New Delhi

March 23 2002

In the first-ever cyber crime case of e-mail spamming (sending junk mails) from the country, the CBI has booked a Pondicherry school teenager who had been “bombarding” a UK-based company with e-mails from India.

The cyber crime cell of the CBI received a complaint from a web-hosting company in the United Kingdom that it was receiving thousands of e-mails from India, an agency spokesman said today.

In the spam mails, the accused had been asking the “complainant to shut down one of the websites being hosted from the company’s server and threatened to spam the service provider by sending porno e-mails in case the website was not deleted”, the spokesman said.

He said these spam e-mails had occupied more than four megabytes of the space on the server for a period of two-three days, causing a loss to his company as it was unable to transact any business.

The CBI traced the sender of the mails to Pondicherry and conducted searches and found the accused to be a 16-year-old teenager, a school drop-out and an Internet addict.

The agency has registered a case against him under sections 507 and 509 of the IPC and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Pondy temple hundi looted again

Pondicherry

March 22 2002

Miscreants broke open the hundi of the Nagamuthumariyamman Temple at Naveenarmandapam here last night and decamped with the booty.

The same hundi was looted two months ago.

Police, quoting a complaint in this regard, said the hundi had a collection of over Rs 1,500.

Praneshwaran skates to Pondy

Pondy

March 21 2002

A rousing reception was accorded to five-year-old Sri Praneshwaran when he reached here today after skating all the way from Chennai to spread the message of communal harmony.

At hand to welcome Praneshwaran at the end of his three-day skating expedition, covering 51 villages over the 160 km distance, were Pondicherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy, and his parents, among others.

The Chief Minister presented a statue of Lord Ganesha to Praneshwaran, a student of Velammal Matriculation Higher Secondary School at Chennai, which sponsored the trip.

Hailing the feat, Rangasamy said such an endeavour deserved to be praised in the context of the current tense situation in the country.

A beaming Praneshwaran told reporters: "I plan to take up another trip on skates from Chennai to Kanyakumari next year.”

For undertaking this expedition, he had undergone training for a year.

Local Administration Minister A Elumalai and PCC leader V Narayanasamy also felicitated the boy.

Stalin returns official cars

Chennai

March 22 2002

In a sudden move, the Mayor, M.K.Stalin, today returned his official cars to the Chennai Corporation Commissioner in charge, A.Karthik.

The move was in protest against the civic body's ``failure to initiate action against the use of the Corporation flag by the Deputy Mayor on his car,'' Mr. Stalin said.

``I had sent about five letters to the Commissioner seeking his intervention on the issue. He has failed to respond. So, as announced earlier, I have returned my official cars'', he told reporters later.

The tussle between him and the Deputy Mayor was sparked off when the latter began using the Corporation flag in his official car stating that there were no provisions guiding the civic body which prevented him from doing so.

The two cars, including the stand-by vehicle, are now kept parked at the Ripon Building. Mr. Stalin has not been using his official car since the controversy arose over the Deputy Mayor's move.

Kuwaiti girl with fake passport held

CHENNAI

March 22 2002

The Chennai Airport Immigration authorities not only detected yet another fake passport case but also unravelled a ``love story'' involving a young Kuwaiti girl, who eloped with an Indian youth and landed here.

Airport immigration officials told that the 23-year-old Dhalal Falag Al Azmi, residing in Kuwait, fell in love with the 25-year-old, Khader Bhasha, hailing from Cuddapah in Andhra Pradesh. The two decided to come to India with dreams of a happy and pleasent married life.

The ``young couple'' managed to steal the passport of an Indian maid working in the girl's household and changed the original photograph with that of Azmi.

Everything went as per the plan and the couple had a smooth passage by an Air India flight from Kuwait to Chennai on Thursday. But, Immigration officials detected that the passport had been tampered with.

The girl's health was affected by high stress and an airport doctor declared that she was `unit' to fly back, prompting the authorities to put off her deportation. She pleaded with the authorities not to deport her as she would be either executed or stoned to death in view of the stringent laws there.

A police complaint has been lodged and the girl was shifted to a private hospital near the airport for medical attention. Further investigation is on.