Mumbai: A Tv actress who had filed a complaint against an Air India pilot for rape and cheating has alleged that the cops at the Oshiwara Police Station are going slow and soft on the accused Air India pilot.

According a fresh additional written complaint submitted by the lawyer of the rape-victim Tv actress, the pilot cheated her for the second time.

It may be recalled that a well-known TV and film actress from the Lokhandwala, Andheri West area of suburban Mumbai had filed a complaint of rape against an Air India pilot in mid-January this year.

The FIR (FIR No. 24/2021) was registered at the Oshiwara Police Station in January.

Now it has come to light that in a fresh complaint submitted to the Oshiwara police, the rape victim actress has claimed that the pilot duped and cheated her for the second time, besides publicly defaming and abusing her.

The complainant had alleged that she was in touch with the pilot since December last year and they had decided to get married.

In January this year, the pilot visited her residence, had dinner and then by promising marriage and promising to get her to meet his parents within 2 to 4 days for the marriage purpose, he had sexual relations with her, but then after few days went back on his promise of marriage and began completely avoiding and ignoring her.

Accordingly, on the written complaint of the rape-victim actress an FIR 24/2021 u/s 376, 417, 406, etc., came to be registered at the Oshiwara police station.

Subsequently, the accused Air India pilot through intermediaries said he was ready to discuss and sort out the matter with the rape victim and stated that it was due to a misunderstanding and miscommunication that certain incidents transpired.

However, after some consent terms were reached, the accused pilot has gone back on his promises and commitments and also publicly defamed the complainant victim by attempting to reveal her identity in the media.

Hence the rape victim complainant had again approached the police with a further complaint alleging that the pilot cheated her for the second time and also publicly defamed her and that he had no intention at all to sort out the matter, but was buying time only to obtain anticipatory bail.

His promises and assurances were with a totally malafide and criminal intention and that he was plotting and planning illegal acts all along, she has said in her second complaint.

The complainant has urged the police to accordingly add further relevant sections of the IPC and arrest the pilot, taking extremely stringent action against him.

MUMBAI: Sources said the Maha government is considering imposing further restrictions and putting a freeze on the unlock plan in various parts of the state as cases began to show a striking rise. Government officials said that there is nearly at 30 to 40 percent increase in cases in Mumbai and certain parts of Maharashtra.

According to a Times of India report, Covid positive cases in Mumbai and Maharashtra have begun registering a rise and on the day when both Maharashtra and Mumbai reported a surge in daily detections of Covid-19 cases, the state cabinet held a discussion on the Delta-plus variant cases found in the state.

The ministers were of the opinion that the five-level unlock plan should be reviewed and if required, stricter restrictions should be brought back to keep the spread of the highly virulent and transmissible strain in check, Times of India reported.

30 percent jump in cases

After a gap of one week, Maharashtra reported over 10,000 cases, while Mumbai reported a 30% jump in cases as compared to Tuesday (568). On Wednesday, 10,066 cases were reported in the state and 864 in Mumbai,the highest in 19 days.

The city saw 23 deaths. Wednesday’s case tally was the highest since June 4 (968) and the death toll highest in 12 days.

“The third wave in most countries has been fueled by the Delta-plus strain. With 21 cases in the state it is a matter of concern. We have requested the CM to hold a meeting with the task force to review the unlock plan and consider adding some restrictions to keep the spread in check,” said a minister, who attended the meeting.

Health minister Rajesh Tope said, “Daily cases in the state have been fluctuating between 8,000 and 10,000 for the last 10-12 days and are not reducing as fast as they should…we are trying to understand the reason for this slow decline.” The state’s total caseload rose to 59.9 lakh and the death toll touched 1,19,303. As many as 345 unreported deaths were also added to the
cumulative as part of the reconciliation exercise. Similarly, the total cases in Mumbai touched 7.2 lakh and deaths 15,338.

BMC officials said the fluctuations are not alarming and could be the function of more tests (37,905) done in the last 24-hour period. The state has tested over 2.4 lakh people in the last 24 hours taking the total tests conducted since the outbreak of the pandemic to 4 crore, nearly 30% of the 12-crore population of Maharashtra.

