MUMBAI: According to activist and social worker Shreha Dhargalkar, the victim of the Delhi murder case Shraddha Walkar was quiet and aloof but wanted to do something to clean up the garbage and filth in Mumbai.

She once told me she wanted to have a small family and have a child. That was her dream, Shreha said, adding that Shraddha at times seemed to be lost and contradicted herself.

“She was hardworking, but she did not mix with the others or talk to them much. She was an introvert. She only spoke when she was spoken to or asked any questions. She was reserved and mostly kept to herself. She did not share anything about her family or personal life,” Shreha told this website.

Marathi film actor and theatre artiste Madhuri Sangita Patil who also worked with the victim, said the 28-year-old Shraddha Walkar who was murdered by her live-in partner Aftab Amin Poonawalla in Delhi and her body chopped into 35 pieces, had volunteered for a beach cleanup drive at Versova, Madh and Aksa beaches in suburban Mumbai, when she was working at a call centre at Malad.

Madhuri Sangita Patil, on seeing photographs of the murder victim splashed in the media, was shocked beyond words and felt numb and speechless for some time. “I just couldn’t believe what had happened or what I was reading,” she told this reporter.

“She had volunteered in one of my camps jointly organised with activist Shreha Dhargalkar for cleaning up Mumbai’s beaches. I have organized nearly 20 cleanup drives on a small scale in the last two years. Shraddha worked in two camps, but we did not interact much. She said she loved Mumbai and wanted to do something for the city, particularly to clean up the place,” Madhuri told this website.

The beach clean up drives in Mumbai were organised with help from NGOs and activist Shreha Dhargalkar and others, Madhuri said.

Madhuri Sangita Patil who is also an environmental activist had organized several small local-level beach cleaning drives and it was during one of these drives that the deceased had volunteered and participated,” she said. Watch video here

NEW DELHI, (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended Bharatiya Janata Party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting held on Wednesday at party headquarters in New Delhi.

According to sources, the meeting is being held in a bid to finalise the entire list of candidates for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls.

Besides PM Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and BJP state president CR Patil and other members of the CEC and the state unit are present in the meeting.

Another source told ANI, “Since all the central and state leadership are present during this meeting, it is likely that a separate discussion will take place with the top brass on planning the campaigning for the upcoming polls, especially with PM Narendra Modi having instructed them to target the highest poll numbers ever.”

Gujarat has been a BJP bastion for decades. BJP is seeking its seventh term in office. Before becoming Prime Minister, Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s longest-serving Chief Minister from 2001 to 2014.

On November 3, the Election Commission of India announced the election dates for Gujarat. Polling will take place in two phases on December 1 and December 5 respectively.

In the first phase, polling will be held for 89 seats while the second phase will see voting for 93 seats. The term of the 182-member state Assembly ends on February 18, 2023. The state of Gujarat has seen a traditional face-off between the ruling BJP and its traditional rival Congress.

However, in the upcoming elections, a new entrant, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is being keenly watched in the poll fray. (ANI)

WEST BENGAL, (PTI): A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered the police to throw a dragnet to unearth bombs and illegal firearms from across the state, the police on Friday recovered a huge cache of arms and explosives from various districts of the state.

Banerjee, who on Thursday visited Bagtui village in Birbhum, where eight people were burnt alive after petrol bombs were thrown at their houses earlier this week, ordered the police to throw a dragnet to unearth bombs and illegal firearms from across the state.

“We have recovered caches of illegal weapons from various districts of the state, including Birbhum, West Midnapore. The weapons have been seized, and the crude bombs have been defused by the CID and police bomb disposal squad. Several people have also been arrested,” a senior police official said.

The official, however, said they are yet to compile the arrest figures across the state.

“Such dragnet activities are regular procedures and are nothing new. We keep on recovering such weapons regularly,” said a police official.

However, the opposition BJP cautioned its cadres that the police might plant a few bombs at saffron party offices to implicate them in false cases.

“We want our party cadres across the state to be extra cautious as there can be an attempt by the police and ruling party to plant these bombs in our party offices and implicate us in false cases. We don’t trust this state government,” BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.

The ruling TMC, however, dubbed the allegations baseless.

“The TMC and the state administration never indulge in such cheap politics. The BJP can go to any extent to malign others,” TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said. (PTI)

Chandigarh, (PTI): The Congress announced on Sunday that Charanjit Singh Channi has been elected as the leader of the Punjab Congress Legislative Party (CLP), paving the way for his appointment as the chief minister.

