New Delhi:

The Mumbai Police dropped a post on X requesting people to “avoid” commuting towards Marine Drive as thousands of excited fans thronged to the promenade in south Mumbai to welcome the Indian cricket team.

“Due to the heavy rush of fans around Wankhede Stadium for the Victory Parade of the Indian Cricket Team, citizens are requested to avoid commuting towards Marine Drive,” the post said.

Traffic came to a grinding halt on south Mumbai’s busy road as a sea of fans lined up on the 1-km stretch to greet the men in blue this evening after the stupendous T20 World Cup victory in Barbados. Cars already on the road could not move an inch – stationary amid a swelling crowd of lakhs.

The entire stretch from Nariman Point to Churchgate was jam-packed and the Wankhede Stadium rumbled with deafening sloganeering and sonorous cheers from the crowd waiting for the parade to begin with cricketers arriving on an open-deck bus specially brought in from Gujarat.

The Vistara flight that landed in Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport with the Indian team was accorded a “water salute” in celebration of the team.

Even an overcast sky and intermittent light rains couldn’t dampen the spirits of the ecstatic crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of their heroes and the World Cup trophy.

Mumbai:

In a development concerning the alleged Rs 25,000-crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam, the Mumbai police and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are at loggerheads over the closure report filed before a court here.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police on Thursday opposed the central agency’s plea against closing the case, citing that the apex cooperative bank did not suffer any unfair loss due to the purported fraud.

Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar was named as an accused in the original case registered by the EOW.

While the police sought to close the case as they found no significant loss to the bank, the ED intervened, expressing concerns that accepting the closure report would impact their ongoing money laundering investigation linked to the scam.

The ED has already filed prosecution complaints and supplementary chargesheets in the case, emphasising the interconnected nature of the investigations.

The EOW filed a written submission in the court in which they rebuffed the ED’s intervention, noting that a similar plea had been rejected previously by a special court for cases involving MPs and MLAs.

The timeline of events includes the police filing a closure report in September 2020, which was initially accepted by the court.

However, further investigation was initiated in October 2022 based on protest petitions and the ED’s involvement.

The EOW moved to close the case again in March this year, asserting that no unfair losses were incurred by the bank due to the alleged fraud.

The FIR, which followed a High Court order in August 2019, alleged that loans of several thousand crore rupees obtained by sugar cooperatives, spinning mills and other entities from district and cooperative banks were diverted and not repaid.

Lodged under various sections including criminal breach of trust and cheating, the FIR named  NCP leader Ajit Pawar as an accused with over 70 others, who served as directors of the bank during the relevant period.

The allegations outlined a loss of Rs 25,000 crore to the Maharashtra government between 2007 and 2017, pointing to violations of banking regulations and RBI guidelines in loan disbursements to sugar mills and the undervalued sale of defaulting businesses’ assets.

A former judge, appointed as an authorised officer by the cooperative commissioner, concluded “there was no unfair loss to the bank due to the loans given to the factories (sugar mills),” and “the bank was recovering the amount from the factories by legal means”, the closure report said.

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

Mumbai:

More than 60 establishments in Mumbai, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), prominent hospitals and colleges received emails threatening bomb blasts, following which searches were carried out although nothing suspicious was found in them, a police official said on Tuesday.

The emails were received on Monday and Tuesday from a single mail id, he said.

“The emails received on Tuesday were similar to those received on Monday, which said that there was a bomb threat to prominent private, state and civic-run hospitals and colleges across the city,” he said.

As an investigation was underway, similar bomb threat emails were received by the BMC and other establishments, he said.

During the probe, the Mumbai police conducted security checks of those establishments and later it came to light that somebody played a mischief as nothing suspicious was found at all these places, he said.

Process to register a case against unidentified persons is underway at the Azad Maidan police station, he said.

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

Mumbai:

 The hoarding that collapsed in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar area on May 13, killing 17 persons and injuring scores of others, was in use two months before a ‘structural stability’ certificate was obtained for it, police officials said on Friday.

