7 killed, 4 injured in accident due to heavy fog in Haryana

New Delhi, Jul 17: The first FIR against Volkswagen and Audi in India for installing cheat devices in their cars to misrepresent emissions has been filed in Noida.

The FIR was filed by Noida resident Aniljit Singh against the top officials of Volkswagen and Audi in India and their headquarters in Germany. These include Rahil Ansari, Brand Director, Audi India, Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head, Audi India, and Bram Schot, Chairman, Audi AG.

The FIR reviewed by media agency cites forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The complaint has cited the global emissions scandal where VW was found to be installing a cheat device in its cars, in the absence of which, the cars produced 10-40 times emissions beyond the permissible limits.

The complainant said that in 2018 he had purchased seven Audi cars worth crores of rupees. At the time of taking the delivery, the complainant said that he inquired if the cheat devices were installed in India and he was told by the company that they were not, as in India's emission norms were not as stringent and the country being a growing market for Audi, no such device was implanted.

The complaint said that the authorities in India observed that Audi cars' emissions for nitrogen oxide were 5-8 times the permissible limits and after the National Green Tribunal imposed a penalty of Rs 500 crore on VW, the complainant realised that he had been duped of his hard earned money.

He alleged that the accused persons had misrepresented the complainant by forging the documents and devices and caused wrongful gains to themselves and wrongful losses to the complainant. These officials had made wrong records to capture the market, with malafide intent and under a pre-planned conspiracy had induced and defrauded the complainant.

The accused persons are guilty of cheating the customers and have induced the complainant to part with hard earned money for sub-standard cars. The accused are also guilty of forging the documents on which they had sought various clearances.

The complainant has demanded that the allegations may be thoroughly investigated by a senior official.

A man posed as Superintendent of Police (SP), called up a subordinate police official and asked him to get his mobile phone repaired or face the consequences. But, his bluff was later called and the man landed in lockup.

Azamgarh SP Triveni Singh said the 23-year-old youth, Shubham Upadhyay, is the son of a farmer. He was preparing for competitive exams when his phone developed a snag on Saturday. He tried to reach out to local mechanics, but they were unavailable to fix it due to the lockdown.

Upadhyay used a free caller identification app to call up the in-charge of the Kotwali police station, K. K. Gupta, and threatened to shunt him out, if he failed to swiftly get the work done. Gupta grew suspicious and eventually caught the youth.

n his statement to the police, Shubham Upadhyay said, "On Sunday noon, I tried to breach the district borders to reach Lucknow to repair my phone, but since there was heavy police presence and barricading, I returned home. Later, I installed a free caller identification app in my handset and mentioned the name as SP Azamgarh and even uploaded a photo of the cop to appear genuine."

He first called SHO, Kotwali to get the phone repaired and was told the handset would be picked up from the SP office in an hour. Then, he called a businessman to bring his SUV and hand over his mobile to the SHO.

But when Upadhyay called the police again to suggest a separate meeting point, he raised suspicion. When the SHO tried to confirm the venue, Upadhyay got hesitant and said he would send a peon.

"I suddenly realised something was fishy and rang up the public relation officer of SP Azamgarh, who denied any such order from the SP. When the caller's number was scanned, it displayed the name of SP Azamgarh," said SHO Gupta.

A trap was laid and when the SHO reached the venue, he found one Praveen Shukla sitting in the vehicle. Police got the address of the accused from Shukla and reached Upadhyay's home in Bilariya locality and arrested him.

Upadhyay has been booked under IT Act and for threatening a public servant.

New Delhi, May 26: A massive fire broke out on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday in the slums of the Tughlaqabad area in south east Delhi in which over 250 shanties were gutted, however, no one was injured, fire officials said.

Atul Garg, Chief Fire Officer, told IANS, "We came to know about the fire in the slums around 12.15 a.m. following which 28 fire tenders were rushed to the spot. And the fire was brought under control by 4 a.m."

He said, the Tughalaqbad slums have over 500 shanties, out of which over 250 have been destroyed in the fire.

He said, it took time for the fire tenders to reach the spot as it was on the hills, but the fire was doused within four hours and by 8 a.m. cooling off procedure has also been completed.

When asked if there is any casualty in the incident, he said, "No injury or casualty has been reported."

He also said that as of now the actual reason for the fire is not known. "But we are trying to find out the reason of the fire," Garg added.

South East Deputy Commissioner of Police R.P. Meena said, "In the night it seemed that almost 500 shanties were gutted. However, in the morning it became clear that only 250 shanties have been gutted in fire."

He said, the South East district police after receiving the call also rushed the ambulances and the local police team in the area for rescue operation. Meena further said that very few people were residing in the shanties, and the people came out of their shanties after the fire broke out in one of them.