Parents Accept Bribe from Accused Who Raped Daughter to 'Settle' Case; FIR Filed

Lucknow, Jun 7: From Anamika Shukla to Anamika Singh and finally Priya. The primary school teacher who was found to be teaching simultaneously in 25 schools, not only has multiple jobs but also multiple identities.

Anamika was arrested on Saturday from Kasganj district when she went to submit her resignation after she was served a show cause notice by the Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA), Anjali Agarwal.

Agarwal informed the police and Anamika was arrested.

According to the Kasganj BSA, Anamika Shukla, originally a resident of Kaimganj in Farukhabad is currently doing her B.Ed from the Raghukul Degree College in Gonda. Her other documents are also from the same college.

During interrogation, Anamika Shukla said that she was actually Anamika Singh but as questioning proceeded, it turned out that she was Priya from Farrukhabad.

She has been booked for cheating and forgery under IPC sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will etc.) and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating).

According to the police, the woman claimed that she had paid Rs five lakh to a Mainpuri-based man to get this job.

She used Anamika Shukla's credentials to get the job while her real name is Priya, daughter of Mahipal, a resident of the Lakhanpur village of the Kayamganj police circle in Farrukhabad district.

Soron station house officer (SHO) Ripudaman Singh said, "During interrogation, the accused initially claimed to be Anamika Singh, daughter of Subhas Singh. However, her documents are in the name of Anamika Shukla, daughter of Subhas Chandra Shukla."

The accused claimed that she paid the hefty amount to Raj, a Mainpuri-based man for the job and was posted in Faridpur Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) since August 2018.

The police are now trying to zero in on the man who got her the job.

The police also believe that it could be possible that multiple candidates used credentials and 'eligibility' of Anamika Shukla - the real one still remains elusive.

According to the Uttar Pradesh government, five more Anamika Shuklas have been found working in KGBVs in Ambedkar Nagar, Baghpat, Aligarh, Saharanpur and Prayagraj districts. She has reportedly drawn a combined salary of Rs one crore in the past one year.

Teachers in KGBV, a residential setup for girls from weaker sections of the society, are appointed on contract and are paid approximately Rs 30,000 per month. Each block in a district has one Kasturba Gandhi school.

Basic Education Minister Satish Dwivedi said that the incident was 'shocking' and the police would unravel the entire racket in the case. "No officer, employee who connived with this teacher in providing her job at KGBV and subsequently hiding it, will be spared," he said.

Palghar, Mar 7: Police have arrested a man for allegedly cheating several shopkeepers in Maharashtra's Thane, Pune and Nashik by making phone calls in a woman's voice, police said on Friday.

The accused, Shashikant Ambekar (42), a resident of Palghar, was arrested in the last week of February, they said.

"He used to note down the phone numbers mentioned on different shops and call the owners in a woman's voice to order some things from them. He would tell them that he had a Rs 2000 currency note and needed change," an official said.

"He would ask the shopkeepers to send smaller denomination notes for exchange. He would wait at the entrance of buildings and when the delivery man arrived, he used to tell that he was there on behalf of the ''caller woman''.

"He would then take the currency notes from the delivery man saying he would get the Rs 2,000 note from the woman. However, he would disappear from the scene," the official said.

Police have seized Rs 1,85,000 from the accused and found that so far he has committed 22 similar crimes in different parts of the state.

Dubai/Washington, Jan 7: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wept in grief with hundreds of thousands of mourners thronging Tehran's streets on Monday for the funeral of military commander Qassem Soleimani, killed by a U.S. drone on U.S. President Donald Trump's orders.

The coffins of General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who also died in Friday's attack in Baghdad, were draped in their national flags and passed from hand to hand over the heads of mourners in central Tehran.

Responding to Trump's threats to hit 52 Iranian sites if Tehran retaliates for the drone strike, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani pointedly wrote on Twitter: "Never threaten the Iranian nation." And Soleimani's successor vowed to expel U.S. forces from the Middle East in revenge.

Khamenei, 80, led prayers at the funeral, pausing as his voice cracked with emotion. Soleimani, 62, was a national hero in Iran, even to many who do not consider themselves supporters of Iran's clerical rulers.