An official also said structural engineer Manoj Sanghu, who was arrested in connection with the incident, may have given such stability certificates to more than 25 structures installed by the concerned advertising firm.

As per the Crime Branch’s probe, Sanghu issued the stability certificate to the ill-fated hoarding on April 24 last year, though the firm which installed it, Ego Media Private Limited. had started using it since February last year.

The official said Sanghu, while issuing the certificate, did not verify whether it was constructed as per norms, adding that he had conspired with directors of the firm and issued the stability certificate irresponsibly.

During his interrogation, accused Bhavesh Bhinde, who is director of Ego Media Private Limited, told police officials he and another director, Janhavi Marathe, had given work of preparing a design for erecting the huge hoarding structure at Ghatkopar to structural engineer Sanghu, the official said.

Marathe, whose anticipatory bail plea was rejected by a court on Friday, is a wanted accused in the case, he added.

“During the investigation, it also came to light that Sanghu received a specific amount each month in his bank account from advertisement firm Ego Media Private Limited between June 1, 2022, and April 10, 2024,” the official said.

Mumbai Police has so far recorded statements of 15 to 20 persons in this case and will also record statements of the concerned officials of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Government Railway Police (GRP) in the coming days, the official said.

Seventeen persons were killed and 80 others injured after the hoarding collapsed on a petrol pump on May 13 amid a dust storm and unseasonal rain.

Sanghu was held by the Crime Branch on Thursday and was produced in the magistrate court on Friday. He was remanded in police custody till June 5.

Sanghu is the second person to be arrested in the case. Police had earlier arrested Ego Media Private Limited director Bhavesh Bhinde, who is currently in judicial custody.

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

Mumbai:

 The Mumbai crime branch has registered a case against gangster Rohit Godara in connection with the firing at Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s residence last month.

The Mumbai Crime Branch has also named gangster Godara as an accused in the case.

The firing incident took place on April 14 outside Salman Khan’s residence at Galaxy Apartments in the Bandra area of Mumbai. The subsequent arrests revealed connections to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, leading the Mumbai Police to invoke the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against all involved in the shooting.

“Mumbai Crime Branch has so far arrested six accused in the Salman Khan firing case and four accused are absconding and the search is on,” it said.

The sixth accused, identified as Harpal Singh (37), was arrested from Haryana’s Fatehabad on Monday evening. He will be presented in the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court of Mumbai.

As per the police officials, Harpal Singh’s information surfaced during the interrogation of another accused Mohammed Rafique Choudhary. He had financed Choudhary to conduct a recce around Salman’s residence.

Earlier, police said that gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s brother, Anmol Vishnoi, played a key role in motivating the shooters. After receiving weapons delivery in Panvel on March 15, 2024, Anmol provided the shooters with the target’s information, instructing them to carry out the firing at the actor’s residence.

The planned firing incident was executed as per instructions, during which the shooters received a total of Rs 3 lakh.

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

Mumbai:

The Mumbai police on Sunday busted a drug-making unit in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur and seized mephedrone worth Rs 107 crore, an official said.

According to the Sakinaka police official, they caught two persons with mephedrone, a synthetic stimulant, worth over Rs 3 crore in Mumbai in December last year.

Subsequent investigation showed that the duo had got the banned substance from a person running a drug manufacturing unit in Jodhpur.

The police raided the premises owned by the man in Jodhpur and found that he was producing drugs from there.

Besides mephedrone worth Rs 107 crore, raw materials used to make the drug were also seized from the factory, the official said. The raw materials had been hidden in a godown, the official said.

All three persons have been booked under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, he said, adding that further investigations are underway.

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

Mumbai:

Another suspect involved in the Salman Khan firing case was detained from Haryana Wednesday night. As per police sources, this individual served as a liaison between the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and the shooters – Vicky Gupta, 24, and Sagar Kumar Palak, 21 – who are in police custody. 

