Year-ender 2020: Crimes in Mumbai, across India that dominated headline

With the announcement of coronavirusinduced lockdown on March 24 2020 which was subject to multiple extensions street crimes in India saw a sharp decline Around 94 police stations in Mumbai did not see a single case of chain snatching in the month of April Another crime that drew a blank in the Maximum City was dacoityHowever there was a rise in cases of domestic violence and crimes against women From March 25 to May 31 1477 cases of domestic violence were registered across India highest in these months in the past 10 yearsStatistics aside there were some crimes that dominated the headlines this year Letrsquos have a lookCRIME TALES FROM MUMBAIDeath of Sushant Singh RajputOn June 14 Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging from the ceiling in his home in Bandra Mumbai The case which was initially registered as ldquoaccidental deathrdquo spiralled into murder abetment to suicide and money launderingAlthough Sushantrsquos post mortem report suggested no instances of foul play struggle or external injuries Sushantrsquos father KK Singh filed a case in Patna against his partner Rhea Chakraborty and her family including brother Showik Chakraborty for abetment of suicideWhat followed was a political slugfest with Bihar and Maharashtra governments in a tussle over quarantine of IPS officer Vinay Tiwari who had come to Mumbai with a police team to investigate the caseOther central agencies also joined the investigation with the Enforcement Directorate ED filing a money laundering case against Rhea Chakraborty and five other accused over alleged mishandling of Sushantrsquos funds The Central Bureau of Investigation CBI also lodged an FIR in the case and began probe after the Supreme Court transferred the FIR filed in Patna by Sushantrsquos father to them CBI also roped in AIIMS for a detailed forensic reportMeanwhile ED found a drug angle in the case when they inspected the WhatsApp chats between Rhea and her manager Jaya Saha allegedly discussing lsquohard drugsrsquo this led to the Narcotics Control Bureau NCB to jump into the pool and led to a crackdown on various other celebritiesOn the other hand AIIMS report ruled out murder or abetment of suicide in the case Rhea got bail and her brother Showik was also granted bail in DecemberBollywood drug nexusDuring the course of the investigation into the Sushant Singh Rajput death case ED found a lsquodrug anglersquo A certain TV anchor opening WhatsApp chats of Bollywood actors also added fuel to the fireAs a result Bollywood actors Deepika Padukone Shraddha Kapoor Sara Ali Khan and Rakul Preet Singh were summoned by the NCB to depose before them Deepikarsquos manager Karishma Prakash was also grilled by the antidrug agency She was questioned specifically about the WhatsApp chats with Deepika Karishma Prakash as per a WhatsApp chat in 2017 allegedly provided hash to the actress as per her demandRakul was also questioned by NCB for four hours but denied consuming any narcotic substance or having a direct link with any peddlersDuring the probe Actor Arjun Rampalrsquos Mumbai home was also searched by the NCB The agency summoned Rampal and his partner Gabriella Demetriades to appear before it after they seized some tablets banned under the NDPS Act Rampal had then produced the prescription issued by Delhibased psychiatrist Dr Rohit Garg Probe however revealed that the prescription was backdated Garg in his statement to the NCB said that he was approached by a relative of Rampal through a common friend The relative said that she has anxiety and requested a backdated prescriptionEarlier the NCB had arrested Gabriellas brother Agisilaos Demetriades in connection with the drugs case but he was granted bail by the magistrate court on November 6Another celebrity caught in the drug net was comedian Bharti Singh and husband Harsh Limbachiya NCB raided the home and offices of the couple in Andheri Wests Lokhandwala Complex and Versova from where 8650 grams of marijuana was seized Both were arrested for consumption of the drug but were later granted bailA lynching in PalgharOn April 16 two ascetics 70yearold Mahant Kalpavruksha Giri and 35 yearold Sushilgiri Maharaj who stayed in an ashram in Kandivli decided to go to Surat to attend a funeral The two subsequently hired a car driven by Nilesh Yelgade 30 to travel from Kandivali till SuratIn an attempt to avoid being stopped on their journey the three appeared to have taken the back roads of Palghar district to enter Gujarat rather than the MumbaiGujarat highway The three were however stopped by a sentry of the forest department close to Gadchinchle village While they were speaking with the sentry the three were accosted by a vigilante group and assaultedThe group lynched the three suspecting them to be child kidnappers and organ harvesters Total 110 people were arrested in connection with the case 9 of them were minorsWoman strangulated and burned by partnerOn November 14 a 22yearold woman and her 25yearold partner were riding on a motorcycle from Pune to their home in Shelgaon village in Nanded district for Diwali celebrations Around 2 am accused Avinash R Rajure stopped the bike at a desolate stretch in the Yellamb Ghats region and attempted to strangulate Savita D Ankulkar but she fought back Then he removed a bottle of acid and threw it on her as she screamed for help Not stopping at this Avinash removed petrol from his vehicle poured it on her set her ablaze and pushed her into