Aerial footage showed people, many clad in black, packing thoroughfares and side streets in the Iranian capital, chanting "Death to America!" - a show of national unity after anti-government protests in November in which many demonstrators were killed.

The crowd, which state media said numbered in the millions, recalled the masses of people that gathered in 1989 for the funeral of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Soleimani, architect of Iran's drive to extend its influence across the Middle East, was widely seen as Iran's second most powerful figure behind Khamenei.

His killing of Soleimani has prompted concern around the world that a broader regional conflict could flare.

Trump on Saturday vowed to strike 52 Iranian targets, including cultural sites, if Iran retaliates with attacks on Americans or U.S. assets, and stood by his threat on Sunday, though American officials sought to downplay his reference to cultural targets. The 52 figure, Trump noted, matched the number of U.S. Embassy hostages held for 444 days after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Rouhani, regarded as a moderate, responded to Trump on Twitter.

"Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655," Rouhani wrote, referring to the 1988 shooting down of an Iranian airline by a U.S. warship in which 290 were killed.

Trump also took to Twitter to reiterate the White House stance that "Iran will never have a nuclear weapon" but gave no other details.

'ACTIONS WILL BE TAKEN'

General Esmail Ghaani, Soleimani's successor as commander of the Quds Force, the elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards charged with overseas operations, promised to "continue martyr Soleimani's cause as firmly as before with the help of God, and in return for his martyrdom we aim to rid the region of America."

"God the Almighty has promised to take martyr Soleimani's revenge," he told state television. "Certainly, actions will be taken."

Other political and military leaders have made similar, unspecific threats. Iran, which lies at the mouth of the key Gulf oil shipping route, has a range of proxy forces in the region through which it could act.

Iran's demand for U.S. forces to withdraw from the region gained traction on Sunday when Iraq's parliament passed a resolution calling for all foreign troops to leave the country.

Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Abdel Abdul Mahdi told the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad on Monday that both nations needed to implement the resolution, the premier's office said in a statement. It did not give a timeline.

The United States has about 5,000 troops in Iraq.

Soleimani built a network of proxy militia that formed a crescent of influence - and a direct challenge to the United States and its regional allies led by Saudi Arabia - stretching from Lebanon through Syria and Iraq to Iran. Outside the crescent, Iran nurtured allied Palestinian and Yemeni groups.

He notably mobilised Shi'ite Muslim militia forces in Iraq that helped to crush ISIS, the Sunni militant group that had seized control of swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014.

Washington, however, blames Soleimani for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies.

The funeral moves to Soleimani's southern home city of Kerman on Tuesday. Zeinab Soleimani, his daughter, told mourners in Tehran that the United States would face a "dark day" for her father's death, adding, "Crazy Trump, don't think that everything is over with my father's martyrdom."

NUCLEAR DEAL

Iran stoked tensions on Sunday by dropping all limitations on its uranium enrichment, another step back from commitments under a landmark deal with major powers in 2015 to curtail its nuclear programme that Trump abandoned in 2018.

In response, European signatories may launch a dispute resolution process against Iran this week that could lead to a renewal of the United Nations sanctions that were lifted as part of the deal, European diplomats said on Monday.

Diplomats said France, Britain and Germany could make a decision ahead of an EU foreign ministers' meeting on Friday that would assess whether there were any ways to salvage the deal.

After quitting the deal, the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran, saying it wanted to halt Iranian oil exports, the main source of government revenues. Iran's economy has been in freefall as the currency has plunged.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Monday that he was still confident he could renegotiate a new nuclear agreement "if Iran wants to start behaving like a normal country."

Tehran has said Washington must return to the existing nuclear pact and lift sanctions before any talks can take place.

The United States advised American citizens in Israel and the Palestinian territories to be vigilant, citing the risk of rocket fire amid heightened tensions. As a U.S. ally against Iran, Israel is concerned about possible rocket attacks from Gaza, ruled by Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamists, or major Iran proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Democratic critics of Trump have said the Republican president was reckless in authorising the strike, with some saying his threat to hit cultural sites amounted to a vow to commit war crimes. Trump also threatened sanctions against Iraq and said Baghdad would have to pay Washington for an air base in Iraq if U.S. troops were required to leave.