Modi, Shah likely to address rallies in Udupi, Mangaluru, Uttara Kannada ahead of 2018 polls

Mangaluru, Jan 27: No power can now stop Kashmiri Pandits from going back to Kashmir, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday, forcefully defending the NDA government’s decision to reorganise Jammu and Kashmir and abrogating its special status under Article 370.

Addressing a massive pro-CAA, NRC rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party at Gold Finch city, Kuloor, on the outskirts of the city, the Defence minister also sent a strong message to Pakistan and said India will not let anyone live in peace if it is harmed.

"We will not touch anyone, but if someone bothers us, then we are not going to let them live in peace," he said.

Referring to the exodus of a large number of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in the late 1990s at the height of militancy, Singh said no power now can stop them from returning to their homes.

On the Citizenship Amendment Act, the minister said it is not a law to hurt the sentiments of any religion but to give relief to victims of religious persecution.

Mahatma Gandhi had told Nehru to give citizenship to minorities like Hindus and Sikhs if they come to India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fulfilled that vision by bringing in the law, Singh said.

On several non-BJP states refusing to implement the CAA, the defence minister said it it is a central law and everyone should follow it.

Accusing the Congress of misleading people on the issue, he said the party should not forget its duty towards the nation just because it is in opposition.

Bengaluru, Feb 2: A woman from Bengaluru lost Rs 2.8 lakh to a 'foreign friend' who promised her gifts, including gold jewellery and foreign currency.

Priya, 37, of Banashankari III Stage, told police a man named Bright Wills from England befriended her on social media in December 2019.

On December 20, Wills said he would send gold ornaments and some British pounds as gifts to celebrate their friendship and took her postal address.

“A woman claiming to be an official from the customs office, Delhi, called me on December 21. She told me there was a courier from England in my name and I should pay Rs 75,000 tow ards customs clearance. I believed her and transferred Rs 75,000 to a bank account number provided by her. On December 23, another woman called and said gold ornaments had been sent to me by courier and I had to pay Rs 2.1 lakh towards the paperwork. I transferred the money to another account number mentioned by her," Priya told police.

"On December 25, I received an email which said I should make a surety deposit of Rs 4.3 lakh within 48 hours or else the courier would be sent back to its original destination. I realised I had been cheated by Wills and others. Till now, I have paid Rs 2.8 lakh to them," she claimed.

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.