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Operation against holed up terrorists continues in J&K’s Kathua

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Jammu, March 24: The operation against holed up terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district continued on Monday. However, there was no exchange of fire between the security forces and terrorists in the night.

DGP Nalin Prabhat accompanied by Bhim Sen Tuti, IGP (Jammu) reached the operation site on Sunday evening to supervise the operation against holed-up terrorists in Sanyal village of Hiranagar tehsil which is barely 4 Km away from the International Border (IB) with Pakistan.

“Not a single fire was exchanged between the holed-up terrorists and the security forces after 7 p.m. yesterday. The entire forested area, where 3 to 5 terrorists are believed to be hiding, has been surrounded,” officials said.

A 7-year-old girl was injured on Sunday during the firing exchanges between the security forces and the terrorists.

She was immediately shifted to the hospital. Doctors at the hospital said her condition was stable.

Reports reaching here said that a local woman, Anita Devi and her husband Ganesh Kumar had spotted the terrorists when they had gone into the forested area to collect firewood.

Based on this input, joint forces started a CASO (Cordon & Search Operation) in Sanyal village near the IB in the Hiranagar sector of Kathua district.

“As the joint forces, including the Army, the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the J&K Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), closed on hiding terrorists, they were fired at, triggering an encounter,” officials said.

The IB between India and Pakistan is situated in the district, and in the past also, terrorists have attempted to sneak into the Indian side over the border.

Recently in Kathua, three civilians — Darshan Singh, 40, Yogesh Singh, 32, and Varun Singh, 14, — went missing on March 5 while returning from a wedding in Marhoon village.

Their bodies were discovered on March 8 near a waterfall on the edge of an escarpment in a wooded area following an extensive search involving the Army, police, drones, and sniffer dogs.

“The brutal killing of three relatives by terrorists in the Bani area of Kathua is extremely sad as well as a matter of great concern,” Union Minister Jitendra Singh said in a post on X.

In the wake of the incident, Union Home Secretary, Govind Mohan came to Jammu on March 9 and chaired a high-level security meeting regarding the safe and peaceful Amarnath Yatra beginning on July 3 and the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) which will soon be inaugurated.

The Home Secretary laid emphasis on the security situation in the Jammu division while giving detailed directions on the overall security situation in J&K.

Initially confined to Poonch and Rajouri districts, terrorist activities have spread to other areas of Jammu, including those that were relatively free from such incidents until a few years ago like the Chenab Valley, which was declared militancy-free and Udhampur and Kathua.

In the past, highly trained terrorists have been ambushing vehicles and using grenades and armour-piercing bullets, as well as M4 assault rifles.

Sources said the use of sophisticated weapons by terrorists indicates a significant escalation in the threat level. Analysts say that over the last couple of years, the Pir Panjal region dividing Kashmir Valley from Jammu has witnessed a surge in militancy as anti-terror operations in Kashmir have pushed terrorists to the mountains where they hide and wait for the right moment to carry out attacks on security forces.

Crime

Delhi Police arrest notorious cyber stalker in Palam

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CRIME

New Delhi, July 2: A 21-year-old man was arrested in Delhi’s Palam village for allegedly harassing a college student by creating fake Instagram accounts and using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to generate objectionable content.

The accused was persistently stalking and defaming the victim, a college-going girl, through multiple fake Instagram profiles, Amit Goel, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South West District, said in a statement.

The complainant approached the Cyber Police Station, West District, on June 16, reporting that the accused was daily creating new accounts using her photographs, posting them with derogatory captions, and targeting her and her followers.

Acting on the complaint, the police registered a case under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“In view of the seriousness of the matter, a dedicated team led by SI Priyanka was formed to identify and apprehend the accused,” the statement added.

A team of PS Cyber, South-West District, arrested the notorious cyber stalker and recovered the smartphone used in the commission of the offence, the statement read.

During the investigation, it came to the fore that the accused was impersonating a female using a profile picture taken from the victim’s public Instagram account, the police said.

The police said the accused further used AI tools to convert the images into sexually explicit content and uploaded these edited pictures through fake Instagram stories.

