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An Indian-origin woman studying at the prestigious Princeton University in the US is among two students arrested over pro-Palestine protests on the campus, reports student and alumni newspapers.

Tamil Nadu-born Achinthya Sivalingan and Hassan Sayed were arrested after the protesters set up tents for an encampment in a university courtyard early Thursday morning, according to the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW).

The two graduate students were arrested on charge of trespassing and have been "immediately barred from the campus", said Jennifer Morrill, a university spokesperson, adding that setting up tents on the campus violated university policy.

However, they have not been evicted and will be allowed into their housing, another varsity spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss confirmed to the Daily Princetonian.

Ms Sivalingam is a student of Masters in Public Affairs in International Development at Princeton while Mr Sayed is a PhD candidate there.

In a statement, Morill said the students were given "repeated warnings from the Department of Public Safety to cease the activity and leave the area" and they now face disciplinary action. After their arrest, the other protesters "voluntarily" packed away their camping gear, she added.

Hotchkiss said the university did not evict anyone on Thursday and that the university allows students barred from campus to stay in their university-owned housing.

The undergraduate students were warned against occupation and encampment exercises in an email Wednesday, according to the Daily Princetonian.

Princeton students, faculty and community members, and even outsiders were part of the demonstration, the PAW cited organizers of the protest as saying. Large, white tents were set up nearby for upcoming reunions and other events.

A student who chose to be identified only as Urvi termed the arrests as "violent", which included the students being zip-tied around their wrists. The university, however, contested this and said the officers did not use any force and the arrests were made without any resistance.

Pro-Palestine protests have rocked the top US universities as thousands of students have hit their campuses to demonstrate against the Gaza deaths due to Israel’s inhuman military operation. 

The protests, which began at Columbia University in New York, have to colleges across the country and saw hundreds of students confronting cops and raising pro-Palestine slogans. The protesters have been calling on their universities to divest from companies that profit from the Gaza war and advocate an immediate ceasefire.

Who is Achinthya Sivalingan?

1. Achinthya Sivalingan was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and was raised in Columbus, Ohio.

2. She is pursuing a Master of Public Affairs (MPA) degree in International Development at Princeton University. Before that, Ms Sivalingan studied world politics and economics at Ohio State University and was also an Intern at Harvard Law School. 

3. Ms Sivalingan has significant experience in policy issues, having worked with civil society organisations, the legal system, politics, movement building, and private philanthropy. Her previous roles include supporting policy and advocacy work for climate adaptation, agricultural development, and nutrition portfolios at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

4. Ms Sivalingan has worked on a congressional campaign in Ohio's third district and also contributed to land rights and policy initiatives in India at the Centre for Policy Research. 

5. She has been banned from Princeton over pro-Palestine protests and is now facing disciplinary action. 

Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent crackdown of protests by the ruthless cops. 

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta's Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil' Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

"Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away," Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the confirmed death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon's cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school's quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were "Emory community members", had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students "are shocking" and that he is "horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions."

The university's response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.

New Delhi: Searches conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the anti-money laundering law rose by 86 times while arrests and attachment of assets jumped by around 25 times in the ten years since 2014 compared to the preceding nine-year period, according to official data.

An analysis of the data by PTI for the last ten years, between April 2014 and March 2024, against the nine years from July 2005 to March 2014 presents a picture of the federal agency's "intensified" action under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The PMLA was enacted in 2002 and implemented from July 1, 2005, to check serious crimes of tax evasion, generation of black money and money laundering.

While the opposition parties have alleged that the ED's action during the last decade was part of the BJP-led central government's "oppressive" tactics against its rivals and others, the Union government and the ruling party have asserted that the agency is independent and its investigations were purely based on merit and under the mandate to act against the corrupt.

The ED booked as many as 5,155 PMLA cases during the last ten years as compared to a total of 1,797 complaints or Enforcement Case Information Reports (ECIRs or FIRs) filed during the preceding period (2005-14), a jump of about three times, the data said.

The data shows that the agency also got its first conviction starting the 2014 fiscal and it has, till now, got 63 persons punished under the anti-money laundering law.

The ED conducted 7,264 searches or raids in money laundering cases across the country during the 2014-2024 period as compared to just 84 in the preceding period - a jump of 86 times.

It also arrested a total of 755 people during the last decade and attached assets worth Rs 1,21,618 crore as compared to 29 arrests and Rs 5,086.43 crore worth of attachments respectively during the last compared period, the data stated.

The arrests are 26 times more, while figures related to the attachment of properties are 24 times higher.

The agency issued 1,971 provisional attachment orders for various types of immovable and movable assets during the last decade as compared to 311 such orders taken out in the preceding comparable period.

It got about 84 per cent of the attachment orders confirmed from the Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA during 2014-24 as compared to 68 per cent confirmations from the same authority during the last compared period.

The filing of charge sheets also saw a jump of 12 times in the last decade with 1,281 prosecution complaints filed by it before courts as against 102 during the preceding period.

The data said the ED secured conviction orders in 36 cases from various courts leading to the prosecution of 63 persons and a total of 73 charge sheets were disposed of during the last decade.

No conviction was obtained by the agency nor any charge sheet was disposed of under the anti-money laundering law during the 2005-14 period, according to the statistics.

The agency also got the court's permission to confiscate assets (attached as proceeds of crime under the PMLA) worth Rs 15,710.96 crore and it also restituted properties (including bank funds) of Rs 16,404.19 crore (out of the total amount under confiscation) during the last decade.

As there were no convictions during the preceding nine-year period, no confiscation of assets and resultant restitution could take place, as per the data.

The ED is also empowered to seize cash under the PMLA and the data said the agency froze more than Rs 2,310 crore worth of Indian and foreign currency during the last ten years as compared to a figure of Rs 43 lakh during the preceding period.

The agency also got notified a total of 24 Interpol red notices for apprehension of various accused who left India and hid in foreign shores and sent 43 extradition requests during 2014-24.

No such action was taken by the agency during the preceding period.

Four persons were extradited to India during the last ten-year time period while similar orders were secured against businessmen Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Sanjay Bhandari. The three are based in the UK and the ED is trying to bring them back to the country as all the accused are contesting the orders issued against them.

"These statistics reflect the intensive drive that the ED has undertaken to check money laundering crimes," an agency official said.

The ED investigates financial crimes under two criminal laws -- the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA) -- apart from the civil provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The FEOA was enacted by the Narendra Modi government in 2018 to cripple those who are charged with high-value economic frauds and abscond from the country to evade the law.

The ED, as per the data, filed a total of 19 such applications before the designated special PMLA courts in the country following which 12 persons have been declared fugitive economic offenders.

It also confiscated assets worth Rs 906 crore under the said law by the end of the last fiscal on March 31.