Bhopal Diary

The wife of a former Rajya Sabha member was recently detained at the Raja Bhoj Airport in Bhopal after two live cartridges were found in her bag by the Central Industrial Security Force personnel during security check. Archana Thakur, wife of senior Congress leader Surendra Singh Thakur, was handed over to the Gandhi Nagar police after she failed to produce a valid licence for the bullets. She was, however, released by the cops after being questioned about her address and background. No case has yet been registered against her and she has instead been given time by cops to produce the relevant documents, Gandhi Nagar police station sources said.

Politics is art of fooling people, says official
A senior IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre is in the news for taking a dig at the political class through his social media post. Shobhit Jain, a 2000 batch IAS officer posted as secretary in the MP School Education Department, recently wrote on his Facebook wall, “Politics is an art of fooling people. The bigger the bluff you are, you stand more chances of winning. Jain was in the news last month also for candidly posting on his FB wall his views on improving the quality of education.

Interstate ATM thieves’ gang busted
A 30-year-old man who is allegedly the mastermind of an interstate gang of ATM thieves was arrested by the MP Police Cyber Cell Bhopal recently. Mohd Hussain Hakam was arrested in connection with an ATM fraud involving Rs 17.36 lakh that happened at an SBI ATM located in Shivay Complex in July 2017. Hakam had come to Bhopal intending to execute another ATM fraud. The gang is also active in other states, including Maharashtra and Gujarat. According to the police, the gang used a small handheld skimming machine and a pint-sized hidden camera and fixed it near the keyboard to steal the card details of customers and stole money from their accounts.

Bungalow allotment to four ex-CMs cancelled
A month after the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Jabalpur ordered that bungalows allotted to ex-chief ministers in Bhopal be vacated within a month, the state government cancelled on Thursday the allotment of official bungalows to four ex-CMs, including Uma Bharti, Kailash Joshi, Babulal Gaur and Digvijaya Singh. The Principal Secretary (Home), Malay Shrivastava, confirmed that the bungalows allotted to the four CMs had been cancelled. On June 12, while hearing a petition filed by a law student, a division bench of the court had directed the state government to have the bungalows allotted to the former CMs in Bhopal vacated within a month.