The Kerala High Court on Monday granted bail to Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who was arrested in September on charges of raping a nun repeatedly between 2014 and 2016.

The bishop secured the bail with strict conditions that he should not enter Kerala. He must also surrender his passport and should appear before the police once in every two weeks.

Mulakkal was arrested on September 21 after three days of questioning. On September 24, he was sent to two weeks judicial custody.

Mulakkal has been languishing in the Pala sub-jail since.

Earlier on October 3, the high court had denied the bishop bail as Justice V. Raja Vijayaraghavan observed that there was evidence against him.

Mulakkal, who heads the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar in Punjab, is the first bishop in the country to be jailed for rape.

By : Pramesh Jain

“Good catch by Banashankari Police”.

The south Division police of Banashankari police have arrested Six persons on the charges of extortion and recovered Rs.1.6 lakhs worth of valuables along with Rs.95,000 cash and the equipments used in the conspiracy of crime has been seized from their possession.

The accused used to threaten garment shop owners after making their sting videos to extort money.

The accused has been identified as Santosh.C.alias Santosh Simha,34, resident of Nagarbhavi,N.Ashok Kumar, 33, resident of Nagarbhavi,V.K.Mahadev,31, resident of Hosakerehalli,Rakesh Gowda, 23,resident of Jalahalli,Naveen P, 21, resident of Jalahalli and Anand S,34, resident of Kengeri.

The complainant had stated that the accused came to their shop, took visuals of their products and even misbehaved with one of their female employees.They later alleged we were selling duplicate brands and tried to extort money.

Modus Operandi:

Rakesh and Naveen used to shortlist the local textile shops selling branded clothes and the others used to go to their shops with the cameras,mikes,speakers and an Omni car along with their news channel logo to take the videos.Later they used to threaten shop owners that they will go live about fake brands being sold by them.Using the same modus operandi the accused had cheated and extorted money from four textile shops in Banashankari,Banaswadi,Bagalagunte and Yelahanka New Town police station limits.

Special team were formed to nab the culprits.

DCP South,Dr.S.D.Sharanappa,told media persons,that a shop owner of Stylo garment located in K R Road registered a complaint in Banashankari police station stating that about 5-6 unknown person barged into his shop and captured video of his garment shop and threatened them to telecast in their channel about the selling of fake branded clothes and expose them and register case against them so to not telecast this news in their channel they threatened me and my employees too and they even misbehaved with our women staff and they abused her too in filthy language and extorted Rs.1lakh and even they took Rs.65,000 worth of clothes from them as the shop owner who got doubt on them he registered a complaint against them and as soon as the complaint was filed a special team was led under the supervision of ACP Jayanagar,Sub-Division H.Srinivas,PI Banashankari,Puttaswamy and his crime staff swung into action and rushed to the crime scene and after analysing the CCTV footage our team started the investigation and they got to know the news channel has not yet been launched and based on technical inputs our team tracked two of the gang members and during the course of investigation the accused spilled the beans and based on their statement our team were successful in nabbing the other accused,and with tremendous efforts by the team all the six accused were arrested and during the course of investigation it is revealed that the accused the owner of News Channel which is not yet launched was identified as Santhosh alias Santhosh Simha and to launch his channel across karnataka to collect funds he hatched this plan or idea and for this he appointed 6 people.Santosh used to run a daily newspaper in the name of Praja Prathinidhi,after few years he registered the same news paper into news channel in her wife Ashwini’s name and he even had his own Human Rights organization group.

