Dr Kafeel Khan’s younger brother shot at near Gorakhpur temple

New Delhi, Jan 17: The Supreme Court on Friday closed the monitoring of the killing of rationalist M M Kalburgi in 2015 in Dharwad.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat noted that the charge sheet has already been filed and the matter was assigned to the sessions court. The court, however, noted two accused had absconded and could not be arrested till date, according to reports.

Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, appearing for the Karnataka government, submitted that the High Court had also stopped monitoring of the matter.

The top court had in early last year directed that the Karnataka High Court's Dharwad bench to monitor the probe. The Karnataka police SIT, which investigated Gauri Lankesh case and filed the charge sheet, was allowed to take over the Kalburgi case.

Umadevi, in her 2017 plea, drew a parallel between Kalburgi's murder and killings of Narendra Dabholkar and Comrade Govind Pansare in Maharashtra and sought an SIT probe by a retired Supreme Court or a High Court judge. She urged the top court to monitor the probe till it reached its logical conclusion as there was no progress in the investigation conducted so far by the Karnataka police.

The court had earlier sought to know if there was a "common thread" in murder cases of Communist leader Pansare and rationalist Dabholkar in Maharashtra, and Kannada writer Kalburgi and journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh in Karnataka.

Bengaluru, May 3: The Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare Services in the government of Karnataka KA Dayanand issued an order approving quarantine of asymptomatic COVID-19 infected international passengers on payment basis at star hotels.

The international passengers in the state have been categorised into A, B and C groups depending on their symptoms and co-morbid conditions. Category A passengers are symptomatic and are being sent to isolation hospitals which may be COVID care centres.

Category B and C passengers are asymptomatic and are being sent to institutional facilities like hostels, guest houses, hotels, etc.

"On the basis of demands by category B and C passengers to provide them star hotel accommodation on a self-payment basis, they have been granted the choice of staying in those hotels at their own cost. The BBMP Special Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner can have a meeting with such hotels and finalise the negotiated rate," Commissioner Dayanand said in the order.

"The hotels for category B passengers should have round the clock presence of health personnel while hotels for category C passengers should be visited by health staff once a day," he added.

Bengaluru, Feb 25: A smooth-talking ‘swamiji’ has come under police radar after a widow lodged a complaint stating he cheated her of over Rs 27 crore and three kgs of gold between 2016 and 2019.

The woman, Geetha of Ramamurthynagar, was staying with her three sons after her husband, a landlord, died in 2009. Her family owned several sites in Tavarekere and other parts of the city, apart from a farm near Bethamangala in Kolar district.

Geetha, who had got into property disputes with her relatives, said she was introduced to the accused, Nagaraj C of Bangarapet, who claimed to possess powers to ward off evil spirits, by one of her farm labourers. “I was assured that all my problems would be solved. He came to my house and claimed he had been sent by god and would find solutions to all my problems,” she stated.

Nagaraj allegedly pretended to be possessed by spirits and directed her to give him gold bars. Geetha ended up giving three kgs of gold in the process. Later, he began directing her to sell a few properties stating these were the root cause of her problems. “I sold many properties and pledged a few residential sites. He took Rs 22.5 crore that came from selling properties, apart from Rs 5 crore cash from my husband’s savings,” she stated.

She said Nagaraj took the money from her on the promise of buying alternative properties. “When I demanded he return all my money, he threatened to kill me and my kids using evil spirits,” she alleged.

Police have registered a case of cheating, criminal conspiracy, criminal intimidation under various IPC sections and Karnataka Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practices and Black Magic Bill, 2017, against Nagaraj and others.