Mangaluru: Cops abort funeral procession; transport Deepak’s body secretly to Katipalla

Mangaluru, Feb 28: Sleuths of Bajpe police station have busted a counterfeit currency racket and arrested two persons on charge of printing and circulating fake currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 200.

The arrested have been identified as Dheerendra (45), a resident of Kanjilakody House in Bantwal taluk, and Sudheer Poojary (44), a resident of Adyar Volabail. Both of them said to be activists of Hindutva groups and had campaigned for BJP during last Lok Sabha polls.

Apart from counterfeit currencies, the cops have recovered a colour printer, two mobile phones and a motor bike from the accused.

According police, on February 23 the miscreants went to a petty shop owned by one Abdul Salam near Suralpady and purchased a Gillette blade costing Rs 20. They handed over Rs 200 currency note to Abdul Salam and took Rs 180 back from him.

However, the shop keeper grew suspicious about the genuineness of Rs 200 note. When he went in search of the duo, he came to know that they had purchased mustard seeds from a nearby provision store belonging to one Muhammad Arif. There too, they had handover Rs 200 fake note and got change.

The duo then took fake notes back from Abdul Salam and Muhammad Arif and escaped. The next day, Abdul Salam filed a complaint with Bajpe police station.

Bengaluru, Jan 6: JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Monday said he would not get involved in any 'wicked act' of bringing down the B S Yediyurappa-led government in Karnataka, amid claims that 15 to 20 BJP MLAs were ready to come out.

Clarifying that he would not disturb the government, the former Chief Minister said for him, the development of the state was important. "With great difficulty, you (Yediyurappa) have become Chief Minister for the fourth time, (I am) happy, I have nowhere said that I will disturb your government. Even now some people come and ask why I'm sitting silent when 15-20 people are ready to come out of BJP and why don't I make an attempt (to poach them), Kumaraswamy said. Speaking to reporters in Hassan, he sought to know why he should get entangled in that 'sludge' and he was not in a hurry.

"I will not get involved in a wicked act of removing a responsible government like Yediyurappa did. For me the development of the state is important," he said.

Though Kumaraswamy had raised questions about the longevity of the BJP government ahead of the December 5 bypolls, he had even then given clear indications that he would not attempt to pull down the administration as it would affect the development of the state.

The ruling BJP had swept the by-elections by winning 12 of the total 15 seats, helping the Yediyurappa government retain the majority in the Assembly.

With BJP winning 12 of the 15 assembly constituencies, it's numbers went up from 105 (including an independent) to 117, which is well ahead of the halfway mark of 111 in a 223-member Assembly (two seats-- Maski and R R Nagar-- are vacant due to pending litigation in the High Court).

The BJP came to power after the Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JD(S) coalition government collapsed as 17 MLAs had rebelled against the alliance leadership and resigned as legislators, to later favour the saffron party.