New Delhi, Dec 12: A special CBI court in Lucknow has sentenced two individuals — a former village pradhan and a fair-price shopkeeper — to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in a major corruption case involving misappropriation of over Rs one crore under the Sampurna Grameen Rozgar Yojna (SGRY), the agency said on Friday.

The verdict was delivered on Thursday. According to an official release, the court convicted Satya Narayan Prasad Patel, then village pradhan, and Shahnawaj Alam, then fair-price shopkeeper (kotedar), imposing a total fine of Rs 55,000 on the two.

The court held them guilty of causing wrongful loss to the government exchequer by siphoning off cash and foodgrains allocated for rural employment and welfare.

The case dates to 2006, when Narhi Police Station in Ballia district registered an FIR alleging large-scale irregularities in SGRY distribution.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the probe on October 31, 2008 and registered a case against 172 accused persons, including officials responsible for implementing the scheme at the village and district levels.

Investigators found that the accused caused a wrongful loss of Rs 65 lakh in cash and misappropriated foodgrain worth Rs 45.26 lakh, preparing forged records and using fraudulent means to divert government resources intended for the rural poor.

“It was alleged that the accused persons had caused wrongful loss to the Government Exchequer to the tune of Rs 65.00 lakh in cash and foodgrain worth Rs 45.26 lakh and corresponding gain to themselves by cheating, fraud, and preparing forged documents under Sampurna Grameen Rozgar Yojna (SGRY),” the CBI said in its press note.

After a detailed investigation, the CBI filed a charge sheet on November 10, 2010, against three individuals: Satyendra Singh Gangwar, then Chief Finance and Accounts Officer of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) Ballia; Satya Narayan Prasad Patel; and Shahnawaj Alam.

Following the trial, the CBI court convicted Patel and Alam but acquitted Gangwar of all charges.

Mumbai: A guest professor, booked for molesting female students at the annual function of St. Xavier’s College in south Mumbai, has approached the sessions court for an anticipatory bail, claiming he is suffering from a mental ailment and the case had been lodged to ruin his image. The court has reserved the plea for order next week.

As per the FIR lodged with the Azad Maidan police station, the professor was invited at an event of National Hindi Parishad, held on November 24, wherein he allegedly sexually harassed nine students and one retired teacher. It is claimed that he exhibited obscenity during the festival.

While seeking protection from the arrest, the professor has claimed he is suffering from depression and other health issues, and has on several occasion attempted to commit suicide. He claimed he is currently admitted in the hospital due to his mental ailment. The professor claimed he is ready to appear before the officer through video conferencing after he is discharged from the hospital.

The plea was opposed by the prosecution on the ground that from the statements taken from the victim women, the accused appears to be of “a perverted nature”, and the possibility of him behaving indecently with other women cannot be ruled out. The police have also raised an apprehension of communal tension as the accused and the victims are of different religions.

New Delhi, Dec 11: The Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested four members of an interstate mobile phone theft gang and recovered 40 high-end smartphones, many of which had been stolen from a December 7 concert at IGI Stadium, officials said on Thursday.

A team from the Eastern Range-I of the Crime Branch, led by Inspector Ashish Sharma and supervised by ACP Sunil Srivastav, tracked the suspects for nearly 48 hours before intercepting them near Yamuna Vihar Metro Station on December 9.

The police said the accused kept shifting locations to evade surveillance, forcing the team to maintain continuous technical tracking.

The arrested men have been identified as Salman (35), Imran (28), Shahrukh (32) and Wasim (25), all residents of Ghaziabad.

Police recovered eight Apple iPhones — including iPhone 17 Pro Max and the iPhone 16 series along with seven premium Samsung models such as the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Fold 6.

The remaining phones belonged to OnePlus, Vivo, Oppo, Redmi, POCO and Motorola.

Several of the recovered devices have already been matched with FIRs registered at Prashant Vihar, Shahbad Dairy and IP Estate police stations.

According to officers, the gang targeted crowded public places such as concerts, metro stations, bus stops, bars, marketplaces and railway stations.

During interrogation, the alleged kingpin, Salman, confessed that they focused on events frequented by young people carrying expensive phones. Police said the group had been operating across Delhi-NCR for several months.

“The stolen phones were then swiftly shifted to Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), where the gang had established contacts in the grey market. The high-end devices were sold at throwaway prices within hours of the theft, making recovery extremely difficult,” the police said in its press note.

“Salman admitted that the gang had been actively operating in Delhi-NCR for the past several months and had committed scores of such thefts, earning them lakhs of rupees with almost no risk of getting caught until the present arrest,” it added.

Police said the four have been booked under Sections 35(1)(E) and 106 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

“This operation underscores the Delhi Police Crime Branch’s commitment to curbing organised crime and apprehending hardened criminals. Efforts are ongoing to apprehend the accused’s associates and others, and to verify additional cases linked to the accused,” said DCP Vikram Singh.