Muneer Katipalla tries to drag UTK's name into murder case; plaint lodged

Mangaluru, Jul 2: All three personal assistants of U T Khader, Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, have lodged complaint with Mangaluru East Police against Muneer Katipalla, the state president of Democratic Youth Federation of India for levelling false allegations against them and attempting to defame the minister through social media.

The development comes after Mr Katipalla claimed on his Facebook wall that a person claiming to be the PA of Mr Khader called Mangaluru jailor and asked him to take good care of NaMo Naresh, the prime accused in RTI activist Vinayak Baliga murder case, and shift him to a private hospital.

Mr Katipalla went on to claim that when the jailor did not care the caller, the latter threatened the former with all sorts of “punishments”.

In their joint complaint, Praveen Kumar JP, Mohammed Libzeth and Vijaykumar, the three personal assistants of Mr Khader, made it clear that none of them had contacted Mangaluru jailor in connection with the arrest of NaMo Naresh.

The complainants have urged the police to conduct an inquiry into the issue and take necessary action against Mr Katipalla for attempting to defame the minister and his personal assistants through Facebook posts.

Meanwhile, the jailor himself rubbished the allegations made by Mr Katipalla and clarified that he did not receive any such call from the minister's PA or anyone else.

Expressing shock over the allegations, Mr Khader said that the one who made the allegations should provide proof. “When I was informed about the Facebook post, I personally contacted the jailor and he was not even aware of the incident,” he said.

Mr Khader said that the DYFI leader had tried to defame him through false and baseless allegations in the past too. “The same person had once blamed me for the murder of an auto-rickshaw driver,” the minister recalled. He also urged to police to conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations.

On the other hand Mr Katipalla has justified his Facebook post and claimed that Mr Khader had links with several Hindutva leaders.