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: Mumbai Police has claimed to have arrested 6 Afghan nationals residing illegally in Mumbai city. The Crime Branch Unit 1 of Mumbai Police had received information that Afghan nationals were residing illegally here, on which Unit 1 and Unit 5 formed a joint team and conducted a raid in Fort, Dharavi-Kalaba area of ​​Mumbai and arrested 6 non-Afghan nationals, who have been identified as Mohammad Rasool Nishazia Khan (24), Mohammad Jafar Nabiullah (47), Mohammad Rasool Nishazia Khan (24), Akhtar Mohammad Jamaluddin (47), Ziaul Haq Ghousia Khan (47), Abdul Manan Khan (36) and Asad Shamshuddin Khan (36). Units 1 and 5 carried out the operation on technical grounds. These Afghan nationals had obtained visas in 2015, 2016, 2017 and settled in India. During this time, these Afghan nationals prepared fake documents and settled in India. All of them are in India. They had also hidden their identity with fake names. Their real names were Abdul Samad Kandahar, Muhammad Rasool Qamaruddin Kandahar, Amilullah Jhabul, Zia-ul-Haq Ahmed Kabul, Muhammad Ibrahim Ghaznavi Kabul, Asad Khan Kabul. All of them had prepared their fake documents to prepare Indian documents and then they prepared Indian documents. In this case, the Crime Branch has taken action against Afghans on a large scale and has arrested Afghan illegal residents. The police have registered a case against them and started investigation. This action has been carried out by Joint Police Commissioner Crime Lakshmi Gautam and DCP Raj Tilak Roshan on the instructions of Mumbai Police Commissioner Deven Bharti. A case of preparing requisite documents has been registered against them and a case has also been registered under the Passport Act.