A 32-year-old man in Surat, Gujarat severed four fingers on his left hand due to work-related stress, according to the city police, as cited by news agency PTI. The man, identified as Mayur Tarapara, was working as a computer operator at his relative’s diamond firm but could not cope with the work pressure and wanted a way out. The accused landed on the plan of chopping his fingers as it would have made him unfit for the job which primarily required using a computer.

As per the police, Tarapara told officials that he found his fingers missing after falling unconscious on the side of a road when he was on his way to a friend’s house. During the preliminary stages, it was insinuated that the fingers may have been cut and taken away for black magic purposes.

Inconsistencies emerge

However, when the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) launched its probe, several inconsistencies emerged in Tarapara’s story. His personal belongings including the motorcycle, phone and cash were untouched with police unable to find any evidence of an attack as well. After being confronted with the evidence, Tarapara gave in quickly and revealed the truth.

“Tarapara confessed that he bought a sharp knife from a shop near Char Rasta in Singanpore. Four days later, on Sunday night, he went to Amroli Ring Road and parked his motorcycle there. At around 10 pm, he cut off four fingers with a knife and tied a rope near the elbow to prevent blood flow. He then put the knife and fingers in a bag and threw it away,” the official said.

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Explaining his plight to the police, Tarapara said he felt ‘trapped’ in his job due to family obligations as his employer was a relative of his father. He said he did not have the courage to tell anyone that he no longer wanted to work in the accounts department of his firm, Anabh Gems, located in Varachha Mini Bazaar.

Tarapara is reportedly married and has a two-year-old daughter. He earned Rs 50,000 per month while his father lived in their native village of Wadhvan in Surendranagar district.

Amroli police is carrying out further probe, the officials informed.

Ahmedabad:

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Friday arrested a labourer for allegedly sharing sensitive information regarding the movement of Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships with a Pakistani agent, said a police official.

Dipesh Gohel, who worked as a welder-cum-labourer at Okha jetty in the coastal Devbhumi Dwarka district, shared sensitive information about ICG ships coming to the jetty with a Pakistan-based woman for a payment of Rs 200 per day, said Superintendent of Police (ATS) K Siddharth.

He has been arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against the government under sections 61 and 147 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the SP told reporters.

The ATS had been keeping a close watch on Dipesh Gohel after receiving a tip-off that the labourer was in touch with an agent of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI or an Army officer. Technical surveillance mounted after the tip-off established that phone calls and messages to Dipesh Gohel emanated from Pakistan, he said.

“For the past three years, Dipesh Gohel has been employed by a contractor who repairs Coast Guard vessels at Okha jetty. Dipesh Gohel came in contact with a woman named Sahima on Facebook nearly seven months ago. The woman then started talking to him on WhatsApp,” informed Siddharth.

The woman, who told Dipesh Gohel that she works for the Pakistan Navy, offered to pay Rs 200 per day if he shares names and numbers of Coast Guard ships arriving at the jetty and their movement, said the police officer.

“Despite knowing that it was illegal, Gohel agreed and started sharing such sensitive information,” said the SP.

Since Dipesh Gohel does not have a bank account of his own, he gave account details of three of his friends. They all received Rs 42,000 in total through UPI during the last seven months from the woman. Dipesh Gohel used to take cash from his friends against those deposits, said the IPS officer.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

A journalist from Gujarat, in judicial custody in a case of alleged Goods and Services Tax (GST) evasion, was charged in a separate case last week for allegedly possessing confidential government documents, sparking outrage from some quarters, including the Editors Guild of India. 

Officials have, however, alleged that none of the documents related to the Gujarat Maritime Board, recovered from Mahesh Langa – a senior assistant editor with The Hindu – were used by him for professional purposes, and alleged that a corporate espionage ring was at play. 

Ahmedabad Police Commissioner GS Malik said on Tuesday that the investigations had been professional and the police were not being vindictive towards Mr Langa. He added that the first information report in the documents case has been registered in Gandhinagar and details have been shared with the police there. 

