Gurgaon: A 28-year-old man from Mahendergarh was beaten to death by two unknown persons near Jharsa in Gurgaon on Tuesday. The deceased, Pankaj Kumar, had come to Gurgaon from Kanina village a week back to look for a job, and was staying with a friend in Rajiv Nagar.
According to his friend, Ajay who was hosting him, Kumar received a call around midnight from a person who asked to meet.
“After the call, Pankaj told me he has some urgent work and needs to go to Jharsa. We rode to a fuel station near Jharsa,” said Ajay, the friend of the deceased.
He said that two youths who were already waiting at the designated spot attacked them the moment they arrived. The accused beat Kumar for around 20 minutes and fled. They kicked and punched him, and thrashed him in his genitals.
Ajay rushed him to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to his injuries at around 6am on Tuesday. Family members of the deceased rushed to Gurgaon and a case was registered on the complaint of Ajay at Sector 40 police station under sections 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of IPC. Body was handed over to the family after post-mortem.
Inspector Sunil Kumar, SHO of Sector 40 police station, said the reason behind the attack is not clear.
“We are trying to find out who made the last call to the deceased. The mobile phone of the deceased is fingerprint-locked. We are trying to access the call details,” said the SHO, adding that along with them, they are also scanning the CCTV footage of the area to identify the accused.

BENGALURU: Reeling under the Covid-induced economic crisis, the government is set to borrow a whopping Rs 33,000 crore from the market this fiscal year.
This is in addition to Rs 18,289 crore GST compensation it’s expected to get from the Centre through the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The state cabinet on Tuesday approved the decision to amend the Karnataka Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2002 to borrow Rs 33,000 crore. The proposed amendment will enable the government to increase the borrowing limit from the present three per cent to five per cent of GSDP (gross state domestic product), which can go up to Rs 36,000 crore.
The decision is based on the Centre’s one-time leeway to raise the borrowing limit of all states to compensate revenue losses caused by the pandemic. “We have a leeway to borrow Rs 36,000 crore, but considering our requirements, the government will go for Rs 33,000 crore borrowings,” law minister JC Madhuswamy said after the cabinet meeting.
However, the decision hasn’t come at a favourable time for Karnataka as it already has huge outstanding market borrowings. “Prior to this decision, the government approximately borrowed Rs 47,000 crore,” said the minister. This would mean the state will have borrowings of roughly Rs 80,000 crore by start of the next fiscal (2021-22).
Madhuswamy said with revenue losses having piled up over the past five months, the government had no other option. “While our previous borrowings were mostly for capital expenditure, this time the sum will be utilised for administrative and non-capital expenditure,” he added.
The minister said the borrowings will also be used to increase the government’s strength, which is facing staff crunch and has put a freeze on recruitments. “Due to the financial crisis, we had implemented a hiring freeze and put all development projects on hold,” he said.

KOLKATA: At noon on Wednesday, Air India flight AI 1550 will take off from Heathrow airport in London for Kolkata airport, reconnecting the umbilical cord that had been snapped 11 years ago when first AI and then British Airways withdrew services from the sector.
The flight is scheduled to arrive in Kolkata at 2.20am on Thursday and take off for London again at 6.20am on Thursday. “There is a lot of hope riding on the flight. Though it has been initially scheduled for only five weeks, we will try to convince AI to persist with the flight and make it part of the regular service between the two cities. Once the flight becomes regular, it will attract passengers bound for not only the UK but to the rest of Europe and the US as well,” said a leading travel agent on the eve of the flight’s arrival. The current flights under the Vande Bharat mission have been scheduled between September 16 and October 24. The travel trade fraternity hopes it will be extended as part of the bubble flight pact between India and the UK. There is one area of concern though. Only a quarter of the first pair of inaugural flights have been booked.

While poor passenger load isn’t unusual when a new flight is introduced in an international sector with three-four months needed to attain flier confidence and stabilise the flight, the travel trade fraternity is concerned that the airline top brass may pull the plug prematurely, citing poor loads.
The Boeing B787 aircraft with a reduced capacity of 234 passengers will fly in with barely 60 passengers from London and fly out with 70. Incidentally, Vistara that started its direct service to London from Delhi had fewer passengers on the inaugural flight. Loads have since improved.
“One needs to give a flight some time. Unfortunately, that is what’s been lacking when it comes to treatment with flights from Kolkata. We are glad that AI has scheduled the flight. The airline will do everyone a big service if it continues to operate the flight beyond October 24,” said another travel agent.
What has been heartening is the sale of business class seats. Though Kolkata has traditionally had a problem with business class occupancy, 14 out of the 16 business class seats have been sold with passengers willing to shell out the additional price for social distance. Economy class passengers will also be able to maintain a good distance with fellow passengers as there are enough empty seats around.
Also, the halt in Kolkata will be among the longest between flights to enable a complete sanitization of the aircraft, including disinfection of common touch points like tables, seat arm-rests and accessories in the toilets. Usually an international flight stops for an hour and half for cleaning, ground checks and refuelling. But the flight to London will take off at 6.20am, some four hours after its arrival from Heathrow.
Bidhannagar Police said they will ensure availability of enough pre-paid taxis and app cabs outside the airport to ensure passengers coming to the city do not face any trouble in heading back home early on Thursday. “We will ensure passengers can get cabs easily. Cops will also be stationed at the airport to help them,” said a senior officer of the commissionerate.

