Have enough evidence for watertight case, say cops
The four — Monojit Mishra, Zaib Ahmed, Pramit Mukhopadhyay and college security guard Pinaki Banerjee — have been in police custody for 11 days. Investigators said extending custody will allow them to further strengthen the case with additional evidence and corroborative statements.
"We appealed for the full term of police custody period when they were produced before this court last week. Depending on the progress of the probe, we will decide on Tuesday whether we will seek an extension of the police custody period, as we can still ask for at least three days of custody before the magistrate sends them to jail," said Sourin Ghoshal, public prosecutor at Alipore court.
You Can Also Check:
Kolkata AQI
|
Weather in Kolkata
|
Bank Holidays in Kolkata
|
Public Holidays in Kolkata
A senior officer said they have already accumulated all major evidence. "The charge sheet will be filed soon and we expect the trial will proceed while the accused remain in custody," said a senior officer.
Cops claimed several key steps have already been completed. These include recording testimonies of 18 witnesses, conducting crime scene reconstruction with all accused present, video-graphing the process, and creating a 3D mapping of the location.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
Is it legal? How to get Internet without paying a subscription?
Techno Mag
Learn More
Undo
Key physical evidence — a bed sheet, a hockey stick, clothes worn by the accused, and DNA samples — have been seized. CCTV footage from the college and a nearby medical shop, as well as the mobile tower data, align with the survivor's version of events.
The survivor's medical report, which notes injuries consistent with her complaint, has also been submitted.
Police have detained a second security guard who was on duty on the evening of June 25. This guard reportedly left the campus around 8.25 pm — close to the time Zaib stepped out to purchase an inhaler for the survivor.
Investigators are also looking into the role of other college administrators, particularly to determine if anyone enabled or ignored Mishra's influence.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
'Fake narrative': Professor guided Pune woman on filing false rape complaint, says city top cop; medical report inconclusive
Pune's police commissioner refuted claims of deteriorating law and order after a woman's rape complaint was found to be false and misleading PUNE: Police commissioner Amitesh Kumar said on Sunday that a fake narrative about the city's "collapsing law and order" situation was being built based on an "entirely false and misleading complaint of a very serious nature" authorities had received recently. Kumar did not specify the nature of the complaint while speaking at the inauguration of a new police chowkey under the Sinhagad Road police station. However, his observation came against the backdrop of a 22-year-old woman's complaint that an unidentified delivery agent entered her 11th-floor flat in Pune last Wednesday, sprayed some chemical to render her unconscious, and raped her. She had also alleged that the man used her cellphone to take a selfie and keyed in a threat message, 'I will come back'. "However, our teams busted the same within 24 hours by establishing that the complaint given by the woman was entirely false and misleading and tended to hide information from police," Kumar told TOI later. You Can Also Check: Pune AQI | Weather in Pune | Bank Holidays in Pune | Public Holidays in Pune He added: "There is a part of consent in the case, and this consent we have already established. The woman called her friend to her house. The selfie was clicked with her consent, which she later edited. The woman complained to the police about an unknown courier delivery person, which is not the case. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Is it legal? How to get Internet without paying a subscription? Techno Mag Learn More Undo Secondly, she stated that there was forceful entry and use of spray before she was raped, and that too turned out to be misleading. The investigations have also revealed the two had some arguments following which the woman lodged the misleading complaint." Deputy commissioner of police (Zone V), Rajkumar Shinde, said: "We have received her medical report from the Sassoon General Hospital. However, these reports are inconclusive." The woman holds a BE (data science) degree and works with an IT company in Kalyaninagar. Her complaint created a major uproar across the country before the police established there were discrepancies in her account. Investigators also said she herself wrote the threat message after the friend left her flat. On Saturday, the police got her to record her statement before a Judicial Magistrate First Class in view of the frequent changes she kept making in the narration of the incident. This was also after she and her friend were made to sit in front of each other and questioned. She has also been referred to counselling. Referring to these events as "a very serious complaint" received by the authorities, Kumar noted that a fake narrative was being constructed, one alleging that Pune's law and order systems were "collapsing". Officials from Kondhwa police on Saturday also recorded the statement of a woman professor with a private engineering college who was in touch with the woman before the registration of the rape complaint, they said. "The professor is the complainant's friend and guide and was in touch with the complainant on Wednesday. During investigations, we realised that the complainant had sought all the directions from the professor to lodge her complaint and on how to deal with investigating authorities," Shinde said. "If required, we will question the professor again. We have recorded the woman professor's statement as part of the investigation in the case," he added.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
