SNIPPETS

Guj ACB booked 158 govt employees in 2022

AHMEDABAD, JAN 25

(PTI): The Gujarat AntiCorruption Bureau last year booked 252 persons, including 158 state and central government employees, with policemen topping the list, officials said on Wednesday. The ACB registered 176 cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act in 2022, three more than in 2021, said a release by the antigraft agency of the state police. Of the 252 persons booked last year, 94 were private persons, who usually work as middlemen, while 158 were government staffers, including 13 central government employees, said the release. One Class I officer and 30 Class II officers were among those caught by the ACB.

J’Khand HC grants bail to BJP MLA

RANCHI, JAN 25 (PTI): The Jharkhand High Court has granted bail to three-time Baghmara MLA Dhulu Mahto in a 10-year-old case of forcibly freeing a person from police custody. The special MP/MLA court in Dhanbad had earlier upheld a lower court’s order of an 18-month jail sentence for the legislator and four others in the case. The three-time BJP MLA from Baghmara assembly constituency has already served a term of four months behind bars.

The lower court had on October 9, 2019, held Mahto and his four associates guilty of obstructing government servants and freeing a person, arrested on extortion charges, forcibly from police custody.

Arms recovered from J-K

POONCH/JAMMU, JAN 25 (PTI): Security forces on Wednesday recovered a cache of arms and ammunition, including two AK rifles, during a search operation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, officials said. A search operation was launched by Army troops and assisted by police and CRPF in Kalai Top, Shiendra, Ratta Jabbar and adjoining areas, they added. During the search operation, they recovered two AK rifles, three magazines and 35 rounds of ammunition, the officials said.

2 killed after being hit by train in Kerala

KOZHIKODE (KER), JAN 25 (PTI): Two men were killed while one was injured after being hit by a train near Kallai railway station here on Wednesday morning, police said. The injured person is undergoing treatment at the government medical college hospital here. The incident is said to have occurred when the trio was sitting on the railway track. The deceased persons were natives of Kollam, police added.

Local TMC leader shot dead

MURSHIDABAD (WB), JAN 25 (PTI): A local TMC leader died in a hospital, hours after being shot at by unidentified miscreants while returning home in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, police said on Wednesday. The deceased, Altaf Sheikh, who was the headmaster of Nowadapara Madrasa, succumbed to injuries at the hospital here in the morning, they said. He was shot from a close range at Raninagar area around 9.15 pm on Tuesday. “We have initiated an investigation and search is underway to nab the culprits,” a senior police officer of the district told PTI over phone. Sheikh was a CPI(M) leader before he joined the TMC.