Maratha quota violence: Who ordered lathi-charge on protesters in Jalna, asks Sanjay Raut
Mumbai (PTI): Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Monday sought to know who ordered the lathi-charge on protesters demanding Maratha quota in Maharashtra's Jalna district last week.
Police baton charged and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse a violent mob in Antarwali Sarathi village in Jalna district on Friday after protesters allegedly refused to let authorities shift a man on hunger strike for Maratha quota to hospital.
Several persons. including 40 police personnel, were injured and more than 15 state transport buses were set ablaze in violence.
Speaking to reporters, Raut asked, "Who made a call from the office of chief minister and state home minister without an order from top officials? The local police will never resort to lathi-charge and open fire. We want to know who gave those invisible orders over a phone call."
"Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the two deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar are working with the mindset of General Dyer. They ordered lathi-charge and firing on the Maratha protesters who were sitting on hunger strike peacefully," the Rajya Sabha member alleged.
In April 1919, the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar took place during the Baisakhi festival when the British Indian Army under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer opened fire at a crowd staging a pro-independence demonstration, leaving scores of people dead.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday announced that Jalna district superintendent of police, Tushar Doshi, has been sent on compulsory leave and two DYSP-rank officers transferred out of the district.
Shinde said ADGP (law and order) Sanjay Saxena would probe the lathi-charge incident and if required, a judicial probe would be conducted.
Raut while talking to reporters also claimed that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar's decision to join the state government has resulted in several corruption charges being dropped against him.
"Not only Pawar, but his other colleagues such as Praful Patel, Hasan Mushrif among others will also get a clean chit. All these leaders were probed by the Enforcement Directorate officials for various charges of corruption," he said.
Ajit Pawar and eight others NCP MLAs joined the Shinde-Fadnavis government on July 2.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