On Sunday at 4:55 am, two men on a motorcycle fired five rounds outside Galaxy Apartments in Mumbai’s Bandra, where the actor resides, and fled from the spot.

Sagar Kumar Palak, one of the two suspects, was allegedly provided with a gun just hours before the incident, sourced from the Bandra area on the night of April 13. However, the identity of the person supplying the weapon remains unknown, police said. Both the accused are from West Champaran in Bihar and were arrested by Mumbai Police from the premises of a temple in Gujarat’s Kutch district late Monday night. 

According to police sources, both Palak and his accomplice Vicky Gupta were allegedly offered Rs 4 lakh to carry out the shooting, with an initial payment of Rs 1 lakh provided upfront. The intended objective, as stated by Mumbai Crime Branch officials, was not to murder Mr Khan but to scare him.

“The accused conducted a ‘recce’ of Salman Khan’s farmhouse in Panvel. They intended to just scare him, not murder him. The statements of both families have been recorded in Bihar. Around 7 people have been called from Haryana and other states for questioning, which is ongoing,” a Mumbai Crime Branch official said, as quoted by news agency ANI. 

The Mumbai Crime Branch is also set to record Mr Khan’s statement as a witness in the case. 

Yesterday afternoon, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde met with the actor and assured him all help. 

“The government is with you, I have told Salman Khan. Both the accused have been arrested. They will be interrogated. We will get to the root of the case. Nobody will be spared. Nobody should targeted this way,” Eknath Shinde told reporters outside the actor’s home.

“No gang or gang war will be allowed. We won’t allow this to happen. We will finish (Lawrence) Bishnoi,” he added.

Last year, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said that Mr Khan topped the list of 10 main targets that jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi planned to eliminate, citing the actor’s infamous 1998 black buck hunting incident, which according to the gangster, offended the Bishnoi community.

 

Mumbai:

 A man was thrashed by passengers for allegedly molesting a 15-year-old girl inside a suburban train in Mumbai, a police official said on Monday.

The incident took place on Saturday night when the train was between Dadar and Andheri on the Western line and the accused has been identified as Kamathipura resident Noor Ahmed Sagir Ahmed (34), the Bandra railway police station official said.

“He was held on Monday. The girl, who was with her father, realised Ahmed was touching her inappropriately. After she raised an alarm, passengers thrashed Ahmed and handed him over to police at Andheri railway station,” he said.

“Ahmed was admitted in Cooper Hospital after the thrashing. He was arrested for committing such a crime earlier. He consumes drugs. At the time of the incident, the victim, who is undergoing treatment in a Parel-based hospital, had taken the Dadar-Borivali train after visiting the facility,” the official said.

Ahmed was charged with molestation and other offences under Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act provisions, he said.

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

Palghar:

A 35-year-old man was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly called up the Mira Bhayandar Vasai Virar police control room saying bombs had been planted at Dadar and Kalyan railway stations and explosions would be triggered, which turned out to be a hoax, an official said.

The phone call was received at around 5 AM, following which police swung into action. The call was traced to Nallasopara in Palghar district, which falls under the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), as per a release issued by the police.

Within hours of receiving the call, police caught Vikas Shukla from Nallasopara, it said.

“He was arrested after it was confirmed that the bomb threat was a hoax call. A case has been registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code,” police said.

Further investigation is underway.

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

Mumbai:

 A 20-year-old man has been arrested from Bhusawal railway station in connection with the murder of a 63-year-old woman in the city as he was trying to escape to Bihar, police said on Wednesday.

Some stolen jewellery was seized from the possession of Kanhaiya Kumar Pandit, who worked as domestic help for Jyoti Shah, the deceased woman, said an official.

The woman, wife of diamond jeweller Mukesh Shah, was found strangled in her house in Tahnee Heights building on Nepean Sea Road in the upscale Malabar Hill area on Tuesday.

The Shahs had hired the accused only two days earlier and he was missing since the murder came to light, the official said, adding that further probe was on.

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