‘Right-wing activist’ booked for trying to sexually abuse 5-year-old girl

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.

New Delhi, Jan 12: In a shocking revelation, one unemployed person committed suicide every hour during 2018 when a total of 1,34,516 suicides, including 92,114 male and 42,391 female, were reported in the country, NCRB's "Suicide in India 2018" says.

The latest data, issued by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which comes under Ministry of Home Affairs, last week reveals that a total of 12,936 unemployed persons committed suicide in 2018, which accounted for 9.6 per cent of the total suicides, and were of aged below 18 years to above 60 years.

Those below 18 years include 31 males and nine females while those between 18 and 30 years comprise 1,240 male and 180 female. A total of 868 male and 95 female were aged between 30 and 45 years. A number of 237 males and 21 females were aged between 45 and 60 years while 2,431 males and 310 females were above 60 years.

Of the total suicides by unemployed persons, males are 10,687 while the females are 2,249.

The highest number of suicides - 12.3 per cent - committed by unemployed persons were in Kerala (1,585 out of 12,936 suicides), 12.2 per cent in Tamil Nadu (1,579), 9.7 per cent in Maharashtra (1,260 suicides), 8.5 per cent in Karnataka (1,094 suicides) and 7 per cent in Uttar Pradesh (902 suicides).

"Each suicide is a personal tragedy that prematurely takes the life of an individual and has a continuing ripple effect, dramatically affecting the lives of families, friends and communities. Every year, more than 1 lakh people commit suicide in our country. There are various causes of suicides like professional/career problems, sense of isolation, abuse, violence, family problems, mental disorders, addiction to alcohol, financial loss, chronic pain etc," says the NCRB adding it collects data on suicides from police recorded suicide cases.

As per the NCRB, rate of suicides has been calculated using projected population for the non-census years whereas for 2011, the population of the Population Census 2011 was used.

The NCRB data says that a total of 1,34,516 suicides were reported in the country during 2018 showing an increase of 3.6 per cent in comparison to 2017 and the rate of suicides has increased by 0.3 during 2018 over 2017.

Government servants accounted for 1.3 per cent (1,707 out of 1,34,516) of the total suicide victims as compared to 6.1 per cent (8,246 out of 1,34,516) of total victims from Private Sector Enterprises.

Employees from Public Sector Undertakings formed 1.5 per cent (2,022 out of 1,34,516) of the total suicide victims, whereas students and unemployed victims accounted for 7.6 per (10,159 victims) of total suicides. Self-employed category accounted for 9.8 per cent of total suicide victims (13,149 out of 1,34,516).

A total of 10,349 persons involved in farming sector (consisting of 5,763 farmers and cultivators and 4,586 agricultural labourers) have committed suicide during 2018, accounting for 7.7 per cent of total suicides victims (1,34,516) in the country.

A total of 11 transgenders have committed suicide in which three were daily wage earners, one each were 'professionals and salaried persons' and 'unemployed persons' while six falls under 'Other Persons'.

New Delhi, Jun 13: Loss of smell or taste has been added to the list of COVID-19 symptoms, according to the revised clinical management protocols released by the Union Health Ministry on Saturday.

The ministry said that coronavirus-infected patients reporting to various COVID-19 treatment facilities have been reporting symptoms like fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, expectoration, myalgia, rhinorrhea, sore throat and diarrhea.

They have also complained of loss of smell (anosmia) or loss of taste (ageusia) preceding the onset of respiratory symptoms.

Older people and immune-suppressed patients in particular may present with atypical symptoms such as fatigue, reduced alertness, reduced mobility, diarrhoea, loss of appetite, delirium, and absence of fever, the ministry said.

Children might not have reported fever or cough as frequently as adults.

The US's national public health institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), had in early May incorporated "a new loss of taste or smell" in the list of COVID-19 symptoms.

According to the data from Integrated Health Information Platform and Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, portal case investigation forms for COVID 19 (n=15,366), the details on the signs and symptoms reported are (as on June 11), fever (27 per cent), cough (21 pc), sore throat (10 pc), breathlessness (8 pc), Weakness (7 pc), running nose (3pc ) and others 24 pc.

According to the health ministry, people infected by the novel coronavirus are the main source of infection.

Direct person-to-person transmission occurs through close contact, mainly through respiratory droplets that are released when the infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks.

These droplets may also land on surfaces, where the virus remains viable. Infection can also occur if a person touches an infected surface and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth.

The median incubation period is 5.1 days (range 2–14 days). The precise interval during which an individual with COVID-19 is infectious is uncertain.

As per the current evidence, the period of infectivity starts 2 days prior to onset of symptoms and lasts up to 8 days.

The extent and role played by pre-clinical/ asymptomatic infections in transmission still remain under investigation.