Around 60 per cent electricity consumers in Tripura do not pay energy bills, forcing the authorities to take drastic steps including disconnection of power lines and imposition of hefty fines against the defaulters, an official said on Saturday.

A senior official of the Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited (TSECL) said that out of 9.87 lakh electricity consumers in the state, only 4.32 lakh customers are paying their bills on time.

“Lakhs of electricity consumers, mostly in rural and interior areas, do not pay their electricity bills. We have imposed a hefty fine and disconnected electric lines of the defaulters,” the official said.

He said that during the past two years, the electricity lines of thousands of default consumers were disconnected.

In a significant breakthrough in the ongoing anti-LWE operations, the Jamui Police in Bihar on Saturday arrested Sarita Soren a.k.a. Sita Soren, a female Maoist operative who had been absconding for the last 15 years.

The arrest took place near Karma village, an official said.

The development marks the second major success within three days for the district police as the force on Thursday nabbed another long-absconding Maoist operative involved in serious cases from as far back as 2005.

Jamui Superintendent of Police Madan Kumar Anand confirmed the arrest and said that Sarita Soren had been on the police radar for years but consistently evaded capture.

Five Maoists were killed in two encounters with security forces in an ongoing operation in the Indravati National Park area of Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, police officials said on Saturday.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has hailed the success and expressed his wish to meet the brave soldiers who are engaged in anti-Maoist mission.

With the latest casualties, seven Maoists, including top leaders Sudhakar and Bhaskar, were neutralised in the operation in the last three days, they said.

In a major crackdown on human trafficking and child exploitation, Gopalganj police of Bihar, under the direction of Superintendent of Police Awadhesh Dixit and in collaboration with the Mission Mukti Foundation, raided an orchestra event near Ratan Sarai village in the Barauli police station area and rescued minor girls, officials said on Saturday.

The operation, which was carried out on Friday, uncovered disturbing scenes where minor girls were being forced to perform vulgar dances under the guise of a cultural program organised by the so-called "Riya Orchestra."

Acting on confidential intelligence, the police swiftly intervened, rescuing 14 minor girls and arresting the orchestra operator, Rakesh Singh, a resident of Machhrihatta village.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a chargesheet against Maoist cadre Ashu Korsa in connection with the targeted killing of an Indian Army jawan, Motiram Achala, in Chhattisgarh.

The chargesheet, filed in the NIA special court in Jagdalpur, outlines Korsa's involvement in a larger conspiracy orchestrated by the banned CPI (Maoist) to eliminate Achala.

Achala, a soldier visiting his native village, was brutally shot dead on February 25, 2024, while attending a local fair in Useli village in the Amabeda area of Kanker district.

The attack, carried out in full public view, was intended to instil fear among locals and deter individuals associated with security forces.

The Special Wing of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) will begin its probe into the Chinnaswamy stampede tragedy, which claimed 11 lives on June 4, starting Saturday. Concurrently, the magisterial enquiry by the Deputy Commissioner of Bengaluru Urban district is also progressing.

Sources confirmed that the CID probe will be headed by SP Shubanvita and Dy SPs Gowtham and Purushottam were named as investigators.

The CID is likely to seek custody of the four arrested accused, who were sent to jail, for questioning on Monday, June 9. The department has already filed a petition in the court for this purpose.

CID sleuths are scheduled to visit the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday to inspect locations where the stampede resulted in deaths and injuries.

At least 80 tourists stranded in the northern part of Sikkim due to inclement weather and landslides have been safely evacuated, an official said on Friday.

A total of four helicopter sorties were conducted from Pakyong Greenfield Airport to Chaten using MI-02, MI-49, and MI-39 helicopters, resulting in the evacuation of 80 individuals.

Among those evacuated, 63 persons were tourists, while 17 were locals. To ensure their further travel to Gangtok, the state government arranged state transport buses at the airport for the convenience of the evacuees.

In order to address an immediate health concern, a medical team from the Health and Family Welfare Department, Pakyong, was deployed at the airport to conduct basic health check-ups upon arrival.

Three members of a family, which includes husband, wife, and their only daughter, tried to commit suicide on Friday by consuming heavy doses of sleeping pills at Chandannagar in the Hooghly district of West Bengal.

Already, the mother, Sunita Das (83), has been declared dead. The father, Ekendranath Das (87), and his daughter, Sharmishtha Das (43), are currently undergoing treatment at a local hospital in Chandannagar. While the daughter is completely out of danger now, the father is also recovering fast, confirmed an official of the Chandannagar Police Commissionerate.

Initial investigation and the statement given by the daughter to the police revealed that although they were once in an affluent financial condition, the three members of the family had been reeling under an acute financial crisis for the past few years.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested a Junior Engineer, Naval Officers Family Residential Area, Mumbai, for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 4.5 lakh from a vendor for clearing his bills.

A case was registered on Thursday against the accused on the basis of a written complaint of the company representative, whose bills were pending.

The CBI said that the accused demanded a bribe of Rs 5.5 lakh from the complainant for clearing the pending bills of his firm, and after negotiation, he finally agreed to accept Rs 4.5 lakh.

On receiving a complaint from the company owner, the CBI laid a trap and caught the accused red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 4.5 lakh.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a Prosecution Complaint (PC) against three persons in connection with a money laundering case originating from a fund transfer scam in Karnataka Bhovi Development Corporation (KBDC), an official said on Friday.

The three accused -- R. Leelavathy, B.K. Nagarajappa and P. D. Subbappa – are facing investigations over alleged misappropriation of funds from the KBDC – a Karnataka government agency set up for the development of Scheduled Castes below the poverty line.

The prosecution complaint was filed on June 3, 2025, the ED said in a statement.