India to host women's World Boxing Championship next year: BFI
New Delhi (PTI): India will host the women's world boxing championships in 2023 in New Delhi, two years after the country was stripped of the hosting rights of men's event for not paying the requisite fee to the global governing body.
India has never conducted the men's world championship but it will be the third time that the elite women's competition will be held in the country having conducted the championships in 2006 and 2018 in New Delhi.
"We have got the hosting rights of women's world championship and are looking to host the event around the end of March and first week of April," Boxing Federation of India (BFI) Secretary General Hemanta Kalita told PTI.
International Boxing Association (IBA) President Umar Kremlev is on his maiden visit to the country and the dates of the marquee event will be finalised during the trip.
"The dates of the event are yet to be finalised. We will sit down with the IBA president and reach an agreement during his trip," Kalita added.
The tournament is likely to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
The hosting rights of the event to India comes as a significant development as BFI had lost the hosting rights of the 2021 event to Serbia after failing to pay the host fee, prompting the International Boxing Association, then known as (AIBA), to terminate its agreement.
At the last edition of the women's event in Turkey, India had returned with a haul of three medals, including Nikhat Zareen's gold in the flyweight category.
Kremlev had recently announced that the men's world championship, to be held in Tashkent next year in May, will see the prize money go double from the previous edition.
It is to be seen if the world body announces the same for the women's event.
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Fake call centre duping foreigners busted in Thane; five detained
Thane (PTI): The Thane police have unearthed a bogus call centre that allegedly cheated foreign nationals, particularly US citizens, under the pretext of selling software, an official said on Wednesday.
Five persons, including the call centre owner, were detained after a raid at the premises in the Ambernath area of Maharashtra's Thane district late Tuesday night, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Ambernath division) Shailesh Kale told PTI.
The bogus facility was operating from a business centre and functioned under the garb of providing software services, the official said.
"The call centre staff targeted foreign nationals, especially Americans. They contacted them on the phone, lured them with offers of software services and extracted money from them in different forms," Kale said.
The police received a tip-off about the illegal operations and raided the premises. The search operation continued till Wednesday morning, he said.
The employees used to make hundreds of calls to foreign nationals daily and would eventually succeed in duping a few of them, Senior Police Inspector Shabbir Sayyed said.
"They collected advance payments from the victims and blocked them after receiving the money," he said, explaining the modus operandi.
The employees were provided with a specific script for conversations to gain the victims' confidence and persuade them to transfer funds, he added.
The police have seized electronic gadgets and other accessories used in the alleged racket from the premises.
A case has been registered against five persons under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Information Technology Act and the Indian Telegraph Act, Kale said.
The police were verifying the victims' credentials and nationality.