“Our investigations have been professional. Rs 20 lakh cash and incriminating documents were recovered from his house. In the GST case, his wife and cousin were also named as partners in one of the companies, if there was any vindictiveness… they are innocent and we have arrested only the main accused. According to their income tax returns from 2022-23, the couple earned Rs 15 lakh a year and Rs 20 lakh has been found from his house alone. He used to live a lavish lifestyle, stay in 5-star hotels and has also visited foreign countries. So, our investigation has been professional,” Mr Malik asserted. 

“Mr Langa used his lifestyle and his connections to make people believe he could get their work done. He also portrayed himself as a broker in land deals. We have now registered another FIR based on a complaint from a person who has said Mr Langa has cheated him of Rs 28 lakh,” he said. 

Officials said no information from the confidential documents of the Gujarat Maritime Board made it to Mr Langa’s reportage in any print or electronic platform, indicating that he did not have them for journalistic purposes. They also said their initial investigation points to a corporate espionage ring, with bureaucrats supplying documents through Mr Langa to certain corporate players.

The Enforcement Directorate, which has already launched a probe based on a complaint by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence, is closely scrutinising the case based on leads from multiple raids. People familiar with the investigations maintained that bureaucrats who were using motivated leaks would face action.

The Gujarat police has charged Mahesh Langa for the illegal possession of government documents and is carrying out more searches to uncover what they call “the nexus”. The police have conducted searches and inquiries at the office of the maritime board and have arrested one employee of the board for allegedly leaking the official documents.

The journalist’s counsel has, however, denied any link to the companies in question or alleged fraud.

‘Worrisome’

The Editors Guild of India (EGI) said it had noted the FIR against Mr Langa in the documents case with concern. 

“Journalists are often required to access and review sensitive documents in the course of their work, and initiating punitive action against them for doing their work is worrisome… EGI hopes that Mr Langa will not be deprived of fair and speedy justice. It is important that the Gujarat police disclose details about the second set of accusations leveled against him over possessing the confidential documents,” the Guild said in a statement on Monday.

Responding to the Editors Guild’s post on X, Malini Parthasarathy, the former chairperson of the Hindu Group, said on Monday that journalists are not above the law and “press associations & journalists do no favour to this great profession by shielding journalists from accountability for their actions that have nothing to do with the publications they work for”. 

She also said that the FIRs against Mahesh Langa were not registered “on the basis of” reports filed by him for The Hindu and were for other charges that require investigation.

“It is unfortunate that this incident centering solely on an individual answerable in his private capacity for his own actions, has taken on the colour of an attack on press freedom & said to be a violation of his journalistic rights,” she wrote. 

New Delhi:

The video of a policeman saving a passenger who fell onto the tracks while boarding a train in Gujarat has gone viral. Alpesh Chauhan was trying to jump onto a moving train at the Vapi railway station in Gujarat when he slipped and fell through the gap between the platform and the train. Police constable Yogesh Jagubhai, standing nearby, acted quickly and pulled out Alpesh, who would have been crushed under the train.

The incident was captured on a CCTV camera.

Alpesh Chauhan was travelling from Vapi to his home in Bharuch when this incident occurred.

“Commendable job!” – Gujarat Police lauded the efforts of the constable in a social media post.

પોલીસ જવાને સમય સૂચકતા બતાવી વાપી રેલવે સ્ટેશને ચાલુ ટ્રેને ચઢવા જતા પડી ગયેલ મુસાફરનો જીવ બચાવી સરાહનીય કામગીરી કરી ! pic.twitter.com/4l95Nh4vX7

— Gujarat Police (@GujaratPolice) October 3, 2024

The Gujarat Police shared the CCTV footage and a picture of Alpesh and Yogesh standing together, on X (formerly Twitter).

Many praised the constable’s efforts and left comments like “Salute” and “Good”.

On Instagram, a user wrote, “Eshi koi jagah nahin jaha police ka pahera na ho salute he bhai aapko (There is no place which is not guarded by the police. Salute to you, brother.)”

“Aek hi dil he kitni baar jitegi gujrat police (I have only one heart, how many times will Gujarat Police win),” wrote another user.

“Proud of u Gujarat police,” added another.

Bharuch, Gujarat:

A young woman, who runs a beauty parlour in Gujarat’s Bharuch district, was held hostage at knife point by a man she had befriended on social media app Instagram.

The suspect, Prakash Dashrath, hailing from Patan, entered the woman’s beauty parlour and threatened her with a knife after she refused further communication with him.

