Kannada actress Ragini Dwivedi's police remand extended for five more days
Bengaluru: A court here on Monday has extended police custody of Kannada film actress Ragini Dwivedi, who was arrested under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, by five more days.
The Central Crime Branch of Bengaluru had presented her before the First ACMM court through video conference as her police custody got over on Monday.
The court extended her police custody for five days.
"Today Ragini was produced to the Court and on CCB request, the court has granted five days police custody of Ragini," Bengaluru Joint Commissioner Sandeep Patil said in a statement.
According to police sources, the actress, who was arrested on Friday, has not been cooperating with the investigation warranting the police to seek her custody for another five days.
Sources said the actress had deleted all her messages from her mobile phone in order to wipe out the digital evidence. However, the CCB officials managed to retrieve the data.
In the drug case involving high profile people, six have been arrested including Dwivedi while hunt is on for seven others named in the twin FIRs. Those at large include former minister late Jeevaraj Alva's son Aditya Alva.
According to police, Aditya Alva's house in the posh Sadashivanagar here is locked, raising suspicion that he must be hiding in Mumbai.
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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.
