Thane: Police have arrested a school bus driver here for allegedly threatening to kidnap a 15-year-old student, who used to travel in his vehicle, and demanding Rs 4 lakh from the boy’s parents, officials said on Monday.

The bus driver, who also operated a mobile phone and SIM card shop at Kashimira in Maharashtra’s Thane district, had planned the extortion in an attempt to make quick money, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone I, Rahul Chavan told reporters.

The boy’s mother, a resident of Kashimira, received a text message from an unknown mobile number on Saturday, threatening to kidnap the teenager if she failed to pay Rs 4 lakh. She immediately approached the local police.

The investigators traced the message to a number linked with a local mobile phone shop.

The school bus driver also owned a mobile and SIM card shop. He took the SIM card of one of his less-educated customers and replaced it with an inactive one, the official said.

The driver then used the active SIM card to send threats to the boy’s family via WhatsApp. He also used a photo of the boy in his possession to send ransom messages to his mother, the official said.

The police questioned the bus driver, Hariram Soma (37), who confessed to the crime, he said. The accused, also a resident of the Kashimira area, was arrested on Sunday, he added.

“Police ensured the child was not harmed. Within hours of receiving the complaint, our technical team traced the digital trail, identified the suspect and took him into custody,” Chavan said.

The accused has been booked on charges of criminal intimidation and extortion under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act.

The police have information that the accused targeted four parents of the children whom he ferried to school in his bus, and are investigating it, the official said.

New Delhi, Oct 27: In a relief for Vodafone Idea, the Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Centre to reconsider the issue of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues worth Rs 9,450 crore to ease the burden of the loss-making telecom company. The court reasoned that this matter falls in the Union’s policy domain.

The Supreme Court noted that the decision was made keeping in mind the interest of 20 crore consumers of the telecom company.

In a landmark 2019 verdict, the Supreme Court endorsed the Centre’s definition of AGR and allowed the Centre to collect dues worth Rs 92,000 crore which came as a huge setback for telecom majors such as Vodafone and Bharti Airtel.

Vodafone’s latest petition flagged a fresh AGR demand of Rs 9,450 crore raised by the Department of Telecommunications. The petition contended that a substantial portion of the demand pertained to the pre-2017 period, which had already been settled by the Supreme Court.

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta told the court that “there is a huge change in circumstances” of the case because the government has infused equity in Vodafone.

“The government’s interest is public interest. There are 20 crore consumers. If this company is to suffer, it would lead to issues for consumers,” he said.

The Supreme Court noted in its order that the Centre is willing to examine the issue. “The government is also willing to reconsider and take an appropriate decision if the court permits. In the peculiar facts, we see no impediment in government reconsidering the issue. We clarify that this is a matter of policy, there is no reason as to why the Union should be prevented from doing so,” the apex court said.

AGR refers to a fee-sharing mechanism under which telecom operators must share a part of their revenue with the Centre as licensing fees and spectrum usage charges. There was a longstanding dispute between telecom companies and the Centre over the definition of AGR. While the telecom giants stressed that AGR should be based just on core services, the Centre argued it should also factor in non-telecom services provided by the telecom giants.

Mumbai: Hours before Union Home Minister Amit Shah was set to lay the foundation stone for the new Maharashtra state headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Mumbai’s Churchgate area, Shiv Sena UBT MP Sanjay Raut launched a scathing attack on the party, alleging large-scale irregularities in the land transfer process for the upcoming BJP office.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Raut directly addressed Shah, writing, “Dear Mr Amit Shahji, Jai Maharashtra. Today, I am presenting information about what secret lies beneath the land of the BJP office, whose groundbreaking ceremony you are about to perform.” The Sena UBT leader also released a detailed letter addressed to Shah, claiming a ‘major scam’ in the allocation of the plot and alleging that administrative procedures were bypassed to facilitate the transfer in favour of the BJP.

According to Raut, the BJP took possession of the plot near Marine Lines Exide, previously owned by Eknath Realtors, within just 11 days of starting the process. He alleged that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), currently under administrative rule, acted with unusual haste on the matter, even though several other civic development files have been pending for months.

Raut stated that the land was originally owned by the Maharashtra State Cooperative Finance Corporation (MSCFC), which had leased 46 percent of it to Eknath Realtors. The realtor later applied for the remaining 54 percent and reportedly received rapid approval. Raut further alleged that Eknath Realtors paid a transfer premium of over Rs 21 crore, while the Mumbai Suburban (Reform) Committee approved the deal on May 22, 2025.

The BJP is said to have completed the property transfer in just 11 days, paying around Rs 3 crore in stamp duty. Raut also claimed that certain administrative officials colluded with Eknath Realtors to expedite the handover ‘under political pressure,’ with some transactions allegedly taking place at midnight.

Urging Amit Shah to take cognisance of the alleged irregularities, Raut said the episode raises serious questions about transparency and fairness. Meanwhile, the foundation stone-laying ceremony is set to proceed as planned, with Shah, CM Devendra Fadnavis and state BJP chief Ravindra Chavan in attendance.