Tag Archives: Police

Drdo

One killed in fire at Pune DRDO lab

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HEMRL is one of the oldest laboratories of the DRDO.

By: Express News Service | Pune | Published: June 20, 2018

Police have identified the deceased worker as Laxmikant Ramesh Sonawane (26), a resident of Ramnagar in Warje, and the injured as Yogesh Kirtikar. (Representational)

One contract worker died and another was seriously injured in a fire involving explosive material at the High Energy Material Research Laboratory (HEMRL) of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), at Pashan in Pune on Tuesday afternoon.

Police have identified the deceased worker as Laxmikant Ramesh Sonawane (26), a resident of Ramnagar in Warje, and the injured as Yogesh Kirtikar.

“The deceased was a contract worker. All the safety measures were in place at the time of the accident. A high-level DRDO committee will investigate the causes of the accident and come up with a report,” said HEMRL Director KPS Murthy.

Senior Inspector Arun Waykar of Hinjewadi police station said, “The workers were taking samples of some explosives when suddenly, some of the substances they were handling exploded.”

HEMRL is one of the oldest laboratories of the DRDO.

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Chennai: Police arrest RTI applicant for refusing to stand at hearing

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Chennai: Police arrest RTI applicant for refusing to stand at hearing
08-01-2015
CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu State Information Commission (TNSIC), in an unprecedented assault on the spirit of the Right to Information Act, under whose provisions the commission is set up, called in the city police to arrest an applicant for refusing to remain standing up and asking to be allowed to sit down in front of a two-member bench hearing an appeal by the applicant at the commission’s headquarters in Teynampet here on Wednesday.
There is no rule that an RTI applicant should remain standing during an appeal, but when NGO Satta Panchayat Iyakkam (Legal Panchayat Movement) president Siva Elango asked for a chair during the hearing of a second appeal after TNSIC rejected his RTI application and first appeal, chief information commissioner K S Sripathi and commissioner S F Akbar refused to accede to the request.
When the SPI president took a chair, the commissioners informed the Teynampet police and lodged a formal complaint. Police picked up Elango from the TNSIC headquarters and booked him under IPC Sections 353 (preventing a government servant from discharging his duty), 294 (b) (obscenity) and 506 (1) (criminal intimidation).
Police presented Elango in a magistrate’s court, which remanded him in judicial custody for 15 days. Elango is currently in Puzhal Central Prison here.
RTI activists seeking to expose corruption have been at the receiving end of threats and attacks by politicians and bureaucrats, and some of them have even been murdered for their efforts, but this is the first time that a state information commission has gone out of its way to stymie an appeal for information and intimidate an applicant, activists in the city said.
Elango, who has filed several RTI applications and represented various applicants, said TNSIC members and staff have routinely sought to derail his petitions for information and harass him. “On Wednesday commission staff even deflated the tyres of my motorcycle,” he said.
Wednesday’s hearing of Elango’s second appeal was on an RTI application he filed on February 22, seeking details of advertisements issued by the state government from 1991 to 2014. “I approached TNSIC after the government failed to reply to my application,” he said. “Instead of penalising the PIO concerned for not providing the information on time, the commissioners have been misbehaving with me during the proceedings.”
Chief information commissioner Sripathi was unavailable for comment, but commissioner Akbar said TNSIC had given Elango “sufficient opportunities” to obtain the information he requested. “He did not follow some procedures,” he said. Asked what specific procedures he was referring to, Akbar said, “I cannot divulge everything that happened during the hearing.”
SPI general secretary Senthil Arumugam said information commissioners in the state continue to be lax even after applicants protested against them. “They should treat applicants with some dignity. Unfortunately, they safeguard errant PIOs instead,” Arumugam said.
Enraged by Elango’s arrest, RTI activists said they will organise a sit-in protest at the TNSIC headquarters on Friday. Lok Satta Party (TN) spokesperson N Narayanan issued a statement condemning the TNSIC after Elango’s arrest.
Activists have been urging the commission to webcast proceedings on its site and allow applicants to record proceedings. In July 2014, SPI released a video that captured commission member P Thamilselvan abusing an applicant during the hearing of an appeal.
TOI recently reported that the number of RTI appeals disposed of by TNSIC plunged by more than 50% in 2014 from the previous year. Statistics from the commission’s website (Tamil Nadu Information Commission) show the number of appeals the commission attended to dropped from 19,889 in 2013 to 8,121 till November 2014. The commission receives an average of 60,000 RTI applications a year.

Chennai: Police arrest RTI applicant for refusing to stand at hearing – The Times of India

Drdo

Bangalore: Ex-DRDO technical officer’s son held for killing scientist’s wife

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Express
Bangalore, Mar 12: Byappanahalli police arrested the alleged murderer of a home-alone woman within six hours of the crime on Monday.
The victim Rajani Rajabala (60) was married to Amrit Packia Dhas, a senior scientist at DRDO.
The accused Vijayan(33) is the son of Ramanirutam, a retired technical officer at Electronics and Radar Development Establishment. Police said Vijayan, employed as a helper at an NGO, had incurred debts and was finding it difficult to provide for his family. He planned to sell Rajabala’s ornaments to raise some money.
Vijayan was acquainted with the Dhas family as he stayed at the DRDO residential complex in the quarters his father was allotted. An SSLC dropout, Vijayan later married a Manipuri woman against his parents’ wishes and was living separately with his wife and two children in a rented house at Agara near Horamavu, from where he was nabbed.
Murder for Gain
Police said in the last 10 days, Vijayan visited Rajabala twice and asked for `2 lakh but she refused to give him the money. He then demanded `60,000 a week ago to pay his credit card dues. As Rajabala refused to budge, he hatched a plan to kill her and steal her jewellery.
Vijayan planned the murder well in advance and purchased a knife before heading to Rajabala’s house Monday on the pretext of taking her help for a documentary. He told her that he was directing a documentary and one of the scenes was that of a woman ending her life over differences with her husband.
Police said Vijayan convinced Rajabala to write a death note in this regard and she wrote it in Tamil. He then blackmailed her using that note, threatening to kill her if she did not give him the money. He told her no one would suspect his role behind her death as she wrote the death note, police explained. However, Rajabala did not heed his threats and Vijayan slit her throat. Neighbours who heard Rajabala scream rang the door-bell. In his hurry to escape, Vijayan dropped the suicide note and stole her two gold chains, before jumping from the balcony on the third floor, police said.
Though he was injured, Vijayan managed to walk till the main road and took an auto and reached home. He told his wife he met with an accident and after changing his clothes, went to a nearby clinic. He gave the doctor the same explanation.
However, in his haste to flee, Vijayan left his two-wheeler at the DRDO residential complex as he lost its keys at the spot. Based on the vehicle’s details, the police traced Vijayan. He was taken to a hospital as he sustained multiple injuries, including damage to his spinal cord, while jumping off from the third floor of the building.