 |
|
|
Blood-sucking couple held in Rampur Rampur
(UP): Police in Rampur, in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday apprehended
a man accused of cannibalism. Hira Lal Totla, one of the members of
a cannibalistic gang operating in Uttaranchal, was arrested with his
girlfriend, by the members of a special operation group. Totla was
wanted for his involvement in nine cases, which included cannibalism,
robbery, kidnapping and murder. "There was a reward on him. We were
on a lookout for him for many days. We finally apprehended them and
on conducting the investigation, we came to know that they used to
slit throats of people and suck their blood," said B.D. Palsan, Superintendent
Of Police, Rampur. Totla admitted to having killed people and sucking
their blood. "We killed people and sucked their blood," said Totla.
Four other members of Totla's gang are still absconding. Parts of
India still remain in the Dark Ages with many in remote areas practising
black magic and even cannibalism. Demand to rescue minor girls working in circus (Go to Top) New Delhi: Hundreds of children protested recently in New Delhi demanding the release of five minor girls from a circus in Uttar Pradesh. Activists of an NGO, Bachpan Bachao Aandolan (Save Childhood Movement), were last week beaten by the owners after they tried to rescue the girls. The children used to perform complex and often life threatening tricks, which included trapeze items, jumping through fire rings and even substituting as dartboards for knife-toting jugglers. On June 15, the musclemen of the Roman circus, performing in Gonda town, attacked the social activists with sticks and sickles forcing them to flee. Though senior police officials later intervened and rescued more than a dozen girls, activists say five more are still being held against their will by the owners.
"This kind of injustice is going on throughout the nation. There needs
to be more awareness. Newspapers seldom carry articles against this
malpractice. So we should at least raise our voice against it," actress
and social activist Nandita Das said. Officials say most of the children
are from neighbouring Nepal, where extreme poverty has forced thousands
of parents to sell their children, often for as less as 2,000 rupees.
Local crooks who double up as job contractors dupe gulible parents
by promising only light household jobs for the children but instead
push them into cheap labour involving extreme physical and mental
torture. India has officially prohibited the employment of children
under 14. But unofficial figures put the number of working children
close to 50 million, the highest in the world. Enslaving as "Bonded
labour" as well was banned under a law passed by the federal parliament
in 1976 but it persists to this day. Under the Bonded Labour Act,
the rescued children will be relocated to their native land and handed
over to the Nepal Child Welfare Organisation. Eight-year-old domestic help tortured by royal couple in Orissa (Go to Top) Sodak/Bhubaneswar (Orissa): A horrific case of severe mental and physical torture of an eight-year-old child by his employers has rocked Orissa, one of the poorest in the country. The third child of an impoverished village couple, Prashant Nahak, was handed over to members of the region's erstwhile royal household, the Kahrihars, when he was just four. The young boy worked as a domestic help with Bhubaneshwar Singhdeo and Pushpalata and stayed with them at their palatial residence in Sodak village. The child was neither sent to school nor allowed to leave the household and was repeatedly tortured for even the slightest mistakes. Nahak he was forced to sit on a burning heater and was marked with a hot iron rod besides being beaten and locked in pigeon-hole sized rooms by the duo. "They forced me to sit on a heater," Nahak said. The boy was rescued after some locals informed a voluntary organisation about his plight. Though
the royal couple has denied the charge, agitated villagers are demanding
compensation for the child and stringent action against the couple.
State Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has promised to rehabilitate the
child. "I am shocked to hear about that terrible incident, within
the law we will see what are the stringent action that has to be taken.
Of course the young boy's medical treatment and rehabilitation will
be looked after, I will see to that," Patnaik told reporters in state
capital Bhubaneswar. Millions of destitute children employed in households
and hazardous workplaces continue to be denied basic rights despite
federal laws being in place. According to statistics released by a
world body, nearly 250 million children aged between 5-14 are toiling
in economic activity in developing countries. For close to 120 million
of them, this work is carried out on a full time basis and four out
of every five children work without pay. In India, an estimated 44
million to 100 million children work as child labour. Gang of cheats smashed in Delhi (Go to Top) New
Delhi: Delhi police today arrested a gang of four persons involved
in duping people, operating around the Gole market area of the capital.
The accused-- Mohammed Lukman, Meherban, Ramdhani and Shahid-- would
lure people by promising them Rs.5000 worth of fake currency in exchange
for Rs.1000 of real currency. However, they would pack wads of plain
paper with only the first and last notes being real currency and pass
these off to the unsuspecting victims. As soon as the exchange was
made, they would scare off their clients/victims by saying that plainclothes
policemen were patrolling the place. They would also sometimes place
fake plainclothesmen and raid their customers after the exchange,
and relieve them of all their money. "They seem to have a network
that extends to Punjab, Rajasthan and western UP where they have cheated
lots of people. One of the apprehended members, Meherban, is a proclaimed
offender in a murder case in Dehra Dun and also a case of kidnapping
apart from cheating. We are trying to ascertain if there are other
cases against him anywhere else," says Ajay Chowdhury, DCP (Crime).
The gang was also running a finance office at the Saral Complex on
Loni Road in Delhi. Police also found 21 packets of these wads of
paper they would pass off as currency notes in the office. Punjab police seize counterfeit dollars (Go to Top) Jagraon:
Police in Punjab on Monday arrested a man and seized counterfeit
dollars worth millions from him. Fake dollar currency notes worth
over 4.6 million rupees were seized during a police raid in Jagraon
town. Rajeev Ahir, senior superintendent of police, Jagraon, said
they were on the look out for two others who were absconding. "We
have arrested Ranjit Singh. Bhagat and Mistry two of his gang members
are absconding. We have seized 1,000 notes of fake 100 dollars. We
have also seized dyes and papers used for printing. The value of the
recovered currency is around 4.6 million rupees," he said. The police
have also seized dyes and papers used in printing the dollars. Ranjit
Singh, the accused, said that the lure of money made him print the
fake dollars. "We had taken the machine (to print fake dollars) on
rent. They had promised to give me 100,000 rupees for these fake currencies.
They had taken the machine 11 days back," he said. Investigations
are on to establish their links with any international racket. Heroin haul in Delhi, Nigerian among two held (Go to Top) New
Delhi: Police in New Delhi on Thursday arrested two men, including
a Nigerian national, carrying fine quality heroin worth 10 million
rupees. Officials said the duo were caught red handed while trying
to exchange two kilograms of the contraband in the parking lot of
a cinema hall. The Niegrian national also had 300 fake and 500 real
U.S dollars on him. Police say the drugs had been smuggled from Pakistan
and could be on their way to Western countries. "The heroin which
was seized here was being transported from Pakistan to India. One
of the arrested men Balraj is from Amritsar, Punjab and he has got
links in Pakistan from where he got his supplies. Balraj used to supply
these drugs to the Nigerian national," D.L Kashyap, deputy commissioner
of police, narcotics, told reporters here. |