CB-CID officer's wife found dead at Lucknow residence, suicide suspected
Nitesh Singh, in her late thirties, was the wife of Mukesh Pratap Singh, an additional superintendent of police posted with the CB-CID here, a police officer said.
"The incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon. The husband was not present at the house when the incident took place," Additional DCP (Central) Mamta Rani Chaudhary told PTI.
Police personnel who entered the house in the Mahanagar police station area found Nitesh hanging from a hook on the ceiling. The body has been sent for postmortem, Chaudhary said.
Police said Nitesh was reportedly suffering from health issues.
"The matter is under investigation," the officer said.
Discussing suicides can be triggering for some. However, suicides are preventable. A few major suicide prevention helpline numbers in India are 011-23389090 from Sumaitri (Delhi-based) and 044-24640050 from Sneha Foundation (Chennai-based).
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Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Spike in job fraud: Police register five new cases
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The Wire
3 hours ago
- The Wire
‘Legitimisation Cell': The Israeli Military Unit Tasked With Linking Gaza Journalists to Hamas
The Israeli military has operated a special unit called the 'Legitimisation Cell', tasked with gathering intelligence from Gaza that can bolster Israel's image in the international media, according to three intelligence sources who spoke to 972 Magazine and Local Call and confirmed the unit's existence. Established after October 7, the unit sought information on Hamas's use of schools and hospitals for military purposes, and on failed rocket launches by armed Palestinian groups that harmed civilians in the enclave. It has also been assigned to identify Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel's killing of reporters — the latest of whom was Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, killed in an Israeli airstrike this past week. According to the sources, the Legitimisation Cell's motivation was not security, but public relations. 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Intelligence officers said they were told their work was vital to allowing Israel to prolong the war. 'The team regularly collected intelligence that could be used for hasbara – say, a stockpile of [Hamas] weapons [found] in a school – anything that could bolster Israel's international legitimacy to keep fighting,' another source explained. 'The idea was to [allow the military to] operate without pressure, so countries like America wouldn't stop supplying weapons.' An Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) tour shows weapons and ammunition from the field used by Hamas on October 7, at the Julis Military Base on November 10, 2023. Photo: Mishel Amzaleg/GPO via 972 Magazine. The unit also sought evidence linking Gaza's police to the October 7 attack, in order to justify targeting them and dismantling Hamas's civilian security force, one source familiar with the Legitimisation Cell's work said. Two of the intelligence sources recounted that, in at least one case since the war began, the Legitimisation Cell misrepresented intelligence in a way that allowed for the false portrayal of a journalist as a member of Hamas's military wing. 'They were eager to label him as a target, as a terrorist – to say it's okay to attack him,' one source recalled. 'They said: during the day he's a journalist, at night he's a platoon commander. Everyone was excited. But there was a chain of errors and corner-cutting. 'In the end, they realised he really was a journalist,' the source continued, and the journalist wasn't targeted. A similar pattern of manipulation is evident in the intelligence presented on Al-Sharif. According to the documents released by the army, which have not been independently verified, he was recruited to Hamas in 2013 and remained active until he was injured in 2017 – meaning that, even if the documents were accurate, they suggest he played no role in the current war. 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The day after the explosion, the army released a recording that the Legitimisation Cell had located in intelligence intercepts, presented as a phone call between two Hamas operatives blaming the incident on a Islamic Jihad misfire. Many global outlets subsequently considered the claim likely, including some who conducted their own investigations, and the release dealt a severe blow to the credibility of Gaza's Health Ministry – hailed within the Israeli army as a victory for the cell. A Palestinian human rights activist told 972 and Local Call in December 2023 that he was stunned to hear his own voice in the recording, which he said was simply a benign conversation with another Palestinian friend. He insisted he had never been a Hamas member. A source who worked with the Legitimisation Cell said that publishing classified material like a phone call was deeply controversial. 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They said that the goal was to 'discredit' journalists reporting on the war on broadcast networks 'in allegedly a reliable and precise way', but who they claimed are actually part of Hamas. According to the sources, these research teams do not play a role in the selection of individual targets to be attacked. 