The BMC is setting up paediatric wards in its hospitals in preparation for the third wave. In jumbo centres, BMC has decided to make separate enclosures for Covid-negative parents of Covid-positive children admitted there. “The parents cannot stay with the infected child, but on compassionate grounds, we will ensure they are in the same facility,” said BMC additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani.

Source: Times of India

MUMBAI: In a single-day spike, Maharashtra reported 10,216 new cases. Kerala followed it with 2,776 fresh cases. Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu added 818; 677; 543 cases respectively.

Maharashtra, Kerala and Punjab continued to report a high number of daily infections of coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

As per the health ministry’s statement, the three states along with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu cumulatively account for 82 per cent of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours in the country.

In view of the increase in daily Covid-19 cases, the Centre on Saturday rushed high-level multidisciplinary public health teams to Maharashtra and Punjab, the government said in a statement. The teams are being deployed to assist the state health departments in surveillance, control and containment measures.

Meanwhile, the nationwide tally is above 11.19 million and the death toll stands at 157,656. The country added 18,327 fresh cases.

The Covid-19 active caseload has increased to 1,80,304 which now comprises 1.61 per cent of the total infections.

MUMBAI: Shatrughan Sinha is probably the the only male actor-politician who has been vocal about the BJP government and its policies and Narendra Modi

Sinha termed the 2021 Union Budget a smart budget.

In an exclusive chat with a website, Sinha said it is a very smart budget which does not mention the source or resource from where the funds will be drawn.

“A lot of tall promises were made for our sisters of the northern region of the country but nothing reflected in the budget. For that matter even my home state of Bihar hasn’t received one third of what was promised to it.”

“I would like to quote a line from from a film, ‘Kasme vaade pyaar vafa sab vaadein hai vaadon ka kya‘. And having said this budget has nothing in store for middle class at all. But the drafters of the smart budget should know the public is even smarter. Yeh public hai sab jaanti hai.”

As for the film industry, Sinha added the government has not done much to safeguard them.

“Film industry thap padi thi..but they have not bothered about them. The centre has allowed theatres 100 per cent occupancy but there is already a clash with the state that will decide on the occupancy, and just in case they allow only 50 per cent and god forbid if cases rise then it will be like nahayenge kya aur nichodenge kya,” the actor said.

He added, “Like the entertainment industry, even the hospitality industry has been ignored. We have a negative growth and aage ki dagar bahut kathin hai. Having said this, the only good thing is that the budget for the health sector has gone up and corona has a role to play in it. Of course, there is so much politics on the vaccine and we are already under so much debt and we don’t know how much more will be there to it.”

PUNE: The Maharashtra state government is ready to welcome tourists to the famous Yerawada Jail in Pune, starting from January 26, 2021.

The objective behind promoting jail tourism is to enable people to visit and see the historical prison.

Reportedly, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar will flag off the jail tourism enterprise at Pune’s Yerawada Central Jail on the Republic Day.

The same has been announced by Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in a press conference at the Police Gymkhana.

Reportedly, jail tourism will start from Yerawada jail in the first phase. It would benefit students from schools, colleges and the general public to visit historical jails.

Yerawada jail is famous for the fact that prominent freedom fighters including Lokmanya Tilak, Motilal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai, Subhas Chandra Bose and Sarojini Naidu were imprisoned here during their lifetime. Memories related to these personalities have also been on display at the jail.

News has it that tour guides will be present for the visitors at the jail and ticket prices will range from INR 5 to INR 50. However, government had put a cap on the number of visitors to be allowed to visit the jail premises on a daily basis.

The jail tourism drive would also feature jails in Nashik, Thane and Ratnagiri.

In India, the Cellular Jail aka Kala Pani, which is a colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is also open for tourists.

In addition, Goa’s CM Pramod Sawant announced revamping of the Aguada jail for promoting tourism a few weeks back.

