Mangaluru accords a rousing reception for Navanath Zhundi

Udupi, Mar 1: Acting on credible information, Udupi district police arrested five persons and seized 1.35 kg of crude gold worth Rs 56.99 lakh from the possession of the accused, custom department said on Sunday.

A case has been registered against four people at Kundapur and one at Byndoor on charges of gold smuggling. The accused were transporting gold from Calicut to Bhatkal, informed Joannes George, joint Commissioner of Customs.

Off these five accused, four persons were held at Kundapur, while other at Byndoor on Saturday evening.

Karwar, June 29: The additional sessions court, Sirsi town police station and office of the deputy superintendent of police in Uttara Kannada district were sealed on Sunday after an undertrial was found positive for Covid-19.

The undertrial, accused of stealing a bike, from Hubballi was arrested by Sirsi police and had initially tested negative. He was confirmed infected when his samples were tested the second time.

He was arrested by Dharwad police in connection with a bike theft case. During interrogation it was found that he had stolen bikes in Sirsi too. Sirsi police had brought him from Dharwad sub-jail for the interrogation and was produced in the court.

The accused was in Manipal jail for some time after he was convicted there for the bike theft. While bringing him to Sirsi the police had wore PPE kits.

When he was produced in the court the judge had reportedly directed the police test him for covid as he had some symptoms.

His swab was collected and sent to the lab. In the first test the result was negative but it was positive in another test. At that time he was in Sirsi sub-jail. 10 police officials who had come into his contact have been quarantined. The police station has been sealed down and the court will be closed down on Monday and Tuesday.

All the under trails who were kept with him in the sub-jail have been isolated and their swab has been sent for the testing.

Bengaluru, Mar 11: Heated verbal exchange between Minister K Sudhakar and former Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar in the assembly over disqualification of 17 MLAs last year, continued to disrupt the proceedings on Wednesday, with both opposition and treasury benches pushing for a privilege motion and demanding action.

Chaotic scenes and adjournments marked the House proceedings, with both sides not ready to budge.

As the House met for the day, around 11 am, senior Minister K S Eshwarappa accusing Congress MLA Ramesh Kumar of using "expletive" during a debate last evening, demanded his apology and that he be kept out of the proceedings.

Sudhakar, against whom expletive was allegedly used by Kumar, said, the words used were unpardonable and he should be heard, as he has given notice.

Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah then demanded that he be allowed to speak first as he had given notice on Tuesday itself.

The Congress leader on his part has accused Sudhakar of breaching Kumar's privilege by allegedly making derogatory remarks against him.

Intervening, Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri said he has received breach of privilege notice from both sides and would allow it only after the question hour as per rules.

Though Congress expressed its agreement with the Speaker about letting them raise the matter after question hour, BJP legislators including Ministers said, Ramesh Kumar should be suspended.

Pointing out that Kumar was not inside the House, some ruling party MLAs even called him "escapist" and demanded action against him.

Strongly objecting to it, Siddaramaiah questioned the ruling party's intentions in running the house smoothly.

As this was followed by heated arguments between both sides, the Speaker adjourned the House for 15 minutes.

When the house met after much delay at 12:55 pm, the chaos continued.

As the Speaker allowed Minister Jagadish Shettar to speak, who was requesting permission to raise a point, Siddaramaiah objected to it and said he had given notice first.

He said, "this is not correct, it looks like government doesn't want the House to function, they don't want discussion on the budget, they are purposely blocking the proceedings of the House".

However, some BJP MLAs reacted to this by shouting slogans "shame shame Ramesh Kumar".

As his repeated attempts to conduct the proceedings failed, the Speaker adjourned the House for lunch.

Sudhakar, while speaking during a special discussion on the Constitution on Tuesday evening had made critical remarks against the decision of Kumar, as speaker, to disqualify 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs under the anti-defection law, including him.

Angered by this Kumar, who opposed discussion on the subject, amid heated argument between BJP and Congress members allegedly uttered the expletive, which aggravated the situation and had resulted in pandemonium in the House last evening.