According to sources, “the victim had developed a friendship with Prakash through Instagram messages. However, when the woman decided to cut off contact, Prakash grew enraged. He then visited her beauty parlour, located in the Vagra market area, and held her at knife point. Fearing for her life, the woman managed to message the parlour owner, alerting him to the situation.”

“Upon receiving the distress message, the beauty parlour owner immediately informed the Vagra police. Police officers arrived quickly, broke through the parlour’s glass door, and rescued the woman. The suspect, Prakash Dashrath, was arrested at the scene. The woman was safely evacuated, and police have lodged a formal complaint against the accused.”

Following the incident, Police Sub-Inspector A.K. Jadeja of the Vagra police station issued a public advisory, urging people to be cautious when interacting with strangers on social media.

The officer said that “such interactions can lead to dangerous situations, as seen in this case. Authorities have also advised the responsible use of social media platforms to avoid similar incidents in the future”.

In another incident reported from Bharuch on Thursday, a physical education teacher at an international school on National Highway No. 48 has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a first-grade student in 2017.

The POCSO court delivered the judgment after hearing the compelling evidence and arguments from the chief public prosecutor and reviewing medical reports. In addition to the prison sentence, the court imposed a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh on the teacher and ordered a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to be paid to the victim.

The incident occurred on December 12, 2017, when the victim attended her regular school session from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Her mother sent her to school in a private van around 6:15 a.m. Later that afternoon, the child returned home and confided in her family about the assault. Upon learning about the incident, the victim’s mother complained to the local police.

Following the complaint, the police arrested the accused, Prithvisinh Dilipsinh Ambaliya, and filed a charge sheet in the POCSO court.

The investigation revealed that the teacher had been involved in multiple instances of misconduct with children.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Rajkot:

After a massive fire at a gaming zone in Rajkot claimed at least 28 lives on Saturday, the Gujarat government has now issued a directive to register cases against the owners of all such establishments that are being run flouting the norms.

According to the directive, cases will be filed against those lacking NOCs during the verification process, invoking strict sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and imposing non-bailable clauses.

The directive has been sent to all the collectors and municipal commissioners across the state for immediate enforcement. Subsequently, the district police chiefs have been notified, with explicit instructions to register cases and take stringent action against the violators.

The mandate requires a thorough inspection of all the locations where large gatherings take place, including temples, mosques, schools, colleges, malls, theaters, food markets, densely populated areas, and gaming zones.

The police and revenue officials will conduct joint verifications at each location to assess the status of fire NOCs.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ahmedabad:

 Four policemen found guilty of contempt of court for publicly flogging some minority community members in Kheda district on Wednesday requested the Gujarat High Court that they be directed to pay compensation rather than being given punishment, which they argued would affect their careers.

A division bench of Justices A S Supehia and Gita Gopi posted the matter for hearing next Monday in order to have the responses of the complainants on the policemen’s proposal.

During the last hearing, the court had framed charges against the four policemen after finding them guilty under the Contempt of Courts Act for violating the Supreme Court’s guidelines issued in the case of D K Basu vs State of West Bengal regarding compliance with proper procedure before arresting any individual.

The court said they actively participated and carried out flogging of the applicants in public by tying them to a pole.

Appearing on behalf of the then inspector of Kheda police station A V Parmar, sub inspector D B Kumavar, and constables Kanaksinh Dabhi and Raju Dabhi – the four policemen charged with contempt of court – senior advocate Prakash Jani submitted that they have completed substantial years of service and the charges will affect their career.

“Instead of punishing them under the Contempt of Courts Act, appropriate compensation which the court deems fit may be awarded to the five applicants (from the policemen),” he submitted.

Senior advocate I H Syed, appearing for the complainants, said that he would take appropriate instructions from the complainants in this regard, after which the court posted the matter for hearing on Monday.

During the Navratri festival in October last year, a mob comprising members of the Muslim community allegedly hurled stones at a garba dance event at Undhela village in Kheda, injuring some villagers and police personnel.

Videos emerged on social media showing police personnel purportedly flogging three of the 13 persons arrested for pelting stones. Some of the accused later approached the HC, claiming the police personnel involved in the act had committed contempt of court by flouting the Supreme Court’s directions.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)