More

TOI : PUNE: Malegaon bomb blast suspect Sameer Kulkarni was on Wednesday remanded to police custody till Thursday for allegedly attacking pastor Peter David Silway of Aundh in 2007.

Meanwhile, inspectors Ashok Shejal and Padurang Sahane of the Khadki police claimed that Kulkarni has admitted to attacking the pastor during interrogation.

The Khadki police obtained Kulkarni’s custody from Nashik jail and brought him to Pune on a transit warrant. Kulkarni was identified as one of the pastor’s possible attackers after his photographs appeared in the media following his arrest by the state Anti-Terrorism Squad in the blast case. The sketch of one of the suspects, drawn as per a description given by the pastor, closely resembled Kulkarni.

Kulkarni was produced before judicial magistrate first class Renuka Satav of the Khadki Cantonment court around 11.45 am.

Assistant public prosecutor B N Kadam said Kulkarni’s custodial interrogation was required as he had gone missing after the incident. Kadam sought sufficient time for Kulkarni’s interrogation to ascertain the whereabouts of his two other accomplices and to recover the sticks with which the pastor was assaulted.

Opposing the prosecution, defence lawyers G G Gawli and Sunil Jhape argued that the veracity of the case registered by the pastor was doubtful as he himself was involved in several cases. The lawyers claimed that the police have detained the two suspects, and hence Kulkarni’s interrogation was not required.

The magistrate asked the defence lawyers to submit an affidavit saying that the police have detained Kulkarni’s associates. After the lawyers failed to file such an affidavit, the court remanded Kulkarni to police custody till Thursday.

After the court proceedings, a large number of people who had gathered to get a glimpse of Kulkarni shouted slogans in his favour and showered flower petals on him. B…More

TOI : PUNE: Forest department officials here have denied reports that they had filed a case against noted singer Sonu Nigam for an unauthorised construction of a farm house at Khandla hill station.

“We had not filed any case against Nigam,” a Pune forest official said on Wednesday. B…More

TOI : PUNE: The cross examination of 14 witnesses in the sensational murder case of orthopaedician Deepak Mahajan which has being referred to the district and sessions court here the Bombay high court has taken a new twist.

When the case came up for hearing before the district and sessions judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi on Tuesday, defence lawyer Vidhyadhar Koshe moved two applications for including key prosecution witnesses Ketan Parekh and Rahul Bhosale among the accused in the case and for producing the accused before the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) for conducting an inquiry in respect of the properties owned by them which has being seized by the police.

Accused Leena Devasthali and her daughter Deepti Devasthali who were sentenced to death in the murder case by the former fast track court judge Vilas Patil in December, 2007 were produced before the court for hearing.

On an appeal filed by the mother-daughter duo to set aside the death sentence, a division bench of the high court headed by justice Bilal Nazki had referred the case back to the district and sessions court in Pune after it found that several witnesses were not cross examined because the accused had refused to engage the services of a lawyer for defending themselves. Koshe who is representing Deepti filed an application under section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to include Kale and Bhosale among the accused in the case on the grounds that there was direct evidence against them revealing their involvement in the commission of crime.

While relying on Kale’s testimony given earlier before judge Patil, Koshe said that he had admitted to his involvement in the murder which he had committed along with Bhosale.

Koshe said that the witnesses had caught hold of the hands and legs of Mahajan and the accused had administered sedatives to him before dismembering his body which…More

TOI : PUNE: The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) satellite to gather navigational information will be launched in July 2009. Describing the proposed satellite as “the IAF eye in the sky”, Air Chief Marshal F.H. Major said it would basically be used to gather navigational information.

Speaking after delivering the General B.C. Joshi memorial lecture at the University Pune on Tuesday, he said, “Our plans for future expansion have made it inevitable that we would have to utilise the realm of space.”

Asked how the world would react to this development, Major said many nations have already sent such satellites to collect necessary data. “It is the right time to send such a satellite,” he added. “The space traffic is increasing by the day and we will find it hard to get space if we delay things.”

He said, “While I am not a die-hard proponent of weaponisation of space, I am convinced that harnessing the capabilities that space provides, creates a force multiplier effect and increases effectiveness of our operations manifold.”

Noting that India has a well developed space programme, the Air Chief said it was his intention to harness the capability that space based assets provide and put in place structures and mechanisms to exploit enhanced capability.

About the usage of IAF airports for civilian aviation traffic and the traffic problem causing by that, Major said efforts are on to sort out these problems. Civilian air traffic problem can be sorted out by making some changes in the timings of these airports.

The IAF airports could be made available to civilian aircraft during the time when the IAF does not require them, he said.
B…More

TOI : PUNE: The Khadki police on Tuesday took custody of Sameer Kulkarni, arrested by the ATS probing the Malegaon bomb blast, from the Nashik jail for allegedly attacking pastor Peter David Silve at his residence at Shantiniketan society on Aundh road in 2007.

A police team led by inspector Pandurang Shahane (crime) took custody of Kulkarni. He is expected to be brought to Khadki on a transit warrant on Wednesday. Kulkarni will be produced before the Khadki cantonment court on Wednesday afternoon for obtaining police custody, Shahane said.

On June 7, 2008, three people went to Silve’s house on the pretext of felicitating him. They thrashed him with sticks and stumps. Silve had registered a case against unknown people under sections 323, 324 and 452 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

Kulkarni went missing after police started to suspect him and efforts to trace him at his Bijaleenagar residence at Chinchwad and other places proved futile for over a year.

When asked how Kulkarni’s involvement in the case was revealed, the police said a sketch of one of the suspects, prepared on the basis of the description given by the pastor, matched with Kulkarni. The police claimed that the witnesses in the case have also identified the sketch as that of Kulkarni.

The investigations in the case was closed earlier with the police filing an ‘A’ summary before the court on the grounds that the suspects could not be traced. On November 10, the police obtained a copy of the summary report and a transit warrant for seeking Kulkarni’s custody.
B…More

TOI : PUNE: In a significant development, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) on Tuesday gave its nod for starting power transactions on week/month ahead basis at the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX).

The CERC asked the IEX and the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC), that ensures smooth operation of the national power grid, to work out the modalities to start week/month ahead transactions and come back to the regulator as soon as possible with suggested changes, if any, in the rules and regulations.

This is expected to help smooth implementation of experiments like the Pune model of zero load shedding as power will be available on long-term basis as against the existing practice of booking power just a day before actual use. Since additional power for Pune is procured on the ‘day ahead’ basis through IEX by franchise Tata Power Trading Company Ltd, the load-shedding schedule in the city changes every day.

Speaking to TOI, Jayant Deo, managing director and chief executive officer of IEX said the IEX will be in a position to introduce week/month ahead power transactions in about a month.

He said that when the matter came up for hearing, IEX submitted that CERC, as per its order dated January 18, 2008, had said that the decision for introduction of week/month ahead contracts has to be of the promoters of the exchange. “Accordingly, the IEX sought permission to introduce Term Ahead Contracts on its neutral and transparent platform,” he said.

Responding to IEX submissions, the NLDC commented that they felt the current open access regulations may have to be changed if Term Ahead Contracts are to be traded on IEX. The CERC instructed IEX and NLDC to mutually co-ordinate between themselves for introducing the Term Ahead Contracts. “CERC further said in case open access procedure has to be amended then the same may also be suggested,” he said….More