Author: The Metrognome

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A ‘pass’able attempt at extortion

Group of five pose as Income Tax officers to extort Rs 1,00,000 by telling firm to buy 1,000 programme passes.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Did you think that posing as Income Tax officials, as shown in the film Special 26, was a bit of a clever idea for extortion and stealing? So did a group of five men recently arrested by the RAK Marg police station.

Three days ago, the office of Ashapura Garment Ltd. at Navyug Industrial Estate, Sewri, received a phone call from a person who identified himself as SK Mishra, an Income Tax officer. “He said that the Income Tax department had organised a programme at Ravindra Natya Mandir on March 22, and for which our company would have to purchase 100 passes of Rs 1,000 each,” said Pravin Bheda, the company’s marketing manager who received the call. Pravin told his boss, Bharatbhai, about the call and the latter inquired with Ravindra Natya Mandir about the supposed programme.

No such programme was listed in Ravindra Natya Mandir’s schedule. Meanwhile, Bharatbhai instructed Pravin to buy some time from the Income Tax ‘officer’ by telling him that they would buy 11 passes. “But when he (Mishra) called again and when I told him that we would buy 11 passes, he got really angry and said that we would have to buy all 100 passes or our company could face action from the Income Tax department,” Pravin told the RAK Marg cops.

Bharatbhai lodged a complaint with the RAK Marg police station when two men, posing as Income Tax officers, barged into the firm’s office and demanded that they buy 100 passes in cash immediately. “I was scared, but I fobbed them off saying that my boss was not in office and that I had only Rs 6,000 with me, from which I bought six passes,” Pravin said. Meanwhile, RAK Marg cops decided to be present at the premises the next day.

About five plainclothesmen were stationed inside and outside the company’s office the next day, when the duo visited again with two more accomplices to collect payment for the remaining 94 passes. When told that the company could not afford to buy more than 11 passes in all, they got abusive and threatened the company with serious consequences, such as an Income Tax raid. On a signal from Bharatbhai, the cops entered the office and nabbed the four men.

Their ‘senior officer’ was also nabbed from a taxi waiting outside. The programme passes were also seized from them.

The five men have been identified as Chandrakant Bhat (age 43 years), Narendra Soni (48), Harshad Bhat (38), Nayanbhai Shah (55) and Bharatbhai Shah (58). The police are questioning them on their modus operandi and looking into possible past cases of extortion linked to this gang.

(Picture courtesy centralchronicle.com)

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Kharcha paani

Proposed Mumbai-Delhi corridor meets farmers’ agitation

The process of acquisition of farming land for the proposed Mumbai-Delhi industrial corridor is currently seeing agitation from 10 States.

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) is facing stiff opposition from farmers in Maharashtra. And the reason is the proposed Mumbai-Delhi industrial corridor.

Currently, farmers and activists from 10 States in the country are up in arms against the proposed corridor, for which land is being acquired from farmers. Yesterday, the agitation reached Khandesh after crossing Konkan.

As per the NAPM, under whose direction the agitation is taking place, the yatris started off on foot from Karla SEZ area (Lonavla) late at night to reach Malegaon in the morning, where they were welcomed by their comrades from Rashtriya Seva Dal. The first halt of the yatra was at Jodge, where 3,600 hectares of land of five villages have been given notice under the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act (MIDA).

“A population of 30,000 villagers in Jodge, Jayuk, Chicharovar, Sayane BK and Sayane SH villages have been given notice. The villagers have rejected the entire project. They say that they are against forceful acquisition of land without a stated reason and without the consent of gram sabhas under MIDA, especially since MIDA already has possession of prior acquired land,” an NAPM spokesperson said. The yatra is said to have then reached Dhule city after giving support to the struggle of these people, and promising to connect their struggle to the one underway at the national level.

Shyam Patil, a Dhule resident and agitator, said of the Dhule-Nardana Industrial Area, “The MIDC has completed the formalities under clause 32 (1) and (2) for acquisition of 634 hectares of land in Malich, Gorne, Baghode, Menane and other villagers, despite a textile industrial area already in function in the region.”

