There is a new twist to the alleged suicide of Bilaspur SP Rahul Sharma. One of the officer’s closest friends has said that a week before Sharma allegedly shot himself, he had fretted about being made to do “begaar” (literally, forced labour), and that he had been given a “target” for “election expenses”. Sharma was found dead at the Bilaspur Police Officers’ mess on March 12. A day later, IG G...

-The Telegraph Lakshman Seth, the former CPM member of Parliament blamed for much of the bloodshed in Nandigram, was arrested by a Bengal police team this afternoon while hiding in a Mumbai guesthouse along with two party colleagues. Seth, former MLA Amiya Sahoo and East Midnapore leader Ashok Guria are the key accused in the alleged killing of six villagers during the CPM’s “recapture” of Nandigram in November 2007. Seth, entangled in...

Taking serious note of the incident where an RTI applicant, Sanjay Bhalika, was asked to pay Rs 1.3 lakh as photocopying charges for an RTI reply by an Adharwadi Jail official, the state inspector-general of police (prisons) has directed officials to inquire into the matter.  A source said two senior officers from the jail administration would look into Bhalika's allegation. The inquiry was ordered following media reports on the incident.  Speaking to...

A bidi-smoking petty contractor who suddenly bought two Boleros and a former newspaper hawker who zipped about Chhattisgarh’s jungles in a Toyota may hold the key to a question bugging the custodians of national security. What the police want to know is: are business houses paying off the Maoists to be able to operate deep inside central India’s mineral-rich guerrilla zones? Chhattisgarh police say that when contractor B.K. Lala’s bank account suddenly...

Despite sustained campaigns and legalchanges, convictions have declined steadily From the near-illegible notes scrawled by investigators at the Prasad Nagar police station, we know this: ever since 2005, the young woman who walked in through their doors last month had been stalked by her brother-in-law, given flowers and chocolate and beatings. There was the time, a bottle of rat-poison in his hand, he threatened to kill himself if she did not declare...