The development comes a day after Congress veteran Amarinder Singh resigned as chief minister amid a bitter power tussle with state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu with less than five months to go for the Assembly polls.

“It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Sh. #CharanjitSinghChanni has been unanimously elected as the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party of Punjab,” AICC general secretary Harish Rawat said in a tweet. (PTI)

MUMBAI:  According to sources in the Mumbai police investigating the Raj Kundra case, apparently Raj Kundra was planning to set up base in Goa and wanted to either purchase or rent a secluded resort in South Goa where all the porn shoots and live streaming acts could take place.

In one of the WhatsApp group chat messages, one of the members of the HotShots team – the porn App promoted by Kundra, is alleged to have said “in Goa, police and authorities can be easily managed”, when another member questioned the reasoning behind moving the operations from Mumbai to Goa.

The WhatsApp chat group in which Kundra was the admin, one member wanted to know why move operations to Goa, when Mumbai was cheaper in terms of local travel, food and had more reliable electricity supply. Another member (who seemed to be familiar with Goa) is alleged to have replied that the cops and authorities can be easily managed, which Kundra agreed to.

As Goa is not very far away from Mumbai and air-connectivity is very good, the plan was apparently to shift base to Goa, rent a resort and start operations from there, a police source said, adding that he was negotiating with a South Goa 10-room resort owner to either purchase or long lease the entire property, which consists of a private beach area, mini forest and huge lawns with a gated property on which he wanted to conduct porn shoots.

The resort rooms would be converted into studios with bedrooms and other props or settings like a huge tub, where such erotic shoots could be done.

Kundra has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days by a local court, which rejected his bail application today.

Also Read: “Can Manage Cops”: Raj Kundra on renting out a South Goa resort for porn shoots

Kundra, husband of Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, was arrested on July 19 by the Crime Branch of Mumbai Police, after he was booked for making and sale of obscene material under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.

Kundra was booked under Sections 292, 293 (sale of obscene material) under the Indian Penal Code, Sections 67, 67A (transmission of sexually explicit material) under the Information Technology Act and provisions of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.

After his arrest, the police conducted searches at his office and residence on July 20. During the search, police recovered three SAN boxes containing 24 hard disks each and eight servers, containing 4 hard disks each. This is being analyzed by experts. The police have so far found 51 obscene videos in this storage solution.

Cops have seized Kundra’s mobile phone where they found several chats with Pradeep Bakshi, owner of the UK-based Kenrin Pvt Ltd. In his conversation, police found a list of a total of 119 movies. The movies were to be sold to a company for 1.2 million dollars. During one of his conversations with a man, Kundra had projected that he was a partner in Kenrin Pvt Ltd.

The company had created another application in January 2021 by the name Bollyfame. The app was made on the instruction of Kundra by the IT head Ryan Thorpe. The App was created after Youtube, Google Playstore and Apple store discontinued the HotShots app.

The police found huge inflow of money in the accounts of accused from international accounts in dollars and pounds, which are being analysed. The agency claimed much of the money is from a bank account of an African company by the name of Mercury International.

The police suspect that the money earned through HotShots App was laundered through this African company or he was involved in an online betting racket.

Panaji (Goa): Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi’s nephew Abu Aslam Azmi was summoned by the Goa unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Wednesday in connection with a matter related to drug peddler Sufran Lakdawala.

In a statement, the NCB said that Abu Aslam Azmi’s name cropped up during the interrogation of Lakdawala who was arrested on July 8.

“In Sufran Lakdawala drugs case, Goa NCB team has summoned a person named Abu Aslam Azmi for questioning today. Abu Aslam Azmi is close to a big leader of the Samajwadi Party. On July 8, Lakdawala was arrested from Mira Road with cocaine and other drugs,” NCB said in the statement.

It further informed that Lakdawala is said to have supplied drugs to some big industrialists and people connected to the film industry in Mumbai.

“Aslam Azmi’s name cropped up during the interrogation of Sufran Lakdawala, after which he was called for questioning at NCB’s Goa office today,” NCB added.

In 2017, Abu Aslam Azmi was arrested for alleged involvement in drugs smuggling.

New Delhi: There are 48 cases of the ‘delta plus’ variant of COVID-19 spread across 11 states the government said Friday, adding that the maximum number of cases had been reported from Maharashtra (20).

Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh have nine and seven cases. Kerala has three. Punjab and Gujarat have two each, and Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Jammu have one each.

Two days ago the government said 40 ‘delta plus’ cases had been registered so far.

The government, however, said that at this time the spread is still “very localised”.

The virus strain had been isolated and is being cultured by the ICMR-National Institute of Virology, and tests to check its resistance to existing Covid vaccines were ongoing, the government added.

The government also said ‘delta plus’ variant cases had been reported from 12 other countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, China, Japan Russia and Switzerland.

On Wednesday the government said the ‘delta plus’ variant had been listed as a ‘variant of concern’. States reporting cases were urged to take “immediate containment steps”. The Maharashtra government has urged district officials to be cautious while re-emerging from lockdowns.

The government earlier said the ‘delta plus’ variant has possible increased transmissibility, higher binding capacity to the lung cells and resistance to monoclonal antibody treatment.

Given the cases of the Delta plus variant of COVID-19 emerging in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray-led state government, on Friday, issued new orders concerning the levels of restrictions.

The state’s health minister Rajesh Tope also revealed that out of 21 Delta Plus variant cases of COVID-19 in Maharashtra, one 80-year-old woman with co-morbidities passed away.

The 21 cases of Delta Plus variant include nine in Ratnagiri, seven in Jalgaon, two in Mumbai, and one case each in Palghar, Thane, and Sindhudurg districts.

The Maharashtra government has placed the entire state in Level-3.

The ‘delta plus’ variant is a mutated version of the more aggressive B.1.617.2, or ‘delta’, strain that drove the second wave of infections in India and has already been listed as a ‘variant of concern’. Identified as B.1.617.2.1, it is characterised by the K417N mutation in the spike protein of the virus.

The spike protein is what helps the virus infect human cells, and K417N has been associated with immune escape, or evasion, that leaves the virus more immune to vaccines or drugs.

The Health Ministry, however, has said the variant’s immune escape capabilities and its ability to cause a more severe infections or transmit more aggressively “is under continued surveillance”.

News agency ANI reported ICMR-NIV had decided to conduct a study to determine the ‘delta plus’ resistance to Covishield and Covaxin – the two Covid vaccines currently in use in India.

Amid growing concern about the spread of variants like ‘delta plus’ – which may be more infectious and more resistant to drugs, IGIB Director Dr Anurag Agarwal told NDTV “… at this point there is no evidence to suggest ‘delta plus’ has anything to do with a possible third wave.”

“My institute (the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology) has sequenced more than 3,500 samples from Maharashtra – covering samples from April and May. We can see these (‘delta plus’ variants) are very much there. But these constitute less than one per cent,” he said.

Even in areas where the numbers look worrying they are not “very high”, he said, “Things look stable.”

Dr Agarwal, however, clarified that any ‘delta’ COVID-19 remains a ‘variant of concern’.

A study conducted by Oxford University and published in the journal Cell said COVID-19 vaccines made by AstraZeneca (which is used in India as Covishield) and Pfizer-BioNTech remain broadly effective against ‘delta’ and ‘kappa’ (B.1.617.1) variants.

However, the concentration of neutralising antibodies in the blood was somewhat reduced, which may lead to some breakthrough infections, they cautioned.

Source: NDTV & Agencies

Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday announced a hike in the ‘Shagun’ amount for the marriage of daughters of construction workers in Punjab from Rs 31,000 to Rs 51,000.

As per a statement, the CM also approved Rs 1,500 in financial aid to construction workers who test positive for the coronavirus.

“To ease the process of availing the Shagun benefit, the Chief Minister has approved modification in the existing conditions to make valid marriage certificates issued by any religious body – Gurdwaras, Temples, and Churches – acceptable for the purpose,” the statement said.

Capt Amarinder Singh made these decisions while chairing the 27th meeting of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Welfare Board through Video Conference.

He also announced compensation worth Rs 2 lakh in case of the death of a worker in an accident while working in construction activity. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, an extension in the time-frame for submission of applications for benefits under various welfare schemes was also announced – from the existing six months to one year.

“Construction workers can now submit any two of the four Government documents, namely Aadhaar card, Pan card, Voter card, and Ration card. Many workers could not avail benefits earlier for lack of a birth certificate, which was the only acceptable proof prior to this amendment,” the statement said. (ANI)