Crime
Maharashtra: Experts, politicos jeer NIA’s ‘measly bounty’ for don Dawood & Co.

In a bolt from the blue, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) recently announced a bounty for the absconder mafia don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar – declared a ‘Global Terrorist’ – and his close confidant Chhota Shakeel and three other infamous gangsters, with a total take-away of Rs 90-lakh.
The rewards are: Rs 25 lakh for the ‘D-Company chairman’ Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, Rs 20-Lakh for his No. 2 Shakeel Shaikh alias Chhota Shakeel, plus Rs 15 lakh each for Anees Ibrahim Kaskar, Javel Patel alias Javed Chikna and Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razzaq Memon alias the equally dreaded Tiger Memon.
The curriculum vitae of these ‘inglourious mafiosi’ describes them as “involved in various terrorism/criminal activities such as arms smuggling, Narco terrorism, underworld criminal syndicate, money laundering, circulation of FICN (fake Indian currency notes), unauthorised possession/acquisition of key assets for raising terror funds”.
The NIA missive also said they work in active collaboration with international terrorist organisations like Lashkar-E-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-E-Mohammed (JeM) and Al-Qaeda (AQ), and assured that the identity of the informer would be kept ‘secret’.
The proclamation was hardly greeted with cheers in Mumbai but experts, politicos and commoners found it too funny to be true with some comparing it as an ‘April Fool Joke’ played six months in advance.
“This has shown our government and union home department in a poor light all over the world, indicates the utter ineptitude of the NIA and its abject surrender before Dawood,” said Shirish Inamdar, security expert and ex-Additional Deputy Commissioner of the sensitive State Intelligence Department (SID).
Shiv Sena Spokesperson Dr. Manisha Kayande termed it as a “cruel joke” inflicted six months before April 1 on the masses reeling under inflation, joblessness and other burning problems.
“What is the sudden provocation for these rewards… Is it to encash public sentiments before the upcoming Gujarat elections and the 2024 polls, drum up ‘desh-bhakti’ and create patriotic passions to catch votes,” demanded Dr. Kayande.
Slamming the move, Congress state General Secretary Sachin Sawant said Prime Minister Modi kept criticising the UPA Government on this issue and even boasted of his ideas to follow the US-Model used to eliminate Osama Bin Laden.
“Is this another ‘master stroke’ of the Modi regime? Why did Modi not ask the ex-PM Nawaz Sharif when he dropped in for his birthday celebrations (Dec. 2015). Better still, ask the BJP Minister Girish Mahajan who attended a wedding (May 2017) in the Dawood clan,” Sawant said sharply.
Senior marketing consultant S. P. Menon from Mumbai said the piddly reward for the ‘menacing five’ must have amused even streetside toughies.
“What if these same 5 absconders declare a counter-reward of Rs 90-crore to any potential dare-devils for not revealing their whereabouts…? Why can’t India emulate the drone-style attacks deployed by the US,” wondered Menon.
Inamdar said that all these goons have left India over 35 years ago, they are functioning through proxies or henchmen and are said to be mostly leading a retired life and the ‘rewards scheme’ may turn out to be disaster.
A former police officer said that one of the Kaskar siblings, Iqbal Ibrahim Kaskar, who was arrested by Thane Police in 2017 and still remains in custody, had disclosed the whereabouts of his brother (Dawood) and other members of D-Company in Pakistan, and how they are under the watch of that country’s agencies.
As per Iqbal’s revelations, Dawood was in a state of depression after his sole son Moin Nawaz decided against joining the family business empire and chose to become a ‘maulana’ (cleric-cum-religious preacher), (IANS – 25-11-2017), and later, even Chhota Shakeel’s son Mubashir donned a cap, grabbed a rosary, qualified as a ‘Hafiz-E-Quran’ and became a Muslim preacher. (IANS – 26-08-2018).
These and other titbits tumbled out during Iqbal’s intense grilling sessions by Thane Police, while a media team which went to Pakistan a few years ago, had even ‘viewed and photographed’ the don’s purported home in a Karachi suburb.
Crime
CBI books ex-SBI branch manager in Assam for illegal assets of Rs 80 lakh

