Owner leaves keys behind, house burgled

Chennai:08.02.2019

Around 28 sovereigns of gold jewellery worth ₹7 lakh and ₹3,000 were stolen from a house in Triplicane on Wednesday.

The incident came to light on Thursday morning when the owner of the house, Thiruvengadam, who works for an ITcompany, returnedfrom a relative’s house along with his family members.

Thiruvengadam approached the Anna Square police station and lodged a complaint.

Police said the residents had locked the door and kept the keys, including those of the safe, near the window. “The thieves used the keys to open the door. There was no forced entry,” the officer said. “Besides the gold, some foreign currency is also missing,” he said.

Police are scanning CCTV camera footage from the area to trace the suspects. “They might have kept an eye on the family to learn about their ways before targeting the house” said an investigating officer. TNN

Brookfield eyes Jio’s ₹1.07L cr telecom assets in mega deal

Reeba Zachariah & Boby Kurian

Mumbai:08.02.2019

Brookfield Asset Management, one of the world’s top infrastructure and private equity investors, is in early talks to buy controlling shares in Reliance Jio’s telecom towers and fibre assets valued at over $15 billion (₹1.07 lakh crore), people directly aware of the matter said. The deal, if it happens, would be one of the largest M&As in India.

Jio, the telecom arm of India’s most valued company Reliance Industries (RIL), recently said it was spinning off tower and fibre into two separate entities, as part of an anticipated deleveraging exercise. RIL is keen on retiring and refinancing a chunk of its ₹3 lakh crore, or $40 billion, debt mostly soaked up to finance Jio’s disruptive roll-out.

Brookfield may become largest telecom infra player

Jio operates with a network of over 2.2 lakh towers, including third party ones, and around three lakh route kilometre of optic fibre, in serving a subscriber base fast approaching 300 million. Canada-based Brookfield, managing assets worth more than $330 billion globally, has been eyeing telecom infrastructure assets in Asia’s third largest economy for a while. Brookfield had purchased the loss-making East West Pipeline—a 1,400km pipeline connecting Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat—entity owned by Mukesh Ambani and family for $2 billion last year.

“Jio plans to take certain infrastructure assets out of the balance sheet as part of the de-leveraging exercise. It is exploring a deal with Brookfield to spin off assets which has the ability to carry huge debt when backed by long-term operating agreements,” aid a person familiar with the matter. Brookfield, which has built a rapport with RIL, along with its global sponsors are keen on a full acquisition, but details would be flushed out only as talks move forward. A potential stake buy in Jio’s assets could make Brookfield the largest telecom infrastructure player in the country. Brookfield was unavailable for comment. RIL didn’t respond to an email query sent on Wednesday till the time of going to press. Indus Towers, majorityowned by rival telcos Vodafone and Airtel, is merging with Bharti Infratel creating a $14 billion combine with 1.63 lakh towers. Private equity investor KKR and one of its sponsors Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board will hold 6% in the combined entity. KKR had bought into Bharti Infratel to trigger a $5 billion share purchase in the eventual combine, but the deal-making hasn’t progressed.

Jio’s infra assets could be valued anywhere between $12-15 billion depending on how it consolidates towers spread between its own, third party and those of the bankrupt Reliance Communications (RCom), which it was expected to buyout. Incidentally, Brookfield was close to acquiring Anil Ambani-owned RCom’s tower unit before the deal collapsed.

If the transaction with Brookfield gets completed, it will be a rare private equity deal within the broader RIL. In the past, the group has had a joint venture with New York-based DE Shaw for financial services.

Ransom attempt goes wrong, friends kill city engg student

A.Selvaraj @timesgroup.com

Chennai:08.02.2019

Police claim to have solved the murder of engineering student K Saravanan by arresting three people including two of his friends, who apparently kidnapped him for ransom. Saravanan’s body was recovered from a stone quarry at Kayar near Mamallapuram on January 28, a week after his mother had filed a missing complaint with the Adambakkam police.

Police said the three panicked and killed Saravanan when they came to know his mother had gone to police. They slit his wrists and made deep cuts on the head before tying up his hands and legs. They then attached stones to the body and threw it into the water-filled quarry, where it sank.

Police got a breakthrough when another of Saravanan’s friends got a text message from his mobile number on January 26 asking him for money. They traced the message to Puducherry and went there but found no trace of Saravanan.

