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CJI-led SC bench fixes Jan 29 to hear suo moto RG Kar case

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New Delhi, Jan 22: The Supreme Court on Wednesday fixed January 29 for hearing the matter where it has taken suo moto cognisance of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata in August 2024.

“We will take it up at 2 pm next Wednesday (January 29),” said a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan as it deferred the hearing due to paucity of time.

The CJI Khanna-led Bench asked senior advocate Karuna Nundy, representing the associations of medical professionals, to provide a copy of interlocutory applications filed to the other side.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal government has approached the Calcutta High Court, challenging the verdict of a Kolkata special court awarding life imprisonment to Sanjay Roy, the sole accused and the convict in the rape and murder case of the woman doctor.

As the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday morning before a division bench of Justices Debangshu Basak and Shabbar Rashidi, the CBI challenged the petition filed by the state government and questioned the grounds on which it could make such an appeal.

Deputy Solicitor General, Rajdeep Majumdar, argued that it was only the CBI, which is the investigating agency in the case, and the victim’s parents who could move such a plea at a higher court, and not the state government, which is not a party in the case.

To support his contention, Majumdar referred to a case filed by the CBI against former Bihar Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, where the state government’s plea was not considered by the Patna High Court.

Whether the West Bengal government’s petition will be admissible or not will be decided by the Calcutta High Court on January 27.

Earlier, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the Bengal government would move the Calcutta High Court challenging the quantum of the sentence and the state government would be seeking the death penalty for the convict.

“I am convinced that it is indeed a rarest of rare cases which demands capital punishment. We want to insist upon the death penalty in this most sinister and sensitive case,” the Chief Minister said.

While pronouncing the quantum of the sentence, special court judge Anirban Das said that the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) contention that Roy’s offence in the matter was “the rarest and rare crimes” was not tenable.

Hence, the judge observed that instead of the “death penalty”, Roy, an erstwhile civic volunteer attached to Kolkata Police, be sentenced to “life imprisonment”. Apart from that a fine of Rs 50,000 was also imposed on Roy.

The special court, at the same time, directed the West Bengal government to pay a compensation of Rs 17 lakh to the family of the deceased victim.

It observed that since the victim was raped and murdered at her workplace, which is a state-government entity, the West Bengal government is legally bound to pay compensation to the victim’s family.

In an earlier hearing held in November 2024, the Supreme Court had remarked that it would not pass any direction to transfer the trial of the ghastly rape and murder case outside West Bengal.

A bench, headed by then CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, turned down the oral prayer made by a lawyer seeking transfer of trial outside West Bengal.

“Yes, we have transferred cases (of gender violence) in Manipur. But we are not doing anything like that here,” it had remarked.

The apex court had noted that the trial would commence on November 11 at a special court in Kolkata after charges were framed against the “sole prime accused” in the case, Sanjay Roy.

The process of the framing of charges was completed on November 4, exactly 87 days after the body of the woman junior doctor was discovered at a seminar hall within the state-run R.G. Kar premises on the morning of August 9, 2024.

In October, the CBI filed its first charge sheet against Roy, a civic volunteer with Kolkata Police, in the alleged rape and murder case.

In the charge sheet, the CBI did not rule out the possibilities of a larger conspiracy behind the macabre crime that prompted alleged events of tampering and altering of evidence during the initial phase of the investigation which was carried out by Kolkata Police.

Besides Roy, two others arrested by the CBI officials in the matter are RG Kar Medical College and Hospital’s former Principal, Sandip Ghosh, and the former SHO of Tala Police Station, Abhijit Mondal. RG Kar comes under the jurisdiction of Tala Police Station.

The main charges against Ghosh and Mondal are for misleading the investigation when the Kolkata Police were probing the matter before it was handed over to CBI by the Calcutta High Court.

Both have been accused of tampering with evidence in the case. Taking suo moto cognisance of the rape and murder case of the junior doctor at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, the Supreme Court had termed the incident “horrific,” which raises the “systemic issue of safety of doctors across the country”.

“We are deeply concerned about the fact that there is an absence of safe conditions of work for young doctors across the country, particularly, public hospitals,” it had said.

The apex court had ordered the formation of the NTF (National Task Force) to suggest measures for the security of medical professionals across the country, observing that the safety of doctors is the “highest national concern”.

Crime

Accused in air hostess sexual assault case was porn addict: Gurugram Police

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Gurugram, April 19: Gurugram Police said on Saturday that the accused in the air hostess sexual assault case was a porn addict, an official said.

Gurugram Police Spokesperson Sandeep Kumar said that the accused used to watch porn videos habitually, which was also confirmed from the mobile phone recovered from him.

He said that during police interrogation, it was found that the accused has a B.Sc. (OT) degree from a private institute from the years 2019-2022, and he was an average student in studies.

“For the last five months, he was working as a treatment machine technician in the ICU of the hospital. The accused going to the victim at the time of the incident was confirmed from the CCTV cameras installed in the hospital,” he said.