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

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.
Crime
Human rights body condemns rape of Hindu woman by local politician in Bangladesh

Dhaka, June 30: In yet another disturbing incident of violence on minorities and the atrocities against women in Bangladesh, a Hindu woman was brutally gang raped in her own home in the Cumilla district, while her attackers filmed the assault and circulated the footage, a human rights body said on Monday.
So far, five accused have been arrested, including the main accused, Fajar Ali, who is a politician of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) said that the culprits circulated the video of the brutal assault “like a war trophy.”
“On the night of June 26, 2025, a Hindu woman in Muradnagar, Cumilla District, endured one of the most brutal forms of violence imaginable: her home was forcibly invaded, her dignity shattered, and her trauma recorded and circulated like a war trophy. She was gang raped by multiple assailants, her cries echoing through the silence of a country that has, for decades, looked away from the suffering of its most vulnerable,” read a statement issued by the HRCBM.
The human rights organisation also mentioned that the law enforcement officials failed to arrange a mandatory medical examination, delayed filing her First Information Report (FIR) until June 29, and later deflected blame by claiming it was “up to her” to pursue medical treatment.
The HRCBM mentioned that the critical delays in filing the FIR, failure to conduct a medical examination within the first 24 hours, and a dismissive attitude toward the survivor’s rights point to “systemic negligence,” adding that suggesting the survivor should arrange her own medical exam represented a “gross violation of procedural and ethical standards.”
The human rights body also said that despite public pressure and “media manipulation by Islamist groups portraying the crime as consensual,” one primary perpetrator and several accomplices involved in the distribution of the assault video were eventually arrested. However, several others remain at large.
The HRCBM asserted that in video statements received by the organisation from members of the local Muslim community, some of them were attempting to “downplay” the incident and “protect” the primary accused, Fajar Ali, and his gang — despite the “brutal nature of the assault.”
Such actions by community actors, it further stated, “obstruct justice and enable the normalisation of gender-based violence against minorities.”
“This incident is not isolated. It is a horrific example of an entrenched pattern in Bangladesh where minority women are routinely targeted, raped, abducted, forcibly converted, and shamed into silence,” it said.
According to the HRCBM, since April 2025 alone, 13 gang rape cases have been recorded in Cumilla District involving Hindu women. Additionally, across the country, reports of headless bodies, mass abductions, and forced conversions of young minority girls are rising at an alarming pace.
“Families now contact HRCBM regularly, pleading to rescue their daughters,” said the human rights organisation.
The HRCBM also criticised the mainstream Bangladeshi media for its largely silent response. They noted that the Muradnagar case, similar to many others, would likely have been “buried under layers of political denial and communal pressure” if it weren’t for the viral circulation of the assault video, which compelled public and institutional attention.
The HRCBM is preparing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) demanding a judicial inquiry into the condition of minority women and girls in Bangladesh.
At the same time, it called upon the international community — UN agencies, human rights defenders, and global civil society — to support its efforts, pressure the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, and push for accountability mechanisms.
Condemning the horrific incident, Bangladesh Students League President Saddam Hussain said that in a country that increasingly resembles a “fascist Islamist regime,” the cries of women and Hindu minorities in Bangladesh continue to go unheard.
He stressed that each passing day brings another chilling tale of “temples desecrated, families displaced, and daughters brutalised.”
“The latest horror comes from Cumilla, where a young Hindu mother of two was raped at knifepoint by Fazar Ali and others. He is reported to be an active member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a party which has a long and controversial history regarding its treatment of religious minorities,” he said in a post on X.
“Her ordeal didn’t end there; they filmed the assault and continued to beat her mercilessly. The video, too disturbing to share, stands as a grim testament to the escalating violence and persecution faced by Hindu women and minorities in Bangladesh,” he said in a post on X.
“Her only crime: being a Hindu woman in a land where religious identity has become a target. As the nation turns a blind eye and justice remains elusive, the question lingers: How long will the Hindu community and women in Bangladesh be forced to live in fear? How much more must they endure before the world pays attention?” the post added.
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