Despite efforts to mask his identity by not linking any accounts to verifiable mobile numbers or Gmail IDs, the cyber team used advanced technical analysis to track the suspect to the Palam area of South-West Delhi. Multiple raids were conducted before he was successfully arrested.

The accused, whose identity has been withheld, confessed to the crime during interrogation, the police statement read.

Further investigation is underway.

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Crime

CBI books ex-SBI branch manager in Assam for illegal assets of Rs 80 lakh

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CBI

New Delhi, June 30: The CBI has booked a former manager of the State Bank of India branch in Assam for possessing allegedly illegal assets worth over Rs 80 lakh, an official said on Monday.

Pinku Kumar, former Branch Manager, SBI, Ramkrishnanagar Branch, Karimganj, is also facing a separate investigation over his alleged collusion in a multi-crore scam involving sanction of loans using forged documents, the official said.

CBI’s Shillong-based Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) registered the latest Disproportionate Assets case against Pinku Kumar on June 27 after receiving a complaint from a preliminary investigator.

The complaint alleged commission of criminal misconduct by Pinku Kumar while intentionally enriching himself illicitly, during the check period from April 1, 2019 to March 27, 2025.

During this period, he was found in possession of pecuniary resources/property, disproportionate to his known sources of income which he cannot satisfactorily account for, to the tune of Rs 99.20 lakh -(81.84 per cent DA), said the CBI FIR filed against the former bank manager.

Taking note of the preliminary probe conducted in the matter of criminal misconduct, the CBI’s FIR said, “The facts mentioned in the aforesaid complaint, prima facie, reveal commission of congnizable offences, punishable under Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended 2018) on the part of Pinku Kumar.”

Section 13 of the Act defines various forms of criminal misconduct by public servants. These include actions like abusing their position, misappropriating property, or possessing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Earlier in March, the CBI booked Pinku Kumar twice in separate corruption cases naming two brokers Sumen Paul and Jadab Paul, along with the former, in each of the cases.

Raids conducted by the federal agency in these two cases led to seizure of 481 grams of gold, 11.11 gram of diamond-studded jewellery and 1,092 gram silver.

The CBI investigation showed that the former bank manager conspired with the two brokers and allegedly approved loans base on forged papers, leading to a loss of crores of rupees to the SBI.

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Crime

Kolkata law college rape case: College ignored criminal antecedents of accused

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Kolkata, June 30: As the investigation into the rape of a law student within her college premises at Kasba in South Kolkata, West Bengal, continues, information has surfaced that the said college authorities allegedly ignored criminal antecedents of one of the three prime accused, Monojit Mishra, while giving him contractual employment.

Sources said Mishra originally got admission for the LLB course in the same college in 2012.

In 2013, he was booked in a police case on charges of hooliganism in the Kalighat area in South Kolkata, in which he chopped off the finger of an individual.

Thereafter, his admission at the same college was cancelled, and he remained absconding and away from the state for over three years. He returned to Kolkata after the case against him was settled and got re-admission at the same college in 2017.

Again in March 2018, two female students of the same college accused him of sexual harassment, following which he was partially suspended for some time from attending the college, except for appearing for examinations. However, somehow the matter against him did not proceed for a long time, and he started attending the college regularly.

In March 2023, he was again accused of sexual harassment by a female student of the college. In December 2023, some students filed a complaint at the local police station, accusing Mishra of entering the college with outsider anti-social elements and beating them up.

Now, questions are being raised about how the college authorities gave him a contractual appointment, ignoring his criminal antecedents.

College insiders said that Mishra happened to be an extremely close confidant of the ruling party MLA, who is also in the governing body of the same college, whom the accused used to address as “uncle”.

Questions have started surfacing on why just “initials” of the three persons accused of raping a law college student in Kolkata were mentioned in the FIR instead of full names.

The names of the three accused are Monojit Mishra, Jaib Ahmed, and Pramit Mukhopadhyay, all linked to the Trinamool Congress’ student wing, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP).

However, in the FIR registered in the case, the three accused persons were referred to as “M”, “J” and “P”.

While the leaders of the opposition parties claim that this mention of just the initials of the three accused in the FIR was done deliberately by the cops to conceal the fact that the accused persons were linked to TMCP, even legal experts feel that in this case, there was no reason for the police to mention just the initials instead of the names.

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