V.K.Mahadev and Ashok Kumar used to work as reporters,Rakesh and Naveen used to work as informer and santhosh Simha’s brother in law Anand used to work as camera man.Santhosh Simha was running financial crisis to launch his news channel so for this he and his associates hatched a plan to extort money from garment shop owners by doing a sting operation and for this the accused Rakesh and Naveen used to search and shortlist the garment shops and after identifying and getting information about the garment shop that they are selling fake branded clothes they used to visit the shop and would do their sting video and after doing a sting operation they used to threaten the owner of the shop that we have done a sting story on your shop that you are selling fake branded clothes and we will expose you by telecasting the same in our channel by this way they used to blackmail the shopkeepers and extort money from them so now the notorious criminals are behind bars and with their arrest we have detected four cases registered against them in, Banashankari,Basavangudi,Bagalgunte,and Yelahanka New Town Police stations and the team has seized 2cars,as 1 Omni and 1 Innova car,along with their video camera,3 Computers,CPU with Rs.95,000 cash and Rs.65,000 worth of clothes,logo,mic and other things which were used in the conspiracy of crime has been seized from their possession and a case has been registered in Banashankari police station and further investigation is on and all the accused are cooling their heels in judicial custody, and finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner,T.Suneel Kumar,has appreciated Addl CP,Seemanth Kumar Singh,DCP South,Dr.S.D.Sharanappa,ACP Jayanagar,Sub-Division,H.Sreenivas,PI, Banashankari,Puttaswamy,PSI, Girimalappa.U,and his crime staff as,Muthanayak,Sreemanth Khemu Rathod,Toushif Ahmed,Venkatesh and Manjunath has done a exemplary and commendable job in nabbing the notorious extortionist who used to extort money from garment shop owners in the name of Praja Prathinidhi news channel which is yet to be launched and by using their criminal tactics to earn easy money has been busted by the team he added.

Bengaluru City Crime Branch police based on credible information raided nine moneylenders in the city and seized Rs 69.16 lakh cash from them.

The nine have been arrested for further questioning.

The arrested have been identified as Manjunath, Bhaskar, Velu, M.G. Subramani, Sathish, Jayamma, Krishnamma, Venkatesh and Lingaraju.

Deputy CM Dr G. Parameshwar had directed the senior police officials to raid moneylenders who have been demanding exorbitant interest rates from market vendors and others.

The CCB police formed special teams to conduct raids at 10 locations simultaneously.

Raids were held at Kamakshipalaya, Mico Layout, Jayanagar, City Market, Hanu—manthanagar, Byatara—yanapura, and three places in Chandra Layout.

The police also seized documents, 258 cheques, 52 on-demand drafts, five four-wheelers, two motorcycles, 11 land documents, 25 e-stamps, 13 bond papers, 14 loan contract bonds, 10 GPA letters and seven vehicle documents, from the accused.

PTI

Breaking its silence on sexual harassment cases emerging from the Indian entertainment and media industry under the “MeToo” movement, the NCW on Wednesday appealed to the affected women to lodge written complaints and assured of all possible help.

“The National Commission for Women (NCW) has noticed that in many such cases, victims do not want to go beyond naming and shaming the alleged offenders and lodge formal complaints. In such cases, the commission urges them to lodge written complaints with authorities concerned, including with the NCW,” it said in a statement.

Remaining silent on the number of women who had approached it till date, the panel said that the “prevalent culture of silence has long prevented women from speaking out and reporting such cases”.

The commission appreciated the bravery shown by the women who have spoken out and continue to come forward to help punish the perpetrators of such incidents.

“The NCW has continued to make efforts to reach out to all such woman who have come out with details of sexual harassment at workplace and offered all possible help. The commission is committed to facilitate and render all possible help to all women who have come forward and see their cases to a logical conclusion,” it added.

The NCW said that it has taken a serious note of sexual harassment cases reported in the media and strongly condemns any act of invasion of private space of women, adding that it is committed to ensure the safety and dignity of women, including at workplaces.

IANS

A Bangladesh court on Wednesday sentenced 19 people, including two former ministers, to death and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman to life imprisonment for their role in the 2004 grenade blasts that killed 24 people and injured 500.

The verdict was delivered amid tight security in the capital and can be appealed within two months.

The 2004 attack targeted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s rally, who was the opposition leader at the time. A series of grenades exploded as she was stepping off a truck, which was used as a dais for the rally on Bangabandhu Avenue.

She survived with a partial hearing loss.

Former State Minister for Home Lutfozzaman Babar and former Deputy Minister for Education Abdus Salam Pintu were among 19 people sentenced to death on Wednesday, bdnews24.com reported.

Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and her former political secretary Harris Chowdhury were among 19 sentenced to life imprisonment.

The sentence also included jail terms for 11 other people.

Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government will seek scaled-up punishments for Rahman and Chowdhury. He said that Khaleda’s son masterminded the attack and that he deserved the death penalty.

IANS

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sent in police custody three Directors of the Amrapali Group till they handed over all documents related to their 46 companies to forensic auditors.

The court said that in case the three directors — Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar — “failed to hand over the documents as ordered, they shall remain in police custody till such time the documents are handed over.”

A bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit observed that there was blatant and deliberate violation and non-compliance of its directions to the construction company’s Directors to submit the said documents.

The court also issued a contempt notice to the three, asking them to explain as to why they did not comply with the court’s earlier orders.

It ordered that these three and other company Directors to surrender their passports. Nominee Directors will not be covered by this direction, the court clarified.

The court also said that none of the statutory auditors and Directors shall leave the country.

Asking the police to seize all the documents, the court said: “It is not only deliberate non- compliance with court order but also efforts are being made to fritter away the documents in utter violation of court order.”

The court directed that documents not handed over as per the October 4, 2018 order of the Debt Recovery Tribunal too will be handed over to police.

The court took a dim view of the conduct of the Directors, after one of the forensic auditors said that all that the company had furnished till now were documents relating to only six of the 46 companies.

“Why this hide and seek and violation of compliance with our order? Whatever they (forensic auditors) want, it should be handed over by today,” Justice Mishra said.

The documents supplied to the forensic auditors include two internal audit reports of the real estate group pertaining to a period from 2008 to 2015, but nothing from 2015 until 2018.

Directing the Delhi Police to take assistance of Noida police and seize all necessary documents, Justice Mishra said: “If you fail to give any documents, you will not come out of this (custody).

“If they want to live in dignity, then they (Directors) should hand over all the documents immediatelym,” Justice Mishra added.

The court warned the three Directors: “You are in great difficulty, if you don’t comply. We are in action. This will not be tolerated even for an hour. You don’t play with the court.”

The court reminded the Amrapali Directors that they were in the wrong as far as principles of law and administration were concerned as “you have not prepared the accounts from 2015 till 2018.

The court posted the matter for October 24.

IANS

Popular singer Chinmayi Sripaada has backed accusations of sexual harassment against veteran Tamil lyricist-poet Vairamuthu by alleging that she was asked to “cooperate” and visit him in a hotel but she refused.

After endorsing allegations of sexual harassment against Vairamuthu by several others on Twitter in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Chinmayi shared her own story.

In a series of tweets, Chinmayi recalled an incident that a concert organiser asked her to “cooperate” and visit Vairamuthu in his hotel room. She said this happened in 2005 or 2006.

“‘Veezhamattom’. An album for Sri Lankan Tamils that I had sung in had Manikka Vinayagam sir. I don’t remember if it was a book or an album release or both now. The performances and launch happened in Switzerland in Bern/Zurich maybe,” she tweeted.

“Everyone left. Only my mother and I were asked to stay back. The organiser (I don’t remember his name) asked me to visit Vairamuthu sir in a hotel.”

Chinmayi said she was asked to “cooperate” but she refused.

“We demanded to be sent back to India. He said ‘You won’t have a career!’ My mother and I both put our foot down. ‘Career vendam, mannum vendam (I don’t need a career, I need self-esteem)’. Demanded an earlier flight to India and came back.”

Recalling another incident, which she said happened three or four years ago, Chinmayi alleged that Vairamuthu threatened to make false claims when she turned down his request to sing at an event.

“He had a book release function and asked me to sing ‘Tamizh Thaai vaazhthu’. I said I would be unable to. He in turn responded I’ll tell (a politician) you spoke ill of him on stage, yelled at me. (I) kept the phone down (and) bawled,” wrote Chinmayi.

She added that her work place had been mostly clean, except for some bad apples.

“In 17 years, not one man in the industry across languages Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Marathi has misbehaved.”

She alleged that the staff of Vairamuthu’s office was well aware of his behaviour. “His close confidants know. They are also his enablers,” she said.