Phone message provided police with breakthrough

The police then traced the mobile with its IMEI number to a man in Tiruvallur. He told them he had sold the phone to a dealer in Moore Market near Central railway station. The dealer told the police he had sold it to three men just a couple of days earlier.

This gave the police enough leads to crack the case using the wide network of CCTV cameras in and around the city. Mamallapuram DSP Subburaj said, “We monitored the suspects movements with the help of the CCTV cameras. As we were monitoring the footage, we called one of Saravanan’s friends Deepan Chakaravarthy to help us to identify suspects. However, he gave lame excuses and left for his house. Then he disappeared from his home.”

This roused the police’s suspicions and they traced and nabbed Deepan. Under sustained interrogation Deepam broke down and confessed. The police then arrested the other two as well.

The three — Deepan, 24, of Adambakkam, Rajesh, 23, of Keerapakkam, and Parthiban, 26, of Padianallur near Red Hills — had apparently hatched an elaborate plan to hire a truck and drive around with Saravanan in it while they waited for the ransom money. As part of the plan, Deepan who lived near Saravanan’s house had invited him to Guduvancherry on January 22. They bought liquor and went to Keerapakkam, where they all drank. Deepan Chakaravarthy alone and keep awake and alert to make ransom calls to Saravanan’s mother Sankari.

It was Deepan who found out that Saravanan’s mother had gone to the police late that night when he did not return home. They panicked and decided to kill Saravanan. The three reportedly told the police that drawing on the Kamal Haasan movie ‘Papanasam’, they decided to create alibis for themselves and divert attention away from them.

As part of this plan, they left Saravanan’s motorbike at the quarry but kept his sim card after destroying his phone. The bike is missing and police suspect someone else may have chanced upon and stolen it. The trio then decided to go to Puducherry and other places and use Saravanan’s sim card to keep up the pretence that he was alive.

But their game was up once Saravanan’s body surfaced on January 26.

The arrested trio with police personnel

₹25CR CASH, 12KG GOLD

I-T digs up TN graveyard to bring out ₹433cr unaccounted income
B.Sivakumar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:08.02.2019

Income tax officials who searched Saravana Stores ‘brahmandamai’ and realty firms Lotus Group and GSquare in Chennai and Coimbatore for more than a week had to dig up some graveyards to unearth cash, documents, gold and diamonds worth crores of rupees.

In all, ₹433 crore unaccounted income has been unearthed at the three business establishments. About ₹25 crore in cash, 12 kg gold and 626 carats of diamonds were also seized.

The simultaneous searches at 72 places belonging to Saravana Stores owner Yogarathinam Pondurai, his associate Ramajayam alias Bala, owner of Lotus Group and GSquare, and their associates would have come a cropper if not for the leads officials got about a vehicle carrying valuables and documents doing the rounds in Chennai. “Some police officials had tipped off owners of business establishments, including Pondurai and Bala, about possible I-T searches as heavy police protection had been sought and many cars were hired by the I-T department to transport officials,” said a senior I-T official.

‘Staff deleted records from computers’

The official said, “Pondurai and Bala put most documents, huge amount of cash, gold and diamonds in an SUV and instructed the driver to just keep driving across the city. Their staff deleted all records from the computers and CCTV footages. Following questioning, we came to know about the SUV carrying cash and valuables. We intercepted it with the help of police. Not much could be seized from the vehicle, but we got information about several bags of valuables buried in burial grounds and dumped in some buildings.”

In all, ₹433 crore unaccounted income has been traced in the three business establishments. The sleuths also seized ₹25 crore in cash, 12 kg gold and 626 carats diamonds.

The protracted operation ended only after 9 days. “We have got evidence of huge business transactions between Pondurai and Bala. About ₹284 crore unaccounted income was traced in Pondurai’s business establishments and about ₹149 crore was detected in the two firms owned by Bala,” he said.

The I-T department has engaged a team of IT professionals to reconstruct all the data deleted from the seized computers.

Pondurai, Bala, their partners and business associates were dealing in huge amount of cash, the official said. “A property worth ₹180 crore was bought by them, entirely using cash, in Chennai,” said the official.

It took sustained questioning to extract information from owners and employees of all the three companies, officials said.

CMDA-DTCP merger, a common pool of town planners in Tamil Nadu

The government has already brought all the construction and planning norms under one rule book — Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules, 2019.

Published: 07th February 2019 03:51 AM 

By C Shivakumar

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Soon, Tamil Nadu will have a common pool of town planners who are well acquainted with the Development Control Regulations and hence, facilitate planned urban and rural development. 

