57 girls at govt-run home in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur test positive for COVID-19: Report
Kanpur: As many as 57 positive cases of Corona infection were identified among the residents in a government hostel in town, an NDTV report added on Sunday evening.
With Kanpur already struggling to deal with up to 400 positive cases, the incidents at the hostel have only added to the burden of Corona infection to the town, NDTV report underlined.
The 57 girls have been moved from the hostel to a Covid treatment hospital. The staff and other girls at the hostel, however, have been put under quarantine. The entire hostel has also been sealed by the authorities.
On Sunday, the local agencies reported cases of two girls being pregnant as discovered during tests. The report, however, made way for a controversy regarding the safety of girls in the hostel, the report further added.
The district magistrate issued a clarification on Sunday night that five of the girls who were positive for Corona infection were also pregnant, but they were pregnant before being admitted into the hostel in December last year.
Dr Brahm Dev Tiwari, the district magistrate, also said that the five girls had been sent to the hostel by five child welfare committees from different districts under the Pocso Act, the NDTV report added.
Poonam Kapoor of the UP State Women's Commission said that the girls had likely been infected with Coronavirus after a staff member at the hostel visited a hospital in Kanpur with two girls and had met Corona patients at the hospital.
2nd highest in UP
At present, Kanpur has the second highest number of Corona cases in Uttar Pradesh – after Noida, which has 577.
The entire state is identified with about 17,000 cases, including about 6,000 patients who are under treatment. There have also been 507 deaths due to Corona.
The national figure crossed 4.1 lakh on Sunday, including 15,413 cases since Saturday itself, said the government on Sunday morning. The number of deaths has been 13,254, the report added
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Traffic fraud: Fake 'no-entry' sticker racket busted in Delhi, mastermind among 3 held
New Delhi (PTI): Police here have busted a crime syndicate involved in traffic fraud and extortion, arresting three people including the alleged mastermind who sold fake stickers to help commercial vehicles bypass no-entry restrictions, an official said on Saturday.
The police said they dismantled a third organised syndicate linked to traffic-related frauds, with the arrest of Rinku Rana alias Bhushan, his associate Sonu Sharma and Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, who was also connected to another extortion syndicate.
According to the police, Rinku Rana was running a well-organised network that facilitated the movement of commercial goods vehicles during restricted hours by selling fake 'marka' or stickers for Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per vehicle every month. The stickers were falsely projected as authorisation to evade traffic challans.
During raids, the police recovered Rs 31 lakh in cash, property documents worth several crores of rupees, over 500 fake stickers and six mobile phones allegedly used to operate the syndicate.
The crackdown followed a complaint filed by a traffic police officer in April this year after a commercial vehicle tried to evade checking by producing a fake sticker claiming exemption from enforcement action.
Investigation revealed that social media groups were being used to coordinate the illegal movement of vehicles and alert drivers about traffic police checkpoints, police said.
"A parallel system was being run to cheat drivers and vehicle owners while undermining traffic enforcement. On the basis of evidence, provisions related to organised crime under the BNS were invoked," a senior police officer said.
Sonu Sharma, the police said, managed social media groups through which stickers were sold and real-time alerts were circulated regarding traffic police movement. He also acted as a link between Rana and drivers operating in the field.
In a related development, Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, an associate of Rajkumar alias Raju Meena, who was earlier arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), was also apprehended.
Mukesh allegedly helped extort money from transporters and was involved in blackmailing traffic police personnel by recording enforcement actions, the police said.
Investigators alleged the syndicate led by Rajkumar deployed drivers to deliberately violate traffic rules and secretly record police officials during challans, later using manipulated videos to extort money under threat of false allegations.
The police said that in total, eight accused belonging to three different organised crime syndicates linked to traffic frauds and extortion have been arrested so far.
Further investigation is underway to trace the remaining members, conduct financial probes, and analyse digital evidence recovered during the raids, officials added.