Sean 'Diddy' Combs gets standing ovation from jail inmates; Lawyer says 'they never get to see anyone who beats the government'
Sean "Diddy" Combs got a standing ovation from fellow inmates when the music mogul returned to jail after winning acquittals on potential life-in-prison charges, providing what his lawyer says might have been the best thing he could do for Black incarcerated men in America. "They all said: 'We never get to see anyone who beats the government,'" attorney Marc Agnifilo told The Associated Press in a weekend interview days after a jury acquitted Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. Combs, 55, remains jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after his conviction Wednesday on prostitution-related charges, which could put him in prison for several more years. Any sentence will include credit for time already served. So far that's almost 10 months. After federal agents raided Combs' homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area in March 2024, Agnifilo said he told the "I'll Be Missing You" singer to expect to be arrested on sex trafficking charges. "I said: 'Maybe it's your fate in life to be the guy who wins,'" he recalled during a telephone interview briefly interrupted by a jailhouse call from Combs. "They need to see that someone can win. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Is it better to shower in the morning or at night? Here's what a microbiologist says CNA Read More Undo I think he took that to heart." Blunt trial strategy works The verdict in Manhattan federal court came after a veteran team of eight defense lawyers led by Agnifilo executed a trial strategy that resonated with jurors. Combs passed lawyers notes during effective cross-examinations of nearly three dozen witnesses over two months, including Combs' ex-employees. The lawyers told jurors Combs was a jealous domestic abuser with a drug problem who participated in the swinger lifestyle through threesomes involving Combs, his girlfriends and another man. "You may think to yourself, wow, he is a really bad boyfriend," Combs' lawyer Teny Geragos told jurors in her May opening statement. But that, she said, "is simply not sex trafficking." Agnifilo said the blunt talk was a "no brainer." "The violence was so clear and up front and we knew the government was going to try to confuse the jury into thinking it was part of a sex trafficking effort. So we had to tell the jury what it was so they wouldn't think it was something it wasn't," he said. Combs and his lawyers seemed deflated Tuesday when jurors said they were deadlocked on the racketeering count but reached a verdict on sex trafficking and lesser prostitution-related charges. A judge ordered them back to deliberate Wednesday. "No one knows what to think," Agnifilo said. Then he slept on it. Morning surprise awakes lawyer "I wake up at three in the morning and I text Teny and say: "We have to get a bail application together," he recalled. "It's going to be a good verdict for us but I think he went down on the prostitution counts so let's try to get him out." He said he "kind of whipped everybody into feeling better" after concluding jurors would have convicted him of racketeering if they had convicted him of sex trafficking because trafficking was an alleged component of racketeering. Agnifilo met with Combs before court and Combs entered the courtroom rejuvenated. Smiling, the onetime Catholic schoolboy prayed with family. In less than an hour, the jury matched Agnifilo's prediction. The seemingly chastened Combs mouthed "thank you" to jurors and smiled as family and supporters applauded. After he was escorted from the room, spectators cheered the defense team, a few chanting: "Dream Team! Dream Team!" Several lawyers, including Geragos, cried. "This was a major victory for the defense and a major loss for the prosecution," said Mitchell Epner, a lawyer who worked with Agnifilo as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey over two decades ago. He credited "a dream team of defense lawyers" against prosecutors who almost always win. Agnifilo showcased what would become his trial strategy - belittling the charges and mocking the investigation that led to them - last September in arguing unsuccessfully for bail. The case against Combs was what happens when the "federal government comes into our bedrooms," he said. Lawyers gently questioned most witnesses During an eight-week trial, Combs' lawyers picked apart the prosecution case with mostly gentle but firm cross-examinations. Combs never testified and his lawyers called no witnesses. Sarah Krissoff, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, said