Patra Chawl case adjourned to Feb 27

First India Bureau

Nagpur: A fire broke out in a storeroom of Police Bhavan, which houses the Nagpur police commissioner’s office. No one was reported injured in the incident but several documents were destroyed, said the officials. According to the fire department, the blaze started in the store room on the third floor of the building around 3 pm but was extinguished within 15 minutes. Important files related to the welfare department of the city police were gutted, said the officials.

Two Die After Falling From Flyover In Thane

Thane: Two persons were killed after their scooter hit the wall of a flyover and they fell off the bridge in Thane on Tuesday, a civic official said. The scooter rider lost control of the vehicle and it hit the protection wall of the flyover. Both the victims fell from the flyover receiving severe injuries. They were rushed to the hospital where doctors declared them brought dead, he said. The deceased have been identified as Pratik Vinod More (21) and Rajesh Bechenprasad Gupta (26), the official informed.

Fake Ed Officers

PULL ‘SPECIAL 26’; TWO DETAINED

Mumbai: Four persons impersonated Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers and raided a businessman’s office in Zaveri Bazaar area on Tuesday. They made off with Rs25 lakh in cash and 3kg gold worth Rs1.70 crore. The LT Marg police have lodged a case and have nabbed two persons for the crime, which is reminicent of the plot of the movie Special 26, in which a team of scammers pose as CBI officers and conduct fake raids to rob money. Further investigation is on.

Mumbai: In a major accusation against the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said that former Mumbai police chief Sanjay Pandey had been given a “target” to arrest him. However, he quickly turned the revelation into a pat on his own back, by adding that the police officer could not succeed as he had done nothing wrong.

Fadnavis was speaking at a local event organized by a regional news channel.

“The MVA had given a target to then Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey to put me in jail. The MVA government had given orders to frame me or slap some criminal charges (on me) anyhow,” Fadnavis said.

The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader had been CM before the

MVA took the reins, and returned as deputy CM last year after Eknath Shinde’s revolt split the Shiv Sena and led to the collapse of the MVA, which also included the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

“You can ask any police official and they will also tell you about it,” he said adding, “However, I had done nothing that would help them put me in jail, and thus they failed.”

Fadnavis also said that he does not hold

“At a function recently, I met ‘wahini’ (Rashmi Thackeray) and told her to convey my regards to (her husband) Uddhav Thackeray. This is Maharashtrian culture and I cannot disregard it,” he said.

Soon after the fall of the MVA government, Pandey, a 1986-batch retired Indian Police Officer, was arrested in connection with a money laundering case linked to the alleged illegal phone tapping of NSE employees. He is currently out on bail.

“Uddhav Thackeray completely stopped answering my phone calls. If he did not want to form an alliance (with BJP after 2019 state polls), he should have told me so,” Fadnavis said.

Mumbai: A special court in Mumbai on Tuesday adjourned the hearing in a money laundering case against Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut and others to February 27.

Raut was present before special judge RN Rokade, who was meant to have heard the case before the framing of charges. However, the proceedings could not take place as the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is investigating the case, had failed to submit summon reports to other accused.

The ED had arrested Raut on August 01 for his alleged role in financial irregularities in connection with the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl in suburban Goregaon.

A special court here had granted him bail in November last year.

The ED’s investigation pertains to alleged financial irregularities in the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl and related financial transactions involving Raut’s wife and associates.

In 2008, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) assigned a redevelopment contract to Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd (GACPL), which was supposed to build 672 flats for the tenants and also give some flats to MHADA.

However, the tenants did not get a single flat in the last 14 years. The ED alleges that as the company sold land parcels and Floor Space Index instead of redeveloping the area.

Mumbai (PTI): The Mumbai police have arrested two persons and seized fake currency notes with the face value of Rs19 lakh from them, an official said on Tuesday.

India Bureau

First

Mumbai: Amid deteriorating Air Quality Index of Mumbai, especially during the winter, city Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Ashish Shelar has urged Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to set up an enquiry panel.

He also blamed the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for Mumbai’s AQI dipping from “poor” to “very poor”.

Mumbai (PTI): The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday said there were less chances of “large changes” in the weather in Mumbai and Maharashtra in the next 48 hours.

The IMD’s Mumbai unit refuted speculations that the temperatures might drop further during the rest of the week.

ards that all these construction activities would pose on the air quality of Mumbai, he added.

Palghar: Four women were stranded in a lift at Palghar railway station for nearly two hours before they were rescued by the railway and fire brigade personnel, a civic official said on Tuesday. The incident happened when the women took the lift to reach the platform but it stopped midway, he said. They panicked after the light and fan in the lift stopped working. The fire brigade and the local railway team reached the scene and rescued them after nearly two hours, the official said.

Women Trapped In Rly Station Lift Rescued Jail Inmate

Nagpur: A 70-year-old inmate of the central jail in Nagpur died of an ailment at a hospital in the city, an official said. The convict’s health condition deteriorated and he was admitted to the tuberculosis ward of a hospital on January 14 where he died on Monday afternoon, he said. The deceased was convicted in a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and was sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment, the official said.

Acting on a tip-off, the police laid a trap and nabbed one of the accused at Malwani on Monday and found fake notes with the face value of Rs1 lakh in his possession, the official said. The accused provided information about his aide, who was later nabbed from neighbouring Palghar district and fake notes worth Rs18 lakh were recovered from his house, he said.

The accused have been arrested under section 489-B (using as genuine, forged or counterfeit currency notes) and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code, he added.

“According to the environment experts, the financial concessions provided to the real estate sector during the tenure of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government have led to the uncontrolled rise in construction projects being undertaken simultaneously across the city,” Shelar said.

Also, the building proposal and Environment Department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) did not pay any attention to the environmental haz-

He also called for the accountability of errant officials over the worsening AQI.

Shelar also urged the BMC to draw a roadmap to make Mumbai a carbon-neutral city by 2035. A committee must be set up by the BMC to draw a roadmap to make Mumbai a carbon-neutral city by 2035. It must also get a scientific study done by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to determine and establish construction density threshold activity that can be permitted per sq km to curb uncontrolled construction activities across the city, said the BJP leader.

‘’If all the government agencies team up and work towards this common cause, it will address Mumbai’s rising pollution crisis and will make our city once again a better place to live in,” said Shelar.

“There are two consecutive westerly disturbances likely to take place this week. However, indicators show that there are less chances of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, witnessing any large changes in weather. There are equal chances of temperature rising or falling by 1 °C in the next 48 hours,” a scientist at the IMD’s Mumbai centre explained.

Mumbai on Tuesday recorded a minimum temperature of 14 °C. It may increase or decrease by one degree depending on various factors that influence weather, she said.