Money laundering gang busted, nearly 95 tonnes of gold seized

Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 22:An accused in a case registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act jumped into the sea on Wednesday morning when he was taken for evidence collection at Kasaba in Kasargode district, police said.

Accused Mahesh was arrested following a complaint by his neighbour on Tuesday evening.

The police said that they took the accused to the seashore to collect evidence in the case when Mahesh jumped into the sea. Two police officials too jumped in after him to catch hold of him but could not locate Mahesh.

Later, swimmers were deployed to try and locate the missing man.

Tamil Nadu, Jul 12: An alleged attempt by a 19-year-old man to "open a branch of the State Bank of India" at Panruti near Tamil Nadu was scuttled and he was arrested for forgery, police said on Saturday.

The man, son of retired SBI employees, had readied fake seals and challans of the public sector lender, and had other paraphernalia like a cash counting machine needed "to run a bank branch," on an upper floor of his residence at Panruti, about 25 km from Tamil Nadu.

He had not, however, put up any signboard. The SBI Panruti branch manager lodged a complaint with police seeking action following a tip-off by a customer that the man was "opening an SBI branch and has challans as well."

A printer who printed the challans and another who had made fake seals were held for similar offences and abetment.

They were produced before a magistrate court and enlarged on bail.

Asked if the man had cheated people by soliciting deposits or facilitating loans, Panruti police inspector K Ambethkar said, "no..we have not received any such complaint so far."

The man's late father had worked for SBI and his mother had retired from the same bank some time back, he said.

To a question, the police inspector said the man's mother, who has mobility issues, and another woman a relative living in the same house had no clue about his "idea."

Investigations revealed that he aspired to work for a bank and since he had closely watched banking operations for long he was "very knowledgeable" about it.

On the suspected motive, he said several of his replies were incomprehensible, childish, and strange notwithstanding his excellent understanding of the banking processes.

"He even calmly told us that he awaited approval from Mumbai to open the (SBI) branch and that he was about to put up a signboard," the inspector said, adding that the man had tried unsuccessfully to get employment on compassionate grounds in the SBI following the death of his father in harness.

Puducherry,Mar 26: Congress legislator from Kamaraj Nagar constituency John Kumar has been booked on charges of violating lock-down rules, Lt Governor Kiran Bedi said on Thursday.

In a Whats app posting she further said that an FIR has been registered under the Disaster management Act.

She stated John Kumar in an irresponsible manner allowed more than 200 people to gather outside his house and distributed doles personally when lock down was enforced in the country.

A criminal case has been registered against him for blatant violation of law despite mass information and media messages.Instead of following the law, he chose to violate it,she further stated.

The LG added that as per the ground report by IGP Surendra Yadav, there was perceptible improvement in enforcement of lock down and public were aware and cooperative.Vehicles carrying essential supplies and personnel were moving and every day is an improvement.