The Spokesperson said that during interrogation of the accused, it was also found that he had watched porn videos before the incident and even after committing the crime.

“Which is also being confirmed from the search history of the accused’s mobile phone. He was produced before the court on Saturday, from where he was sent to judicial custody for further proceedings,” he said.

Meanwhile, the SIT on Friday nabbed the accused, after analysing at least 800 CCTV cameras installed inside and outside of the hospital, who sexually assaulted the woman when she was on a ventilator.

The accused was identified as Deepak (25), a native of Muzaffarpur in Bihar. The accused had been working as a treatment machine technician in the ICU of the hospital for the past five months and was arrested in the Sadar police station area on Friday.

An official privy to the investigation said that the accused has confessed to his crime in the matter.

“While investigating the incident, eight police teams checked the footage of 800 CCTV cameras installed in the hospital, and around 50 hospital staff, including doctors, were questioned about the incident. Keeping in mind the seriousness of the incident, the police teams investigated from every angle and collected a lot of information related to the incident, as a result of which the police got great success in identifying the accused who committed the crime,” said Arpit Jain, DCP (Headquarters).

On Thursday, Vikas Kumar Arora, Commissioner of Police, Gurugram, had constituted an SIT and ordered the identification and arrest of the accused.

As per the order of the Police Commissioner, an SIT was constituted under the leadership of Arpit Jain, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Headquarters, Gurugram, in which a total of eight different police teams were given special directions and deployed to collect information and evidence related to the incident.

Dr. Sanjay Durani, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, said in a statement that: “We have been informed that the police have identified a suspect who has been taken into custody in connection with the ongoing investigation concerning allegations of sexual assault on a patient. On the basis of information provided to us by the police, we have suspended the suspect employee. As we await the final outcome of the investigation, we will continue to provide full support to the police.”

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Crime

Manipur govt launches verification of papers of arms license holders

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Imphal, April 19: The Manipur government has launched a drive to verify the licensed arms and asked all the district administrations to examine the papers of the arms license holders and arms dealers, officials said on Saturday.

A senior official said that the Commissioner (Home) has, in an urgent circular, asked the Deputy Commissioners of all 16 districts to take steps to verify the papers of arms license holders and arms dealers in their respective districts.

Accordingly, all the Deputy Commissioners directed the arms license holders and arms dealers to submit their papers in their nearest or respective police stations on or before April 25.

“Non-compliance with the orders may lead to penalisation and cancellation of arms license,” the official said, referring to the circular of the Commissioner (Home). Till March 6, around 1,000 looted and illegally held weapons, including many sophisticated arms, and a huge cache of ammunition, have been returned to the security forces since Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla appealed for the first time on February 20.

The initiative to recover the looted and illegally held arms began on May 31, 2023, when former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh made an appeal to all concerned to surrender the firearms looted from security forces and police armouries.

Officials said that before Singh’s resignation as Chief Minister on February 9, a total of 3,422 firearms had been voluntarily surrendered to the authorities and police stations in different districts.

Various official reports, political parties claimed that during the ethnic riots, which broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, over 6,020 varied types of sophisticated arms and lakhs of different types of ammunition were looted from the police stations and police outposts by the mobs, attackers and militants.

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Crime

Put under house arrest again, says Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

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Srinagar, April 18: Senior religious and Huriyat Conference (HC) Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, said on Friday that authorities have placed him under house arrest, thereby denying him the right to offer congregational prayers during the day.

Mirwaiz Farooq said on X, “Every Friday I am put under arbitrary house arrest ! Putting pressure on me not to speak up, the ban also aims to weaken the centrality of Muslim institutions of the valley-the Jama Masjid, office of the Mirwaiz, and cause collective grief to Muslims and all those who oppose this authoritarian and sectarian outlook. My house detention case is still pending in court, where I am seeking relief from the Hon’ble High Court, but In such times patience remains our only strength.”

Mirwaiz traditionally delivers the Friday sermon at the Jamia Masjid in the Nowhatta area of old Srinagar city. He also heads the Anjuman-e-Nusratul Islam, a religious organisation that runs some educational institutions in Kashmir, including the Islamia High School in Rajouri Kadal area of Srinagar.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) last month declared the Mirwaiz-headed Awami Action Committee (ACC) a banned organisation for five years. The ACC was formed in 1963 during the Holy Relic agitation by Mirwaiz Maulana Mohammad Farooq. After the elder Mirwaiz was assassinated in 1990 by the terrorists, the ACC came to be headed by his son, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

The MHA order said that the ACC has been encouraging youth to violence and is acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the state.

Mirwaiz Farooq, who is the chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, has witnessed the desertion of several affiliates. As many as 12 Hurriyat-linked organisations have broken off from secessionism, reposing trust in the Constitution of India.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that “separatism has become history in Kashmir”, and the unifying policies of the Modi government have eliminated separatism in J&K. He has also said this is a victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’.

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