Fugitive 'con artist' was arrested thrice

May 31, 2013

Actor_Leena_Maria_PaulBangalore, May 31: Actor Leena Maria Paul’s live-in partner ‘cheated’ people in City by claiming high links, say police.

The fugitive live-in partner of actor Leena Maria Paul, who was arrested in New Delhi on Tuesday on the charge of cheating Canara Bank of Rs 19 crore, was apprehended at least thrice by Bangalore police since 2007 but managed to get bail each time.

Balaji alias Sukesh Chandrashekar, Bangalore police asserted, has a history of “cheating” hundreds of people. The Commissioner of Police, B G?Jyothiprakash Mirji, said the Central Crime Branch (CCB)?had been entrusted with tracking Balaji as he is suspected to be hiding in the City.

Information would be shared with law-enforcement agencies in Chennai and New Delhi, if required, Mirji told Deccan Herald. Some sources, although unconfirmed, claimed a special team from Chennai police was also looking for Balaji in Bangalore.

Balaji, who is in his early 20s, dropped out of PUC after studying at Baldwin Boys’ High School. He often “posed” as a relative or a close friend of prominent politicians. In this way, he would lure the gullible into believing that he could get their works done, for a monetary favour.

As per records with the City police, Balaji was a clever “imposter”. Once he was the “grandson” of Tamil Nadu politician M Karunanidhi; later a “close friend” of former Chief Minister H?D?Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil Gowda. He also posed as a close associate of Tamil Nadu’s former Finance Minister K Anbazhagan, and as an IAS officer.

First arrest

The first case booked against him in the City was in 2007 when, as a teenager, he “cheated” Subramanya, 75, a landlord, of Rs 1.14 crore, promising to get a BDA site reallotted to him. He had claimed that he was a close friend of Gowda; he even had one of his friends pose as Kumaraswamy’s son.

Police recall that Balaji had “forged” documents pertaining to the BDA to convince Subramanya that “his work was done”. The case was investigated by Hulimavu police who then arrested the teenager and his parents — Chandrashekar and Mala. The entire family was charged with operating as a gang to cheat the old man.

Balaji has a “fetish” for luxury cars and goods — seven cars, including a BMW and Nissan, were confiscated from him. He obtained bail only to revert to “cheating” people. He was then arrested in 2009 for cheating a businessman by posing as the son of former union minister T R Baalu. Police again recovered five high-end cars. He managed to get bail again, but didn’t reform himself, police claimed.

Thirteen cases

He was last arrested on April 11, 2011, near AVM Studio in Chennai when he was travelling by a car which didn’t have a number plate. That time, he was charged with cheating more than 100 men of Rs 10 crore by posing as Karunanidhi’s son. It emerged later that Balaji was involved in 13 cases in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, police recalled.

In the last incident, Balaji convinced two firms and several industrialists that he was an officer with the Government of Karnataka. He duped his gullible victims into believing that there was a project to instal some instrument in government-owned vehicles. The “tenders” for the project would be opened at Bannerghatta and Kudremukh national parks. He asked the businessmen to deposit the money into his HDFC bank account.

He even introduced himself as joint secretary to Karnataka’s chief minister before a Tamil Nadu firm, Lion Dates, saying the government had invited tenders to procure 50 lakh dates. He duped the company into depositing Rs 50,000 in his bank account.

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News Network
April 8,2020

Washington, Apr 8: Choosing stethoscope over the crown, Miss England 2019, Bhasha Mukherjee, has returned to work as a doctor as the world battles with coronavirus pandemic.

According to CNN, she was a junior doctor with a specialisation in respiratory medicine, before being crowned as Miss England in August last year. The beauty queen, who has her roots in India's Kolkata city, had taken a career break from the medical field.

She had paused her medical career for some humanitarian work that she was offered by several charities and was on a tour to different countries including India.

"I was invited to Africa, to Turkey, then to India, Pakistan and several other Asian countries to be an ambassador for various charity work," CNN quoted her as saying.

She had been in India at the beginning of March for four weeks. During her stay as an ambassador of the Coventry Mercia Lions Club, the 24-year-old had visited several schools and had donated stationery and other items to the needy.

Mukherjee then returned back UK as the situation worsened there with the coronavirus spreading at a fast rate. She then contacted the hospital and asked them that she wanted to rejoin.

According to CNN, the Miss England beauty pageant winner said that she felt wrong to be wearing the crown while people around the world were dying from the virus.

