QCrime: Ravi Pujari Threatened Politicians; Woman Raped in Rajkot
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1. Gangster Pujari’s Threat Calls to 10 Congress, JD(S) Leaders Led to Arrest
Shifting from his modus operandi of primarily targeting businessmen, gangster Ravi Pujari (59) made extortion calls to at least 10 politicians in Karnataka from 2015 to 2018, leading to pressure on the state police to find him. Pujari, who has 97 cases against him in the state, was eventually arrested in Senegal in January 2019, and extradited to India earlier this week.
Among the politicians who received extortion calls are Congress leaders U T Khader, Abhaychandra Jain, Ramanath Rai in 2015; H M Revanna in 2016; D K Suresh in 2017; Tanvir Sait, CM Ibrahim and Anil Lad in 2018; and JD(S) leaders S R Mahesh and C B Suresh Babu in 2017.
On 18 July 2018, when the JD(S)-Congress was in power, then state police chief Neelamani Raju assigned the task of finding Pujari to Additional DGP Amar Kumar Pandey.
(Source: The Indian Express)
2. Two BJP and Congress Leaders, Friend Booked for ‘Raping’ Dalit Woman
Police booked one local leader each of BJP and Congress and their friend late on Wednesday night, after a Dalit woman from a village in Rajkot district filed a complaint alleging that the trio kidnapped and gang-raped her in a moving car the same afternoon.
Citing the FIR, a senior police officer of Rajkot (rural) police said that the three accused went to the residence of the victim and kidnapped her after finding her alone.
“As per the FIR, the three men took turns to rape the victim in the moving car. They dropped her home after around 30 minutes,” said the investigating officer in the case.
(Source: The Indian Express)
3. New Phishing Tactic: Fake Online Transaction Message
Move over phishing calls and messages where fraudsters ask for your bank details posing as bank manager or as KYC update executives. The fraudsters have now started replicating messages sent by banks after every valid online transaction or every purchase using debit or credit cards, where they claim a large sum of money has been debited from your account and ask you to call at a number or click on a suspicious link if it wasn’t done by you. The moment you do so, you end up exposing yourself to a potential financial fraud where the fraudster may end up robbing your money with details you only share with them.
Alerting citizens about the new method of phishing, Kolkata Police posted a detailed message on their Facebook page with three such examples. Within hours, the post was viewed by thousands of people and shared over 5,000 times. Hundreds of users commented on how they too received similar messages over the past few days.
(Source: The TImes of India)
4. 4 From Mumbai Held for Role in Karnataka Cyber Fraud Racket
Four cyber fraudsters working for a gang in Karnataka were recently arrested by Oshiwara police in Mumbai.
On 19 February, two fraudsters were arrested near 24 Karat multiplex, SV Road in Jogeshwari, after an alert citizen heard the accused talk about helping a cyber fraud racket from Karnataka and reported the matter to a night patrolling team of Oshiwara police.
The citizen heard the duo talk about getting two percent commission for helping a gang of cyber fraudsters from Karnataka by withdrawing and transferring money from the bank accounts of their victims.
The accused Amarkumar Chauhan, 19, and Devnarayan Bharti, 25, are residents of Powai.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
5. Teen Booked for Sexually Assaulting 2 Minor Girls
The Mumbai police booked a 14-year-old boy on Wednesday for allegedly sexually assaulting two minor girls.
Police said the incident occurred on 25 February, around 9pm. An officer from Khar police station said one of the victims was three years old, while the other was about one year old.
The girls stay on the same floor of the building where the accused resides. On Tuesday, they were playing inside the teen’s flat when he was alone at his residence.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
6. DRI Arrests Gold Trader for Evading Customs Duty of Rs 27.5 Crore
A gold trader was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Thursday for allegedly diverting 560 kg of imported gold worth Rs 174 crore to domestic market, without informing the customs department and causing revenue loss of Rs 27.5 crore.
The accused was identified as Ketan Shroff, director of Penta Gold Limited.
According to DRI sources, the agency had specific inputs that the gold trader had misused the advanced authorisation scheme provided under Foreign Trade Policy. Under the scheme, the input import is allowed to be made duty-free, after making normal allowance for wastage, if they are physically incorporated in a product which is going to be exported. An export obligation is usually set as a condition for issuing advance authorisation.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
7. Bengaluru’s Notorious History-Sheeter ‘Slum’ Bharath Killed in Police Encounter
Two days after he was arrested in Uttar Pradesh, notorious history-sheeter ‘Slum’ Bharath was killed in an ‘encounter’ with Bengaluru police on Thursday.
The North division police inspector Venkataramanappa shot two bullets when Bharath (32) allegedly opened fire on policemen with an illegal weapon near Hesaraghatta in early hours.
Bharath was arrested by the Karnataka police in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, on Sunday. According to the police, Bharath was taken to the places to recreate the scene of a crime.
(Source: The Indian Express)
8. Juvenile, Two Others Held for Rape of Nine-Year-Old in Telangana
Three persons, including a 13-year-old juvenile, were apprehended in Karimnagar on the charges of raping a nine-year-old girl.
Police took the offenders into custody on Thursday night and slapped rape charges under IPC section 376 following a complaint by the girl’s mother. The offenders are her neighbours.
The incident came to light when the parents took the girl to a hospital on 26 February after she complained of high fever and pain in her private parts. “Following an examination, the doctors said the girl was sexually assaulted. She later told her mother about her ordeal,” Karimnagar III Town inspector P Vignan Rao said.
(Source: The Times of India)
9. Man, Son Held for Killing Bed-Ridden 61-Year-Old Woman
Five months after a 61-year-old woman was murdered and her house robbed, police on Thursday arrested a father and son for the crime.
The accused, Rajender Sharma and his son Amir Sharma of Bihar had broken into the victim, Kamlesh Kaur’s house, in Dau village, Ramgarh, on the Chandigarh-Kharar highway on the intervening night of 15 and 16 September. The accused were arrested in Bihar.
Amir was staying in Ramgarh in September 2019. He along with his father and four others strangulated Kaur to death when she woke up upon hearing the six accused sneaking around the house. Her family had been asleep in another room.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
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