a deep ditch beside the road He then sped offIt was only around 12 hours later a shepherd tending to his flock heard her agonizing whimpers from the ditch and alerted the Neknur PoliceA police team rushed Savita to the Beed Civil Hospital where she was diagnosed with over 50 per cent burn injuries She succumbed after battling for 16 hoursProbe revealed that Savita had ditched her husband and had eloped with Avinash It was also found that the woman reportedly wanted a child which the accused opposed and that may have soured relations as he was apparently not ready for any longterm liaison with her Avinash was arrested and was sent to police custody by a court in BeedTRP scamTelevision Rating Points TRPs are the basis on which television channels rake in the moolah Advertisers put their campaigns on a channel with high TRPs programmes are shut or extended while weighing in these ratingsThe Broadcast Audience Research Council BARC has installed ldquoBarOmetersrdquo in over 45000 empanelled households While watching a show members of the household register their presence by pressing their viewer ID button mdash every person in household has a separate ID mdash thus capturing the duration for which the channel was watched and by whom and providing data on viewership habits across age and socioeconomic groupsIn October the Mumbai Police said they unearthed a ldquomajor racketrdquo of gaming TRPs by at least three channels including Republic TV and arrested four people contending that the manipulated audience numbers were crucial because they directly translated into advertising revenueThe police filed a 1400 page chargesheet in the fake TRP case The crime branch has so far arrested 14 accused including distribution head of Republic TV Ghanshayam Singh in the caseArnab Goswami arrestRepublic TV editorinchiefArnab Goswamiwas arrested on November 4 in connection with the abetment of suicide case of architect Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik on May 5 2018 for alleged nonpayment of his dues by Goswami He was sent to 14day judicial custody by a lower court later that day Goswami moved the Bombay High Court for interim bail The Bombay HC rejected Goswamis plea and observed that the victims rights are as important as that of the accusedGoswami finally moved the Supreme Court and was granted bail in the case If we as a constitutional court do not lay down law and protect liberty then who will You may not like his Arnab ideology But if a citizen is sent to jail if high courts dont grant bail We have to send a strong message Justice Chandrachud said while granting bail to the Republic TV headMajor Crime News from the rest of IndiaHathras gangrape and murder caseOn September 14 a 19yearold Dalit woman in Hathras Uttar Pradesh was allegedly gangraped by 4 men when she was out with her mother in the fields The woman was later found to be brutally injured with her tongue cut as she bit it while the accused tried to strangle her She was also left paralysed with her spinal cord severely injuredOn September 29 the woman succumbed to her injuries and around 3 am she was cremated by the UP police Her family alleged they were not allowed to be present at the cremation but the UP police claimed their permission was taken A forensic report in the case stated that as no semen was found in the womanrsquos body hence lsquoshe was not rapedrsquoThe hurried cremation of the woman sparked protests across the country The Yogi Adityanath government maintained its stance of lsquoconspiracy to stir castebased aggressionrsquo in the state by lsquointernational forcesrsquo lsquodalit activistsrsquo and even some journalistsThe CBI filed a 19page chargesheet in a Hathras court on December 18 raising questions on the handling of the alleged case by the UP Police and alleged that the latter ignored allegations of sexual assault and did not get the victims medical examination conducted on time The chargesheet alleged that the police did not take down the womans oral statement at the Chandpa police station when she went there on September 14 to report the crime Police twice ignored her allegations of sexual assault which led to loss of forensic evidence the agency saidKerala gold smuggling caseOn July 5 2020 30 kg of gold worth around Rs 15 crore was seized by the customs department at Thiruvananthapuram airport in Kerala The gold was found in a diplomatic luggage meant for delivery to the United Arab Emirates UAE consulate at Keralarsquos capitalA former PRO of the consulate Sarith Kumar had come to claim the bag When the consulate was asked they said they had not authorized Kumar to make any claims on their behalf Kumar was arrested and he pointed fingers at Swapna Prabha aka Swapna Mohammed a former consulate employee who was fired in 2019The can of worms opened Swapna was recommended for the job by M Sivasankar the principal secretary for the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Sivasankar was suspended The BJP and the Congress trained its guns towards Vijayan and demanded his resignation and questioning by the Enforcement Directorate The CM dismissed the charge saying ldquoThe Opposition is trying to foist the doings of officials on the governmentrdquoWoman shot dead by classmateA 20yearold woman was shot by her classmate in Haryana because ldquoshe wouldnrsquot reciprocate his advancesrdquo Nikita Tomar was shot dead outside her college in Ballabhagarh allegedly by her former classmate Tauseef Her family told the police that the accused had a