Maharashtra News LIVE Updates: State sees 146 fresh Covid-19 cases, no deaths in last 24 hours

Maharashtra on Saturday reported 146 Covid-19 cases, which took the state's infection count to 81,34,150, while the death toll remained unchanged at 1,48,400, a health official said. The addition to the tally was a slight dip from the 169 cases witnessed a day earlier, when two deaths were also reported, he pointed out.Mumbai circle led with 78 new cases, followed by 54 in Pune circle, 17 in Akola circle, six in Nagpur circle, five in Aurangabad circle. three each in Kolhapur, Nashik and Latur circles, he said.

A 33-year-old auto rickshaw driver who offered a ride to a 10-year-old girl in his vehicle and sexually abused her has been convicted and sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment by a special Pocso court. The child made him stop the vehicle and immediately informed a nearby security guard who in turn called her father. “Evidence of the girl is trustworthy and reliable. Discrepancies on record are not sufficient to discard their testimony. There is nothing on record to suspect that she is tutored. Chain of circumstances is also completed. Prosecution has proved its case beyond allreasonable doubt,” the special court said. Among the witnesses cited by special public prosecutor Pranjali Joshi was the child.

The two families in Govandi who lost three sons allegedly due to measles in October have accused the civic healthcare of negligence. They made their allegations to the central health team visiting the city to study the measles outbreak in which 617 suspected patients have been identified so far.

The BMC on Saturday floated tenders for reconstruction of the existing Gokhale road over bridge (ROB). According to officials, the work order is likely to be issued by the first week of December and the BMC will give the contractor eight months to complete the project.The new ROB is to be constructed at a cost of around Rs 90 crore. Authorities will work on a tight deadline as they aim to have two lanes of the reconstructed bridge operational for traffic before the end of May 2023 while other two lanes are planned to be opened up before the end of September 2023.BMC officials are also expected to come up with a temporary solution of keeping one lane of the bridge open for light motor vehicles in the next week.The reconstruction is to be carried out in two phases. From the traffic diversion perspective, half of the carriageway width of the bridge will be demolished and reconstructed in the first phase and the other half in the second.

NCP leader Jitendra Awhad and 11 others who were arrested for disrupting the film ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and allegedly assaulting a businessman at a Thane multiplex on Monday, were released on bail on Saturday. Meanwhile, DCP Vinay Rathod of Zone-5 of Thane city police, who supervised Awhad’s arrest, has been transferred as DCP (traffic). He will be replaced by Amar Singh Jadhav.