Raid on Yelahanka MLA’s houses yield 2.6 kg gold

December 20, 2011

vishwanath

Bangalore, December 20: The Lokayukta police conducted an early morning raid on the houses and office of Yelahanka MLA S?R Vishwanath on Monday.

The police had registered a case on December 16 after the Special Lokayukta Court directed them to investigate allegations of cheating and acquiring notified land by V Shashidhar through a private complaint in the Special Lokayukta Court. The Lokayukta police have been directed to file a report on January 6, 2012.

The raid, headed by Bangalore Urban Superintendent of Police P K Shivashankar and DySP Girish S, led to a haul of 2.6 kg of gold articles, Rs 14.5 lakh in cash, 11 kg of silver articles and currency of $3,500.

Immovable property

The raid, which began at 6 am, yielded documents pertaining to two apartments in Coffee Board Layout, four buildings in Rajanakunte and Bhuvaneshwari Nagar and agricultural land measuring 65 acres. All the documents pertaining to immovable properties have been seized.

Sources in the Lokayukta said the police raided the MLA’s house in Singanayakanahalli, his office in Yelahanka New Town and an apartment in Hebbal.

Currency and gold

Vishwanath and his wife Vanishree were both present in the house during the raid. Subsequent to the raid, the couple accompanied the police officers to a nearby bank, Raitha Seva Sahakara Bank, where Vanishree is the president and owns two lockers. Here, the police seized currency amounting to about Rs 14.5 lakh and gold weighing about 1.5 kg from the two lockers.

Vehicles

Vishwanath’s house in Singanayakanahalli also had household articles amounting to about Rs 40 lakh. Six vehicles - a Toyota Innova, Toyota Fortuner and four tractors - have also been seized.

Shashidhar, a social activist and former constable, had alleged that Vishwanath has cheated the government in several instances.

In the first instance, the complainant alleged that Vishwanath worked as employee of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) from 1985 to April, 2008.

Held two posts at a time

At the same time, he became a Zilla Panchayat member from Hesaraghatta constituency and completed his full term from 2000 to 2005, without even resigning his job at HAL. The complainant said Vishwanath continued to receive salary and other perks from both ZP and HAL.

Vishwanath is also accused of acquiring assets worth more than Rs 70 crore, even though his total salary during his tenure at HAL did not exceed Rs 20 lakh.

Land deal

Vishwanath is also supposed to have purchased two properties in survey Nos 3 and 38 at Sriramanahalli in Hesaraghatta hobli of Bangalore North taluk from GPA holder Sakamma. This land, according to the complaint, belonged to the Karnataka Housing Board and was notified by the government in 2009.

“Knowing well about the nature of the land and its notification, the MLA of the constituency went ahead ignoring all legal implications and got the property registered in his name for a far lesser price than the actual value. He has made the full payment in cash and got the khata transferred thereafter in his name. Around 1.38 acres out of 3.38 acres in survey number 38 was converted from agriculture to residential purpose on June 14, 2011,” the complaint states.

He is also accused of obtaining two residential sites at Kudlu in Anekal taluk where the HAL House Building Co-operative Society formed sites for the benefit of its members, once again violating the Society’s rules.

The other accused in the complaint are Vanishree, Deputy Commissioner of Bangalore Urban M?K Aiyappa, Yelahanka Special Additional Tahsildar Ranganath, Hesarghatta sub-registrar Ravi Kumar and Sakamma.

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Agencies
May 24,2020

Kanpur, May 24: Three persons onboard separate Shramik Special trains lost their lives due to various ailment, officials said here on Saturday.

"Family members of the deceased said all were suffering from serious ailment. The travel history of all the three deceased passengers was taken, Kanpur District Magistrate Brahma Deo Ram Tiwari said.

Giving details about the deceased, he said Naichinalyu Disang (23), a resident of Nagaland, was going from Delhi to Dimapur.

"She was suffering from liver ailments," Tiwari said. As she coughed and vomited in the train, other passengers got terrified, he added.

The district magistrate said the body reached Kanpur Central Station at around 10.00 am.

Sample has been taken to check for the presence of novel coronavirus. She was working at a spa in Himachal Pradesh, he said.

Tiwari said Rajendra Prasad (50), a resident of Unnao, died on the Lucknow-bound special train from Andhra Pradesh.

Munni Devi (80), a resident of Siwan district in Bihar, died onboard the special train going from Surat to Siwan, the senior official informed.

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News Network
July 12,2020

Tamil Nadu, Jul 12: An alleged attempt by a 19-year-old man to "open a branch of the State Bank of India" at Panruti near Tamil Nadu was scuttled and he was arrested for forgery, police said on Saturday.

The man, son of retired SBI employees, had readied fake seals and challans of the public sector lender, and had other paraphernalia like a cash counting machine needed "to run a bank branch," on an upper floor of his residence at Panruti, about 25 km from Tamil Nadu.

He had not, however, put up any signboard. The SBI Panruti branch manager lodged a complaint with police seeking action following a tip-off by a customer that the man was "opening an SBI branch and has challans as well."

A printer who printed the challans and another who had made fake seals were held for similar offences and abetment.

They were produced before a magistrate court and enlarged on bail.

Asked if the man had cheated people by soliciting deposits or facilitating loans, Panruti police inspector K Ambethkar said, "no..we have not received any such complaint so far."

The man's late father had worked for SBI and his mother had retired from the same bank some time back, he said.

To a question, the police inspector said the man's mother, who has mobility issues, and another woman a relative living in the same house had no clue about his "idea."

Investigations revealed that he aspired to work for a bank and since he had closely watched banking operations for long he was "very knowledgeable" about it.

On the suspected motive, he said several of his replies were incomprehensible, childish, and strange notwithstanding his excellent understanding of the banking processes.

"He even calmly told us that he awaited approval from Mumbai to open the (SBI) branch and that he was about to put up a signboard," the inspector said, adding that the man had tried unsuccessfully to get employment on compassionate grounds in the SBI following the death of his father in harness.

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Agencies
June 5,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 5: One man has been arrested in connection with the death of a pregnant elephant in Palakkad district here, Kerala Forest Minister K Raju said on Friday.

"One accused identified as Wilson has been arrested in connection with the case. More people are involved. The process to arrest all the accused is underway. Strict action will be taken in the matter to ensure such incidents are not repeated in the future," Raju told reporters here.

The elephant had died in Palakkad district on May 27 after it ate a pineapple stuffed with crackers and forest officials said that it died standing in river Velliyar after it suffered an injury in its lower jaw.

Raju said that the forest department has appointed three teams to probe the matter, and added that police are also investigating the incident as explosives were used.

"There may be some type of crackers inside the fruit. In such cases, blast occurs and the animal can not even drink water. The primary post mortem reports said that this case is like that. Let it be investigated," he said.

"Man and animal conflict is natural in our state as people residing close to the forests. The government gives compensation for farmers, Rs 10 lakhs compensation if a person dies in an animal attack," the Minister added.

The death of the pregnant elephant has sparked a controversy, with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan terming the unfortunate death as "a painful thing" and Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar saying that the Centre has taken a "serious note" of the incident.

According to the preliminary post-mortem report, the immediate cause of the death of the female elephant was drowning followed by inhalation of water leading to lung failure.

The elephant was seen standing in the river with its mouth and trunk in the water for some relief from the pain after the explosive-filled fruit exploded in its mouth.

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