The government is planning to merge the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) and the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) to achieve this integration.

This merger, a top official told Express, would happen before the recruitment of the next batch of town planners. The government has already brought all the construction and planning norms under one rule book — Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules, 2019.

Earlier on June 5, 2017, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had announced in the Assembly that a separate cadre of town planners would be created at the State level with the DTCP Commissioner as its controlling authority. Initially, there were also plans to rope in local bodies for the setting up of the common cadre. However, the plan has now been kept in abeyance due to administrative issues. Sources say that involving the local bodies would take much more time as they will have to be brought on board. Still, there are many more challenges remaining to be addressed.


Both the CMDA and the DTCP have a shortage of qualified town planners. As per information available with Express, of the 232 CMDA employees, only 56 are qualified town planners. Similarly, the DTCP and its subordinate offices have only 10 planners with post-graduate degrees. The creation of a common cadre, if implemented soon, is likely to solve this problem. Currently, the DTCP has a sanctioned strength of 801 but has only 267 permanent staff.

It is learnt that there is a huge backlog of vacancies at the levels of the Joint Director, Deputy Director and Assistant Director which are being filled by temporary staff. As of now, the Directorate of Town Panchayats and Directorate of Rural Development do not have a separate town planning wing. By considering the Town and Country Planning Organisation guidelines, a tentative module for establishment in the following departments has been worked out.

Big plans

Although the common cadre for local bodies is likely to be delayed, sources said that requirement of tentative teams of planners for Corporations, municipalities and panchayat is being worked out

Anna University order to retain faculty members’ certificates stayed

It would also be useful to prevent the same teaching staff name being listed out by multiple institutions at the time of affiliation, he said.

Published: 07th February 2019 05:47 AM 

Anna University (File | EPS)

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has stayed all proceedings pursuant to an order, dated December 4, 2018, of the Anna University, which directed its affiliated colleges to retain original certificates and other documents produced for verification at the time of appointment.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana granted the injunction while passing interim orders on a writ petition from the All India Private Educational Institutions Association, represented by its State general secretary K Palaniyappan of Saligramam, on Wednesday.

The stay will be in respect of the members of the petitioner association alone.

The main prayer is to quash the December 2018 order and instead, to direct the university to formulate the ‘pan-India’ mechanism to monitor the services of the staff members of the private educational institutions affiliated to it, ensure their viability and provide academic support to the students.

Petitioner’s senior counsel K M Vijayan submitted that there were instances of the teaching faculties and other staff leaving the institution without informing the management in the middle of the academic year. It caused serious hardship both to the management and the students. There are also lot of complaints that a faculty member is shown working in different colleges. Complaints in this regard are being published and this is against law. Moreover, the very same notification was challenged and the High Court granted an interim stay on the order on December 19 in respect of another petitioner.


Vijayan added that the movement of the teaching staff can be monitored by the university if the ‘pan-India’ mechanism is created. Under this, the university can have a track of such teaching staff to ensure the safety of the students. It would also be useful to prevent the same teaching staff name being listed out by multiple institutions at the time of affiliation, he said.

Chennai Police Commissioner launches mobile app that will help trace stolen mobiles

Once the buyer of second-hand mobile inserts a SIM card, they will get an SMS stating that the phone had been stolen.

Published: 06th February 2019 05:25 PM 

Actor Vijay Setupathi launches the 'DIGICOP' app in the presence of Chennai Police Commissioner Dr. AK Vishwanathan. (Photo| Debdutta Mitra)
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Feel apprehensive about buying a second-hand phone? Well, Chennai police's new mobile app will help set your mind at ease. The app, DIGI COP, launched on Wednesday, can tell a buyer if the mobile phone they have purchased second hand is a stolen mobile or not.

The app was launched, by the City Police Commissioner Dr. AK Viswanathan in the presence of actor Vijay Sethupathi, to cut down on mobile theft cases. “The user can also lodge mobile theft complaints using the app and can check if the user’s mobile is in the police list of retrieved mobiles. The user can also know if their stolen two-wheeler had been traced by the police,” a press release from the Commissioner's office said.

According to police, the victim of a mobile theft can register their complaint with the police mentioning IMEI number along with the phone number, so once the buyer of second-hand mobile inserts a SIM card, they will get an SMS stating that the phone had been stolen. The app will also notify the complainant that their mobile had been traced.

Through the app, the user can also know the traffic condition in the city and also information about nearby police stations. The police department is expected to add more features to the app in the future.