Combs' defense team "had a narrative from the beginning and they did all of it without putting on any witnesses. That's masterful." Ironically, Agnifilo expanded the use of racketeering laws as a federal prosecutor on an organized crime task force in New Jersey two decades ago, using them often to indict street gangs in violence-torn cities. "I knew the weak points in the statute," he said. "The statute is very mechanical. If you know how the car works, you know where the fail points are." He said prosecutors had "dozens of fail points." "They didn't have a conspiracy, they just didn't," he said. "They basically had Combs' personal life and tried to build racketeering around personal assistants." Some personal assistants, even after viewing videos of Combs beating his longtime girlfriend, Casandra "Cassie" Ventura, had glowing things to say about Combs on cross examination. Once freed, Combs likely to reenter domestic abusers program For Combs, Agnifilo sees a long road ahead once he is freed as he works on personal demons, likely reentering a program for domestic batterers that he had just started before his arrest. "He's doing OK," said Agnifilo, who speaks with him four or five times daily. He said Combs genuinely desires improvement and "realizes he has flaws like everyone else that he never worked on." "He burns hot in all matters. I think what he has come to see is that he has these flaws and there's no amount of fame and no amount of fortune" that can erase them," he said. "You can't cover them up." For Agnifilo, a final surprise awaited him after Combs' bail was rejected when a man collapsed into violent seizures at the elevators outside the courtroom. "I'm like: 'What the hell?'" recalled the lawyer schooled in treating seizures. Agnifilo straddled him, pulling him onto his side and using a foot to prevent him from rolling backward while a law partner, Jacob Kaplan, put a backpack under the man's head and Agnifilo's daughter took his pulse. "We made sure he didn't choke on vomit. It was crazy. I was worried about him," he said. The man was eventually taken away conscious by rescue workers, leaving Agnifilo to ponder a tumultuous day. "It was like I was getting punked by God," he said.
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
UAE quashes reports claiming grant of Golden Visa to cryptocurrency investors
The United Arab Emirates has denied reports claiming that the country grants golden visas to investors in digital currencies. The clarification over the matter comes after reports circulated on certain websites claiming that golden visas were issued to cryptocurrency investors. The Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP), the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), and the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) have issued a joint statement and clarified that there are criteria and a framework involved when it comes to issuing such visas. According to The Gulf News, eligible categories include real estate investors, entrepreneurs, exceptional talents, scientists and specialists, top students and graduates, humanitarian pioneers, and frontline workers. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Join new Free to Play WWII MMO War Thunder War Thunder Play Now Undo While issuing clarification on the matter, the ICP emphasized that golden visas are issued according to clear and officially approved frameworks and criteria, which do not include digital currency investors. The SCA reiterated its commitment to internationally recognized standards in regulating the financial sector and securities services in the Emirates. Live Events The authority further stated that its procedures are designed to ensure transparency and credibility and strengthen investor confidence within the country and abroad. All these steps are taken in line with the goals of attracting quality capital and fostering a sustainable investment environment. The authority further confirmed that digital currency investments are governed by specific regulations and are unrelated to golden visa eligibility. It urged investors to obtain information from credible, official sources to avoid misinformation or fraud. Meanwhile, VARA also denied any claims about the issuance of golden visas to virtual asset investors in Dubai. The authority urged investors and consumers to deal exclusively with fully licensed and regulated companies when engaging in services and investments related to virtual assets. VARA reaffirmed its commitment to the highest standards of risk assurance and effective collaboration with the SCA and relevant federal and local law enforcement entities to maintain a secure operational environment that prioritizes consumer protection at all times. It further underscored that companies licensed by VARA must strictly adhere to the visa procedures outlined by the Government of Dubai and the relevant federal authorities. It also clarified that the company TON is neither licensed nor regulated by VARA. The three authorities came together to request the public and investors remain cautious and seek accurate and authentic information. They also asked people to rely on official government websites and approved communication channels and warned against engaging with unverified advertisements or offers spreading online.