onesided affection towards her The womanrsquos father alleged the accused had been pressuring his daughter to marry him ldquoasking her to convert to Islam so they could get married but she was not willingrdquoSpeaking to the media on the sidelines of a state government event in Karnal Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar said ldquoSince the Ballabhgarh womanrsquos murder case is linked with love jihad the Centre and state government are looking into it and considering legal provisions so that those guilty are not able to escapehelliprdquoFive BJPruled states are planning to bring in laws to curb lsquolove jihadrsquo ndash a conspiracy theory allegedly coined by rightwing activists who believe that ldquoinnocentrdquo and ldquogulliblerdquo Hindu women are tricked into marriage by Muslim men for conversion to Islam These states are Uttar Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Karnataka Haryana and Assam Uttar Pradesh is the only state to pass a lsquolove jihadrsquo law recently with its first case being registered in Bareilly Yogi Adityanath in a speech at UPrsquos Jaunpur had said ldquoWe will bring an effective law Its my warning to all those who play with the honour and dignity of our sisters and daughters by not revealing their real names and identities If they do not mend their ways their Ram Naam Satya journey will startRajasthan woman abducted raped for 14 days in junglePolice in Rajasthans Baran district registered a case against a 22yearold man for allegedly abducting a 20yearold woman and raping her in captivity for two weeks In her complaint to the police the woman said she had gone to her maternal uncles village to attend a wedding on November 9 This is when the accused Phorulal Odd spotted her answering natures call in a field and abducted her on his motorcycle He then took her to a jungle near Mandana in Rajasthans Kota district She further alleged that the accused a resident of Kapren in Bundi district raped her repeatedly for 14 days before she was able to call her father for help Her father rescued her after which she approached the police and registered a complaintTechie burned over black magic suspicion in TelanganaA 38yearold software engineer in Telangana was burnt alive by his relatives on the suspicion that he was practicing black magic The incident occurred in Balvantapur village in Jagityal district of Telangana police said Pavan Kumar a resident of Hyderabad was tied to a chair and set afire in his brotherinlaw Jagans house in the villageMan kills pregnant partner buries her body at fatherrsquos farmA man was arrested for killing his pregnant livein partner and burying her body in Gujarats Bardoli town The body of the pregnant woman was found 22 kms away from where she lived with the accused at farmland owned by her father When she could not be located for several days her family lodged a complaint and it was revealed that she was fivemonths pregnant They also said that she had been in a livein relationship with a man named Chirag Patel for the past five years When police questioned Chirag he confessed that he had strangulated her to death and took the body to her fathers farmland There he dug a pit using a JCB excavator and buried the body to avoid detectionMumbai woman found living with motherrsquos corpseMumbai Police recovered the corpse of an 83yearold woman from her home in Bandra west Officials said that the woman died in March of this year and her 53yearold daughter had been living with her corpse all this time without informing anyone about her demise The matter came to light only on Saturday when neighbours of the woman in Chuim village in Bandra west approached the police as the daughter was throwing garbage outside her window Police personnel reached the womans home only to find that the daughter had been living with her corpse throughout the lockdownUP engineer held for filming sexually abusing minors for over 10 yearsThe CBI arrested an engineer for sexually exploiting minors recording videos of the act and circulating them on the dark web Identified as Rambhawan the accused is a resident of Chitrakoot and works as a junior engineer for the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department In addition to the sexual exploitation of minors the accused were also suspected of recording these heinous crimes using their mobile phones laptops and other electronic devices6yearold girl gangraped lungs taken out to perform black magicA sixyearold girl was gangraped and her lungs taken out by the killers in Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur police said The lungs were removed to perform black magic believing that it will help a woman give birth to a child The girl was missing since the night of Diwali from the Ghatampur area Following the recovery of the corpse police arrested the killers Ankul Kuril 20 and Beeran 31 The accused said the girl was killed and her lungs were taken out and given to key conspirator Parshuram Kuril to perform black magicWoman raped set on fire in JaipurA woman was allegedly burnt by a man accused of raping her in Jaipur She was admitted to Jaipurs Sawai Man Singh SMS hospital and was undergoing treatment She suffered over 50 per cent burn injuries The woman filed an FIR in April alleging she was raped by the accused mdash Lekhraj who had given her some intoxicating substance before raping her The accused had allegedly made videos of the crime and used them to blackmail herKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news