Leopard spotted on IIT-Bombay campus, forest dept alerted
Mumbai, Nov 22: A leopard was allegedly spotted on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) in Powai here and the forest department was alerted, a forest official said on Tuesday.
A distress call was made to the forest department on Monday morning and a team was sent to the spot to investigate if the sighting was of concern, the official said.
Leopards are generally nocturnal. Sightings during the day are not very common, he said.
However, as the IIT-B is located close to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park there are chances of sightings in the day too. Moreover, with the drop in temperature in the last 48 hours and the cold wave alert, leopards can be spotted during the day, he said.
"Our teams are investigating and initiating all necessary actions, we appeal to students, staff and IIT management and other citizens not to panic," the official said, urging people to report any wildlife distress incident to the forest department's control room number 1926.
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Malegaon blast: Special court junks former ATS officer's claim of order to arrest Mohan Bhagwat
Mumbai (PTI): A special court here in its judgment, acquitting seven persons in the September 2008 Malegaon blast case, rejected the claims made by a former Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) official that he had been ordered to arrest RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in the case.
Special NIA Judge A K Lahoti, in his over 1000-page judgment, said it did not find any force in the contentions raised by the advocate for accused Sudhakar Dwivedi, who had relied on the claims made by Mehboob Mujawar, a former ATS officer.
The observations fell flat on the face of Mujawar, who had reiterated on Thursday that he had been asked to apprehend Bhagwat and the objective behind the same was to establish that there was "saffron terror".
Mujawar had at the time also claimed that senior ATS officers had ordered him to arrest Bhagwat, but he had refused to obey such illegal orders as he did not find any role of Bhagwat in the alleged offence.
The court, in its order, rejected the defence lawyer's contention based on a statement made by ACP Mohan Kulkarni, the then chief investigating officer, that Mujawar was never asked to arrest any member of RSS and was only sent out to trace the two absconding accused, Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange.
