The Evening Wrap: CBI arrests key accused in NEET-UG leak case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the paper leak of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) 2024 on July 11 arrested one of the key accused Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky. Earlier this week, the CBI had searched 15 locations in Bihar and Jharkhand in connection with the case. Ranjan allegedly ran a racket involved in the of leaking exam papers. Sources in the CBI said that he was arrested from Jharkhand and was brought to Patna on Thursday. Ranjan was produced before a Special CBI Court of Patna where he was remanded in CBI custody for 10 days for questioning. On June 30, the CBI team searched the house of Ranjan at his village Gagendra Bigha in Hilsa block of Nalanda district. The team had to break the lock of his house to conduct the search. It did so in the presence of two eye witnesses Gajendra Naresh and his wife Sarita Devi, both ward members. The Hindu too had visited his village and met the ward members, however Rocky’s father Suresh Choudhary was not in the village and his house was locked. After searching the house for nearly an hour, the agency had seized the xerox copy of some documents including HDFC bank cheque book, voter information and PAN card. Sources said that Rocky had arranged MBBS students from Patna and Ranchi to solve the NEET paper after the leak and he is also one of the trusted gang members of Sanjeev Mukhiya, who is believed to be the kingpin in the case. He is also a relative of Mukhiya. With the arrest of Rocky, a total of 28 people have been arrested by Bihar Police, Economic Offences Unit (EOU) and CBI. The Central agency had arrested 10 persons from Bihar. From Jharkhand, the CBI earlier arrested Hazaribagh Oasis School principal Ahsanul Haque and Vice-Principal Imtiaz Alam, along with a Hindi newspaper journalist Jamaluddin who allegedly assisted them on the day of examination. Last week, the CBI had arrested Aman Singh from Dhanbad. CBI sources also said that Rocky was planning to flee to Nepal. With his arrest, the CBI has come closer to Mukhiya, also known as Lootan, who works as technical assistant at Noorsarai Horticulture College in Nalanda. Mukhiya is a close associate of education mafia Ranjit Don who was once arrested by CBI in 2003 for being involved in Common Admission Test (CAT) paper leak. Ranjit Don also hails from Hilsa in Nalanda district. NEET-UG 2024 case | Supreme Court adjourns hearing of pleas alleging ‘paper leak’ to July 18 The Supreme Court on July 11 adjourned hearing a batch of petitions alleging irregularities and malpractices in the conduct of the medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024 to July 18. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud deferred the hearing at the request of the petitioners’ lawyers, who asked for additional time to peruse the affidavits filed by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam. The Bench further noted that the CBI had filed its report on the status of the probe in consonance with its prior directions. The Court while hearing the matter on July 8, said that the fact that questions were leaked, and the sanctity of the exam was compromised was “beyond question”. It however, maintained that the decision to cancel the exam in its entirety would be an “extreme last resort” as it affected the lives of over 23 lakh students. In its affidavit filed on Wednesday, the Centre claimed that there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefitting in the exam while referring to a data analytics report submitted by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras. In a separate affidavit, the NTA denied allegations of petitioners that 67 candidates scored perfect marks as “fallacious and incorrect”. The top Court was further apprised that the counselling process for the controversy-hit medical entrance exam will be conducted in four rounds beginning from the third week of July. The candidature of a student found to be a beneficiary of any malpractice would be cancelled at any stage during the counselling process or even afterwards, the Centre’s 44-page affidavit stated. The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. Mumbai hit-and-run case: Mihir Shah admits he was driving BMW car at time of crash, say police Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case, has told the police he was driving the car at the time of the crash which killed a woman and injured her husband, officials said citing the probe carried out so far. After crashing into the couple’s scooter in the early hours of Sunday, Shah was very much aware that the woman was stuck in one of the tyres of the luxury car, but still he drove recklessly and did not stop though motorists passing by frantically signalled and shouted, asking him to halt, an official said on Wednesday. To conceal his identity, Shah shaved his beard and trimmed his hair, the official said, adding they were trying to find out if anyone helped him in changing his appearance. The 24-year-old accused, who is in police custody till July 16, has claimed he possesses a driving