By : PRAMESH S JAIN

Notorious Inter-State HBT Offenders arrested by Baiyappanahalli and Jeevanbhimanagar Police Recovered property worth Rs.77 Lakhs detected 21 cases :

The East Division police of Baiyappanahalli and Jeevanbhimanagar Police have arrested notorious HBT offenders as House Burglary thiefs and detected 21 cases and recovered stolen property Worth Rs.77 lakhs.

In a joint operation by Jeevanbhimanagar Police inspector,Hanumantha K Bhajantri,Baiyyapanahalli police inspector Ramesh.G.P.and their crime staff has nabbed notorious Inter-State dreaded criminals.

The accused has been identified as,Vincent alias David,62,resident of Kalasipalya,Dinakar,31,Kalidasa,36, Loganathan,52,all three are residents of Nagapattinam of Tamilnadu,Armaan Khan,26 year old resident of New Delhi.

Speaking at a press conference, Police Commissioner T.Suneel Kumar said, “A team led by DCP,Ajay Hilori was formed to track the notorious criminals down.after we got a lead about his movements.He is an old-time offender, but he frequently disguised himself to stay under the radar.
He was caught by the police after getting a tip-off in Jeevanbhimanagar.He felt Bengaluru was a soft target to start burglary. Without any accomplice,Vincent would roam around in several areas and look for locked houses.Apart from serving free food at churches in Tamil Nadu, Vincent would use the looted money to ‘enjoy’ with his friends and live a lavish life. Police are verifying if he has committed burglaries in other areas too.
Police recovered valuables worth Rs.16.25 lakh, which included gold jewellery and one television set.Meanwhile the team of Jeevanbhimanagar Police inspector and his team has arrested Delhi based accused identified as Armaan Khan he was nabbed based on information provided by his associates Ashish Kumar who was arrested in the month of August and based on the information provided by his associate our team were alert and recently in the month of September the accused Armaan Khan, alias Sonu, 27 who was caught when he was going back to Delhi after committing thefts in Bengaluru.
Khan used to fly to Chennai from Delhi and from Chennai he use to travel to Hosur in a cab and stay in a posh hotel in the outskirts of Hosur. He’d target locked houses in Whitefield, South-east and East police divisions. Recently, he broke into a house in Jeevan Bheema Nagar police station limits.Based on a CCTV footage of him riding a bike the police identified him.With the help of technical inputs under observation by the police.
The accused was nabbed by the night round patrolling team and he was taken to station for further questioning during the course of investigation he has confessed the crime and he was produced before the court and the court has remanded him to police custody and our team grilled him further and he spilled the beans and it was revealed that he was the gang leader of the team and he and his associates would take flights from New Delhi to Chennai.From there they would come to Bengaluru by train and would go around the city during morning hours looking for locked houses.
They would pose themselves as salesman and after identifying the locked house they would commit theft at night times he even said that his associates would strike for almost at fortnight and would again return by train to Chennai and he used to dispose the booty in Chennai and rest to Delhi to lead a lavish lifestyle and based on his statement we have recovered stolen property worth Rs.31.7 lakhs, including 1.4kg of gold ornaments,1.2kg silver items and other valuables and with his arrest at least 12 cases has been solved.Armaan Khan, who is from Delhi, was earlier arrested by Ashok Nagar police in 2014 for committing series of thefts in city.
Baiyyapanahalli Police inspector and his crime staff has arrested two notorious Inter-State thiefs who are infamous in commiting thefts and who used to escape with lockers too in seconds.Our inspector and his crime staff has taken theif identified as Dinakar Vaidyalingam on body warrant after he was remanded in judicial custody after his arrest by Tamilnadu Police and based on his information our team has secured two notorious thieves and during the course of investigation the accused confessed the crime and revealed that they used to target locked houses and banks and they even used to escape with lockers which was available in the house and he used to break open it in isolated place or forest area and they used to dispose the stolen property in Tamilnadu and based on their statement

