Rohit Pawar seeks Civil Aviation Minister's removal till probe into Ajit Pawar crash ends
Mumbai (PTI): NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar on Wednesday demanded that Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu be removed from his post until the probe into Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's plane crash is completed.
The legislator, who is the nephew of the late NCP leader Ajit Pawar, also claimed that the VSR company, whose Learjet plane carrying his uncle crashed in Pune's Baramati town last month, was being protected.
The civil aviation minister and his party (Telugu Desam Party) are close to the VSR company owners, he charged at a press conference.
"Some former ministers from Maharashtra and top TDP ministers from Andhra Pradesh attended the marriage of Rohit Singh, son of the VSR owner VK Singh. The company is allowed to operate and top politicians are still using the Learjet planes of the company," he claimed.
Naidu should not continue as civil aviation minister on moral grounds, Rohit Pawar said.
There is not even a preliminary probe report yet, and there is reason to believe that efforts are being made to save the VSR company, the NCP (SP) leader added.
He said it was good that the NCP leadership, including his aunt and Deputy CM Sunetra Pawar, met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demanded a CBI probe into the January 28 air crash that killed Ajit Pawar.
Sunetra Pawar, accompanied by senior NCP leaders Sunil Tatkare, Praful Patel, Hassan Mushrif, and elder son Parth Pawar, met Fadnavis on Tuesday and handed over a letter seeking a CBI probe.
"Many issues that I raised have been included in the letter," Rohit Pawar said.
The probe needs to be impartial and the report needs to be submitted to a committee which includes aviation experts, political leaders, he opined.
NCP leader Ajit Pawar and four others were killed in a plane crash at Baramati in Pune district on January 28.
The aircraft accident probe agency, AAIB, on Tuesday said that special support has been sought for the retrieval of data from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the Learjet 45 plane involved in the fatal crash.
Rohit Pawar said his family has expressed concern for his safety since he has taken on the "high and mighty".
"I wonder why BJP trolls were criticising me for demanding justice for my uncle. One troll with a verified handle had posted about a political earthquake in the state two days before the plane crash," he claimed.
The MLA also said that if there was a political angle to the accident, it involved two possibilities: one, speculation that the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) might join the NDA after merging with the NCP; and two, that Ajit Pawar could quit the NDA following the merger.
Some groups were unhappy with either scenario, he claimed.
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UP man gets life term for electrocuting mentally challenged wife to death in Bareilly
Bareilly (UP) (PTI): A local court here has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for murdering his mentally challenged wife by repeatedly electrocuting her while she was tied to a cot, lawyers said on Thursday.
Additional district government counsel Harendra Singh Rathore said Additional Sessions Judge Avinash Kumar Singh on Wednesday convicted Vinod Kumar (45) for killing his wife, Satyavati, in Chaina village of Bareilly district and imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on him.
According to the prosecution, he was allegedly frustrated with his wife Satyavati's mental illness and often assaulted her.
Rathore said the prosecution examined nine witnesses to establish the charges against him.
As per court records, on the night of May 1-2, 2022, when Satyavati was asleep, Vinod tied her hands and legs to a cot using ropes and then connected an aluminium cable to an electric board to repeatedly administer electric shocks to her.
"She writhed in pain, but the accused continued to electrocute her until she died," the prosecution said.
The court observed that the murder was carried out in an inhuman manner.
After committing the crime, the accused threw the rope and cable on the roof and left for work at a brick kiln around 2 am to create a false alibi.
He later tried to mislead the police and the victim's family by claiming that Satyavati, whose mental condition was unstable, had accidentally died by suicide after grabbing a live electric wire.
However, the victim's brother, Sanjeev, a resident of Shahjahanpur district, suspected foul play and lodged an FIR under sections 498A (husband subjecting wife to cruelty) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code at Nawabganj police station.
During the trial, the prosecution relied on the post-mortem report prepared by Dr Faraz Anwar, who stated that multiple electrocution marks found on different parts of the victim's body could not have been self-inflicted.
The police also recovered the rope and electric wire used in the crime on the accused's identification, officials said.