licence, but the document was yet to be recovered, he said. So far, the statements of 14 persons, including Mihir Shah’s mother, sisters and friends, have been recorded, the official said. The police are likely to visit the crash spot in Worli area of south-central Mumbai and re-construct the entire crime scene as part of their investigation, he said. Mihir Shah’s father Rajesh Shah, a Shiv Sena politician from adjoining Palghar district, is also an accused in the case and currently out on bail. Police arrested Mihir Shah on Tuesday from neighbouring Thane district, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, killing Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, and injuring her husband Pradeep. The horrific accident was captured in CCTV cameras of the police installed at Mela Junction and Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk in Worli. After crossing the Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk, other motorists asked Mihir Shah to stop the car, but he did not listen to them and continued driving, according to the official. During interrogation, the accused, whose family chauffeur was sitting besides him, admitted he was behind the wheel at the time of the crash, but did not tell the police from which point he started driving and till when, he said. Mihir Shah is not cooperating in the investigation, as per the official. The police have booked him for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges. After the accident, the prime accused, his family members, who stay in Mumbai’s Borivali area, and his grandfather, who resides in Palghar, left their respective homes and remained untraceable. The police will bring Rajrishi Bidawat, the family chauffeur, and Mihir Shah face to face to get more information about the crash and to know the entire sequence of events, the official said. Bidawat, who was accompanying Mihir Shah at the time of the crash, is also an accused in the case. Controversial probationary IAS officer Pooja Khedkar joins duty in Washim; mum on row Controversial probationary Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Pooja Khedkar, who is in the eye of a raging storm for seeking special privileges and faking certificates, joined the Washim district administration on July 11 to complete the remainder of her training amid clamour from activists demanding an in-depth probe into the murky circumstances of her recruitment. Meanwhile, the Centre constituted a single-member Committee, chaired by a senior officer of the rank of Additional Secretary to Government of India, to verify the candidature claims and other details of Ms. Khedkar. The Committee will submit its report within two weeks. A 2023 batch IAS officer, Khedkar, who was posted as Additional Collector in Pune, made news for dubious reasons after it transpired that she had sought special privileges including a separate office, house, car, and staff (including a constable) before taking charge as an assistant collector — perks not given to trainee officers — amid allegations that her father, a retired IAS officer, used his influence to get his daughter’s demands fulfilled. She even used a ‘Government of Maharashtra’ sticker and a red-blue beacon on her private luxury sedan, an Audi, while on probation in Pune. Hailing from a family of bureaucrats, more skeletons tumbled from Khedkar’s cupboard after it emerged that she allegedly faked mental illness to secure a disability certificate and appeared for the UPSC exam under the visually impaired category. The litany of controversies led to a probe and a report being submitted by Pune District Collector Suhas Diwase to the General Administration Department (GAD), which saw Khedkar being transferred to Washim district to complete the remaining term of her training as a “supernumerary assistant collector” till July 30, 2025. Speaking to reporters in Washim today before joining the administration, Khedkar refused to comment on her controversies, merely saying: “I am very happy to join in Washim district [administration]. I am looking forward to working here… I am not authorised to comment on this issue as government rules do not permit me to speak anything on this matter.” Washim District Collector Buveneswari S. said that Khedkar had been allotted the district as a probationary officer. “She has commenced work from today. The GAD has a schedule for probationary IAS officers. We are ready to give training to her under that schedule,” said Buveneswari. As per Diwase’s report, even prior to joining duty on June 3, Khedkar had repeatedly demanded that she be provided a separate cabin, car, residential quarters and a peon. She had also been using Pune Additional Collector Ajay More’s office while he was away, and had removed his nameplate and furniture, the report said. This was followed by allegations of her having faking disability and furnishing a phoney Other Backward Class (OBC) certificate to clear the civil services exam. Khedkar has repeatedly skipped her medical examination no less than six times by giving various excuses despite being asked to report at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi for verification of her disability certificate. Meanwhile, city-based RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar has demanded a thorough probe into the circumstances of Khedkar’s recruitment in the service. He alleged that she became an IAS officer from the OBC category where the creamy layer certificate limitation is an annual parental income of ₹8 lakh while her father’s election affidavit showed his wealth to be around ₹40 crore. Khedkar’s father, Deelip Khedkar, had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election from the Ahmednagar constituency as a candidate of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA). Kumbhar claimed that Khedkar’s parents, despite having a non-creamy layer certificate, possessed property that included 110 acres of agricultural land, no less than seven flats, 900 grams of gold, a gold watch worth ₹17 lakh and 4 cars. Kumbhar further alleged that Khedkar herself possessed property worth ₹17 crore. “The question that arises is how can such income fall into the non-creamy layer category? Furthermore, she has admitted to being mentally ill and a person with multiple disabilities. If someone is mentally ill, how can she be assigned a high post. She has not appeared for the medical at least six times. The GAD has to answer for these irregularities,” said Kumbhar. Speaking to The Hindu, the activist further said that no trainee IAS officer managed to secure a posting in his or her home town. “Despite being given Bhandara district as her initial posting, Pooja Khedkar was later given Pune. How did she manage that? This appointment is a blot on a prestigious service like the IAS. I am going to write to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Chief Minister’s Office,” said Kumbhar. Hours after J&K Bar’s election notice, ad hoc president Nazir Ronga ‘arrested without warrant’ in Srinagar The ad hoc chairman of the J&K High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), Kashmir, Nazir Ahmad Ronga, was arrested by the Lieutenant Governor’s administration in Srinagar just hours after the Bar issued a notification related to the internal election. Lawyer Umair Ronga, son of advocate Ronga, said the J&K police arrived at their home at 1:10 a.m. “without any arrest warrant” and claimed “Uper se order hai (It’s an order from the top).” “We are left in a state of shock and profound distress. We can only hope this is not another instance of the PSA being misused to intimidate the members of the JKHCBA,” Umair Ronga said. The police have not commented on the arrest or accusations of being booked under the harsh Public Safety Act (PSA), a local law that deals with preventive detention without a trial up to two years. The 3,000-member strong Bar, which the administration accused of being “pro-secessionist” in the past and “a non-registered body now”, on July 10 sought nominations from lawyers to fill different posts through an internal election. The J&K administration disallowed the Bar elections in the past five years. It recently invoked Section 144 and barred any elections, citing fears of the law-and-order issue. The latest crackdown comes in spite of the recent amendment made to the Bar’s erstwhile constitution, dropping a paragraph that stated the Bar “will work towards a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute”. Meanwhile, in a fresh notification on Thursday, a Bar spokesman said, “On turn of events the JKHCBA has decided to suspend notification (issued on July 10).” Patients allege loss of vision after cataract surgery at Kolkata hospital Salim Sheikh, who is in his 50s, sized and cut fabric threads for a living. After a successful cataract operation on his right eye on June 11, he had gone back to the Garden Reach State Hospital to get the same operation on his left eye on June 27. But since then, he says, that eye has been left completely blind. “Some of us who were affected can at least see light in their botched eye. I only see darkness,” he said. Sheikh is one of 20-odd patients who have been left with partial to complete blindness in one eye after undergoing allegedly botched cataract surgeries at the Garden Reach State Hospital at the end of June. Sheikh, who earns ₹1,500 a week, spent ₹6,000 in just a few days on medicines, food, and his family’s travel to and from the hospital. “Everyday the doctors come here and prescribe expensive medicines for us to buy. I cannot afford this anymore,” he said, perched on his bed at the male eye ward at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO) at Medical College, Kolkata, where affected patients from Garden Reach have been sent for treatment. Acute financial stress compelled him to go home from the RIO on Wednesday, even before the doctors greenlit his discharge. “I work hard everyday to put food on the table. My work demands good eyesight. Now I have lost one eye completely. I don’t know what the future holds,” he said. According to the Medical Superintendent of the Garden Reach State Hospital Dr. Koushik Ray, infections were detected in 20 patients and 18 of them have already been discharged from the RIO so far. “We contacted all suspected patients after we detected an infection in one of them during their first post-surgical follow-up,” he told The Hindu on Thursday. The Principal Secretary of the State Health Department Narayan Swaroop Nigam said medicines used in the surgeries have been sent for examination, and a team is conducting an investigation into the matter. “The Garden Reach State Hospital is reputed for its ophthalmology department,” he added. 