Source: Times of India

New Delhi: AAP MLA and former Delhi minister Somnath Bharti was on Saturday sentenced to two years in jail by a court here in a 2016 case of assaulting the security staff at AIIMS and causing damage to hospital property.

The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi backed its MLA from Malviya Nagar, claiming that ”injustice” has been meted out to him and expressed the hope that he will get justice at the appellate level.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Pandey also imposed a fine of Rs one lakh on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader.

”The court is of the considered view that the prosecution has duly proved its case beyond all reasonable doubt against accused Somnath Bharti,” the magistrate said.

The court, however, granted bail to Bharti enable him to file an appeal before the high court against his conviction in the case and jail term.

According to the prosecution, on September 9, 2016, Bharti, along with nearly 300 others, brought down the fence of a boundary wall at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here with a JCB operator.

The case was lodged on the basis of a complaint from R S Rawat, Chief Security Officer, AIIMS.

The court convicted Bharti for various offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 353 (assault or use of criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 147 (rioting).

It also held the AAP MLA guilty under section 3 (mischief causing damage to public property) of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.

The offences carry a maximum punishment of five years in jail.

The court, however, acquitted Bharti’s associates and co-accused — Jagat Saini, Dileep Jha, Sandeep Sonu and Rakesh Pandey — citing a lack of evidence against them.

The case was lodged on the basis of a complaint from R S Rawat, Chief Security Officer, AIIMS.

Bharti had told the court that police officials and other witnesses had deposed against him to falsely implicate him in the case In its statement, the AAP said, ”We respect the judiciary and have full faith in the judiciary. However, we feel injustice has happened to Mr Somnath Bharti in this case.” The party said Bharti is filing an appeal.

”We are confident that justice will be done to him at the appellate level,” it said.

”Somnath is a very popular leader and is loved by everyone in his constituency. He works 24 hours for his people. People are quite sad in his constituency as the news of his conviction is spreading,” the AAP said.

When contacted, Bharti said he does not want to comment after his party’s statement.

The AAP leader is not new to controversies. In 2014, as the law minister in the then Kejriwal government, he led a late-night vigilante raid against some African women, accusing them of being drug runners.

In 2015, he was arrested in connection with a domestic violence case lodged by his wife. He was later cleared of the charge.

Pune: The supply of COVID-19 vaccines has not been affected due to the recent fire that broke out at the Serum Institute of India’s (SII) facility in Pune, confirmed the company’s CEO Adar Poonawalla on Friday.

“The supply of COVID-19 vaccine will not be affected due to the fire. No actual vaccine was being made at that facility. We were lucky that the incident happened in a different building. The extent of the financial damage is more than Rs 1,000 crores,” Poonawalla said while addressing at a press conference.

“The fire has no impact on the production of the Covishield vaccine and no damage has occurred to the existing stock either,” he added.

A fire had broken out at SII’s Manjari plant yesterday, where six people were rescued from an under-construction building. Hours later, another fire broke out again in one of the compartments of the building at SII, in Pune.

Five people lost their lives in the fire incident. Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope had said the initial fire was caused by ongoing welding work at the site.

The SII had on Thursday announced a compensation of Rs 25 lakhs to the families of the people who died in the fire incident at the company’s facility at Manjari. (ANI)

Bengaluru: Eminent cardiologist and Karnataka COVID-19 Task Force Committee member Dr C N Manjunath on Thursday took the coronavirus vaccine and said he was fine.

He advised healthcare workers to volunteer for vaccination without fear and apprehension ”since it is safe and no major adverse events.”

”Taking vaccine is the only way we can end this pandemic.I took it today and I am fine,” said Dr Manjunath,who is director of the Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research in a statement.

He said mild fever, injection site pain and body ache are not side effects but only effects of the vaccine.

”With more people taking, some more will take, which boosts public confidence so that we can achieve herd immunity on expected lines,” the cardiologist said, adding that taking vaccine is civic responsibility.

Since the launch of the vaccination drive, 1,17,407 frontline workers have been given the vaccine in the state till Wednesday, the health department said.