'I never once hesitated to convey the truth' On August 10, the Israeli army killed six journalists in a strike it openly admitted was aimed at Al Jazeera reporter Al-Sharif. Two months earlier, in July, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had warned it feared for Al-Sharif's life, saying he was 'targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination'. After Al-Sharif posted a viral video in July of himself in tears while covering Gaza's hunger crisis, the Israeli army's Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, published three different videos attacking him, accusing him of 'propaganda' and of participating in 'Hamas's false starvation campaign'. Al-Sharif identified a link between Israel's media war and the military one. 'Adraee's campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction; it is a real-life threat,' he told CPJ. Less than a month later, he was killed, with the army presenting what they said was declassified intelligence of his membership in Hamas to justify the strike. Israeli soldiers work on their tanks in a staging area on the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on August 13, 2025. Photo: AP/PTI. The military had already claimed in October 2024 that six Al Jazeera journalists, including Al-Sharif, were military operatives, an accusation he vehemently denied. He became the second from that list to be targeted, after reporter Hossam Shabat. Since the October accusation, his whereabouts were well known, leading many observers to question whether killing Al-Sharif – who regularly reported from Gaza City – was part of Israel's plan to enforce a media blackout ahead of its military preparations to capture the city. In response to questions from 972 Magazine about Al-Sharif's killing, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson reiterated that 'the IDF attacked a terrorist from the Hamas terrorist organisation who was operating under the guise of a journalist from the Al Jazeera network in the northern Gaza Strip,' and claimed that the army 'does not intentionally harm uninvolved individuals and journalists in particular, all in accordance with international law.' 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A version of this article, republished here with permission from 972 Magazine, was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here. 972 Magazine is an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists.
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
Mephedrone factory linked to Salim Dola busted in Bhopal
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Mumbai busted a mephedrone manufacturing unit in Bhopal with links to Mumbai as well as an international drug network run by Salim Dola, who is believed to be connected to Dawood Ibrahim's gang, and arrested three persons, officials said. The factory was operationg from Jagdishpur area in Huzur Tehsil of Bhopal district, Madhya Pradesh. According to DRI officials, during interrogation, the arrested accused confessed that the raw material required in the manufacture of the narcotic drug were supplied from Bhiwandi on the direction of Dola. During further probe, the agency also learnt that 400 kilograms raw material were supplied to manufacture mephedrone in the Bhopal factory from March till July. Three persons involved in the racket were arrested and several others who allegedly operated between Bhopal and Bhiwandi area to run the drug syndicate were questioned, officials said. During investigation, officials also learnt that one of the drug syndicate members received a call from Turkey-based Salim Dola in February, 2025, who offered him a handsome amount to procure the chemicals for the manufacture of mephedrone. Later chemical supplier Viren Shah was roped in and was offered a commission of around Rs 2,000 per kilogram above the market price. He has been allegedly supplying '2 Bromo 4 Methyl Propiophenone' every month and had supplied 50 kilograms of the checcmical in March, 100 kilograms in April, 50 kilograms in May, 100 kilograms in June and100 kilograms in July, said an official. On the instruction of Dola, the syndicate member along with Shah mutually decided to supply the chemicals without bill receipt to avoid any trail of the illegal supply of chemicals and created forged documents, added the official. The DRI's Mumbai zonal unit also summoned one Azharuddin Idrisi on Saturday and during interrogation, he revealed that one Ashraf Rain offered him monetary benefit for transporting of raw material from Bhiwandi and Thane (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) to Bhopal. He was asked to collect the raw material at Anjur Phata, Bhiwandi, and load on to a mini truck to transport them to Bhopal. Several others are also being questioned and search operations are still going on, added the official on the condition of anonymity. Dola's network In July this year, the Mumbai unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) announced a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh for any credible information on the whereabouts of alleged narcotics trafficker, Salim Ismail Dola, who specialises in the production of MD. Over the years, mephedrone, a synthetic drug, has emerged as a key challenge for enforcement agencies. Believed to be close to Dawood Ibrahim's gang, Dola, as per officials, was forced to move to Turkey from where it would be difficult to get him back to India. Narcotics agencies believe Dola has links with drug cartels in South Africa and Mexico. He was first arrested at the Mumbai airport in 1998, allegedly in possession of 40 kilograms of Mandrax. Police believe that he now handles the role of Salim Mirchi, who earlier handled narcotics business for the D Company. While Dola has managed to remain elusive, his son Taher was deported from the United Arab Emirates on June 13 and his nephew Mustafa Mohammad Kubbawala on July 11, using mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) and Interpol framework.