60-year-old Rizwana Parveen who had undergone cataract surgery in her right eye at the Garden Reach State Hospital on June 28, recalled that she could not see anything with her right eye since the operation. “Doctors at Garden Reach assured me that eye drops would fix the issue. Two days later, the hospital called me up and asked me to report immediately to Medical College. They said my eye has been infected,” Parveen said. “I cannot see anything at all. The doctor told me to not keep any hope of ever being able to see again,” she added. Her daughter, Saba Aafreen, lamented over her mother’s future in tailoring after being left partially blind, with no children to support her. “My father also has impaired eyesight. My mother was his only caregiver, she works as a tailor to bear their living expenses,” Aafreen told The Hindu. “All their children are either married or out of town for work. Who will take care of my parents? Both are handicapped now.” With tears trickling down from behind her protective sunglasses, Parveen said she regrets deciding to get her eye operated. “I could see with this eye before the operation, it was just a bit shadowy. Now it is completely blind,” she said. Parveen was discharged by the hospital on Wednesday with instructions for a check-up ten days later. “The biggest fault here is the Government’s. What kind of medicines did they give the patients at a Government hospital? We are poor, their mistake cost my family its livelihood,” her daughter emphasised. In Brief: Farmers’ body Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on July 11 announced it will resume its agitation over its pending demands, including a legal guarantee to MSP and loan waiver, and submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. The SKM, an umbrella organisation of farm unions that led the 2020-21 farmers’ protest, made the announcement a day after its general body met but indicated that unlike then, its agitation this time may not be a march to Delhi. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 11 July 2024 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [View in browser]( [More newsletters]( NEET-UG paper leak case: CBI arrests key accused Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the paper leak of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) 2024 on July 11 [arrested one of the key accused Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky](. Earlier this week, the CBI had searched 15 locations in Bihar and Jharkhand in connection with the case. Ranjan allegedly ran a racket involved in the of leaking exam papers. Sources in the CBI said that he was arrested from Jharkhand and was brought to Patna on Thursday. Ranjan was produced before a Special CBI Court of Patna where he was remanded in CBI custody for 10 days for questioning. On June 30, the CBI team searched the house of Ranjan at his village Gagendra Bigha in Hilsa block of Nalanda district. The team had to break the lock of his house to conduct the search. It did so in the presence of two eye witnesses Gajendra Naresh and his wife Sarita Devi, both ward members. The Hindu too had visited his village and met the ward members, however Rocky’s father Suresh Choudhary was not in the village and his house was locked. After searching the house for nearly an hour, the agency had seized the xerox copy of some documents including HDFC bank cheque book, voter information and PAN card. Sources said that Rocky had arranged MBBS students from Patna and Ranchi to solve the NEET paper after the leak and he is also one of the trusted gang members of Sanjeev Mukhiya, who is believed to be the kingpin in the case. He is also a relative of Mukhiya. With the arrest of Rocky, a total of 28 people have been arrested by Bihar Police, Economic Offences Unit (EOU) and CBI. The Central agency had arrested 10 persons from Bihar. From Jharkhand, the CBI earlier arrested Hazaribagh Oasis School principal Ahsanul Haque and Vice-Principal Imtiaz Alam, along with a Hindi newspaper journalist Jamaluddin who allegedly assisted them on the day of examination. Last week, the CBI had arrested Aman Singh from Dhanbad. CBI sources also said that Rocky was planning to flee to Nepal. With his arrest, the CBI has come closer to Mukhiya, also known as Lootan, who works as technical assistant at Noorsarai Horticulture College in Nalanda. Mukhiya is a close associate of education mafia Ranjit Don who was once arrested by CBI in 2003 for being involved in Common Admission Test (CAT) paper leak. Ranjit Don also hails from Hilsa in Nalanda district. NEET-UG 2024 case | Supreme Court adjourns hearing of pleas alleging ‘paper leak’ to July 18 The Supreme Court on July 11 [adjourned hearing a batch of petitions]( alleging irregularities and malpractices in the conduct of the medical entrance exam NEET-UG 2024 to July 18. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud deferred the hearing at the request of the petitioners’ lawyers, who asked for additional time to peruse the affidavits filed by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the exam. The Bench further noted that the CBI had filed its report on the status of the probe in consonance with its prior directions. The Court while hearing the matter on July 8, said that the fact that questions were leaked, and the sanctity of the exam was compromised was “beyond question”. It however, maintained that the decision to cancel the exam in its entirety would be an “extreme last resort” as it affected the lives of over 23 lakh students. In its affidavit filed on Wednesday, the Centre claimed that there was neither any indication of “mass malpractice” nor a localised set of candidates benefitting in the exam while referring to a data analytics report submitted by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras. In a separate affidavit, the NTA denied allegations of petitioners that 67 candidates scored perfect marks as “fallacious and incorrect”. The top Court was further apprised that the counselling process for the controversy-hit medical entrance exam will be conducted in four rounds beginning from the third week of July. The candidature of a student found to be a beneficiary of any malpractice would be cancelled at any stage during the counselling process or even afterwards, the Centre’s 44-page affidavit stated. The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. Mumbai hit-and-run case: Mihir Shah admits he was driving BMW car at time of crash, say police Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case, has told the police [he was driving the car at the time of the crash]( which killed a woman and injured her husband, officials said citing the probe carried out so far. After crashing into the couple’s scooter in the early hours of Sunday, Shah was very much aware that the woman was stuck in one of the tyres of the luxury car, but still he drove recklessly and did not stop though motorists passing by frantically signalled and shouted, asking him to halt, an official said on Wednesday. To conceal his identity, Shah shaved his beard and trimmed his hair, the official said, adding they were trying to find out if anyone helped him in changing his appearance. The 24-year-old accused, who is in police custody till July 16, has claimed he possesses a driving licence, but the document was yet to be recovered, he said. So far, the statements of 14 persons, including Mihir Shah’s mother, sisters and friends, have been recorded, the official said. The police are likely to visit the crash spot in Worli area of south-central Mumbai and re-construct the entire crime scene as part of their investigation, he said. Mihir Shah’s father Rajesh Shah, a Shiv Sena politician from adjoining Palghar district, is also an accused in the case and currently out on bail. Police arrested Mihir Shah on Tuesday from neighbouring Thane district, two days after he allegedly rammed his BMW car into a two-wheeler, killing Kaveri Nakhwa (45), who was riding pillion, and injuring her husband Pradeep. The horrific accident was captured in CCTV cameras of the police installed at Mela Junction and Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk in Worli. After crossing the Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk, other motorists asked Mihir Shah to stop the car, but he did not listen to them and continued driving, according to the official. During interrogation, the accused, whose family chauffeur was sitting besides him, admitted he was behind the wheel at the time of the crash, but did not tell the police from which point he started driving and till when, he said. Mihir Shah is not cooperating in the investigation, as per the official. The police have booked him for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges. After the accident, the prime accused, his family members, who stay in Mumbai’s Borivali area, and his grandfather, who resides in Palghar, left their respective homes and remained untraceable. The police will bring Rajrishi Bidawat, the family chauffeur, and Mihir Shah face to face to get more information about the crash and to know the entire sequence of events, the official said. Bidawat, who was accompanying Mihir Shah at the time of the crash, is also an accused in the case. Controversial probationary IAS officer Pooja Khedkar joins duty in Washim; mum on row Controversial probationary Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Pooja Khedkar, who is in the eye of a raging storm for seeking special privileges and faking certificates, [joined the Washim district administration]( on July 11 to complete the remainder of her training amid clamour from activists demanding an in-depth probe into the murky circumstances of her recruitment. Meanwhile, the Centre constituted a single-member Committee, chaired by a senior officer of the rank of Additional