8-yr-old girl raped and murdered in Palghar; son of ex-sarpanch held
Palghar (PTI): An eight-year-old girl, who had gone to a friend's birthday party, was murdered after allegedly being raped by a man in Maharashtra's Palghar district, police said on Wednesday.
The police have arrested a 21-year-old son of a former sarpanch (village head) in this connection, an official said.
The victim, resident of a village in Mokhada taluka, went to the birthday party of her friend in the village on Sunday but did not return home.
Her family members then carried out a search for her.
The victim's body was found near a graveyard in the village late Sunday night. The police sent the bodyfor postmortem and initiated a probe into the girl's death, Mokhada police station's assistant inspector Premnath Dhole said.
A police probe team worked on various leads, including technical and intelligence inputs, and arrested the man on Tuesday, he said.
The man allegedly stalked the girl on Sunday and then raped and murdered her at night, he said.
The mother of the accused was earlier a local councillor, as per the police.
The accused has been booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 103(1) (murder), 65 (2) (rape of a female under 12 years of age) and 66 (punishment for causing death or resulting in a persistent vegetative state of the victim) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Dhole said.
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BMW hit-and-run case: HC refuses to release accused Mihir Shah on ground of 'illegal' arrest
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Monday refused to release Mihir Shah, the main accused in a BMW hit-and-run case, on the ground of "illegal" arrest.
Shah, the 24-year-old son of a former Shiv Sena leader, and his driver Rajrishi Bidawat had filed petitions in the HC claiming they have been illegally detained and sought immediate release.
Shah was arrested on July 9, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler in Mumbai's Worli area, killing 45-year-old woman Kaveri Nakhwa and leaving her husband Pradeep injured.
His driver Bidawat, who was also present in the car at the time of the accident, was arrested on the day of the incident.
As per their pleas, the police had not informed them the grounds of their arrest at the time, which they claimed was in violation of the law.
A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande on Monday dismissed the petitions.
"Both the petitions are dismissed," the court said.
The duo sought their release, claiming any further detention would be in utter violation of the constitutional mandate and a failure to comply with Section 50 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Under this section, the police, while arresting a person, have to communicate to him/her full particulars of the offence for which he/she is being arrested or other grounds for such arrest.
Both Shah and Bidawat are presently in judicial custody.
In their habeas corpus (produce the person) petitions filed in the HC in August, Shah and Bidawat claimed their detention was illegal and sought that they be released immediately.
Shah, in the plea, sought quashing of the orders passed by a local court remanding him first in police custody and then judicial custody.
He also sought for his arrest to be declared as illegal.
Shah is accused of speeding off towards the Bandra Worli Sea Link after the accident, even as the woman remained on the bonnet of the car and then got entangled in its wheels, for a distance of more than 1.5 kilometres.
As per police, Shah, who fled from the scene, was under the influence of alcohol at the time.
Mihir Shah's father and former Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah had also been arrested in the case, but was later granted bail.
