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| Feb 07, 2007 |
2-lakh loot in daylight strike
Bokaro, Feb. 6: In a daylight attack today, three unidentified youths looted about Rs 2 lakh from Jharkhand Gramin Bank situated at the Hareshwar Singh Market Place on Chas Main Road.
The incident took place around 1.30 pm when three youths — all in their late twenties — struck the branch at a densely-populated shopping area, hardly 400 metres from the local police station. After the operation, the criminals fled on a motorcycle parked outside the bank.
The branch, controlled by the Bank of India, had only six employees at the time of the incident. Sources said the bank neither had any security guard, nor a hidden camera.
Police sources said the criminals, armed with revolvers, entered the bank around 1.20 pm. They were communicating in the local language. As one of them stayed at the main gate, two others went to the manager for some enquiry.
But as manager Rajiv Nayan Sinha got up from his seat, one of the criminals hit him with the revolver. Then they headed to the cashier and asked him to take them to the strong room. Meanwhile, the third criminal pulled out his pistol and asked the customers to keep silence. But when one Umesh Kumar tried to raise his voice, they injured him with the butt of the revolver.
Later, the criminals forced the bank staff and customers into one room, collected cash and fled from the spot. The youths even took away few thousands rupees kept in the drawer of the cashier and warned the customers not to open the gate of the strong room as they have implanted a bomb. Minutes after the dacoity, the bank manager raised an alarm and called the police. But by that time, the youths fled from the area.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070207/asp/jamshedpur/story_7360386.asp
Malda man in Pak fake note net
- Farmer until a year ago, Sadhan finds 'lucrative business'
Ranchi, Feb. 6: A man from Malda was caught in the net cast by Jharkhand police to fish out an international fake currency racket
Twenty-two-year-old Sadhan Mandal was paraded in front of the media along with Ainul, 40, from Ranchi, this evening.
Mandal claimed that the fake notes were printed in Pakistan and sent to India via Dhaka. Agents based in Malda, he claimed, then fanned out across India to sell them.
Mandal "bought" the fake notes paying 44 per cent of the "face value". He would have sold them at a minimum of 50 per cent. Only Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were traded.
Following a tip-off, the police raided a hotel on Station Road here and picked up 10 people.
Over Rs 3.5 lakh in fake currency and Rs 50,000 in valid notes were found on them, senior superintendent of police, Ranchi, Naresh Prasad Singh said.
Mandal claimed to have studied up to Class X. Till a year ago, he cultivated a small family plot and rolled beedis.
But trading in fake notes turned out to be a lucrative business, he said.
He had been assigned the Ranchi territory and he would travel to the Jharkhand capital up to 10 times a month. On each trip, he would carry Rs 3 lakh to 5 lakh in fake notes.
But the agents had been told to use genuine notes while buying train or bus tickets or settling bills. They were paid Rs 1,000 in genuine currency on every trip for "expenses".
Singh said complaints of fake currency had been pouring in over the past few months from both banks and individuals. Some of the money had also made it to ATMs.
Mandal and gang have named many in Malda and elsewhere in the country who were part of the racket, Singh said.
Ainul claimed to be a sub-agent. He had been jailed for the same offence earlier.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070207/asp/bengal/story_7361029.asp
Steel companies to face higher royalty burden
NEW DELHI: Changes in royalty regime proposed in the national mining policy, being prepared for Cabinet approval, could add to the burden of domestic steelmakers such as state-owned SAIL, Tata Steel, Essar and Jindal but will result in windfall gains for the Centre and four iron-rich states.
The proposals cleared by a committee of secretaries suggest that royalty will be charged on ad-valorem basis, in other words as percentage of the price, instead of a specific amount for each tonne of mined ore.
The policy reckons that under new regime, royalty income for Jharkhand, Orissa and Karnataka will rise from Rs 266 crore a year at present to Rs 1,600 crore from iron ore alone.
On a national scale, the policy estimates, returns from royalty from various minerals will rise from Rs 600 crore to about Rs 3,000 crore a year.
At present, royalty on iron ore levied by the producing states varies between Rs 25 and Rs 30 per tonne, while the domestic price ranges between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,100 per tonne.
In the new royalty regime, the cost of the raw material will rise 6-10%. Iron ore traders will pass on the higher levy to steelmakers.
But since the price of steel is market-driven, steelmakers will not be able to pass on this added cost to buyers.
It could be some months, though, before a final rate is arrived at. While the industry is seeking a 7.5% rate linked to Western Australian standard, the states are demanding a levy of 25%.
The states' monetary gain, however, will come at a loss to their powers to hold back mining rights or delay clearances. For starters, policy will plug holes in current norms that enable states to insist on value addition in which the mineral is located as a condition for granting a mining concession.
This results in neither mining nor value-addition as mineral concession cannot be held back because there is no value-adder. Raw material to industry outside the state will become available in this manner.
As a sop, it will allow states to give preference, while allocating mines, to investors willing to add value to the ore in the state by turning into pellets and even waiving the auction procedure for them.
If states delay decision on allotting a mining concession beyond a specified time limit, the Centre will decide on applications from investors. The policy suggests a mechanism so that administrative and environmental clearances move simultaneously
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India_Business/Steel_companies_to_face_higher _royalty_burden/articleshow/msid-1565187,curpg-2.cms
Man killed in crossfire in Jharkhand
CHATRA (JHARKHAND): A man was killed and two others were injured when they were hit by bullets fired by Maoists during an attack on a picket of the security forces at Lawalong in Chatra district.
The three men -- Chaman Ganju, Sankar Ganju and Shiv Mangal -- were hit by the firing when the rebels attacked the picket on Monday evening, Superintendent of Police Kamlesh Kumar said.