our team has recovered stolen property worth Rs.29 lakhs have been recovered from the accused.and with his arrest six property offence registered in Baiyyapanahalli and 1 case registered in Avalahalli has been detected by the team.Altogether total property worth of Rs.77 lakhs has been recovered and with their arrest we have detected 21 cases registered against them across state and

finally Bengaluru Police Commissioner,T.Suneel Kumar,has appreciated,Addl CP East,Seemanth Kumar Singh,DCP East,Dr.Ajay Hilori,ACP,Shanthamalappa,PIs,as, Hanumantha.K.Bhajantri,Ramesh G.P.and their whole crime staff who has done tremendous and exemplary work in nabbing the notorious dreaded criminals who has given sleepless nights to Police and residents of bengalurueans and to lead a lavish and luxurious life they have committed this offence are now cooling their heels in the jail and all the accused are in judicial custody and suitable award will be given to whole team for their immense efforts in catching these dangerous criminals he added.

A Kolkata school teacher was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly molesting a Class 2 girl student inside the school premises a few days back, police said.

The school turned into a battlefield of sorts after angry parents arrived at the school demanding immediate action. The police baton charged to bring the crowd under control.

“The accused teacher has been arrested. The situation turned really tough but now it is under control,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East division) Kalyan Mukherjee said.

According to the victim’s parents, the dance teacher had molested the girl on several occasions. On Monday, a police complaint was lodged.

Alleging that the school authorities refused to take action despite repeated complaints, angry parents and guardians demonstrated outside the school leading to the police using force to disperse them.

Television visuals showed several protesters bleeding after they were baton charged. Even some of the police personnel were injured. “Why are they hitting us,” an angry woman who was bleeding said.

IANS

The Joint Secretary of the club said that the government expects journalists to write only good things about it, in the nature of advertisements for the ruling government.
Priyanka Thirumurthy
The Chennai Press Club condemned the arrest of Nakkheeran Gopal from the Chennai airport on Tuesday morning. “Chennai Press Club strongly condemns the arrests, the threats and the actions of the state machinery that makes journalists run from pillar to post without any reason,” said Bharathi Tamil, the Joint Secretary of the club.

Nakkheeran Gopal was apprehended by the Chennai police around 8.20 am on Tuesday, allegedly for an article on the Nirmala Devi case, which questioned why TN Governor Banwarilal Purohit was not made a part of the inquiry. Acting on a complaint, reportedly lodged by the Deputy Secretary to Governor, the police arrested Gopal when he was on his way to Pune. The police have booked Gopal under section 124 of the IPC which deals with ‘assaulting President or Governor with intent to compel or restrain the exercise of any lawful power’.

Speaking to media about the arrest, Bharathi said that the police have not acted in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Court. “Basically the information regarding the name of the complainant, the nature of complaint, the sections of law under which the complaints have been registered and the police station in which the complaint has been registered must be informed to the family of the one who has been arrested and his lawyers. This has not been done in today’s arrest,” he said.

Alleging that the case is being prepared after taking Gopal into custody, Bharathi said that initially there were rumours that a sedition case will be slapped on Gopal. “If the government is going to book a journalist for sedition for writing an article, then let me say that it would be much easier for the state government to issue a government order declaring all journalists as traitors. This would make this government under the leadership of Edappadi Palaniswami to go down the annals of history,” he said.

He also came down heavily on the state administration and said that the police acted on the orders of the government which, in turn, is submitting itself to ‘pressure from Raj Bhavan’.

Calling this arrest an action by the government against all journalists, he said, “There is no freedom of speech, expression or thought in this state. This arrest shows that the government wants journalists to write only good things about it, which looks like advertisement.”

Echoing Bharathi’s thoughts on the arrest, S Arogyam, Nakkheeran Gopal’s lawyer said that they have not been informed about the arrest or the complaint.

“We have requested the police to grant us audience so that we would know under what section he has been arrested. We are still not sure of under what section he has been arrested. They told us that inquiry is going on and hence we will not be allowed to meet him,” Arogyam told media from outside the Chintadripet police station, where Gopal has been brought.

However, S Arogyam also said that the case under section 124 will not hold water in court because there was no assault or effort to stop the Governor’s lawful functioning.

PTI