Secretary to Government of India, to verify the candidature claims and other details of Ms. Khedkar. The Committee will submit its report within two weeks. A 2023 batch IAS officer, Khedkar, who was posted as Additional Collector in Pune, made news for dubious reasons after it transpired that she had sought special privileges including a separate office, house, car, and staff (including a constable) before taking charge as an assistant collector — perks not given to trainee officers — amid allegations that her father, a retired IAS officer, used his influence to get his daughter’s demands fulfilled. She even used a ‘Government of Maharashtra’ sticker and a red-blue beacon on her private luxury sedan, an Audi, while on probation in Pune. Hailing from a family of bureaucrats, more skeletons tumbled from Khedkar’s cupboard after it emerged that she allegedly faked mental illness to secure a disability certificate and appeared for the UPSC exam under the visually impaired category. The litany of controversies led to a probe and a report being submitted by Pune District Collector Suhas Diwase to the General Administration Department (GAD), which saw Khedkar being transferred to Washim district to complete the remaining term of her training as a “supernumerary assistant collector” till July 30, 2025. Speaking to reporters in Washim today before joining the administration, Khedkar refused to comment on her controversies, merely saying: “I am very happy to join in Washim district [administration]. I am looking forward to working here… I am not authorised to comment on this issue as government rules do not permit me to speak anything on this matter.” Washim District Collector Buveneswari S. said that Khedkar had been allotted the district as a probationary officer. “She has commenced work from today. The GAD has a schedule for probationary IAS officers. We are ready to give training to her under that schedule,” said Buveneswari. As per Diwase’s report, even prior to joining duty on June 3, Khedkar had repeatedly demanded that she be provided a separate cabin, car, residential quarters and a peon. She had also been using Pune Additional Collector Ajay More’s office while he was away, and had removed his nameplate and furniture, the report said. This was followed by allegations of her having faking disability and furnishing a phoney Other Backward Class (OBC) certificate to clear the civil services exam. Khedkar has repeatedly skipped her medical examination no less than six times by giving various excuses despite being asked to report at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi for verification of her disability certificate. Meanwhile, city-based RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar has demanded a thorough probe into the circumstances of Khedkar’s recruitment in the service. He alleged that she became an IAS officer from the OBC category where the creamy layer certificate limitation is an annual parental income of ₹8 lakh while her father’s election affidavit showed his wealth to be around ₹40 crore. Khedkar’s father, Deelip Khedkar, had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election from the Ahmednagar constituency as a candidate of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA). Kumbhar claimed that Khedkar’s parents, despite having a non-creamy layer certificate, possessed property that included 110 acres of agricultural land, no less than seven flats, 900 grams of gold, a gold watch worth ₹17 lakh and 4 cars. Kumbhar further alleged that Khedkar herself possessed property worth ₹17 crore. “The question that arises is how can such income fall into the non-creamy layer category? Furthermore, she has admitted to being mentally ill and a person with multiple disabilities. If someone is mentally ill, how can she be assigned a high post. She has not appeared for the medical at least six times. The GAD has to answer for these irregularities,” said Kumbhar. Speaking to The Hindu, the activist further said that no trainee IAS officer managed to secure a posting in his or her home town. “Despite being given Bhandara district as her initial posting, Pooja Khedkar was later given Pune. How did she manage that? This appointment is a blot on a prestigious service like the IAS. I am going to write to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Chief Minister’s Office,” said Kumbhar. Hours after J&K Bar’s election notice, ad hoc president Nazir Ronga ‘arrested without warrant’ in Srinagar The ad hoc chairman of the J&K High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), Kashmir, Nazir Ahmad Ronga, was [arrested by the Lieutenant Governor’s administration in Srinagar]( just hours after the Bar issued a notification related to the internal election. Lawyer Umair Ronga, son of advocate Ronga, said the J&K police arrived at their home at 1:10 a.m. “without any arrest warrant” and claimed “Uper se order hai (It’s an order from the top).” “We are left in a state of shock and profound distress. We can only hope this is not another instance of the PSA being misused to intimidate the members of the JKHCBA,” Umair Ronga said. The police have