1. Cops ‘beat up’ Parents to Break up Peaceful Protest
Two women had to be admitted to GT Hospital on Wednesday after the Mumbai police resorted to brute force to break up a protest by parents outside Vidhan Bhavan on Wednesday afternoon. The women were later discharged, sources said.
Parents of school-going children from Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Solapur and several other parts of the state had sought a meeting with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to submit a list of their demands to him.
Nearly 40 of these protesters had gathered outside Vidhan Bhavan in response to a call by the Punebased Prajakta Pethkar Education trust, against arbitrary fee hikes in schools across Maharashtra.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
2. Maharashtra Police on Vigil to Prevent Vandalism of Statues in State
WITH incidents of vandalism of statues reported in Tripura, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra Police has issued an advisory to its unit commanders to step up its vigil and ensure that was no such incidents take place in the state.
According to a senior official in the Director General of Police office in line with the advisory, unit commanders will have to increase patrolling, engage in sensitisation drives with trustees who have installed the statues and press the good morning squad formed in every districts specifically to check all the statues in their jurisdiction, report and take action immediately if they spot any type of vandalism.
“According to our preliminary assessment there are more than 1,000 vulnerable spots across the state,” said the official. Bipin Bihari, acting ADG of Police, Law and Order, said: “An advisory has been issued and unit commanders across the state have been asked to keep vulnerable spots under surveillance.”
Source: The Indian Express
3. Haji Malang Murder: Two Held for Smashing Friend's Head With Stone as Revenge for a Slap
Two men in their early 20s, both residents of Panvel, were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly killing their 23-year-old friend by smashing his head with a stone at Haji Malang, Kalyan, on February 23.
The Sufi saint Haji Malang’s dargah is located halfway up a hill near Kalyan, around 47km from Mumbai.
The deceased, Pravin Farat, a resident of Mahalungi village, went out with some of his friends on the night of February 23, but did not return home. The next day, in the afternoon, his body was in a gorge at Haji Malang, the Panvel taluka police said.
“Farat’s family members pointed us to some of his friends whom they suspected, and we had been looking for them. We arrested them finally on Tuesday,” said Maloji Shinde, senior police inspector of Panvel taluka police station.
Source: The Hindustan Times
4. 4 More Witnesses Turn Hostile in Sohrabuddin Case
The total number of witnesses to turn hostile now stands at 42; 59 witnesses in all examined so far.
Four more witnesses were declared hostile on Wednesday in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case. With this, the total number of witnesses who have turned hostile in the case has gone up to 42. In all, 59 witnesses have been examined so far.
The four witnesses examined in the special CBI court of Judge SJ Sharma were formal witnesses with regard to the seizure of articles. While two of them were allegedly present when clothes were seized and sealed from Sheikh’s body, the remaining two were present when a forensics team collected dried blood samples from a car.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
5. ATM ‘Samaritans’ Who Stole Debit Cards Nabbed
The Kurar police have arrested two members of a gang that cheated people visiting ATMs by offering them help in cash withdrawals and then replacing their debit cards with dummy ones, which were later used to withdraw money or purchase jewellery.
While the police arrested Pravin Mishra, 26, from Nalasopara on February 25, another gang member, Nagendra Pandey alias Nanhe, 27, was picked up from Bhadoi in Uttar Pradesh. He has been brought to the city on transit remand.
The arrests were made on the basis of a complaint filed by Deepak Patel, who had been conned by the accused, on February 15. In his complaint, Patel stated, “I had visited an ATM in Kurar Village, Malad, when an unknown man entered the kiosk and offered me help in withdrawing cash. I handed over my debit card to him, but didn’t realise when he replaced it with some other card.”
Source: Mumbai Mirror
6. New State Pension Scheme for Those Killed or Jailed During Emergency
The Maharashtra government has announced a pension scheme for all those who lost their lives or were jailed during the Emergency between 1975 and 1977.
State Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil made the announcement on Wednesday on the floor of the legislative assembly. Patil said that the government planned to honour those who fought for the upliftment of democracy during the Emergency with a pension.
A committee had been appointed to formulate the pension scheme under Patil’s chairmanship some months ago. He said that some people were imprisoned for one month, some for three months, and some for the entire 19 months of the Emergency. “Because of this [these people’s protest], democracy was strengthened. There was a demand to give pensions to such people who have suffered. Other states have started pension schemes five to 10 years ago,” Patil said.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
7. In Just 5 Years, Mumbai Has Lost Mangroves the Size of 15 Wankhede Stadiums
Even as the Union environment ministry reported an increase in Mumbai’s mangrove forest cover, a Bombay high court (HC)-appointed committee for mangrove preservation said the city has lost at least 22 hectares of mangroves between 2013 and 2018.
Reji Abraham, a member of the committee formed in October 2016 to preserve mangroves in Konkan region, which include Mumbai, said the destruction happened at two sites in Malad-Malwani and in Charkop. The green cover lost is 15 times the area of Wankhede stadium (area: 1.48 hectares).
The committee’s report comes a few weeks after the Forest Survey of India’s State of the Forest Report 2017 reported a 33% increase in mangrove cover in Mumbai, with the suburbs recording a 16 sqkm (1,600 hectares) increase from 2015, taking the tally to 64 sqkm (6,400 hectares).
Source: The Hindustan Times
8. Prez Honour for Mumbai’s Hero
RPF cop Rekha Mishra, who had featured in Mirror’s Mumbai Heroes series last year for her tireless work in rescuing runaway and trafficked children at CSMT, will receive Nari Shakti Puraskar from the President today.
She has been recognised and lauded a number of times for going beyond the call of duty to rescue runaway and trafficked children at CSMT station (main line). But the award that she will get today is no doubt special.
Rekha Mishra, a woman sub-inspector belonging to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) of Central Railway who had featured in the last edition of Mirror’s Mumbai Heroes series in 2017, has been selected for Nari Shakti Puraskar 2017 for her outstanding contribution to women empowerment.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)