Suresh Desle of Maliv village said, “The people who had lost their land earlier are yet to get their due, and now fresh notices have been give out to villages with dual crop farmland. I had discussed the gram sabha’s proposal in this regard not only with the Collector, but also with the Secretary and Minister. However, no conclusion has been reached till date, and the sword of acquisition still hovers over their heads.” He added that a small committee had also been formed with the support of local farmers there.

The next meeting was at Sonegaon, with the gram panchayat and villagers. While the land there is also under threat under the Dhule-Bardhana Industrial Area, the process of acquisition hasn’t begun yet. The people there allege that the collector has given away 43 acres of land, which belongs to to the gram panchayat, to the Dhule-Itarsi Wiring Company without any legal investigation or gram sabha consent.

“A frightening image of MIDC is evident at every step. 17 lakh acres of land have been acquired for industrial purposes in Maharashtra, from the Konkan, Marathwada and Khandesh to Vidarbha in the last 50 years. People across different regions have expressed their anger at MIDC, and are all set to intensify their protest,” the NAPM spokesperson said.

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Enough said

Not part of the sham

Humra Quraishi refuses to say the words ‘Happy Women’s Day’ until the country’s realities undergo a change for the better.

Should I start this column with a formal greeting – Happy Women’s Day! – or should I bluntly say that I wouldn’t greet anyone this way, because I detest formalities that reek of hypocrisy? I have never believed in saying fashionable sentences for anyone’s sake.

And besides, of what use is this statement when the condition of women and children and even young men in this country is pathetic? It would be best if those manning big commissions and Government ministries went beyond speeches or elaborate tea sessions, merely to issue a statement. Instead, they should take the rounds of prison cells where women are lodged and detained, pushed to the wall. If policewallahs in Punjab can publicly thrash women on the road, I can well imagine what must go on behind closed doors!

No, I don’t want to parrot oft-repeated statements from the comfort and privacy of my home and office, being part of the multitude that participates in the Women’s Day sham. What are we doing about our country’s serious realities? And for how long are we going to pretend that those oppressed and troubled will not strike back?

Humans are made of emotions, flesh, blood and they take affirmative action. If oppressed for long, they are bound to react, as history has shown us time and time again. And in the current scenario, people are bound to react to State terror. In fact, in his enthusiasm to give speeches, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde often forgets to mention that with those other ‘terrors’ he speaks about, there’s also something called State terror. And this State terror is the most lethal of all, for it has no limits. It kills innocents, it targets women and children. And it works all the time – even on Women’s Day and Children’s Day and Human Rights Day!

(Picture courtesy AP)

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Governor’s wife wants all-women police stations

After the Government’s announcement of an all-women nationalised bank in the country, the State Governor’s wife wants all-women police stations.

This is getting serious. In the Budget announced last month by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, there was an announcement for an all-woman nationalised bank to be launched later this year. Apart from that announcement, Chidambaram had laid heavy emphasis on women’s safety and security in the light of growing crimes against them.

Today, on the occasion of Women’s Day, a prominent woman – in fact, the wife of the State’s First Citizen, the Governor – expressed a desire for all-women police stations in Maharashtra and the country. Radha Sankaranarayan wished for a more sensitised police force and Courts, and in this connection, she said, “Opening of all-women police stations will give confidence to women to come forward and report crimes against them.”

She was speaking at a seminar on ‘Time for action to end violence against women’ organised by the United Nations Population Fund in association with the Department of Public Health, Government of Maharashtra, at Sahyadri State Guest House in Mumbai. She said, “As a woman, as a mother and as a grandmother, I feel sad, angry and at the same time helpless when I read reports of incidents of violence against women, sexual assault on small girls and even on toddlers. In some cases, the trauma of the victim ends with death. I feel benumbed.”

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Soft Coroner

Women’s Day in a man’s world

Prashant Shankarnarayan wonders if Women’s Day is to be celebrated or observed, and either way, seriously, what’s the fuss about?
prashant@themetrognome.in

The situation – An email regarding Women’s Day sent by my office’s HR department.

The observation: Two days ago, I heard a woman in my office shriek in excitement. Then a few more women followed in unison. Our HR team had sent a ‘Women’s day special’ email, mentioning that all the female employees can shop till they drop on Women’s Day and can buy stuff equivalent to their respective net salaries.

