Latest news with #BharatiyaNyaySanhita
The Hindu
4 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
No bail for jailed nuns as Chhattisgarh court cites jurisdiction issues
A Sessions Court in Chhattisgarh's Durg district on Wednesday (July 30, 2025) disposed of the bail applications of the two nuns and a Narayanpur resident — who were arrested last week on charges of human trafficking and forcible religious conversion — observing that it did not have the jurisdiction to hear the matter. The court said it could not go into the merits of the case. In his order, Additional Sessions Judge Anish Dubey cited Section 11 of the National Investigation Agency Act 2008 to point out the jurisdiction issue and ordered the applicants — nuns Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis, and Sukman Mandavi — to move a special court for relief. The court noted that Section 2(1)(g) of the NIA Act, 2008 contains a separate Schedule that includes Section 370 of the now abolished Indian Penal Code, 1860. It further added that Section 143 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, 2023 [that the applicants are accused of violating] pertains to 'trafficking of a person' which is similar to Section 370 IPC. Citing Chhattisgarh government orders to list courts that have been given the jurisdiction to hear such cases in different divisions, it said that the applicants move the designated court. Also Read | Catholic rites hold united protest against arrest of nuns in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh Earlier, the applicants submitted that they were accused on the basis of mere suspicion. The application also said due to poverty and lack of employment, the three girls were going to Agra voluntarily to work and learn work. The girls were already followers of Christianity and, hence, there was no question of their conversion, the application added. The bail was opposed by the Public Prosecutor, who submitted that since Section 143 of the Indian Penal Code was imposed on the accused, 'this court has no jurisdiction to hear the bail application'. The nuns and Ms. Mandavi were arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) at Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh on July 25 following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of forcibly converting three women from the State's tribal-dominated Narayanpur district and trafficking them. The issue has triggered protests from political parties across the spectrum in the nuns' native State of Kerala. Brinda Karat meets nuns Senior CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat on Wednesday (July 30, 2025) met the two nuns at the Durg Central Jail in Chhattisgarh following which she called the arrests 'unconstitutional and illegal', and demanded their immediate release. Ms. Karat also held a press conference in Raipur where she said that the allegations against the nuns were false.
NDTV
8 hours ago
- NDTV
Silence Is Violence: Speak Up and Act to Stop Child Trafficking
New Delhi: July 30 is the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, and the theme this year is as direct as it is urgent: 'Human trafficking is Organized Crime – End the Exploitation'. Yet we still hear people ask, 'Is trafficking really such a big issue?' 'What can we really do about it?' Trafficking is any process that results in exploitation. In India, Article 23 of the Constitution prohibits trafficking as a fundamental right that prescribes punishment and criminality. Human trafficking is the second-largest crime in the world. It generates $150 billion a year, according to global estimates. One out of every three trafficked persons is a child. With the advancement in communication, technology and permeation of social media, trafficking is no longer a poverty-driven issue. It has become an organised crime with the potential to enter our homes, here here and now. If today, we choose to look the other way we will become an ostrich, and also a part of the problem itself. Trafficking Is Hidden In Plain Sight Before we talk about laws and systems, we have to understand how trafficking operates around us — quietly, invisibly and often in ways that we refuse to acknowledge. A child can be trafficked anywhere through a message, a photograph, or a threat. Trafficking happens in our homes inadvertently when girls brought from Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Bengal by unregistered placement agencies work as domestic help without contracts, wages or protection, often facing physical and sexual abuse that remains invisible behind closed doors. Many times these acts are recorded and used to continue their exploitation through blackmail. We see this play out around us, and still, we remain ignorant. In Bihar, girls are trafficked under the pretext of orchestra performances. They are forced to dance at weddings and strip in front of crowds. Hundreds watch but no one speaks up. The truth is, trafficking hides behind excuses — poverty, helplessness, demand. The worst part is not that it's happening. It's that we see it and do nothing. Until people speak out, silence is violence. Prosecution As A Tipping Point India has one of the toughest anti-trafficking laws in the world. Traffic in human beings, begar and similar forms of forced labour are offences and must be punished by law. The Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) defines trafficking as a stringent organised crime. Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receiving a person through force, fraud, coercion, abduction or deception of a vulnerable person for exploitation is punishable by up to life imprisonment. Laws mean little to a child who is being exploited and remain meaningless unless enforced. Real protection lies not in legislation alone, but in its ability to reach those who need it most. This is where civil society has stepped in. Just Rights for Children's Access to Justice for Children programme, the largest civil society initiative against child exploitation and sexual abuse in the country, has shown what is possible when the rule of law is made real for the vulnerable. Between April 2023 and March 2025, JRC achieved over 54,000 prosecutions across 28 states, rescuing more than 85,000 children, mostly from child labour. Centre for Legal Action and Behaviour Change (C-LAB) report, Building the Case for Zero: How Prosecution Acts as the Tipping Point to End Child Labour – The Case from India, drew data from 24 states to show prosecution is key to justice. As per the report, the Just Rights for Children network partners assisted in the rescue of 53,651 children from trafficking and kidnapping in 27,320 raids in 2024–25. Nearly 90 percent were in the worst forms of child labour. Top states were Telangana, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. In 2023, 18,774 prosecutions for human trafficking occurred worldwide, according to the 2024 U.S. TIP Report (India's data wasn't included). India alone had more than double that number in one year. This is scale. Scale is what organised crime demands. To combat trafficking, prevention must come before protection, protection before prosecution, and prosecution must create the deterrence that leads back to prevention. Follow The Money, Break The Chain Prosecution is the beginning of the end of trafficking. As to dismantle an organised crime, we must strike where it hurts. We must start with two principles: look beneath the surface and follow the money. Every trafficked child is part of a chain: source, transit and destination. The trafficker is part of a system. The only way to stop the system is to break every link. That means prosecuting recruiters, transporters and buyers, not just employers. We must cut off the tentacles of trafficking by making it economically unviable — attaching properties, imposing fines, cancelling procurement, blacklisting repeat offenders and shutting down premises. Without consequences, there is no deterrence. At the same time, we have to ensure long-term support and justice for survivors. We must identify vulnerable families and ensure every government scheme, scholarships, entitlements, protections, reach them. When a child is in school, they are far less likely to be trafficked. Therefore, ensuring universal access to education is critical. India has recognised education as a fundamental right until the age of 14. But to meaningfully reduce vulnerability, education must be free till 18. A National Strategy With Local Action Ending trafficking demands a nationwide push rooted in local intelligence. From data to digital tools, the response must be sharp, adaptive and led by those closest to the ground. India has one of the largest offender databases — the National Database of Sex Offenders (NDSO). It helps track patterns, identify hotspots and build heat maps of high-risk zones. This intelligence comes from survivors. They know who trafficked them. Use it. Share it. Act on it. At Just Rights for Children, our strategy follows the PICKET framework -- Policy, Institutional capacity, Convergence, Knowledge, Economics and Technology. It begins with strong, clear Policy that supports zero tolerance to child labour and trafficking in supply chains of government and corporate procurement, nimble policies that adapt with the changing nature of trafficking and accountability for implementation of existing laws. Institutions must be equipped and mandated to monitor, prosecute offenders and support survivors in their recovery. From specialised anti-human trafficking units to local village panchayats maintaining migration registers, building institutional strength is critical. Convergence across agencies is vital. NGOs, police, media and citizens must coordinate to share intelligence. Knowledge empowers children, families and communities to recognise and resist exploitation. Survivor insights provide powerful tools to dismantle trafficking networks. Economic deterrents such as attaching properties, imposing fines, cancelling procurement and blacklisting repeat offenders make trafficking financially risky. Technology is a powerful tool. Databases, artificial intelligence, machine learning, heat maps and predictive analytics track traffickers, identify hotspots and predict movement patterns. Facial recognition systems are already being used at some railway stations. They must be scaled up to identify sex offenders and traffickers. This is how a girl trafficked from West Bengal to the Andamans was rescued in 24 hours. A local NGO alerted police, who contacted the NGO at the destination, and everyone acted. That is coordination. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has saved countless children at stations. Real-time alerts, trained officers, and shared intelligence make a huge difference. What Can One Person Do? It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of trafficking, but real change often begins with individual action. We might ask, can one person really make a difference? Recently, one of my colleagues noticed a young girl crying at a traffic signal. Concerned, she stopped to check on her and discovered that the 15-year-old was a victim of child trafficking, rape, forced domestic labour and child marriage. To hundreds of passersby, she was just another child, invisible in plain sight. But when someone finally stopped to help, that person became her saviour. If you think, one person can't change the world, think again, because the world has always been changed by one person at a time. See. Speak. Report. Act. If you see a child being exploited, speak up. Call the police. Call a helpline. Don't let it pass. What you do in that moment could mean the world to that child. In massage parlours, spas, orchestras and placement agencies, our response must be faster and stronger. Institutions cannot do this alone. Civil society, media, families and communities have to act together. Political will exists, but enforcement and public resolve are key to ending trafficking. There are still 138 million children trapped in the worst forms of child labour around the world, according to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF. We have already missed our Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 deadline. Today, India is leading by example — rescuing one child at a time, securing one prosecution at a time, holding one trafficker accountable at a time. It's time for the world to follow this model, because these 138 million children are not statistics, they are children. And the time to act is not tomorrow, it is now.
