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Bengaluru, Feb 21: Amulya Leona, a college student, who raised to pro-Pakistan slogans to embarrass organisers of a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) here on Thursday evening, has been charged with sedition.

The student-activist, who was allowed to talk on stage, suddenly raised pro-Pakistan slogans. She was arrested by police after All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi snatched her mike.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Ramesh Bannoth confirmed the girl has been charged with sedition, provoking enmity between groups, and intentional insult to provoke breach of peace.

It was just after Mr. Owaisi’s arrival on the stage at Freedom Park here that the 19-year-old student was asked to speak. After preliminary remarks, she suddenly shouted “Pakistan zindabad” thrice, leaving the crowd and organisers stunned.

Some of the organisers rushed to her and tried to take the mike away and stop her from speaking further. Mr. Owaisi too joined in and snatched the mike. Holding on to the mike, the girl then went on to shout “Hindustan zindabad” twice, before a posse of police personnel and organisers whisked her away from the stage

Soon after the student was taken away, a visibly upset Mr. Owaisi told the crowd: “Whatever has been spoken [by the girl] is wrong. Neither my party nor I has any connection with it. As long as we are alive, we will be raising Bharat zindabad slogans. Never had we any relationship with Pakistan nor will we have anything in future,” he announced.

He further stated: “This is condemnable. The organisers should not have invited such people to this place. If I had known that these kind of things would be said here, I would not have come here.”

It is unfortunate that the organisers have invited such people and a wrong message is going out, he said. “Now, BJP has got an opportunity and will blame me,” he added.

Every speaker, who took the podium after the incident, condemned the pro-Pakistan slogans raised by Amulya.

Janata Dal (S) councillor representing Gurappanapalya, Imran Pasha, one of the organisers of the protest under “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isayi Federation”, claimed that they had not invited the “activist” and were not aware that she would be speaking from the stage. Mr. Pasha said that such statements were “a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims”.

Meanwhile, the BJP State unit tweeted, “Truth is that protests against CAA are a joint venture between Pakistan and anti-National forces led by INC India.” In a press release, BJP State unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel termed this as an “anti-national act” and urged the police to take action.

Bengaluru, Jan 18: Amidst the ongoing probe into the multi-billion IMA ponzi scam, another similar scam has come to light in the city wherein around 2500 depositors, most of them Muslims, are fearing that them may lose Rs 350 crore.

Shockingly, Shafiullah, Rafiullah, and Zabiullah, three brothers who run the Baraka Investment Consultant Private Limited, have accused the police of taking over 10 crore rupees bribe from them.

The depositors say that when they recently demanded their investments back from the accused the trio, they allegedly told them that they had paid the Central Crime Branch (CCB) and the RT Nagar police over 10 crores and they could collect that money from the police.

The aggrieved investors alleges that the RT Nagar police have charge-sheeted the three accused only on the complaints of 13 affected depositors who lost precisely Rs 97 lakh and the case is being probed under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 instead of Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions Act, 2004 (KPID Act) or the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Ordinance, 2019 (BUDS) Ordinance.

Aggrieved victims alleged that when the Baraka Investment Consultants had a Registration Certificate of Establishments from Department of Labour issued on November 28, 2017. The CCB took up a suo-motu case against Tellnet Computers on August 16, 2018, after they received complaints from Baraka investors.

Apparently, the CCB knew that Baraka Investment Consultants and Tellnet Computers was one and the same and operating from the same office, but they did not mention the name of Baraka in the case initially for reasons best known to them, said the victims of the Ponzi scheme. A few victims who wished to remain anonymous told BM that a CCB police inspector and one of the accused, Zabiullah, were childhood friends, neighbours and both hailed from Chikkaballapur. This is one of the reasons, they allege, the inspector has protected the accused by downplaying the scam.

The case registered by the CCB states that there are only 500 to 600 depositors who deposited amounts between Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh expecting returns ranging from Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 a month, but in reality there are more than 2500 investors who have deposited amounts ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 lakh, expecting returns between 12% to 24%, said the victims. Despite this, the CCB was sitting on the case and making no investigations, the victims alleged.

It was later on in May 9, 2019, an FIR was registered by the RT Nagar police when many victims approached the police commissioner and petitioned him. “Even in this case, the accused Zabiullah was not arrested. Zabiullah’s two brothers, Shafiullah and Rafiullah, and his father Abdul Rahman were arrested, but were later granted conditional bails,” one of the victims Mohammed Yahya (42), a software engineer said.

Yahya had invested Rs 10 lakh with Baraka. “Though this case has been charge-sheeted, the police have not made any recoveries or they have not confiscated any properties of the accused,” alleged victim Habibur Rehman (42) who had invested Rs 5 lakh in Baraka. “There is clear-cut evidence that the accused was dealing in foreign exchange using the investors’ money without their knowledge and was offshoring and parking crores and crores in countries like Russia, Dubai, Malaysia, and Singapore. Though the police knew about this, they did nothing to stop it or bring it back,” said Azgar Pasha (44), a businessman who had invested Rs 41 lakh.

Bengaluru, Mar 27: India should take a cue from the UK and Italy and allow final year medical students to skip exam and bring them into the hospital system immediately to fight the war against COVID-19, noted cardiac surgeon Devi Prasad Shetty on Friday said.

The Chairman and Founder of the city-based Narayana Health said there should be some reforms in medical education like the UK and Italy.
In the UK, he noted, final year medical students have been told that they don't need to appear for the exam, and they will be given pass based on the past performance and they can get into the hospital system to fill the shortage.

Italy got 10,000 more doctors following the move to cut short the duration of MBBS by nine months, according to him.

COVID-19 battle can be only won by young doctors and young nurses. Its like a war, Shetty told PTI.

He said: Senior doctorsnone of them will be able to touch the patients because they are past the age of 50. A person who is past the age of 50 is very vulnerable himself.

This is a very contagious disease. "But we dont have that many battalion (of doctors). We need one and half lakh doctors to manage all these government
hospitals and private hospitals (to fight COVID-19)", he added.

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