Journalists bid farewell to Press Club manager

Mangaluru, Apr 24: The last rites of the elderly woman who died of covid-19 yesterday was finally held in the wee hours of Friday amidst tight security at Kaikunje Hindu Rudra Bhoomi near BC Road bus stand in spite of severe opposition from the members of the own community.

The funeral was held as per the protocol for COVID-19 deaths, police said.

Prior to this hundreds of Hindus had staged a protest  last night in front of Pachanady Hindu Rudra Bhoomi near Vamanjoor following reports that the the 77-year-old coronavirus positive woman's mortal remains will be cremated there.

Mangaluru North MLA Bharat Shetty rushed to the spot and convinced the protesters that he will not allow the authorities to cremate the body at Pachanady. Hence, the authorities shifted the cremation venue, it is learnt. 

Meanwhile, many local residents staged protest at Pachanady against the cremation of the dead body of a coronavirus positive woman. Hence, additional police force was sent from Mangaluru to disperse the crowd and facilitate the last rite.

According to sources, initially the authorities had  planned to cremate body at Baddakatte Hindu Rudra Bhoomi near here native place in Bantwal. However, the locals and the community elders had forced the authorities to change the plan.

Such protests due to misconception about the spread of coronavirus had been witnessed in some other parts of the country, including in Chennai, and the governments have warned of action against those opposing cremation or burial of COVID-19 patients.

So far as many as 17 covid-19 postive cases have been reported in Dakshina Kannada including two deaths from same family from Bantwal's Kasba village.

Bengaluru, Jun 18: Examination for PU II English paper, which was postponed for more than three months due to threat of Coronavirus, was held on Thursday across the state.

The authorities were forced to postpone the examination of the English subject, scheduled in March, abruptly due to the threat of Covid-19 which spread like wildfire and has so far claimed lives of more than 100 in the state.

There are over 1,016 examination centres across the state. All the students were put to thermal scanners and were ensured wearing face masks. Each centre has sanitisers. Those with cold, cough and fever were assigned a separate room.

Bengaluru, June 11: Amulya Leona, a college student, who was charged with sedition for raising "Pakistan zindabad" slogans in Bengaluru, has finally been granted bail. 

The court had denied her bail yesterday, saying she might abscond. But her lawyers had been pursuing another way of getting her out of jail where she has spent nearly four months.

Ms Leona's advocate, Prasanna R, said that the delay of the state in submitting a chargesheet in the case beyond the stipulated time meant she was eligible for "default bail".

"The default bail application was moved before the magistrate under whose jurisdiction the alleged crime was committed. The chargesheet has not been submitted by the state within 90 days. So default bail has been granted. We had moved the default bail plea on May 26 and again on May 29 when the court told us the earlier mail IDs had been disabled. A physical application was filed on June 2. The state filed the chargesheet on June 3," the lawyer said.

While the state tried to argue that they were entitled to an extension in the time allotted, the court hearing this aspect of the case gave an order favourable to Ms Leona. The process is on to release her.

The arrest of Ms Leona during a rally against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA in Bengaluru had led to a debate on the use of sedition charges.

The woman on a Facebook post had also said "zindabad" to many countries including India and Pakistan. She did also try to chant "Hindustan zindabad", but was soon silenced and whisked away. She was accused of sedition, causing enmity between communities and causing deliberate mischief.