GUWAHATI: Senior Supreme Court advocate and amicus curiae Vijay Hansaria, in a PIL of 2016 seeking speedy disposal of criminal cases against the present and former elected representatives to Parliament and state legislatures, has stated in a supplementary report that there are no special courts for trying 35 such pending cases in Assam.

The supplementary report, which was filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday by Sneha Kalita, Advocate On Record of Supreme Court and assisting counsel of the amicus curiae, states that in Assam “there is no special court and the cases are pending in the respective jurisdictional courts. There are 35 cases pending in different courts in 14 districts.”
Ten of the 35 pending cases in the state are under special statues.
According to the report, seven cases are under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 of which two cases relate to the FIR registered in the year 2007 against sitting MLA of Arunachal Pradesh, and charges have not been framed yet. Another five cases are under the Arms Act, 1959.
“There is no uniformity as to the setting up of special courts for MPs/MLAs throughout the country. In the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal, there is one special court for all cases against MPs/MLAs. In the state of Telangana, apart from Special Court for MPs/MLAs, cases are also pending before Special Court, CBI. In all other states, these cases are pending in respective jurisdictional courts,” the report states.
It adds, “There is also no clarity as to the courts which are trying offences under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Similar is the situation with regard to offences punishable under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.”
The report states that trials in most of the states have been held up due to the pandemic situation. “Witnesses have not been examined and charges have not been framed in the absence of physical presence of the accused and/or witnesses. However, two high courts, namely, Karnataka and Delhi, have framed rules for conducting judicial proceedings by video conferencing, including examination of witnesses, judicial remand, framing of charge, examination of accused and proceedings under Section 164 Cr.P.C,” the report adds.
The amicus curiae has submitted that each HC may be directed to assign or allocate criminal cases involving former and sitting legislators to one judicial officer in each 11 district, both for sessions courts and magisterial courts as Special Court MP/MLA, and the HCs may be directed to prepare a blueprint for expeditious disposal of the cases not later than one year for conclusion of trial.
The amicus curie has also submitted that special courts will give priority to the trial of cases in offences punishable with death or life imprisonment followed by offences under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and offences under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, offences punishable with imprisonment for 7 years or more, other offences. “Cases involving sitting legislators be given priority over former legislators. No adjournment shall be granted, except in rare and exceptional circumstances, on a written application stating the ground of adjournment and for reasons to be recorded,” the amicus curiae submitted.

Ghaziabad: Ashok Kumar, the husband of the 47-year-old woman allegedly beaten up by a stalker in Kavi Nagar, has raised questions about police’s decision not to slap a molestation charge against the accused.
He has also objected to the Ghaziabad police’s practice of not giving any receiving copy of the complaint lodged. “Soon after giving a written complaint to the chowki in-charge of Shastri Nagar, I had to rush to the hospital to meet the doctor,” Ashok said.
Since there was no receiving copy of the complaint, Ashok did not know about the contents of the FIR until he was shown the document. It was in 2018 that Ghaziabad police had stopped giving any receiving copy of complaints.
Ghaziabad SSP Kalanidhi Naithani, however, said it was not important to give any receiving copy. “But we will think about it,” he added.

Gurgaon: Inching closer to the 16,000 mark, 324 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the city on Tuesday, taking the tally to 15,909.
With the increase in the number of cases, the health department has also increased testing. While the health department was testing about 2,500 samples every day on an average in August, it has now increased daily sample collection to 3,500-4,000.
Gurgaon chief medical officer Virender Yadav said that it is important that patients are first identified to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus. For this, he said camps are being organised where people can go and get tested for free. “On Wednesday, we are organising a camp in Kadipur, that falls under Badshapur urban primary health centre (UPHC),” Yadav said.
Meanwhile, 200 recoveries were reported on Tuesday, health officials said.
The city also recorded two deaths on Tuesday, taking its Covid toll to 151.