Jambusar: Congress veteran Ahmed Patel on Wednesday tore into Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani for linking him with a suspected ISIS operative, asserting that it was unbecoming of a head of the government to stoop this low and the BJP had no right to speak of terrorism.

“BJP speaking of terrorism?” he asked, and referring to former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, said “Congress leaders have suffered the most because of terrorism.”

Speaking at a public meeting here, which was later addressed by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Ahmed Patel said, “We don’t need lessons in nationalism from the BJP. They should look into themselves.”

He said, “It was unbecoming of a Chief Minister to stoop so low” to cast outlandish aspersions on him. Patel was referring to a suspected ISIS operative arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad late last month from Surat who had earlier worked as a technician at a charitable hospital in Ankleshwar where Patel was a trustee over three years ago.

Patel said, “I conducted a research. He worked in hospitals instituted by BJP leaders. Care Hospital where he (the ISIS suspect) worked was inaugurated by the Prime Minister.”

(IANS)

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday arrested prominent businessman Gagan Dhawan in connection with a money laundering probe into an over Rs 5,000 crore alleged bank fraud case, officials said.

An official of the financial probe agency told IANS that Dhawan was arrested from his south Delhi residence in a case involving bank fraud of over Rs 5,000 crore by Sandesara Group under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

He will be produced before a court later in the day, the official said.

According to ED officials, Dhawan allegedly aided bank loan frauds related to a Vadodara-based company named Sterling Biotech.

The ED official said that his involvement with a few other alleged illegal transactions are on their checklist.

His arrest comes after the ED registered a case of money laundering taking cognisance of a case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Sterling Biotech, its Directors — Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara and Vilas Joshi and several other persons in connection with the alleged bank fraud case.

According to ED officials, Dhawan is also being probed for allegedly bribing four senior Income Tax department officials as part of an earlier criminal complaint.

On August 25, the ED officials had raided Dhawan’s office and premises and that of a former Congress MLA Sumesh Shokeen under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

It is alleged that Dhawan laundered the money of Sandesh Arya through his companies based in Ethiopia and some other countries.

Earlier in 2011, Income Tax officials had raided Arya’s residences and a case was registered then.

(IANS)

Mumbai: Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui Monday issued an apology for “hurting the sentiments” of women whose names he had mentioned in his memoir, “An Ordinary Life” allegedly without their consent and has decided to withdraw the book.

The 43-year-old actor took to Twitter in the wake of the controversy surrounding his autobiography, co-written by Rituparna Chatterjee, in which he detailed his relationships and flings with former Miss India Niharika Singh and actor Sunita Rajwar.

“I’m apologising to everyone whose sentiments are hurt because of the chaos around my memoir ‘An Ordinary Life’. I hereby regret and decide to withdraw my book,” he tweeted.

The critically-acclaimed actor drew a lot of flak for revealing personal details about his “passionate” affair with his “Miss Lovely” co-star Niharika.

Excerpts from the book started doing the rounds on October 23 and Niharika issued a statement a day later slamming Nawaz for “exploiting and disrespecting” a woman to sell his autobiography.

While Rajwar took to Facebook to blast the actor for spreading lies and claiming that she dumped him for his “poor status”.

“I did not dump you for your poor status but for your poor thinking,” Rajwar said, adding she was poorer than the actor at that time and their relationship did go beyond a play on which they worked together.

(PTI)

Chandigarh: In a shocking turn of events in the Junaid Khan lynching case, the judge of the trial court hearing the case has sought action against Additional Advocate General Naveen Kaushik for allegedly helping persons charged with killing the 15-year-old.

In an interim order on October 25, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Faridabad, Y S Rathore accused Kaushik of assisting the defense counsel representing Naresh Kumar, one among those accused in the violence which eventually resulted in the death of 16-year-old Junaid Khan last June.

“This act of Mr Naveen Kaushik, Additional Advocate General Haryana amounts to professional misconduct and is against legal ethics and highly unbecoming of an Advocate, particularly because he is a Law Officer in the office of Advocate General, Haryana,” Judge Rathore said on October 25.

The judge noted that the case is a sensitive one with communal overtones. As such, if the AAG appears along with the defense counsel, “it will send a wrong signal and will also create a feeling of insecurity amongst the victim party and will adversely affect the aim of the court to conduct free and fair trial.”

The judge has directed that the issue be brought to the notice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court so that appropriate action may be taken in the matter.

According to an Indian Express report, Advocate General of Haryana Baldev Raj Mahajan has said that action would be taken if it is found that Kaushik had made an appearance as alleged.

Junaid, his brother and two cousins were attacked on a Mathura-bound train in June by a mob, which also hurled communal slurs against them. The 15-year-old later died of stabbing injuries. The trial court had recently framed charges against Naresh Kumar among others.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said that compulsory Aadhaar is a threat to the country’s security and expressed hope that the Supreme Court will strike it down when its larger Constitution bench takes up the matter.

The firebrand BJP leader took to Twitter and tweeted that he will soon write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi detailing how compulsory Aadhaar poses a big threat to the country’s security.

Swamy said this a day after the Supreme Court referred a batch of petitions challenging the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of various services and social welfare schemes to a five-judge Constitution bench.

The order was passed by the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud while responding to a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Aadhaar law on charges of being intrusive and violating the right to privacy.

The top court also pulled up the West Bengal government for directly approaching it against the central government’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits under social welfare schemes.

The bench said that hearing on the petitions challenging the government’s move would take place in the last week of November.

The court said this after Attorney General KKVenugopal told the bench that the government had filed a detailed affidavit refuting all the allegations on expanding the area under Aadhaar linkage.

Asking the court not to issue any further interim orders, Venugopal said the government was ready to argue and the court, if deemed fit, could set up a Constitution bench to decide on the various Aadhaar petitions.

He said the government had already issued more than 100 orders and notifications to address the glitches in the implementation of Aadhaar.

The government counsel also told the court that fake reports were being spread about Aadhaar linking, including how the unique ID was being made compulsory for CBSE students to appear in Class 10 and 12 exams.

As court said that the challenge to Aadhaar law would be heard by the five-judge Constitution bench, the issue of extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other schemes for those who don’t have the unique identification number is now on the backburner.

The issue is not there, as the court is hearing the matter in the last week of November, the Attorney General said.

The existing deadline is up to December 31.

In the last hearing of the matter on October 25, the Centre had indicated that the deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, PAN, mobile numbers and other schemes for those who don’t have the unique identification number and are willing to go for it may be extended till March 31.

The validity of Aadhaar law that has been challenged by a number of people, including former Karnataka High Court Judge KS Puttaswamy, first Chairperson of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha and researcher Kalyani Sen Menon.

Aadhaar is being challenged in the court amid apprehensions that it violated right to privacy – which a nine-judge bench had already declared as a fundamental right – with the use of biometric details like fingerprints and iris scans.

(Agencies)