Mumbai: Zeeshan Siddique, son of late NCP leader Baba Siddique met Maharashtra Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar on Friday. The meeting is underway at Fadnavis’ ‘Sagar Bungalow’ where top officers from Mumbai police were also present, reports say. Siddique’s meeting with Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis came hours after the Mumbai Traffic Police received a threatening message demanding Rs 5 crore from actor Salman Khan to settle a long-standing feud with Lawrence Bishnoi.

On Thursday, Zeeshan, Congress MLA from Bandra West had posted on X seeking justice for himself and his family. His father NCP leader and former MLA from Bandra, Baba Siddique was murdered in Bandra, Mumbai last week.

Senior politician Baba Siddique was shot and killed on October 12 by three individuals in Bandra. Four people have been arrested in connection so far, while others are absconding. Although no concrete evidence links Lawrence Bishnoi directly to Siddique’s murder, the case is under investigation.

Meanwhile, it came to light on Friday morning that a member of Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang, allegedly sent a message to Mumbai Traffic police and warned that if Salman failed to pay Rs 5 crore, his fate would be worse than that of former MLA Baba Siddique. Siddique’s murder right in the middle of the city, with the Maharashtra assembly elections round the corner has sent shockwaves across the country.

Zeeshan’s meeting with the deputy CMs along with the Mumbai police’s top officials was in view of informing his family on the progress of Baba Siddique’s murder case with the objective of keeping the family updated with the developments, reports say.

Mumbai: Another horrifying incident of sexual abuse has come to light from the national capital, where a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped by five friends in a hotel. As per reports, the Delhi police have arrested five men in the case, of which three are from Raigad, Maharashtra.

The victim, a class 10 student from Haldwani, Uttarakhand had boarded a train to Delhi on October 4. The rape took place in a hotel near Delhi airport on October 5 and 6, Jagran reported. The incident came to light hen the victim’s father approached the police station in Haldwadi reporting the girl missing. The police searched the CCTV footages and tracked the victim’s phone location. The police traced her in a hotel in Delhi, where she narrated the ordeal.

The police have recorded the victim’s statement and she was brought back to Halwadi earlier this week. The police identified the accused after checking the CCTV footage and IDs provided at the hotel, All five accused are friends, hailing from Maharashtra and Delhi.

Halwadi police said that the medical tests confirmed the girl was sexually assaulted. A case under BNS section 70 (gang-rape) and POCSO Act was registered against the five men, and they were sent to jail. The accused men are Sandesh Chiplakar (25), Roshan Patil (29), Yogesh Naik (34)–all three from Raigad, Maharashtra–and Ashish Agarkar (30) and Sahil Kumar (24) from Delhi.

Mumbai: A fabricator involved in the collapse of a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at a fort in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district was reportedly arrested on Thursday. Parmeshwar Ramnaresh Yadav, who was taken into custody from Uttar Pradesh, used substandard materials while constructing the 35-foot-tall statue of the revered Maratha warrior king.

A technical investigation revealed that the statue had rusted in several places, confirming the use of low-quality materials. The police noted that Yadav not only used inferior material but also failed to properly weld the statue’s parts, contributing to its eventual collapse, as per a Times of India report.

Yadav Sent For 3-Day Remand

The statue, which was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Rajkot fort in Sindhudurg on December 4, 2023, fell on August 26, 2024, during strong winds. Yadav, a key figure in the statue’s construction, was identified as an accused after a thorough investigation and was later remanded in police custody for three days.

Before his arrest, other individuals involved in the project, including the statue’s sculptor-contractor Jaydeep Apte and consultant Chetan Patil, had already been taken into custody in connection with the incident.

The collapse of the statue, which was dedicated to the founder of the Maratha Empire, led to major embarrassment for both the state and central governments, given its symbolic importance and the timing of its unveiling by the Prime Minister just nine months earlier.

New Statue To Be Constructed By ‘Statue Of Unity’ Maker

In response to the incident, the Maharashtra state government awarded a new contract to Ram Sutar Art Creations, a firm known for its prestigious work on the Statue of Unity in Gujarat, which honours Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Led by Anil Ram Sutar, the company is now tasked with constructing a new statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in Sindhudurg. This time, the statue will be 60 feet tall, nearly doubling the height of the previous one.

Taking extra precautions to avoid another collapse, the new contract includes a stipulation that the statue must last at least 100 years. Furthermore, the builder will be responsible for its maintenance for the first decade, ensuring that proper materials and techniques are used in its construction.