‘UB City assault victim is not BJP worker’: Amit Shah admits his blunder

Mangaluru, Jun 23: A charter flight carrying as many as 166 people including a child stranded in United Arab Emirates today reached Mangaluru. 

The flight was chartered by M Friends Charitable Trust, Mangaluru and My Community Foundation with the sole intention of helping the repatriation of stranded passengers such as pregnant women, elderly people and those who are in need of emergency medical care. 

The flydubia flight FZ4617 took off from Dubai at 2 p.m. and landed at Mangaluru International Airport at 7:22 p.m.

The passengers who arrived from UAE hail from different parts of coastal Karnataka and passengers themselves had borne the ticket fare for their travel.

M Friends president Haneef Haji Goltamajalu has thanked representatives of My Community Foundation and M Friends Trusty Ashraf Abbas Kunjattur, M Friends NRI leader Haneef Puttur, general secretary Rasheed Vittla for their efforts in chartering the flight.

In the last three weeks, 13 special flights with around 2150 passengers from various Gulf countries had landed at Mangaluru airport. 

Already, throat swab samples of 1814 passengers, who had arrived in Mangaluru, have been tested and 239 people with international travel history have tested positive and the samples of 1,575 passengers have tested negative so far.

Bengaluru, June 23: Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar has urged his party colleagues to be active on social media to counter the propaganda of Bharatiya Janata Party.

Speaking to media persons, the KPCC president said that no more than 20 out of the 68 Congress MLAs are active on social media.

“All those MLAs who are doing well need to be projected. We want leaders, not mere followers. They all should be the face of Congress in Karnataka. Party should not depend on just my face or Siddaramaiah’s,” he said.

Shivakumar’s diktat has resulted in the party’s social media unit scrambling to get leaders to create their accounts.

“We’re pressuring all the party MLAs and leaders. We’re asking their personal assistants or gunmen to operate their accounts if they are not savvy with social media,” KPCC social media chief A N Nataraj Gowda said.

He pointed out that the 20 MLAs who are active on social media include U T Khader, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Priyank Kharge, Krishna Byre Gowda among others.

“We’re also trying to get the accounts verified of those who are beginning to get active. For example, it was only recently that we got the accounts of S R Patil and Vijay Singh verified,” Gowda said.

Tapping the full potential of social media is crucial for the Congress because the BJP has found much success in reaching out to voters through various online platforms.

In fact, ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress found that there were 10 ministers and some 40 MLAs who had turned a blind eye towards social media.

Shivakumar said he was also working on putting in place a system in the party under which all developments related to the state and country will be communicated to all party leaders at 10 am every day.

Bengaluru, Apr 21: The group who had attacked police and healthcare workers at the minority-dominated Padarayanapura in the city on Sunday night had raised slogans ''kill police'' when the team went to quarantine some people, the police alleged in an FIR.

Around 100 to 120 people rushed out onto the road targeting the police and health workers who wanted to pick up primary and secondary contacts of coronavirus patients.

Cases have been registered against the miscreants based on the complaint of police officers.

In one of the FIRs, police sub-inspector Raman Gowda complained that when he went to quarantine 43 people with the healthcare officers, around 120 people rushed out and attacked them.

"The group of people holding sticks and stones rushed from Arafat Nagar," Mr Gowda said.

When he was trying to stop them from destroying a CCTV camera, the mob attacked him shouting slogans ''Kill the police. Don't spare them," he alleged in the FIR.

"They wanted to kill us with stones and sticks and some of our staff sustained injuries," the officer said.

According to police, 59 people have been arrested including A woman who had allegedly masterminded the attack.