Those who killed Gauri, Kalburgi will be arrested shortly, says Home Minister

Bengaluru, Feb 25: A smooth-talking ‘swamiji’ has come under police radar after a widow lodged a complaint stating he cheated her of over Rs 27 crore and three kgs of gold between 2016 and 2019.

The woman, Geetha of Ramamurthynagar, was staying with her three sons after her husband, a landlord, died in 2009. Her family owned several sites in Tavarekere and other parts of the city, apart from a farm near Bethamangala in Kolar district.

Geetha, who had got into property disputes with her relatives, said she was introduced to the accused, Nagaraj C of Bangarapet, who claimed to possess powers to ward off evil spirits, by one of her farm labourers. “I was assured that all my problems would be solved. He came to my house and claimed he had been sent by god and would find solutions to all my problems,” she stated.

Nagaraj allegedly pretended to be possessed by spirits and directed her to give him gold bars. Geetha ended up giving three kgs of gold in the process. Later, he began directing her to sell a few properties stating these were the root cause of her problems. “I sold many properties and pledged a few residential sites. He took Rs 22.5 crore that came from selling properties, apart from Rs 5 crore cash from my husband’s savings,” she stated.

She said Nagaraj took the money from her on the promise of buying alternative properties. “When I demanded he return all my money, he threatened to kill me and my kids using evil spirits,” she alleged.

Police have registered a case of cheating, criminal conspiracy, criminal intimidation under various IPC sections and Karnataka Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practices and Black Magic Bill, 2017, against Nagaraj and others.

Bengaluru, Feb 26: Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah said that Union Home Minister Amit Shah should issue strict orders to the police in Delhi to act in nation's interest and control the ongoing violence.

"Distressing scenes in Delhi!! #DelhiBurning as a result of ulterior motives of divisive forces within our Country. Police have completely failed in their responsibility. People have to remain calm and promote peace in the area for their own benefit," Siddaramaiah tweeted.

"Seven people dead and hundreds are injured, Amit Shah should issue strict orders to police to act in nation's interest and not in the interest of few people. As Gandhiji said, An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Peace and harmony should be our moto," he added.
Siddaramaiah further stated that the "triggering point of the #DelhiViolence seems to be the inciting speech of BJP leader Kapil Mishra."

"This actually qualifies for a sedition case as it was aimed at disturbing national peace and security. Police have to arrest him and bring normalcy in Delhi," he wrote.

Siddaramaiah has further asked Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa to be careful "before situation goes out of hand."

"Delhi riots are in front of eyes. There will be tough situation here in state as well if those loose tongue leaders in BJP are not stopped in the state," he wrote.
As many as 18 people have lost their lives and around 190 are injured in the violence that has been raging in parts of North-East Delhi from Monday.

New Delhi, May 3: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has crossed over one million RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 on Saturday evening marking a big landmark, ICMR officials said.

"We have tested about 10,40000 tests till Saturday evening. In a few days, we have increased our testing capacity. ICMR has been doing more than 70,000 tests in the last two consecutive days," he said.

On Saturday, ICMR released that a total of 976363 samples have been tested till date. From May 1 till evening on Saturday, 1,37,346 tests were done.

The top three states which are doing vigorous testing includes--Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. As on date, these three states have conducted more than one lakh test respectively.

However, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi still need to ramp up their testing capacity.

ICMR has always emphasised that the confirmatory test for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection is RT-PCR test of the throat and/or nasal swab, which detects virus at an early stage. Recently, Dr GS Toteja, Additional Director General of ICMR had said that to contain coronavirus infection, RT-PCR tests must be continued vigorously as the principal diagnostic tests.

RT-PCR tests are now available in 310 government laboratories and 111 private set up across the country.

On Friday, the Centre informed that ICMR has ordered 21.35 lakh diagnostic kits. As on date, India has reported about 37,776 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1223 deaths.