not commented on the arrest or accusations of being booked under the harsh Public Safety Act (PSA), a local law that deals with preventive detention without a trial up to two years. The 3,000-member strong Bar, which the administration accused of being “pro-secessionist” in the past and “a non-registered body now”, on July 10 sought nominations from lawyers to fill different posts through an internal election. The J&K administration disallowed the Bar elections in the past five years. It recently invoked Section 144 and barred any elections, citing fears of the law-and-order issue. The latest crackdown comes in spite of the recent amendment made to the Bar’s erstwhile constitution, dropping a paragraph that stated the Bar “will work towards a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute”. Meanwhile, in a fresh notification on Thursday, a Bar spokesman said, “On turn of events the JKHCBA has decided to suspend notification (issued on July 10).” Patients allege loss of vision after cataract surgery at Kolkata hospital Salim Sheikh, who is in his 50s, sized and cut fabric threads for a living. After a successful cataract operation on his right eye on June 11, he had gone back to the Garden Reach State Hospital to get the same operation on his left eye on June 27. But since then, he says, that eye has been left completely blind. “Some of us who were affected can at least see light in their botched eye. I only see darkness,” he said. Sheikh is one of [20-odd patients who have been left with partial to complete blindness in one eye after undergoing allegedly botched cataract surgeries]( at the Garden Reach State Hospital at the end of June. Sheikh, who earns ₹1,500 a week, spent ₹6,000 in just a few days on medicines, food, and his family’s travel to and from the hospital. “Everyday the doctors come here and prescribe expensive medicines for us to buy. I cannot afford this anymore,” he said, perched on his bed at the male eye ward at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO) at Medical College, Kolkata, where affected patients from Garden Reach have been sent for treatment. Acute financial stress compelled him to go home from the RIO on Wednesday, even before the doctors greenlit his discharge. “I work hard everyday to put food on the table. My work demands good eyesight. Now I have lost one eye completely. I don’t know what the future holds,” he said. According to the Medical Superintendent of the Garden Reach State Hospital Dr. Koushik Ray, infections were detected in 20 patients and 18 of them have already been discharged from the RIO so far. “We contacted all suspected patients after we detected an infection in one of them during their first post-surgical follow-up,” he told The Hindu on Thursday. The Principal Secretary of the State Health Department Narayan Swaroop Nigam said medicines used in the surgeries have been sent for examination, and a team is conducting an investigation into the matter. “The Garden Reach State Hospital is reputed for its ophthalmology department,” he added. 60-year-old Rizwana Parveen who had undergone cataract surgery in her right eye at the Garden Reach State Hospital on June 28, recalled that she could not see anything with her right eye since the operation. “Doctors at Garden Reach assured me that eye drops would fix the issue. Two days later, the hospital called me up and asked me to report immediately to Medical College. They said my eye has been infected,” Parveen said. “I cannot see anything at all. The doctor told me to not keep any hope of ever being able to see again,” she added. Her daughter, Saba Aafreen, lamented over her mother’s future in tailoring after being left partially blind, with no children to support her. “My father also has impaired eyesight. My mother was his only caregiver, she works as a tailor to bear their living expenses,” Aafreen told The Hindu. “All their children are either married or out of town for work. Who will take care of my parents? Both are handicapped now.” With tears trickling down from behind her protective sunglasses, Parveen said she regrets deciding to get her eye operated. “I could see with this eye before the operation, it was just a bit shadowy. Now it is completely blind,” she said. Parveen was discharged by the hospital on Wednesday with instructions for a check-up ten days later. “The biggest fault here is the Government’s. What kind of medicines did they give the patients at a Government hospital? We are poor, their mistake cost my family its livelihood,” her daughter emphasised. In Brief: Farmers’ body Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on July 11 announced it will [resume its agitation over its pending demands]( including a legal guarantee to MSP and loan waiver, and submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. The SKM, an umbrella organisation of farm unions that led the 2020-21 farmers’ protest, made the announcement a day after its general body met but indicated that unlike then, its agitation this time may not be a march to Delhi. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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