Covid testing in Mumbai. (File Photo)Mumbai News highlights: Mumbai on Wednesday reported 255 new Covid-19 cases, 439 recoveries, and zero deaths. Almost a month into resumption of offline school for all classes, only 54 per cent students are actually attending classes physically, data collated by the Education Department of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) showed. As per the data, out of a total of 6,58,299 students studying in 2,278 schools, 4,21,713 students had consent from parents to attend offline school. But when it came to actually attending the school physically, only 3,55,917 students are turning up.
Meanwhile, Mumbai did not record any new death linked to Covid-19 for a second time in 2022 on Tuesday, while 235 more people tested positive for the infection, the city civic body said. According to a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) bulletin, with new addition, the tally of coronavirus infections in the city jumped to 10,54,477, while the death toll remained unchanged at 16,685.
According to the Annual Crime report 2021, as many as 64,656 criminal cases were registered in Mumbai in 2021, a jump of 26 per cent from 2020, mainly due to a rise in offences related to violation of Covid-19 measures.
Three persons died when their motorcycle collided with a truck on a highway in Maharashtra's Chandrapur district on Wednesday, police said. The incident took place on Chandrapur-Nagbhid-Nagpur highway at Murmadi village in Sindewahi tehsil, an official said.
The victims, Rakesh Ramdas Meshram (16), a resident of Sindewahi, Vivek Nanhe (11), a resident of Chimur, and Roshan Vittal Meshram (25), were travelling to Sindewahi on the two-wheeler, he said.
A speeding truck collided with the motorcycle, killing two of the victims on the spot, while the third one died while being rushed to a hospital, the official said.
An offence under relevant sections of the IPC has been registered against the unidentified truck driver, who fled the scene after the accident, he added. (PTI)
Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded 2,748 new coronavirus cases, including 111 of the Omicron variant, and 41 fresh fatalities linked to the infection, the health department said.
With this, the state's caseload reached 78,50,494, while the death toll increased to 1,43,492, the department said. On Tuesday, the state had recorded 2,831 infections and 35 fatalities.
On Omicron, a department bulletin said, "111 (new) patients with the Omicron infection have been reported in the state. All these patients have been reported by the National Institute of Virology (based in Pune, where swab samples were sent for genome sequencing).” Of the 111 infections, Ahmednagar reported 21, Navi Mumbai (19), Jalna and Yavatmal (15 each), Aurangabad (10), Nagpur and Mumbai (nine each), Thane Municipal Corporation (6) and Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (three), among others. (PTI)
Mumbai police detained AIMIM leader Waris Pathan while he was going to attend a protest organised by his party's women wing in suburban Malad in support of Muslim students in the Karnataka hijab row, an official said on Wednesday.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader was detained by the Worli police and taken to the police station in the afternoon and was released later, the senior police official said.
Pathan, who is national spokesperson of the party, said in his tweet, 'I have been put under House arrest by Mumbai Police at my Worli residence as I was supposed to attend a peaceful protest organised by AIMIM Mumbai Women's Unit at malad mumbai against #Hijab Ban. Is democracy left under MVA govt rule?'
In another tweet, he said, 'After my announcement of peaceful protest at Malad, Malwani against #hijab ban in Karnataka, Mumbai Police put me under house arrest in the morning & has now arrested me. Is participating in a peaceful protest Crime now @mumbaipolice?' (PTI)
Mumbai on Wednesday reported 255 new Covid-19 cases, 439 recoveries, and zero deaths.
A court here on Wednesday issued production warrant against fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim's brother Iqbal Kaskar in connection with a money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Kaskar is currently lodged in Thane jail in connection with multiple cases of extortion.
While issuing the production warrant, special judge M G Deshpande said the ED will make all the arrangements to escort the accused and produce him before the court on February 18. The court further said the probe agency will also resubmit him in the crime concerned (extortion cases).
The ED's move to interrogate Kaskar has come a day after it conducted multiple searches in Mumbai as part of a money laundering probe into the operations of the underworld, linked illegal property deals and hawala transactions. (PTI)
A 25-year-old auto-rickshaw driver has been arrested for alleged possession of ganja worth over Rs 2 lakh in Bhiwandi town of Maharashtra's Thane district, police said on Wednesday.
Based on a tip-off, the police on Monday intercepted and searched the three-wheeler at Gayatri Nagar on Nagaon Road and recovered 10.2 kg of ganja from the vehicle, an official from Shanti Nagar police station said.
The driver Vinod Kachre was arrested for possession of the contraband worth Rs 2.73 lakh, which he was allegedly planning to sell, he said.
A case under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act has been registered against the accused, the official said, adding that further probe is underway to find out from where the contraband had been sourced. (PTI)
A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai has ordered confiscation of properties worth $40 million (Rs 300 crore) held in Singapore in two foreign bank accounts of City Limousine Ltd’s chairman Sayed Mohamed Masood who is facing charges of money laundering in India for duping small investors through a ponzi scheme a decade ago. (Read more)
A special PMLA court here on Wednesday granted bail to Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor, businessman Gautam Thapar and seven others in a case pertaining to the sale of a property at a prime location in Delhi.
Kapoor and Thapar, however, will not walk out of jail as they are in judicial custody in connection with some other cases. (Read more)
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday said that a second wife is not entitled to receive her deceased husband's pension in cases where the second marriage had taken place without legal dissolution of the first one.