Some women reacted as if they had been crowned Miss Universe. The men started complaining even as some of their female colleagues rejoiced; and then there were many like us who knew this just can’t be true. It took a while for them to realise that it was a prank. Few women, who were literally dancing in bliss moments ago, were seething in rage even as the HR head (a woman) tried to explain that it was ‘just a joke’. Well, I feel that’s what Women’s Day has been reduced to – just a joke!

To start with, are we supposed to celebrate Women’s Day or observe it? If we are supposed to celebrate it, then we in India have been celebrating womanhood for thousands of years. So what’s the big fuss about? If it is supposed to be observed as a day where we contemplate and resolve to better the status of women, then why haven’t we succeeded in simply making life better for women despite celebrating womanhood for thousands of years?

Yes, it is easy to say that present-day women have it better than the ones who existed in the past. But is it enough? Is it enough that they go to work and parties? That they can choose their careers and partners? That they can enter traditionally male domains like defense and airlines? That they have access to contraception and can choose the number of children they want to bear? Is that why we earmark a particular day on the calendar as Women’s Day?

Then why is it that even today any random guy can rape an innocent girl without an iota of fear in his heart? Simple, because in the deepest patriarchal recesses of our hearts, many of us still don’t treat them as equals.

How else does one justify the rape of a foreign national at her own home in Bandra by a small-time crook? How could one rape a girl in a moving bus? How does one explain the rape of a woman in India every 20 minutes? And where does a Woman’s Day stand in response to this barbarism?

We are hypocrites. Our age-old adage starts with ‘Mata’, then proceeds to ‘Pita, Guru and Deivam’; incidentally our favourite expletive too starts with ‘madar@#$!’ The same race that has worshipped man and woman as equal in the form of Ardhanarishwara have pushed many a woman in her late husband’s funeral pyre. Many of us ogle shamelessly at other woman but believe in covering up our wife in a burqa or a ghoonghat. The Indian woman is the Goddess who needs to be appeased and at the same time the sacrificial lamb that gets  butchered. Similarly many men pay lip service to Women’s Day only because they know that the remaining 364 days belong to them.

I wait for the day when we won’t need a particular day to celebrate womanhood because that is the true measure of equality. Till then we have nothing to be proud of because it is just a Women’s Day in a Man’s World.

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a mediaperson who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. The Soft Coroner attempts to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Picture courtesy charteredbanker.com)

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Event

Medha Patkar arrested from Golibar Maidan

Activist arrested from Khar site where slum dwellers are being evicted all day. Protesters allege that cops have thrashed them.
by National Alliance of People’s Movements

In a series of illegal actions against the urban poor in Mumbai, the city Police today came down heavily on Medha Patkar and a group of people resisitng the illegal evictions at Golibar, Khar (East). Other active local residents including Prerna Gaikwad, Ajit and 20 men and women have also been arrested this afternoon. Those protesting have been beaten up very badly by the police and goons on behalf of Shivalik Builders, in the presence of MHADA engineers and officials. The latest information is that at least 10 houses have been demolished at Golibar.

A posse of police vehicles and JCB machines are still at the place and the demolition drive is still on.

The bulldozers at Golibar, a 50-year-old slum, are once again out to demolish and evict the slum dwellers who have been fighting corruption and a land grab by Shivalik Ventures, in which the 2G Spectrum scam-ridden Unitech has a stake. In the past, the slum dwellers have repeatedly opposed and exposed the illegal acts of the private developers who are all out to grab the land. It was only after the expose that the Chief Minister of Maharashtra scrapped the two 3K projects.

Even now, as usual, no notice has been served on the people before the demolitions. The Bombay High Court had directed that the residents must be relocated to a good transit camp that is in a completely livable condition, and also directed that individual agreements with the residents must be registered. However, without following this directive of the High Court, the demolitions are continuing in a totally illegal maner. It is also significant to note that as recently as on January 18, the CEO of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), Nirmal Deshmukh, ordered a halt to the demolitions, but the same has started once again, with MHADA’s intervention.”

Update: The NAPM has demanded the immediate release of all detainees, and immediate action on the police personnel involved in the demolition drive. Another demand is for action against Shivalik Builders for several alleged illegalities and encroachments on the land by the firm.

(Picture courtesy thehindu.com. Image is a file pic)

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