IPS officer Safeer Karim for allegedly cheating in UPSC exam

News Network
October 31, 2017

Chennai/Hyderabad, Oct 31: Police on Monday arrested a Tamil Nadu-cadre trainee IPS officer after Intelligence Bureau officers caught him cheating in the Union Public Service Commission (Main) Examination at a test centre in Egmore, Chennai.

Investigators said Safeer Karim, an assistant superintendent of police in Nanguneri, Tirunelveli, took a cellphone, a Bluetooth-enabled miniature camera in a shirt button and wireless earpieces into the examination hall in Presidency Girls Higher Secondary School.

"Karim's wife, Joicy Joy, dictated the answers to him from Hyderabad," an investigating officer said.

The Hyderabad police made coordinated arrests, taking Joy into custody at `La Excellence IAS -The Institute for Civil Services' at Ashok Nagar Crossroads in Hyderabad, where she was a visiting faculty member, as well as the institute's director and Karim's friend, P Rambabu. "Karim wanted to join the IAS, so he took the UPSC exams again," the officer said.

Karim, from Aluva, Kerala, who ranked 112 in a second attempt at the UPSC exams in 2015 after falling short in the interview the previous year, is an electronics engineer and proprietor of Karim's IAS, which trains civil service candidates and has branches in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. The officer said the IB, suspecting that Karim had cheated in the first of five tests in the UPSC examinations on Saturday, had put him under surveillance. They also monitored his wife. Four IB sleuths followed him to the examination hall on Monday where Karim successfully tricked a couple of policemen who were frisking candidates at the entry.

"Karim handed over his wallet and a cellphone to them from his trouser pockets, apologizing for forgetting to leave the handset in his car," the officer said. "But he had concealed another phone and wireless earpieces in his socks and a miniature camera in his shirt." The three-hour examination started at 9am. Twenty minutes later, IB sleuths entered the hall, searched Karim and seized the cellphone, which had concealed under his seat, the camera and earpieces.

"Karim admitted during interrogation that he took photographs of the question paper and sent them to his wife, who relayed the answers to him," the officer said. The IB officers handed him over to police, who booked him under relevant sections of the IPC, including 420 (cheating and dishonesty) and 120b (criminal conspiracy), and under provisions of the IT Act, and took him into custody.

Police on Tuesday night produced Karim before a magistrate, who remanded him in judicial custody. Officers said he faces dismissal from the IPS because he is still on probation. Friends told investigators that after Karim met with an accident recently and failed police fitness tests, he believed he did not have a viable future unless he opted for the IAS, the officer said. They told officers that Karim had been a topper in the CAT business school entrance exam, but in 2015 set up institutes in Kerala to train students for the civil service exams. Kareem met Joy when she took a job as an economics teacher at his academy and married her in 2016.

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Agencies
July 17,2020

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.

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Agencies
January 8,2020

Muzaffarpur, Jan 8: There is no evidence of murder of children in Bihar's Muzaffarpur shelter home, the CBI on Wednesday told the Supreme Court.

The probe agency told the apex court that two skeletons were recovered from the home's premises which were later, in forensic investigation, found to be of a woman and a man.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde accepted the status report of the CBI and allowed two officers to be relieved from the investigation team.

Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the probe agency, said investigation was done on allegations of rape and sexual assault of children and charge sheets have been filed before the courts concerned.

Venugopal said the children, who were alleged to have been murdered, were later traced and found to be alive.

He said the CBI has investigated cases of 17 shelter homes in Bihar and charge sheets have been filed in 13 of them, while in four cases the preliminary inquiry was conducted and later closed as no evidence of any wrongdoing was found.

The probe agency, in its status report filed on Monday, said no incriminating evidence proving commission of any criminal offence could be gathered in four preliminary enquiries and as such no FIR has been registered.

The CBI had also said the Bihar government has been requested to take departmental action and action of cancellation of registration and blacklisting of concerned NGOs by providing them the result of investigation, i.e., the CBI report.

Several girls were allegedly sexually and physically assaulted at a shelter home run by an NGO in Bihar's Muzaffarpur. The issue had come to light following a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

Following the report, a petition was filed in the apex court seeking lodging of an FIR and court-monitored probe by an independent agency into the allegations.

The plea filed by journalist Nivedita Jha through advocate Fauzia Shakil has sought "registration of FIR and independent investigations or court monitored probe into the affairs of these 14 (other) shelter homes in Bihar mentioned in the TISS report".

The apex court had directed the CBI to probe the offences under the Information Technology Act regarding the video recordings of the alleged assault on girls at the shelter home.

It had also directed the agency to investigate the role of "outsiders who were involved and facilitated the sexual assaults on the inmates", after administering them intoxicants and also against those who allegedly indulged in trafficking of girls from the shelter home.

The apex court had earlier directed the CBI to complete its probe into the alleged murder of 11 girls at the shelter home and asked it to file a status report.

The SC had transferred the case from Bihar to a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Saket District Court complex in Delhi.

Earlier, the top court had directed the CBI to conduct a probe into allegations of physical and sexual abuse of inmates in 16 other shelter homes in Bihar which were flagged in the TISS report.

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Agencies
March 15,2020

Mumbai, Mar 15: Three suspected coronavirus patients who were quarantined left a government hospital in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district on Saturday evening without informing anybody, the police said.

By late night, however, two of them returned to the Ahmednagar district civil hospital. Search was on for the third patient, a Topkhana police station officer said.

Earlier, two women and a man admitted to an isolation ward of the district hospital in Ahmednagar, left without informing the doctors, an officer said.

The civil surgeon contacted the Tophkhana police station in Ahmednagar city and sought polices help in tracing these persons, whose medical reports are awaited, the official added.

A person in Ahmednagar district is among the 31 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Maharashtra.

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