Surathkal clash: 5 arrested; Hindutva activists gherao police station

Jan 6: A Thane resident lost a little over Rs 1 lakh in an online fraud involving popular payment gateways, police said on Saturday. The complainant, a resident of Patlipada, wanted to sell his furniture and posted an ad on Facebook on December 21, an official said.

On December 24, he received a call from one Rajendra Sharma who offered to buy the furniture and wanted to transfer the amount through payment gateways — Paytm and Google Pay, he said.

However, instead of the money getting credited to his account, the complainant found that Rs 1.01 lakh were debited from him during three transactions on two payment gateways, the official said.

The complainant realised that he had been cheated when the accused assured that he would return the money and asked him for another account number, he added.

An offense has been registered against the unidentified accused under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act and further investigations are underway, he said.

Chennai, Jul 25: Two weeks after a 62-year-old widow accused him of harassment, including urinating outside her house, the Chennai Police on Saturday registered an FIR against ABVP national president Dr Subbiah Shanmugam.

Dr Shanmugam, Professor and HOD, Department of Surgical Oncology, Kilpauk Medical College and Government Royapettah Hospital, has been booked under sections 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) and 427 (mischief causing damage) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Tamil Nadu Women Harassment Prevention Act.

The FIR was lodged exactly two weeks after the woman’s relative Balaji Vijayaraghavan filed a complaint with the Adambakkam police accusing Dr Shanmugam of harassing his aunt, who is living alone in her apartment following her husband’s death last year, following an argument over a parking slot. 

The action came after Vijayaraghavan alleged that the police were not filing an FIR due to the ABVP functionary’s “political connections.”

Dr Shanmugam and the woman were living in the same apartment complex in Nanganallur and an argument broke between them over a parking slot.

“He wanted to use our parking lot. We agreed but demanded a nominal charge for using it. He was outraged by our demand and even broke our signboard at the parking lot,” Vijayaraghavan wrote in his complaint.

He also alleged that Dr Shanmugam began harassing her by throwing “pieces of chicken” outside her apartment despite knowing she is a vegetarian.

CCTV footage corroborates with the allegations of urinating outside the residence of the widow. However, the ABVP called the incident as a “malicious and derogatory propaganda” by the Congress’ student wing of NSUI.

"The video shared by NSUI with an allegation of harassment is tampered with and is being used with malafide intentions. The two families have discussed this within their housing society and have already concluded that the harassment allegations were caused due to misunderstandings and are untrue,” ABVP National General secretary Nidhi Tripathi said.

Vijayaraghavan also alleged in his two-page written complaint that the ABVP national president had urinated outside the woman’s apartment gate and had been throwing garbage and used masks at her gate.

In his complaint, Vijayaraghavan also said the family was “concerned about her safety” while asking police to take action against Dr Shanmugam, who he says, “has a bad track record in maintaining rapport with neighbours.”

Also Read: ABVP national president accused of harassing woman, urinating at her doorstep

Bengaluru, Jul 3: Karnataka on Friday reported its biggest single day spike of 1,694 new COVID-19 cases, taking the taking the total number of infections in the state to 19,710, the Health department said.
The state also recorded 21 fatalities pushing the number of deaths to 293.

The day also saw 471 patients getting discharged after recovery; even as 201 patients in the state were undergoing treatment in ICU. Of the 1,694 fresh cases reported on Friday, a whopping 994 cases were from Bengaluru Urban alone.

As of July 3 evening, cumulatively 1,9710 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 293 deaths and 8,805 discharges, the Health department said in its bulletin.

It said, out of 10,608 active cases, 10,407 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 201 are in ICU.

The 21 dead include five from Bengaluru Urban, three each from Chikkaballapura and Kalaburagi, two each from Vijayapura and Shivamogga and one each from Ballari, Hassan, Davangere, Bidar, Raichur and Bengaluru Rural.

Out of 21, fourteen are men between the age 48-87 years, and seven women between 25-75 years.

Those dead include those with the history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), Influenza-like illness (ILI), inter-state and inter-district travel and cardiac patients.

The contact history of at least four dead people is under tracing.

Out of 1,694 positive cases on Friday, contacts of the majority of the cases are still under tracing.

Among the districts where the new cases were reported, Bengaluru Urban accounted for 994, followed by 97 from Ballari

and Dakshina Kannada, Kalaburagi 72, Tumakuru 57, Bengaluru Rural 44, Dharwad 38, Mysuru 35, Mandya 33, Bidar 28, Chamarajanagara 24, Shivamogga 23, Gadag 19, sixteen each from Udupi and Kodagu, Yadgir 14, thirteen each from Hassan and Belagavi, Kolar 11.

Bengaluru Urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 7,173 infections, followed by Kalaburagi (1,560) and Udupi (1,258). Among discharges, Kalaburagi tops the list with 1,143 followed by Udupi (1,093) and Yadgir (855).

A total of 6,71,934 samples have been tested so far, out of which 18,307 were tested on Friday alone.

So far 6,35,582 samples have been reported as negative, and out of them 16,290 were reported negative on Friday.