Chaman died instantly, while Sankar and Shiv were admitted to a local hospital, he said. The three men had come to join a marriage party at Lawalong.
The attack by over 200 activists of the banned CPI-Maoist on the picket manned by a company of the Special Task Force sparked a three-hour gun battle.
The two sides fired about 1,000 bullets before the Maoists retreated into nearby forests, Kumar said.
This was the second attack by Maoists on security forces in six days. CRPF personnel had on January 30 beat back a strong Maoist attack after a fierce 12-hour gun battle near Satbahani river in Chatra district.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Man_killed_in_crossfire_in_Jharkhand/ articleshow/1568365.cms
DAE chief denies uranium radiation
Reports that hundreds of tribals in Jharkhand were suffering from deformities due to radiation from a uranium mine were baseless, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) chairman Anil Kakodkar today said.
Deformities among people in the area were not because of radiation and the department has submitted a report on the matter, he told reporters while replying to a question after inaugurating the library and student facilities at the Chennai Mathematical Institute facility at Siruseri near here.
A recent media report said tribals in Jadugoda, where the country's first uranium mine is located, were suffering from mental and physical disorders due to radiation. (Our Correspondent)
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070206/54/6buqu.html
Poverty and crime throw Bihar kids to ransom gangs, labour agents
• On November 14 last year, 13-year-old Deepak Kumar, son of a railway employee, set out from home but never reached school. Police said he had run away but then the family got a ransom call. The family driver became the prime suspect and police detained his wife. On January 10, the remains of the boy were recovered from a forest in Jharkhand.
• When his son Lalu, 13, was offered a job in a vermilion factory in Delhi, Dolai Paswan of Kushiar in Araria was happy. He felt the boy's income would help. After all, he and his wife had nine children. For over a year, the boy used to send money home. Then he stopped. The family was told that Lalu had run away. Dolai never lodged a case. He doesn't even have a photograph of his son. "My son had gone with another boy. His father told me not to lodge a case. He said my son would return some day," said Dolai.
If Mumbai is the "final destination" of children gone missing, Bihar is perhaps the starting point of that journey. For, it is here, in this poverty-stricken state, that the collapse of the law and order machinery has allowed crime to flourish as a cottage industry: kidnapping-for-ransom is rampant, flesh traders move freely and children from poor homes are packed off to cities as cheap labour where they work as domestic helps or, like Lalu Paswan, in small factories.
Once the children go missing, parents rarely file cases - many fear they will get into trouble because it was they who had let the agents take them away, hoping some money would come home every month.
Some are too poor to even have photographs to hand over to police.
Kidnappings often involve two or three gangs, which coordinate operations in which one gang abducts, another gang hold the victim, moving him from place to place to avoid detection, and still another gang collects the ransom, which is shared.
Most families pay up, especially if the victim is a boy. Police say it is very rarely that girls are kidnapped for ransom.
The Patna High Court, while hearing a PIL on kidnappings, sought figures from district judges. Statistics showed that over 1,800 kidnapping cases were lodged in 2006 and 1,697 in 2005. This year, the figure stands at 143. But these figures, officials admit, are only a fraction of what's happening on the ground. Most cases go unreported.
When Gaurav Kumar alias Golu (10) of Patna's DAV School was kidnapped in 2005, there were large-scale protests.
According to police, he was picked up by a small gang while returning from school and handed over to a second gang and, finally, to a gang operating both in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh led by one Guddu Rai.
"Police took a lot of time to recover the boy since more than one gang was involved in the kidnapping," said a police officer involved in the search operation.
Golu was lucky. Since 2001, 44 children have been killed by their captors.
It is feared that many children who remain untraced may have been killed. "Gangs bury bodies in river beds, making it extremely difficult to trace them," said a police officer.
While abduction-for-ransom is now an industry, the state police neither have a special cell to crack down on gangs or trace missing children. A Missing Persons Cell under the CID is virtually defunct.
But Director General of Police Asish Ranjan Sinha maintains "the entire police force is engaged in cracking down on organised gangs. Nobody is being spared. There has been a marked change in the safety and security atmosphere of the state as a result of police action."
But that gives no hope to Saraswati Devi whose son disappeared over a year ago. She says that when she approached a Danapur police official, he told her: "This case is not mine. Your son has run away. What can I do? Can you spend money?"
Advocate M P Gupta, who moved the High Court on the kidnapping of children, says the police get into the act only when it's a high-profile case. "Police act with determination only in cases that are high profile and generate a media outcry. As for other cases, they just sit over it," he said.
As for children who go missing after being handed over to labour agents - most end up at dhabas, construction sites in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi - virtually nothing is done. Cases are rarely filed.
Sakunia Devi has waited five years now for her son Dusay Kumar to return. After her husband died, he gave up studies and came in contact with a contractor who promised him a job in Punjab. Within a few months, he sent home a money order of Rs 1,000.
But after that, no one heard from him Other boys from the village said he had run away.
After the Nithari incident, Bhoomika Bihar, an non-governmental organisation working to prevent trafficking in girls, received a number of complaints of Bihari boys missing from the states they had gone to work in.
A survey of 15 panchayats in Araria and Katihar districts had this result: 194 boys, all minors, missing. Of these, 109 had been taken away for jobs, the rest had run away.
"Labour contractors exploit the acute poverty in the region. They pay money to parents and take away the children, promising jobs outside the state," says Arun Singh of Bhoomika Bihar.
That missing children is not high on the priority list of the state government is evident from the fact that there are no figures for the number of labourers, adults or minors, migrating from Bihar.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070206/48/6buwv.html
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