"When you are doing all this humanitarian work abroad, you're still expected to put the crown on, get ready... look pretty. I wanted to come back home. I wanted to come and go straight to work," CNN quoted her as saying.

"I felt a sense of this is what I'd got this degree for and what better time to be part of this particular sector than now. It was incredible the way the whole world was celebrating all key workers, and I wanted to be one of those, and I knew I could help," she added.

As the beauty queen has a recent travel history, she is currently in self-isolation and will return to work once her quarantine period is over.
She was crowned as Miss England 2019 in August last year.

According to World Health Organisation, 13,53,361people have been affected by coronavirus and over 80,000 people have lost their lives to it.

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News Network
June 27,2020

Patna, Jun 27: As Sushant Singh Rajput’s family tries to come to terms with his loss, they have decided to honour his legacy and celebrate his passion for cinema, science and sports.

In an emotional statement shared on Saturday, the Bollywood actor’s family remembered him as a “free-spirited” person who worked hard to turn his dreams into reality.

“He was free-spirited, talkative and incredibly bright. He was curious about just everything. He dreamed without restraints, and chased those dreams with the heart of a lion. He smiled generously. He was the pride and inspiration of the family,” the statement read.

Rajput, 34, known for films like Kai Po Che!, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Chhichhore, was found dead in his Bandra apartment on June 14, sending shockwaves in the film industry and elsewhere.

The family said that the actor’s untimely demise has created an irreparable void in their lives.

“We can’t bring ourselves to accept that we wouldn’t get to hear his easy laughs anymore. That we wouldn’t see his sparkling eyes again. That we wouldn’t hear his endless rants about science again. His loss has created a permanent, glaring void in the family that will never be filled.”

Thanking his admirers for being a constant support as they try and recover from the loss, the family added that Rajput, “truly loved and cherished every single one of his fans.”

The actor, who made the storybook transition from Patna boy to television and then the starry lights of the Hindi film industry, was the youngest of five siblings and is survived by his father and four sisters. His mother had passed away in 2002 when he was a young teen.

To honour his memory and legacy, the family has decided to set up Sushant Singh Rajput Foundation (SSRF) that will support young talents in cinema, science and sports.

His childhood home in Rajiv Nagar, Patna, will be turned into a memorial, where all his personal memorabilia and belongings, that include thousands of books, his Meade 14’’ LX-600 telescope, flight-simulator, will be on display for his fans and admirers.

The actor’s family, who used to fondly call him Gulshan, will also maintain his social media accounts as legacy accounts to keep his memories alive.

Rajput started his acting career with television after dropping out from Delhi Technological University in the early 2000s. He was one of the few talents to have made a successful transition to movies.

The actor made his Bollywood debut in 2013 with Kai Po Che!. In past seven years, he had featured in a number of hits including blockbusters Neeraj Pandey’s MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Chhichhore by Nitesh Tiwari.

Tiwari’s 2019 hit was Rajput’s last theatrical release.

On Thursday, it was announced that Dil Bechara, which is the actor’s last movie he shot for, will premiere on Disney + Hotstar on July 24.

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News Network
July 3,2020

Mumbai, Jun 3: Investigators will subject the cloth allegedly used by actor Sushant Singh Rajput to hang himself to "tensile strength" analysis to determine whether it can bear the weight similar to that of the filmstar, as part of probe into his death, an official said on Friday.

Rajput (34) was found hanging at his suburban Bandra residence on June 14.

According to the investigators, the actor ended his life by hanging himself from the ceiling using a green coloured night gown made of cotton.

No suicide note was found from the spot, the police had said then.

Besides viscera from the actors body, the police also sent the gown for chemical and forensic analysis at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in suburban Kalina, he said.

It will take at least three more days to get final forensic report, the official said.

To ascertain the exact cause of death, forensic experts will check pattern of ligature marks around the actors neck and also determine the strength of the gown with the help of "tensile strength" analysis, he said.

The tensile strength test will technically establish whether the cloth can bear around 80kg, the weight of the actor, he said.

The test will help determine if there was any foul play, the official said.

Tensile strength is maximum load that a material can support without fracture when being stretched.

Viscera analysis will help in checking whether there were any traces of chemical, poisonous or narcotics substance in his body, the official said.

"Usually, it takes eight to ten working days to get s report from the FSL in regular cases. But since this case is sensitive, experts are taking more precautions to avoid any kind of error in their analysis," the official said.

The forensic report of the actors mobile phone is also awaited, he said.

Recently, the police received the final post-mortem report of the actor from Cooper Hospital, which mentioned the cause of the death as asphyxia due to hanging"

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