RTI activist’s murder: judicial custody for three

29 Jan ’10, Friday, Siddhesh Inamdar, The Hindu

Satish Shetty had used the RTI to expose land mafia

PUNE: Three persons in police custody in connection with the murder of Right to Information (RTI) activist Satish Shetty were on Thursday remanded to judicial custody under a new crime.

The police custody of Vijay Dabhade, a lawyer, and his associates Parshuram Telugu and Pramod Waghmore ended on Thursday.

· Police unable to produce evidence

· Judge refused to extend police custody

As the police were unable to produce evidence that proved their involvement in the murder, the Wadgaon Maval Judicial Magistrate First Class refused to extend their police custody and instead sent them to judicial custody for plotting a conspiracy to murder Shetty.

The fourth accused in the case, Dongrya Rathod, will remain in police custody till it expires on January 31. Rathod has confessed that Dabhade approached him few months ago to give him a contract to kill Shetty but he refused.

Since Shetty’s murder, his younger brother, Sandeep, had maintained that people with clout greater than that of Dabhade could be involved in the murder. In his complaint, he had mentioned that Shetty’s exposes had done much harm to the IRB Infrastructure Developers and the Sable-Waghire companies and they could be behind the murder.

Sandeep Shetty told The Hindu on Thursday, “The investigations are still going on. The police have assured me that they are investigating all angles in the case as they don’t want to have any loose links. They have said that they don’t want to name an influential person without having foolproof evidence against him. They expect a strong breakthrough soon.”

Shetty, who had used the RTI to expose the land mafia in the Lonavla, Talegaon and Dehu Road areas, about 50 km from here, was killed on January 13 when he was out for a morning walk near his house in Talegaon.

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/29/stories/2010012955101300.htm

Life term for Haldiram owner

30Jan ’10, Saturday, Raktima Bose , The Hindu

KOLKATA: A city Sessions Court sentenced to life imprisonment the owner of Haldiram, a city-based Indian snack food chain, here on Friday for conspiring and attempting to murder a tea-stall owner almost five years back. Four others were also awarded a life sentence in the case.

The court found guilty Prabhu Shankar Agarwal, the owner, Gopal Tiwari, Arun Khandelwal, Manoj Sharma and Raju Sonkar for the crime committed on March 30, 2005.
According to the charge sheet filed by the police, Agarwal tried to evict a tea-stall owner in front of one of his outlets in the city, initially by offering money and later by threatening him.

On the day of the incident, Tiwari and his accomplices raided the stall and fired at Pramod Sharma, the nephew of the stall owner who was sleeping in front of the shop. He survived the attack.

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/30/stories/2010013056742000.htm

Timarpur SHO and three subordinates booked

13 Jan '10, Wednesday, Staff Reporter, The Hindu

NEW DELHI: The Station House Officer of the Timarpur police station and three of his subordinates have been booked for allegedly torturing a 17-year-old boy suspected to be involved in the criminal assault on a three-year-old girl about a month ago.According to the police, the minor girl was abducted, criminally assaulted and then dumped at her residence. She also sustained serious head injuries and had to be admitted to hospital. The police registered a case and launched a hunt for the culprit. During investigations, the police zeroed in on a 17-year-old boy. The suspect was produced in a juvenile justice court on December 31 in another case. When asked, he alleged that he could not appear in the court on the prior date because he had been illegally detained by the Timarpur police station in connection with a case of criminal assault and torture. Based on his statement, the court ordered registration of a case against the SHO and three others .

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/13/stories/2010011362360300.htm

Rathore fails to get interim relief from High Court

13 Jan '10, Wednesday, Vrinda Sharma, The Hindu

CHANDIGARH: The former Haryana Director-General of Police, S.P.S. Rathore, convicted of molesting a teenaged girl, on Tuesday failed to secure interim relief from the Punjab and Haryana High Court in connection with the fresh first information reports filed by the victim’s father and brother.

Rathore moved the High Court seeking anticipatory bail in the new cases after the Panchkula sessions court rejected his bail plea on Saturday. Justice Sabina asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to file its reply on January 18.

The FIRs accused him of attempt to murder, wrongful confinement, giving false evidence and forging the post-mortem report on the budding tennis player, who committed suicide three years after she was molested. The cases were registered by the Haryana police and subsequently transferred to the CBI.

Rathore’s counsel and wife Abha Rathore sought anticipatory bail for him and the quashing of the three fresh FIRs saying these were registered under media pressure.
Assistant Solicitor-General and CBI Special Public Prosecutor Anmol Rattan Sidhu said the agency needed a week’s time to file a reply as the three FIRs were registered only on Monday evening after the cases were transferred from the Haryana police, who had entrusted the probe to a Special Investigation Team.

Justice Sabina did not grant Rathore interim bail, in the event of his arrest, till the next hearing on January 18. This gives the CBI the right to arrest him.
Meanwhile, the district and sessions court here admitted Rathore’s appeal against his conviction by a CBI special court here in the 1990 molestation case.

The court issued notice to the CBI. Rathore’s application for extension of bail will be heard on Wednesday as he did not appear on Tuesday stating he was not well.
Rathore moved the sessions court on Monday against the December 29, 2008 order of the special CBI court, which held him guilty of molesting the budding tennis player in 1990. He was awarded a six-month jail sentence and a fine.

Judicial custody

In another development, the Panchkula district and sessions court remanded to 14-day judicial custody Gajender Singh, a proclaimed offender, who was arrested during the investigation of cases against Rathore.

The Haryana police nabbed him in old auto theft cases, in which the brother of the molestation victim was implicated allegedly at the behest of Rathore. Gajender Singh, who was nabbed in Pune last week, was brought here on Monday evening.

“Gajender Singh has been brought here in connection with the previous cases of car theft and he has nothing to do with the molestation case,” said his lawyer Dinesh Jagda.

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/13/stories/2010011354771000.htm

Retired cop gets 10 years’ RI in custodial death case

16Jan ’10, Saturday, Staff Reporter , The Hindu

NEW DELHI: Setting aside a lower court judgment, the Delhi High Court on Friday sentenced a retired officer of the Delhi Police to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment in a custodial death case of Sriniwaspuri here in 1986.

The trial court had acquitted Sub-Inspector Ranveer Singh giving him the benefit of doubt, holding that the victim, Dayal Singh, had died of tuberculosis.

Allowing an appeal against the lower court judgment, a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice S. K. Kaul and Justice Ajit Bharihoke said acquittal of the accused was an instance of “miscarriage of justice”.

The Bench said the post-mortem report had proved that there were injury marks on the victim’s body. The evidence on record said there was no injury mark on the body when the sub-inspector had picked him up for custodial interrogation in connection with a theft case.

The S-I had used third degree methods to extract a confessional statement from the accused, the Bench observed.

The Bench also imposed a fine of Rs.55,000 on the convict. Of this, Rs.50,000 would be paid to the family of the victim.

The Sriniwaspuri police had picked up the victim from his residence at Govindpuri in South Delhi in the early hours of September 19, 1986. The police had charged him with stealing a VCR, saris and cassettes from the residence of Sumati Jain at Friends Colony in South Delhi. He was working as a guard in the colony. He had died in police custody a day after his detention. The Bench also dismissed a plea by S-I’s counsel to award him a lenient punishment in view of his age and Parkinson’s disease he was suffering from.

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/01/16/stories/2010011657880400.htm