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Time of India
Elderly man loses 31L to online fraud
T'puram: A 75-year-old retired govt employee residing at Vivekananda Nagar was cheated of Rs 31 lakh after being promised lucrative returns upon investing in a firm. The accused introduced himself as a representative of 'Stonewall Capital Investment' and promised returns upon investing in the firm. The accused also produced some fake certificates to prove the firm's authenticity. The victim invested a small amount initially and received double returns. Motivated by this, he started investing more money in the firm. From Jan 25, 2025, till July 24, the victim invested Rs 31 lakh in the company by transferring it to various accounts. The accused informed him that a huge amount was credited to his wallet and demanded Rs 10 more lakh to withdraw it. This made him suspicious, and he approached police. On the complaint of the victim, city cyber police began a probe after registering a case under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita and also under section 66 (D) of the Information Technology Act. TNN
India Today
a day ago
- Politics
- India Today
Court rejects woman's plea to quash FIR over controversial messages post-Op Sindoor
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday dismissed a writ petition filed by Farah Deeba, a 46-year-old resident of Pune, who had sought to quash an FIR registered against her over controversial WhatsApp messages and status updates following Operation Sindoor, a recent Indian Armed Forces operation targeting terrorist launch pads in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Rajesh S Patil observed that Deeba's actions, including a laughing emoji reaction to pro-military posts, a WhatsApp status video showing the Prime Minister riding a rocket alongside a burning Indian flag, and messages identifying herself with Pakistan while referring to India as 'Makkar,' reflected mens rea, or criminal court said, 'What is expected of a prudent person is that, before putting up any kind of message on social groups, a person like the petitioner—who is educated and a teacher by profession—should also think about the pros and cons which might occur due to sending online messages through her social media account (WhatsApp).' The FIR, filed at Kalepadal Police Station in Pune, invokes multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), 2023. The case emerged from a WhatsApp group named Sath Sath Margosa Ladies, comprising women residents of the Margosa Heights residential complex in to the complaint, after Operation Sindoor was launched on May 7, several group members expressed admiration for the Indian Armed Forces. Deeba allegedly responded with a laughing emoji, objected to the group being used for patriotic discussions, and later posted a video link from Facebook critical of the Prime Minister. She is also accused of uploading a WhatsApp status featuring a burning Indian flag and making disparaging comments against the lawyer, advocate Harshad Sathe, argued that Deeba was not mentally sound at the time of the incident, had removed the posts shortly afterward, and had issued an apology. He noted that she had already been dismissed from her teaching job and claimed procedural lapses in the issuance of notice under Section 41-A of the bench, however, found sufficient grounds for investigation, noting that the petitioner's conduct, especially in the immediate aftermath of a sensitive military operation, was capable of disturbing public sentiment and attracting penal consequences under to a recent ruling of the Allahabad High Court, the Bombay High Court reiterated that freedom of speech does not extend to derogatory commentary against the Prime Minister or Armed Forces when such speech could disrupt national harmony or incite court emphasised that quashing of criminal proceedings before the filing of a chargesheet is an exception rather than the rule, and that the present case did not warrant such the petition was dismissed, and the investigation against Deeba will continue.- EndsMust Watch
Hans India
2 days ago
- Hans India
Three held for planting explosive material at overcrowded Bengaluru bus stop
Bengaluru: The Karnataka Police have cracked the case involving the planting of explosive materials outside a public toilet at Bengaluru's overcrowded Kalasipalya bus stop and have arrested three persons. Confirming the arrests on Tuesday, DCP (West) S. Girish stated that as the investigation was ongoing, the names and photos of the accused would be released in due course. Girish said, "The incident took place on July 23. Taking the matter seriously, the police department formed five teams. These teams conducted investigations, gathered information from sources, and, through technical evidence, apprehended three suspects." He further added, "The police have recovered 22 live REX 90 gelatin gel capsules and 30 live electric detonators. We have also obtained information about other individuals involved in the case, and the investigation is still in progress." Earlier, panic had gripped Bengaluru's Kalasipalya bus stop after an unattended bag was found outside a public toilet on July 23. Acting on information about a suspicious bag, Bengaluru Police rushed to the spot and recovered gelatin sticks and detonators outside a public toilet at the Kalasipalya bus stop. Six (REX 90) gelatin gel capsules and 12 electric detonators, both separately packed, were found in a carry bag outside the toilet located on the premises of the Kalasipalya Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) bus stand. The explosive materials were discovered around 2 p.m. They were kept in separate bags near the toilet. The case was filed under Sections 4 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act, under Sections 6 (A), 9 (B) of the Explosives Act and also under Sections 61 (1)(a), 61 (1)(b) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita. Assistant Traffic Superintendent (ATS) Mallappa R. Katiimani had filed a complaint in this regard. An unknown person and an adult male were named as the accused persons initially in the FIR. The FIR had stated, "The complainant works as the ATS at the Kalasipalya bus stop and has come to duty at 8 a.m. and inspected the Kalasipalya BMTC bus stop and found nothing at that time. Later, at 1.15 pm, security personnel Prabhvathi and Raju produced a bag saying that an unknown person had left it near the bus stand public toilet. He suspected the presence of the explosive substance and called the police. The police, who arrived at the spot, confirmed it." The complainant has stated that the Kalasipalya bus stop is an overcrowded place and urged the police to track down the persons who had left the explosive substances to cause harm to lives and property, and initiate legal action, the FIR stated. Kalasipalya is a communally sensitive and densely populated area in Bengaluru, and the discovery had raised serious concerns among residents and security agencies. Recently, over 40 private schools in Bengaluru received bomb threat messages via email.
