(9 Nov) In his first public comments on the latest scandal rocking the Vatican, Pope Francis told followers in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that the theft of documents describing financial malfeasance inside the Holy See was a “crime” but pledged to continue reforms of its administration. The pope said that publishing the documents in two books released last week “was a deplorable act that doesn’t help.” The books, “Merchants in the Temple” by Gianluigi Nuzzi and “Avarice” by Emiliano Fittipaldi, detail mismanagement and alleged greed in the Vatican, and are seen as part of a bitter internal struggle between reformers and the old guard.

“This sad fact will certainly not divert me from the reform work that we are pursuing with my collaborators and with the support of all of you,” the pope said to cheers from the crowd. Among the disclosures in “Merchants in the Temple,” Nuzzi writes that the cost of sainthood can run up to half a million dollars and tells the tale of a monsignor who allegedly broke down the wall of his neighbor, an ailing priest, to expand his apartment. Fittipaldi, meanwhile, claimed that a children’s hospital foundation had paid 200,000 euros ($215,000) toward the renovation of the apartment of the Vatican’s No. 2 at the time, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and that nearly 400,000 euros donated by parishioners worldwide to help the poor was funneled to pay for Vatican administration. The pope underlined that the leaked documents were the result of the reform course that he began and that measures had already been taken to address problems, “with some visible results.”

Pope Francis has made it a top priority to reform the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia, a hive of intrigue and gossip. He appointed a commission of eight experts in 2013 to gather information and make recommendations after an earlier expose helped drive his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to a historic resignation. Two former members of that commission have been arrested as part of an investigation into the stolen documents. Last week the Vatican described the books as “fruit of a grave betrayal of the trust given by the pope, and, as far as the authors go, of an operation to take advantage of a gravely illicit act of handing over confidential documentation.” It added that the publication did not help “in any way to establish clarity and truth, but rather generate confusion and partial and tendentious conclusions.”

NEW DELHI: After being on the run for the past 27 years, underworld don Chhota Rajan was deported here early today from Indonesia by a joint team headed by CBI officials for facing trial in over 70 cases of murder, extortion and drug smuggling against him in Delhi and Mumbai. One of India’s most wanted criminals, the 55-year-old gangster, whose real name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, was whisked away soon after landing at the Palam Technical area and taken straight to the barricaded CBI headquarters where a team of officials started questioning him.

There was high drama as the CBI anticipating a large media presence used a decoy car to ward them off. Due to security concerns, Rajan is unlikely to be taken to a Delhi court and instead a magistrate will be brought to the CBI headquarters for his remand, agency sources said, adding that he will also be subjected to the mandatory medical check up. He is expected to the kept in the national capital where he will also be questioned by sleuths of various investigating agencies on his claims of having further evidence to nail India’s most wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and his links with Pakistan’s ISI. Rajan, who has reportedly tipped Indian security agencies about the movement of Dawood and his aides, was flown in an Indian Air Force Gulfstream-III aircraft from the Indonesian tourist town Bali. Official cars with flashing lights accompanied by heavy- armed escort vans were seen leaving the Palam Technical Area at around 5:30 AM, as anxious camerapersons and photographers made unsuccessful attempts to get a glimpse of the underworld don, who was in one of those vehicles with tinted glasses. Rajan had told media in Bali that he was happy to return to India and had rubbished reports that his arrest was orchestrated as he was facing threat from Dawood’s men. Ahead of his arrival in India, Maharashtra government made a surprise announcement of handing over all the cases related to the underworld don to the CBI as the agency had expertise in handling such cases. This move comes barely a few days after the state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had been making claims that Rajan will be brought only to Mumbai. The Maharashtra government’s sudden U-turn raised many eyebrows within the police establishment in the megalopolis as the Chief Minister himself had ordered setting up of a special cell inside Arthur Road prison with arrangement for dialysis. Rajan is on dialysis as his both kidneys have been affected. Rajan, after his arrest, had expressed reservation over plans to lodge him in a Mumbai jail, fearing that Dawood may target him there. Rajan had told reporters in Bali that “some in the Mumbai police” have links with Dawood. “The Mumbai police has done a lot of ‘atyachar’ (atrocities) on me,” he had alleged. Till the formalities of CBI to take over the

Maharashtra cases are completed, Rajan will be in the custody of Special Cell of Delhi Police which has six cases registered against him. Rajan was arrested on the basis of an Interpol Red Corner notice at Bali airport on October 25 on his arrival from Australia. His deportation was deferred by a day as the international airport in Bali was shut down due to spewing of volcanic ash from a nearby mountain. Immediately after his flight took off, Indian Ambassador to Indonesia Gurjit Singh tweeted: “#ChotaRajan deported successfully to India. Delay due to Bali airport closure ends. Thanks Indonesia for support.” Rajan is wanted in over 75 crimes ranging from murder, extortion to smuggling and drug trafficking. Mumbai Police has nearly 70 cases registered against Rajan, including 20 of murder, four cases under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, one under Prevention of Terrorism Act and over 20 cases under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act. Delhi Police has six cases registered against Rajan, who was a close aide of fugitive underworld don Dawood at one point but parted ways before the 1993 Mumbai blasts were conspired. In 2000, there was an attempt on Rajan’s life when Dawood’s men tracked him down to a hotel in Bangkok but he managed a dramatic escape by jumping from the first floor of the hotel. Rajan had fled India in 1988 for Dubai

An FIR has been lodged against the constables of the Andheri Police station after a video went viral in which the men in uniform were seen abusing and beating a young couple. Ghulam Maqbool Sheikh, an eyewitness to the brutality, said the woman was slapped repeatedly by the cops until she was bleeding. “The couple was fighting outside the police station when a constable asked the girl if she was being harassed. She said it was a personal matter and did not want any interference by the cops, nevertheless they were taken inside the police station,” Sheikh told ANI. –

The boy and the girl were made to sit separately and after a while she got scared and started creating a commotion, which is when the cops started slapping her. “She asked her friend to help her and when he came forward the police did not spare him as well and beat him up badly. The woman kept screaming for mercy but to no avail,” the eyewitness added. Sheikh, who works for an NGO, filmed the entire incident on camera and demanded action against the cops. “We are going to file an FIR against the cops involved in the attack on my clients at the Andheri Police station at 12:30 am on November 2nd. The couple was thrashed by the cops, including the woman constable, and was also illegally detained in the lock-up. They were also taken to the hospital for an illegal medical examination and we have the certificate as proof,” Nitin Satpute, the lawyer of the complainant told ANI.

Satpute asserted that the video was used as leverage against the cops, who had vehemently refused to file the FIR saying it would lower the image of the Mumbai Police. This is the second instance in a month where the Mumbai cops have come under the scanner for their brutality. Earlier, two Muslim youth were allegedly told to go to Pakistan by a police constable inside the Bandra police station before being brutally assaulted in custody.