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Kerala HC dismisses Swapna Suresh’s anticipatory bail plea

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The Kerala High Court on Thursday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea filed by Swapna Suresh and P.S. Sarith on the grounds that the charges against her are bailable and hence her plea was rejected.

Sarith is not even an accused in the case which was filed on Wednesday.

She, the prime accused in the gold smuggling case on Thursday filed an anticipatory bail plea after the Kerala Police registered a case against her on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, she revealed that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his wife and their daughter have all played a role in smuggling of gold and currency.

On Wednesday, she again repeated her allegations and said she said all this in her confession statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC at Kochi on Monday and Tuesday.

When the Congress and the BJP took up the issue and demanded Vijayan’s resignation, former State Minister and CPI-M supported Independent MLA K.T. Jaleel filed a case against Swapna and former seven time MLA P.C. George that they are airing baseless allegations against Vijayan to tarnish the image of the government.

On Wednesday evening after the case was filed, the Kerala Police registered an FIR against the two and charged them for conspiracy to create violence and it was against this that Swapna and Sarith, also an accused in the gold smuggling case filed an anticipatory bail plea fearing arrest by the police.

In the court, the counsel for the state government pointed out that Sarith is not even an accused and also said that the plea was filed merely to get some false information available to the public domain.

In her bail petition she had pointed out that one Shaj Kiran had approached her stating that he was close to Vijayan and CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and threatened of dire consequences if she does not withdraw her statements and in lieu of that she should issue a fresh statement absolving Vijayan and his family.

But denying of having ever said such a thing, Kiran told the media that he was a good friend of Swapna whom he came to know about 52 days back.

“We have a different relation and she is known to my wife and father also. I went and saw her yesterday and spoke to her even today. I have never met either Vijayan or Balakrishnan. All what I said to her is if she doesn’t have substantial evidence, then it might go against her. I said this just as any friend would do,” said Kiran.

Swapna then met the media from her office at Palakkad and said Kiran is and was a friend of mine.

“A few days back he was with us and when we were having dinner he said tomorrow Sarith will be picked up by the police. And on Wednesday from noon to night he was with me and said the next day a person called Nikesh Kumar who is the voice of Vijayan will come and meet me and all I should do is to hand over my mobile to him and when done, my travel ban will be lifted and I will have nothing to fear in my cases anymore,” said Swapna.

“When I was with Kiran from noon till midnight, Kiran got more than 50 calls from two additional director generals of police Vigilance – M.R. Ajithkumar and additional director general of police – Law and Order, whose name I don’t know. Tomorrow the audio clip of Kiran will probably be released by my lawyer. When you hear that everything will be very clear and if I am still alive tomorrow, we can again meet and you (media) can ask me again,” added Swapna who pointed out that she decided to file an anticipatory bail plea fearing harassment by the police.

Meanwhile, the counsel of Swapna said he told the court that the police might even arrest her.

“When I told this to the court, the court asked me to file a petition to the same. Tomorrow we will file a petition to quash the case that has been registered against Swapna as such things can never happen anywhere except in Vijayan’s domain and that’s why strange things are happening,” said R. Krishna Raj, counsel of Swapna.

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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