PMC Bank scam: Ex-director sent in police custody till Oct 22
Mumbai: A Mumbai court on Thursday remanded in police custody till October 22 Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank's former director Surjit Singh Arora in connection with the multi-crore scam at the bank.
Arora has been arrested by the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing.
The court also remanded the bank's former managing director Joy Thomas in 14-day judicial custody, after his police remand ended on Thursday.
Arora was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Wednesday after being summoned by the investigating agency for questioning in connection with the alleged Rs 4,355 crore scam at the PMC Bank.
He was on Thursday produced before metropolitan magistrate S G Shaikh, who remanded him in police custody till October 22. Arora is the fifth accused to be arrested in the case.
According to an EOW official, he earlier served as director of the PMC Bank and was also on its loan committee. "His role in the scam has come to light. He was involved in the loan sanctioning process, the official said.
Besides Arora and Thomas, the EOW has arrested Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd's (HDIL) chairman and managing director Rakesh Wadhawan, his son Sarang Wadhawan and PMC Bank's former chairman Waryam Singh in connection with the scam.
The EOW earlier this month registered a case against the Wadhawans and top officials of PMC Bank for allegedly causing losses to the tune of Rs 4,355.43 crore to the bank.
After the scam was unearthed at the bank, which has deposits of over Rs 11,000 crore, the Reserve Bank of India last month appointed an administrator over it, and capped withdrawals at Rs 1,000. On Monday, the withdrawal cap was hiked to Rs 40,000.
The EOW told the court that bank officials replaced 44 loan accounts of HDIL with 21,049 fictitious accounts, to camouflage huge loan defaults by the real estate group which landed the bank in the current crisis.
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Two arrested in K'taka for assaulting minors, uploading CSAM content
Bengaluru (PTI): Two men were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two minor girls, recording the acts on mobile phones and uploading the videos online as child sexual abuse material, police said on Thursday.
The accused have been identified as Kiran Kumar (29), hailing from Chitradurga district, and Aditya M K (20), hailing from Shivamogga district, they said.
A probe was initiated after information was received from the NCRP portal regarding a suspected instance of creation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) for online dissemination, police said.
Accordingly, a case was registered at Kaggalipura Police Station under relevant sections of the IT Act on May 10, they added.
Investigation revealed that two minor girl victims were exploited and videos were created and uploaded to the internet. The child victims have subsequently recorded their statements as per procedure and further necessary legal steps have been taken, Pronab Mohanty Director General of Police, Cyber Command, said in a statement.
Based on the statements of the victims, the accused persons, who allegedly assaulted the minors, recorded the acts on mobile phones and uploaded the videos online, were arrested, he said.
Following the probe, sections 65(2) (rape) and 70 (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with relevant sections of the POCSO Act, have been added to the FIR, police said.
Officials collected relevant information and on May 12, arrested the accused persons and seized three mobile phones belonging to them, in which the videos had allegedly been recorded, he said.
The accused were later produced before the court and taken into police custody for further investigation, he added.
According to him, in CSAM cases, police usually apprehend offenders who have downloaded such content or have kept them in their possession after obtaining them from elsewhere, usually the internet.
"The present case is one of the very few instances where content creators and uploaders have been apprehended," Mohanty added.
