TOOLKIT CASE: DISHA RAVI SENT TO ONE-DAY POLICE CUSTODY
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday sent 21-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi, arrested in connection with allegedly being involved in sharing a “toolkit” on social media related to the farmers’ protest, to one-day police custody.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma allowed custodial interrogation of Ravi after police said she was required to be confronted with co-accused.
Ravi was produced before the court on expiry of her three-day judicial custody.
The court on Friday had sent her to judicial custody after police had said her custodial interrogation was not required for the time being.
The agency had said that it would seek her further custodial interrogation once co-accused -- Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk -- join the interrogation on February 22.
Ravi’s lawyer Siddharth Agarwal opposed police’s demand saying she has already been questioned by the police and facts conveyed in the earlier remand application.
KOLKATA: Rujira Banerjee, the wife of TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, Monday responded to the CBI’S summons in the alleged coal pilferage scam and asked the central agency to send its team to her residence for examination on Tuesday, officials said.
The CBI had on Sunday asked her to join the probe.
A team of CBI officials had visited the residence of Abhishek Banerjee, a nephew of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on Sunday to deliver the summons but Rujira was not present. She responded to the summons on Monday and asked the CBI to visit her residence between 11 am and 3 pm on Tuesday.
“Though I am unaware of the reason for me being called for questioning or the subject matter of the investigation, you may visit my residence as per your convenience between 11 am and 3 pm tomorrow, i.e. 23 February, 2021,” she said in a letter to CBI.
“You are requested to kindly inform me your schedule,” she said.
Meanwhile, a team of CBI visited the residence of Abhishek’s sister-in-law Menaka Gambhir in Kolkata on Monday to examine her in connection with the case, officials said.
Two woman officers of the CBI examined Gambhir for nearly three hours at her residence after a notice was served to her on Sunday, they said.
The officers of the CBI’S anticorruption branch sought to ascertain her financial accounts, sources said.
Gambhir is the sister of Rujira.
The CBI had registered an FIR in November last year against the alleged kingpin of the pilferage racket Manjhi alias Lala, Eastern Coalfield Ltd General Managers Amit Kumar Dhar (of then Kunustoria area now Pandaveswar area) and Jayesh Chandra Rai (Kajora area), besides ECL Chief of Security Tanmay Das, Area Security Inspector, Kunustoria Dhananjay Rai and SSI and security in-charge Kajor area Debashish Mukherjee.
It is alleged that accused Lala is involved in the illegal mining and theft of coal from leasehold mines of ECL in Kunustoria and Kajora areas, sources said.
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Monday said that central police forces are being sent to all poll-bound states and not specifically to West Bengal, stressing that it is a routine practice for several decades.
In a statement, the poll panel said the CPFS are routinely sent to all the states and UTS where Lok Sabha or assembly elections are to take place, for advance area domination, especially in the critical and vulnerable sectors.
It said these sectors are identified by meticulous advance reviews and concrete feedback from various sources, including political parties and entities.
This practice is going on since the late 1980s, it observed.
The Commission was responding to certain reports claiming that central forces were being specifically sent to West Bengal.