NRI Habeeb Ur Rahiman Uppinangady conferred doctorate

Bengaluru, Jan 30: A kidnap case in Bengaluru has proved that crime-based series on TV channels can inspire youth to commit crimes. 21-year-old Chirag R Mehta, who kidnapped a schoolboy and got arrested within an hour after demanding Rs 5 lakh ransom, has told police that he thought of abducting the boy after watching Crime Patrol, a popular Hindi crime anthology series created by Subramanian S. lyer for Sony TV. The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.

Mangaluru, June 1: The private bus services resumed services in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts today with 15 per cent hike in the fares. For 70 days these buses were stayed off the roads as lockdown was imposed in the region on March 22 in the wake of covid-19 outbreak.

Buses were sanitised in the morning. The bus operators have decided to operate only a few of the buses initially.

Of the about 2,000 service buses (inter-district buses and long-route buses within the district) of private operators in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, only 25% resumed services. Only 135 out of 320 city buses in Mangaluru resumed services.

The number of passengers on board the buses were also very less in the morning. A few buses had arranged sanitisers for passengers, drivers and conductors.

Mangaluru, Apr 27: Two more people including an elderly woman have been tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Dakshina Kannada. 

With this the total number of covid-19 cases in the district reached 21, though most of them have recovered and returned home. 

In its today's bulletin, the health and family welfare department confirmed that a 45-year-old man and his 80-year-old mother tested positive for the deadly disease. 

It is learnt that one of them had undergone treatment at a private hospital where a woman from Bantwal, who died of covid-19, was being treated for breathing difficulties, before she was shifted to Wenlock Hospital which is now converted into covid-19 hospital.