A division bench of Justices S J Kathawalla and Milind Jadhav dismissed a petition filed by Solapur resident Shamal Tate, challenging the state government's decision denying her pension benefits.
As per the High Court order, Tate's husband Mahadeo, a peon in the office of the Solapur district collector, died in 1996. Mahadeo was already married to another woman when he married the petitioner.
After his death, Tate and Mahadeo's first wife came to an agreement that the former would receive almost 90 per cent of the deceased's retirement benefits, while the latter would get the monthly pension. (PTI)
Music composer and singer Bappi Lahiri has passed away at the age of 69 in Mumbai. Dr Deepak Namjoshi, Bappi Lahiri’s treating doctor and director CritiCare hospital, Juhu, told indianexpress.com, that Bappi Lahiri passed away around 11.40 – 11.45 on Tuesday night. The composer has been ailing for many weeks and was suffering from Obstructive Sleep Apnea.
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A 22-year-old man was attacked and injured by four persons on suspicion of being a police informer in Kalyan town of Maharashtra's Thane district, police said on Wednesday. The incident took place when the victim Ajit Jadhav was standing near his house talking to his friends on Tuesday, an official said.
The four men picked a quarrel with the victim about him allegedly acting as a police informer, he said.
The men attacked the victim with sharp weapons and injured him badly, the official said, adding that Jadhav was rushed to a hospital, where he is undergoing treatment.
A case under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC has been registered at Kolsewadi police station against Amol Bhandari, Ganesh Sanap, Sadil More and Akshay More. (PTI)
A special court has rejected an application made by a 20-year-old accused in a drugs case seeking CCTV footage of his residential building claiming that contraband was planted by officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). The court said that the accused will get an opportunity during the trial to place evidence before it.
Zaid Rana, who was arrested in April by the NCB, had through his lawyer Ashok Saraogi, sought CCTV footage of his building in the western suburbs of the city. He had sought for an independent officer to collect the footage of April 9, 2021, and submit it to the court to verify whether contraband was planted on him. (Read more)
Filmmaker Milan Luthria says he feels fortunate to have collaborated with Bappi Lahiri for two chartbuster tracks "Bombai Nagariya" and "Ooh La La" from his films and says the veteran, who passed away Tuesday night, will live through his music. The 69-year-old composer, who popularised disco music in Indian cinema in the 70s and 80s and also some soulful crooning, died following multiple health issues on Tuesday night at the CritiCare Hospital in Juhu.
Lahiri was the brains behind the inventive '80s pop and disco sound for Bollywood, with hit film albums like Mithun Chakraborty-starrer "Disco Dancer", Amitabh Bachchan's "Namak Halaal" and "Sharaabi" and Sridevi-Jeetendra-starrer "Himmatwala", which shaped the Hindi pop culture music.
His Bollywood work faded in the '90s -- a comparatively lacklustre decade for the veteran -- but he bounced back in 2006 as a singer with Luthria's "Bombai Nagariya" track from the director's 2006 comedy thriller "Taxi No. 9211".
The filmmaker said for the Vishal-Shekhar composed track, which was an ode to the beautiful, cruel irony of Mumbai, the team was looking for a "different sounding voice", unlike anything dominating the music scene back in the day.
"We were brainstorming and came up with his name. I called him and he agreed to come to the studio of Vishal-Shekhar right away. He was excited, as he had not sung for a while. I remember it was raining heavily that day, there was almost a foot of water outside their recording studio. (PTI)
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis paid tributes to the late music composer and singer Bappi Lahiri and lauded hus musical journey.
A 16-month-old boy died three days after he was administered regular immunisation vaccines for infants in the tribal-dominated Palghar district of Maharashtra. However, the exact cause behind his death is under investigation, a medical officer said.
Medical Officer Dr Bhausaheb Chattar, who is posted in Mokhada town, said the viscera of the toddler has been sent to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai for examination. "We can comment on the cause of his death only after we receive the report from the JJ Hospital which might take ten more days," he said. (PTI)
IMAGINE GETTING your head stuck inside a plastic water can, unable to eat and drink, or breathe properly.
For a leopard in Maharashtra’s Thane district, this nightmare scenario played out for real, till over over 30 people — from animal welfare groups to forest officials, local administration to villagers — joined hands for a search and rescue mission that took about 48 hours.
Around 7 pm on Tuesday night, the leopard was traced near Badlapur village, where it was first spotted, and tranquilised with a dart. (Read full report by Sanjana Bhalerao)
A Mumbai police constable, who had worked as a bodyguard to actor Amitabh Bachchan till August 2021, has been suspended for alleged impropriety and violation of service norms, an official said. The orders to suspend the constable, Jitendra Shinde, were issued on Tuesday and a departmental inquiry has been initiated against him, he said.
Shinde was earlier posted with the protection and security branch of the Mumbai Police. He had worked as a bodyguard to Amitabh Bachchan from 2015 till August 2021 when he was shunted out by Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale after it emerged that his annual earnings are alleged to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore. (PTI)
Paying tributes to singer-composer Bappi Lahiri, who passed away in Mumbai at the age of 69, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said "people across generations could relate to his works", adding that his music is "all encompassing".
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Almost a month into resumption of offline school for all classes, only 54 per cent students are actually attending classes physically, data collated by the Education Department of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) showed.
As per the data, out of a total of 6,58,299 students studying in 2,278 schools, 4,21,713 students had consent from parents to attend offline school. But when it came to actually attending the school physically, only 3,55,917 students are turning up, the data revealed. Read more