Dubai: Karnataka NRI Forum holds meeting on govt’s NRK card

Kottayam, Mar 16: A trial court in Kerala  on Monday dismissed a discharge petition filed by Bishop Franco Mulakkal, in connection with the case of alleged rape of a nun in which he is the prime accused.

In his plea filed before the Additional District and Sessions Court I, Mulakkal had claimed that prima facie there was no case to frame charges against him.

Dismissing the plea, the trial court said the bishop should stand for trial in the rape case.

The bishop's lawyer said an appeal would be filed in the High Court against the trial court order.

The prosecution had filed its objection to the plea filed by the bishop, accused of raping and sexually assaulting a nun of the same diocese.

The bishop had filed the plea just ahead of commencement of the preliminary hearing on charges against him in January this year.

The case is based on a complaint filed against the bishop by the nun.

In her complaint to the police in June, 2018, the nun had alleged that she was subjected to sexual abuse by the bishop during the period between 2014 and 2016.

The bishop, who was arrested by the Special Investigation Team which probed the case, has been charged with wrongful confinement, rape, unnatural sex and criminal intimidation.

Bengaluru, June 5: Under the leadership of trouble-shooter D K Shivakumar, the Karnataka Congress is planning a political ‘ghar wapsi’ to bring back leaders who quit the party and also rope in those from other parties.

Shivakumar, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, has constituted a 12-member committee headed by former minister Allum Veerabhadrappa to liaise to anchor this effort to bring back people into the party fold. 

The committee comprises of former legislators B A Hasanabba, Ajaykumar Sarnaik, Abhaychandra Jain, Satish Sail, Prafulla Madhukar, former MPs R Dhruvanarayan and BN Chandrappa, MLA V Muniyappa, former mayor Sampath Raj, Mahila Congress leader Kripa Alva and former KPCC general secretary V Y Ghorpade. 

This move comes more than a year after over a dozen Congress MLAs defected and joined the BJP, leading to the collapse of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government. Also, several influential leaders quit the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year.

The constitution of this committee also coincides with disgruntlement brewing within the ruling BJP. 

“Many people who left the party and others have applied (to join Congress). Many have met me also. I felt it wouldn't be right for me to make a decision. So, this committee has been constituted,” Shivakumar said. “They will process all applications and send it to the KPCC.” 

According to Shivakumar, any person wanting to join the Congress should accept the party’s leadership and its ideology. “Importantly, they should be first accepted by the cadre. If there's no acceptance from the cadre, then what's the point?” he said.

Bengaluru, May 1: As Mumbai link surfacing in some COVID-19 cases in Mandya district in Karnataka, JDS leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Friday blamed the district administration for the situation, accusing it of not quarantining 7,000 labourers who 'returned' from the Maharashtra capital.

"The information we have is that there are about 16,000 labourers from Mandya were working in Mumbai of which 7,000 people reached the district. None of them was quarantined properly," Kumaraswamy told reporters in Bengaluru.

He claimed the district, a stronghold of JDS, was staring at a major spurt in cases due to the careless attitude of the district administration. "Government should initiate action against those who are responsible for the laxity," he said.

However, he did not specify when the 7,000 workers returned to Mandya. When asked about Kumaraswamy's claim, officials said they have to verify it. Of the eight cases reported from Mandya on Friday, three had a travel history to Mumbai, a major COVID-19 hotspot in the country, officials said.

A Health Department official said four of the fresh cases were contacts of a patient who tested positive on April 8 and admitted to a hospital. After weeks of coming in contact with him, the four were confirmed for COVID-19, an official said. The Three people with travel history to Mumbai had, in fact, brought the body of a man who died of a heart attack there on April 24, the official added.