The early morning crackdown against the terror group in Ballari and Bengaluru in Karnataka, Amaravati, Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, Jamshedpur and Bokaro in Jharkhand and Delhi, led to the foiling of a plan by the accused to carry out terror acts, especially improvised explosive device blasts.
This is thrice of what agencies seized during the 2014 Lok Sabha poll process, reports Archis Mohan.
This time round, even 'petrol coupons' were reportedly distributed for those attending campaign rallies, especially those addressed by top leaders, cutting across party lines. If this owed to the rising cost of petrol and diesel -- which is a poll issue this time -- there were the customary coupons for 'quarter' (liquor bottle size) and non-vegetarian biryani. Some media reports claimed that some of these 'crowds' attended more than one political rally on the same day in the last week, and at times for rival political parties in adjoining constituencies or districts, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
On Saturday, in locations including Korukkupet at R K Nagar allegations of cash distribution were made against some men, whose identity was not known immediately.
Jharkhand mining secretary Pooja Singhal, earlier arrested and remanded to the custody of the ED in a suspected money laundering case, was suspended by the Jharkhand government on Thursday, an official said.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, who is currently away in Delhi, also said the Bharatiya Janata Party will be left embarrassed if he made public the panchnama (seizure list) signed after the raids.
The court's observation came while granting bail to a person accused of running call centres in the country and defrauding United States citizens to the tune of about $20 million.
"The DMK is not worried a wee bit," he said on the ED searches. Such an action by the ED was 'usual, ordinary and a drama' enacted to divert attention.
The Election Commission of India has decided to seize both licensed and illegal weapons before the Lok Sabha election and will reject requests from political parties for change of poll dates because of festivals in Assam.
Over 83 per cent of the more than 13 lakh electorate cast their vote on Monday in the single-day Nagaland state election which passed off by and large peacefully, Chief Electoral Officer V Shashank Shekhar said.
The NCB has widened its probe into a recent seizure of about 50 kg of heroin from a house in south Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area with the arrest of three more people on Friday, officials said.
The arrests have been made by officials of Sector 126 police station as part of a crackdown on narcotics ordered by police commissioner Laxmi Singh, deputy commissioner of police (Noida) Harish Chander said.
Sources claimed that Singhal was "evasive" in her replies and hence was arrested.
The agency had received intelligence inputs that a huge amount of "unaccounted" cash is lying at the groups properties at Delhi and Noida.
Rao's history includes arrests in 2000 by Sahadha police of Nandurbar district and subsequent releases, as well as an underground stint in 2002, leading to his arrest by Malkanoor PS police of Karnataka in 2005.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation of four distinct cases from the Assam police, all connected with the death of the state police sub-inspector Junmoni Rabha last month in a suspected road accident, according to officials.
The middle-aged woman, Shubra Ghorui, is said to have harboured anger against Chatterjee after the seizure of around Rs 50 crore in cash, along with jewellery, by the ED.
The Chhattisgarh police has arrested two people in connection with a Rs 20-crore burglary from a jewellery store in Delhi earlier this week and recovered around 18.5 kg of gold and diamond ornaments from them, a senior official said on Friday, even as the probe suggested involvement of only one person in the incident.
Police seized 100 fake notes of old Rs 500 denomination from Burhanuddin, who first claimed to be a Mumbai resident.
This is the new addition to the tax data, which had identified over 600,000 people for scrutiny over huge inconsistencies in the cash deposits
They said this was preliminary voter turnout and the final figure may cross 80 per cent as electoral fate of 301 candidates were locked in EVMs which will be opened on March 10 for counting.
While the Congress is in power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Telangana by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi and Mizoram by the Mizo National Front.
The income-tax department has detected "unaccounted" transactions and investments worth more than Rs 100 crore after it raided two Jharkhand Congress MLAs, their alleged associates and linked coal and iron ore businesses across the state last week.
Disproportionate assets of Kamaraj stood at Rs 58.44 crore and he has been booked for criminal conspiracy and offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, according to the FIR.
In Mumbai, police seized Rs 1.40 crore from three persons in new Rs 2,000 notes.
In one village, a woman asks, "They are always showing cash seizures on television, you think some of it will escape and we will get money as usual?" "Only 1 percent of cash is actually seized, the rest has arrived, you don't worry," a party worker assures her. Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar reports on the election in the southern-most tip of the country.
The raids that were launched at 22 premises of the group and the brokers on September 28 are underway, the statement by the Central Board of Direct Taxes said.
Since the purported seizure on Friday night, social media has gone abuzz with gossip about her alleged relationship with the senior Trinamool Congress leader.
The Narcotics Control Bureau has seized about 50 kg of 'high-quality' heroin and arrested a man after it conducted raids in the Shaheen Bagh area of Delhi's Jamia Nagar, the federal anti-narcotics agency said on Thursday, claiming to have busted an Indo-Afghan drug-smuggling racket.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted searches in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka on Wednesday in connection with two cases of blasts in Coimbatore and Mangaluru, its official spokesperson said.
The EC's actions remain to be seen on 'money-hoarding and transportation' for poll-time use. The question remains if the polity in the state would push the EC so far as to use the countermanding option. Even then EC would have to push its constitutional powers to find a way to prevent 'money-power' in the state's elections, says N Sathiya Moorthy
A voter turnout of 72.14 per cent was recorded in Assam till 5 pm on Saturday in the first phase of assembly elections in the state, the Election Commission said.
Mumbai crime branch sleuths have seized a laptop and some other articles from a room in a luxury hotel in Mumbai which was occupied by India speedster S Sreesanth before his arrest on the charge of spot-fixing IPL matches, police said on Saturday.
More than Rs 8 crore unaccounted cash has been seized in subsequent raids at various locations by Lokayukta. The arrested officer's father is Madal Virupakshappa, the MLA representing Channagiri constituency in Davangere district of the state.
He referred to the top court's 2022 judgement in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case and said it had held that ED officers are not "police officers".
With this amount, the total seizure in the case has now gone upto Rs 166 crore in a single case.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed pleas of Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji and his wife Megala challenging the Madras high court order upholding his arrest in a money laundering case.
The commission said polling was held at 15,940 polling stations spread across 44 assembly constituencies in this phase of polls.
The amounts are thrice of what agencies seized during the 2014 Lok Sabha poll process.
'India's edtech and start-up story will be in danger.'
